A Proper Wife

“Nobody put me through the mill,” Devon had snapped. “And besides, I never loved him and I already did sock him in the jaw.”

She should have socked him again, Devon thought furiously

. But she hadn’t. Her roommate was probably right. Maybe that was the reason she was still so damned angry.

She’d been angry since she left New York, which she’d done an hour after she’d marched out of that stupid restaurant and out of Ryan Kincaid’s even stupider life. She’d paused only long enough to stuff her clothes into her suitcase, then headed for the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

“I want a one-way ticket on the first bus heading out of the city,” she’d said.

That was how she’d landed in Chicago. What did her destination matter? She had no place she wanted to be, only places she didn’t want to be, like San Francisco. Like New York.

And Chicago was working out just fine. It was big, it was impersonal, she’d found a job and a place to live almost overnight, and pretty soon now, any last, unpleasant memories of Ryan Kincaid would be gone from her life forever.

It was just pathetic that she’d ever thought herself in love with him.

Devon made a face as she folded another sweater. In love with Ryan Kincaid?

“Ridiculous,” she muttered, under her breath.

What she’d been in love with was the idea of being in love. It was lots more palatable than admitting the truth, that she’d wanted to go to bed with Ryan from Day One.

Well, she had. She had, and so what? Sex had turned out to be—to be fun. Yes, she thought, slamming another sweater into the stack, that was the word for it. Fun. All the rest—the magic and the mystery and the dizzying joy—had been products of her overheated imagination.

As for Ryan himself—if she ever saw him again, she’d—she’d do what that last roommate had suggested, she’d make a fist, haul back and hit him. Then maybe she wouldn’t waste time thinking about him, seeing him in every tall, dark-haired stranger, hearing his voice...

“Good afternoon, miss.”

Devon’s heart turned over. She was doing it again, hearing Ryan’s voice. Damn him, she thought, damn him.

“Miss? Could you help me, please?”

“No,” Devon whispered, without so much as turning around. “No, I cannot help you.” She cleared her throat. “I’m very busy, sir. Surely, you can see that.”

“What I can see,” the amused male voice said, “is that you are a very impolite salesclerk. I think I’m going to have to report you to the manager.”

Devon took a deep breath. “Do it, then,” she said, and whirled around. “Do it and be—and be...”

Oh, Lord.

It was Ryan. Ryan, tall and handsome and just as she remembered him.

“Bastard,” she swore, and launched herself at him over the sweaters.

Laughing, he caught her in his arms, one hand pinning her wrists against his chest between them, the other tangling in her hair so that the pins that held it neatly at the nape of her neck tumbled to the floor and her hair came cascading down her shoulders.

“Uh-uh, sweetheart,” he said. “You only get to punch me out once.”

“You—you rat! You baboon! You—”

“Is that any way to say hello to your husband?”

Devon glared at him. “You are not my husband!”

“I sure as hell am. I’ve got a piece of paper in my pocket that says so.”

“Ryan, dammit, let go of me!”

He grinned. “No.”