Paper Marriage Proposition (Gage Brothers 1)

He whipped off his coat as he went to his table, his cheeks flushed with two bright red flags. His lawyer, concerned, immediately rose, and he bit out, “I’m fine! Just an inconvenience.” He glared in Landon’s direction.

Beth frowned, her eyes sailing to his inscrutable profile.

Had Landon somehow planned Hector’s…inconvenience?

The object of her wondering edged closer to her, and the back of his long fingers grazed her knuckles, the contact as sudden as it was exquisite. Landon prolonged that touch, and finally snatched up her hand in his.

Her knees turned to jelly, and a lump of emotion lodged in her throat. She could cry. She knew he held her hand for appearances, pretense, and yet she squeezed and curled her fingers through his and held on to him like a lifeline.

His breath stirred the hair on top of her head, and when she trembled slightly, he laced his fingers tighter through hers. His voice softened. “Relax. Look confident.”

Beth tried. This was not the moment to get emotional, to dwell on the past horrible weeks. But she couldn’t stop weeping inside.

There was no removing that sensation, that horrible sensation of having been hanged. Stabbed in the chest. Or shot.

She’d hurt him in the worst possible way, and now Landon hated her.

She stiffened when the judge appeared in a swish of robes. He was a bald man with a beard, a determined set to his jaw, and clear eyes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this court is now in session. The Honorable Judge Prescott presiding. All rise.”

Beth’s mind whirled with images of David’s toothy grin, memories of how his face had been streaked with tears the last time she’d seen him, and her heart felt ready to implode. She may have nothing, she realized, straightening her spine, but she fought for everything.

When she stood up, she met Halifax’s sparkling blue gaze—icy cold. She made her own expression glacial.

Together, her parents and Landon’s group crowded the two front rows on their side. They presented a united front, a respectable family. Standing so close and so proud, the Gages emitted that same power Landon did.

But…why was that not reassuring?

Because without Landon’s respect, Beth felt apart, not one of them. Because without Landon’s interest in her, the caring way he’d protected her before, she felt…fraudulent.

Like Hector.

“Your Honor,” Mason began in a crisp opening statement. “I stand before you today on behalf of my clients, Landon and Bethany Gage, with a petition for full custody of David Halifax. Landon Gage has been an upstanding citizen of this community for the past thirty-three years. His wife, Bethany Gage, has been outrageously accused in the past—and has suffered a great injustice. A mother. Robbed of the opportunity to give love and affection and participate in the raising of her son.”

A dramatic pause ensued while Mason raked the courtroom with his eyes, continuing only when convinced everyone’s focus lay on him.

“I beg you to consider today, who is the better custodian? A father who’s suspected of fraud, a father whose very nature of work keeps him long hours at the office, such as Dr. Hector Halifax? Or a solid, upstanding couple, a well-respected businessman and a dedicated mother whose guidance is indispensable to a young child David’s age?”

He allowed the question to linger before he resumed his seat in dramatic silence, and Hector’s lawyer opened her own statement with a receding chuckle.

“Your Honor, Dr. Hector Halifax’s reputation is pristine. His entire life he’s been dedicated to the well-being of others, especially his own son. Should a man be punished for loving and protecting his child from his mother’s neglect? Should a man who has nurtured and cared for young David during the past year be discriminated against for being a single parent?” She glared at Bethany. “Considering the petitioner’s numerous love affairs while she was married to my client, I doubt her marriage to Mr. Gage will even last long.”

The petitioner, in this case Beth and Landon, was the first to call up a witness. Beth.

She took a series of measured steps to the stand, inhumanly aware of the sexy lingerie that hugged her body under the dress. She sat and concentrated on inhaling, in and out, in and out. But for the way she truly felt, she could’ve been naked and strapped to an electric chair.

“Mrs. Gage, how long were you married to Hector Halifax?”

Beth focused on Mason’s striped tie. That lone, harmless tie was the only spot she would allow herself to focus on.

“Almost seven years.”

“Were you happy during those seven years, Mrs. Gage?”

She wrung her hands. “I was happy when our son was born.”

Mason thoughtfully paced the floor before her. Playing the game she supposed all lawyers played, he allowed her heart to beat three times before h