The Millionaire Claims His Wife

“Dammit, what’s the difference?”

“Portland’s in Oregon. Seattle’s in Washington. There’s a big difference.”

“Well, excuse me. I suppose I’d know the difference, if I had a college degree, but forgive me, I don’t.”

“Are you going completely nuts? What’s a college degree got to do with this?”

What, indeed? Annie bit her lip. “Nothing.”

“You’re damn right,” Chase said. “Now why don’t you do us both a favor? Put back your seat, shut your eyes and try to get some rest.”

“Oh, yes, that’s easy for you to say but then, everything’s easy for you to say! Otherwise, you’d never have gotten us into such a mess in the first place. How could you? How could you have told Dawn—”

“That’s it,” Chase said grimly, and he hauled Annie into his arms and kissed her. She was too surprised to fight him, and he took advantage of it, making the kiss long and deep. “Now,” he said, drawing back just far enough so he could look straight into her eyes, “are you going to keep quiet? Because if you start babbling again, so help me, I’ll kiss you until you shut up.”

Annie’s cheeks flooded with color.

“I hate you, Chase Cooper,” she hissed.

Chase let her go. “What else is new,” he said tiredly, and then he shut his eyes, told himself not to think about how good it had felt to kiss her because then he’d start remembering what making love had been like, before they’d turned away from each other, how it had been powerful and tender, wild and serene, and so much more than he’d ever imagined a basically simple physical act could be.

Stop it, he told himself angrily, and he tumbled into a deep, troubled sleep.

* * *

Annie watched with disgust as Chase slept beside her.

He was snoring softly, and from the look on his face she could tell that he was sleeping the sleep of the innocent.

Well, why be surprised? That was how he’d dealt with any kind of problem, before their divorce.

“By sleeping,” she muttered, and scrunched down lower in her seat.

There’d been times, as soon as she’d realized their marriage was in trouble, when she’d spent half the day just thinking about what was going wrong, trying to put a name to it, to come up with an explanation and maybe a solution. Then she’d wait for Chase to come home, so they could talk.

What a slow learner she’d been!

How could you talk to a man who came dragging through the door hours late? Who pretended he’d been trudging around job sites or driving back from one when the simple truth was that he didn’t come home because he had nothing to say to you anymore?

Was it her fault that she’d married him so young, before she’d had a chance to go to college, the way he had?

There’d been a brief time, after Cooper Construction had begun to grow, when she’d dared let herself dream that things were getting better.

But they hadn’t. Things had gotten worse, instead, starting the night Chase had come home and told her, with a smug smile, that he’d been invited to a big-deal dinner. He wanted to go. It was, he’d said, a terrific opportunity.

He made it sound like an invitation to paradise.

“Do you want me to go?” she’d asked, and just for a minute, she’d looked into his eyes and prayed for him to say that all he really wanted was for them to love each other as they once had.

Instead he’d gotten a closed-up look on his face and said that she was his wife. Of course, he wanted her to go.

What he’d meant was that it was expected of her. Accompanying him to the party was part of her job description, like cooking the meals he never came home to share or warming his bed when he reached for her.

So she’d gone out and bought herself the right clothes, had her hair done the right way, and gone with him to the damned Chamber of Commerce party. Whatever. She couldn’t really remember anymore. Not that it mattered. The dozen or more functions she’d attended on Chase’s arm were all equally dull and dreary, and he didn’t even stay with her during the evening. It was always the same. He’d introduce her, then go off on his own. Networking, not even making the slightest pretense that he enjoyed her company because the truth was, he didn’t.

That was when she’d decided she was tired of playing the demure, domesticated backup to Chase’s Captain of Industry. He had his degrees and his construction company; she could have something of her own, too.

An education. In things that would never interest him. He’d made that accusation, once, when he’d come home from a trip and she’d paused only long enough to acknowledge his presence before hurrying out the door to a lecture on haiku.