Paper Marriage Proposition (Gage Brothers 1)

And then, before she could notice that David had also spread his palm open on his side of the window, fitting the shape of his small hand into hers, Hector had revved up the engine and sped off with a screech of tires.

Taking her son, her baby, with him once more.

Landon jotted down notes on the legal pad on his desk, then typed the data into his computer. His intercom buzzed, and Donna’s voice burst through the speaker.

“Mr. Gage, Detective Harris here to see you.”

“Show him in.”

His office doors swung open. Harris was a little man with an unremarkable face and a keen eye—the perfect spy. He sat and pulled out a sheaf of papers, matching Landon’s brisk manner. “Your wife was out and about today,” he said.

Landon’s answering smile was brief, cool, as he lifted another file to skim through. “I know. I was with her this morning.”

“Well, she seemed to be in a rush to make an appointment this afternoon.”

Landon’s movements halted. She’d gone out?

When the man remained silent, Landon shot him an impatient look over the top of the report he’d been reading. “And she went where?” Landon set the report aside, and the little man shifted when he gave him his undivided attention.

“To meet Hector Halifax.”

Harris dropped the pictures on his desk and Landon’s chest muscles froze until he couldn’t breathe. He smiled thinly, but inside he experienced something he hadn’t felt before. Not in six years. Not ever. He thought he was going to get sick. “She went to see Halifax?”

“Indeed.”

An instinct to protect her, grab her close to him and never let anyone, much less a rat like Halifax hurt her, warred with the need to grab her little neck and shake some common freaking sense into her.

Why? Why, Bethany, damn it, why?

He gritted his molars in anger. “You must be mistaken,” he said.

But Harris rarely was, and signaled at the photographs. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gage. But the pictures speak for themselves.”

Landon glared down at them at first, still stunned by the fact that Beth had met Halifax today…

Today, of all days, when they’d at last been granted a hearing date. What she’d done was both reckless and stupid, and finding out this way only poked at the ghosts of a dark, bleak past Landon had long ago tucked away.

Forcing his hand to keep steady, he inspected the pictures on his desk, one by one. This was the second time the man across his desk had brought him this kind of news. The first time, it had enraged him. And now…

His heart stopped at the sight of her in the photographs—the sight of her betraying him.

They were touching… Halifax was touching her… Beth was letting him. His lips were… My God, they were against hers. What was this? What in the hell was this?

“Did you witness this yourself?” he demanded.

“I had some blind spots, sir, as I lingered inside the restaurant. But the times they were together, they were close. As you can see.”

Landon saw.

Outside, life continued. The office noise. The ringing phones. He set the last picture down and bent his head, his voice rough as tree bark. “What time?”

“This afternoon. 4:30 p.m.”

He squeezed his eyes shut against the emotions that assailed him. The thought of the bastard touching her, of Beth standing there while he held her delicate arms, Beth meekly waiting for the kiss to deepen, made Landon want to tear open a wall.

There had been signals, warning bells. Telling him not to trust, not to want her. Landon had ignored them, every last one of them. Her meeting Halifax during their engagement party—her resistance to sleeping with Landon.

He hadn’t understood why, but he’d forged ahead, first out of revenge perhaps, then out of sheer blind need, pretending he could build something with Beth, something that lasted, something that through the hate and anger and revenge shone special.