Paper Marriage Proposition (Gage Brothers 1)

He went rigid when she sailed around the desk.

“Bethany—” He caught her shoulders, but didn’t push her away. “We were a bad idea. I thought I could live with it, knowing you were Halifax’s first, but I can’t. I can’t stand the idea. I can’t stand the idea of you…lying to me.”

“I can’t stand it either, but I can’t change the past, please understand. I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

Frantically, she slid her palm up his shirt, his chest solid, hot through the cotton. She could feel every sinew of muscle underneath. Deep, forgotten places inside her clenched. “Landon, please.”

“Beth, what are you playing at?” His voice grew husky. Desire trembled there. His hand on her back began to squeeze her, began to want and feel and knead.

She pressed closer, a little in agony, seeking ease for the horrible burn growing inside her. “Last night I saw you… I thought my husband came to get his good-night kiss.”

He groaned. Images of his sculpted body began to tease and tantalize her. Him in nakedness, the male form in all its glory, chiseled like a statue but warmer. Just one time—they’d been together just one time—and it haunted her. She pressed her legs together and tried to breathe slowly. But the images remained. Clearer, more vivid. They were memories. Of when he’d been inside her. Of him biting at her breasts. Of her nails sinking into his back. Of that consuming passion they had shared.

He pressed her back against the window, caging her in with his body. “Damn you.”

He swept down—but stopped a hairbreadth away. Opening her mouth, she flicked her tongue out to lick the firm flesh of his lips. Explosions of colors. Mouths melding. Skin, heat, ecstasy. “Is this wrong?” she taunted. She draped a leg around his thigh and flattened herself against his chest, her breasts crushed against his ribs, her tummy to his. “How can this be wrong?”

“I don’t…” His hand fisted in her hair and he opened his mouth, giving her the mist of his breath. She waited for that kiss, the searing kiss that would put everything behind them. It didn’t come. “Want you anymore,” he huskily murmured, the graze of his lips across hers so bare and fleeting she mewled with a protest for more.

His hold tightened on her hair before he released her. “Goodbye, Miss Lewis.”

Fifteen

Landon prowled the city, simmering with pent-up need, anger and despair. He couldn’t bear to go home. It felt empty, the house, his room, his bed. Beth was gone, and the relief he’d assumed he’d feel with her departure wasn’t coming.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her, what she’d said about a ten-month-old baby. How she’d looked in his office, desperate as that first day, this time desperate for something Landon could no longer give her.

He drove along the highway, and before he knew where he headed, Landon stopped by Mission Park cemetery. His son’s gravestone; he’d visited only once before years ago. Why now? Why was he back here at this place that held his most haunting memories?

Because he’s my son.

He gazed down at the lettering, engraved in the granite headstone. Nathaniel Gage.

He’s not your son, he’s Hector’s…

To hear his own wife say it had been a blow, but once the words registered, he’d felt more than anger, more than despair. He’d felt betrayed and played and violated.

They’d won at court—but the satisfaction of winning hadn’t accompanied the success. Landon had lost. Because it was just the kind of cruel twist of fate that Landon should love something of his enemy’s. It was just the kind of cruel twist of fate that even knowing Nathan was not his son, and belonged to the bastard, Landon still loved him.

Nathaniel was a Gage.

He stroked a hand over the curved top of the gravestone. He didn’t understand. He never would. One second his attention was elsewhere, and when he’d looked back his wife and kid were gone. The accident had revealed her treachery. Phone calls, emails, letters. Years betraying him behind his back. But never had he imagined it had dated to before. Before Landon had met her, before he’d married her.

To think how she’d snagged him, young and in his prime, pretending he was the father of her unborn child. For the length of their short marriage Landon had been faithful,

making an effort, for her, for Nathaniel. And all that time, she’d been seeing Hector.

His son would’ve been thirsty for life.

And Chrystine’s treachery robbed him of it.

But now, even now, when he’d taken everything of Halifax’s, his practice, his respect and his freedom, Landon could not enjoy the victory. He could not go back to the way he was before. He loved that son, wanted him as his, and the path of revenge had opened up a whole new wanting for him.

He wanted Bethany—the son she and Halifax had. That, too, he wanted. Because it was hers.

Yes, a cruel twist of fate it was. To love the two things that had first belonged to the enemy.

A bouquet of flowers appeared out of nowhere—white roses suddenly laid there, over the grave, tied by a sleek white ribbon. Landon glanced past his shoulder to confirm his suspicions, and sighed.