“I get it,” Lila said. “For the next two months I have to live under Cahal’s roof and pretend to be his wife. It doesn’t sound so hard. I’ve had seven years of practice at pretending.”
Cahal flashed a grin. “I’d love to help you out with anything you haven’t been practicing for the past year.”
Lila met his glinting silver-gray eyes. “How do you know I haven’t been keeping up with everything we used to do? As we both know, practice makes perfect.”
The grin faded to a mere shadow. “And you’ve proven that you’re willing to take extramarital lessons,” her husband pointed out.
Adam Billings cleared his throat. “Speaking of which,” he said, “I would like to verify the existence of this statement Mr. Wallace alluded to earlier. Is there anywhere I can view it before I leave?”
It hadn’t occurred to Lila that Cahal might be lying but that was why she employed a lawyer. His suspicious mind was a match for even Cahal’s.
Cahal’s lawyer looked at his client and after receiving a slight nod, he produced a legal-sized document from a thin folder. Lila didn’t even glance at the copy her lawyer placed before her. She remembered the photographic evidence Chris had shown her — how could she ever forget?
She waited and after a minute a low whistle escaped Adam Billings’ lips.
Her lawyer swiveled toward her. “Chris Wallace? That’s the other man? Chris Wallace, the number one defenseman in the league, not to mention your husband’s cousin?”
“There are other Christopher Wallaces in the world,” Lila said.
“But that is the one you slept with,” Cahal pointed out without any discernible emotion.
At her lawyer’s questioning glance, she lowered her head, acknowledging the identity of the other man. From his viewpoint, as from many others, it would appear as if she had purposely tried to harm her husband by turning to his closest relative in order to wreak revenge for his years of infidelity. The truth was that Chris had been a convenient target, always at hand and immediately sympathetic to her plight.
Lila turned to her lawyer. “Do I have to listen to this? It can’t be in the contract.”
Billings swept his papers together. “You’re right, it isn’t. Lawyers are no longer required for what you and your husband have planned for the next two months. Once the time is over, you can contact me and we will begin completing the final steps for the divorce.”
The words were more final than she expected and with a startled look at the other men, she followed Billings out of the door and down the hallway. Even knowing that she would be billed for any further conversation, she was not willing to part with him yet.
“What do I do now?”
As they reached the lobby of the massive building, he slanted her a glance that encompassed some of his former good humor.
“That depends on you, Mrs. Wallace. As I told you upstairs, the lawyers’ roles are over for the time being. What you need now may be a therapist or marriage counselor.”
Lila brushed this suggestion aside. “I don’t need a marriage counselor for a pretend reconciliation.”
Her lawyer glanced around at the surging flow of people before drawing her into a less trafficked corner of the lobby. “I would advise you not to speak of the real nature of your marriage reconciliation in public. One of the terms of the contract you just signed restricts you to secrecy.”
“What about Jack? I assume that he’s an exception.”
Adam Billings shook his head. “There are no exceptions save for your respective legal counsel and we are bound by solicitor-client privilege. I couldn’t breathe a word about this case even if I wanted to, or else I would lose my license to practice law.”
She caught his suited arm. “We have to go back upstairs. You have to negotiate an exception for my boyfriend. I have to be able to tell him about this contract or he’ll believe … ”
Her words trailed off as the full effect of what she had agreed to infiltrated.
“Or he will believe what everyone else will believe,” her lawyer concluded. “That you and your husband have reconciled in order to give your marriage another shot.”
He was staring at her and she remembered that even he didn’t know the true motive behind the fiction of the reconciliation. No one knew that save for she and Cahal.
With enough money, any chore could be made easy, even a pretend reconciliation. Lila’s possessions moved without the need for her to lift a hand in aid. Her clothes, her books, even her knickknacks and cosmetics flew across the city, shuttled by hired professionals, and all she had to do was follow in their path. As disconcerting as it was to find her clothes arranged on hangers and in drawers, her perfume bottles ranged along a glass-topped dressing table, almost as if she had done it all in her sleep, it was also a relief. Her possessions fit in well, now it was her turn.
“It’s a nice place,” she commented, the words inadequate to describe the lake-facing penthouse suite with its floor-to-ceiling windows along one long wall and stark contemporary furniture. It was far from the comfortable traditional house in Chicago and she guessed that that was the point of the stringent modernity.
“It’s your home now,” Cahal replied, his tone one she didn’t like to analyze.
Lila couldn’t resist adding, “Only for the next two months.”
“We’ll see.”
Clenching her fists, she said nothing.
It had all happened so quickly. One day she was looking forward to a new life and the next she was back in time, back in a marriage with a man who had always made her feel jealous and insecure. No, not always. When they were teenagers and Cahal’s star was just rising, she’d been proud of him and never suspicious. His successes felt like hers and she knew he felt the same about her education and career. What happened? Was it just the fame seeping between them, eventually forcing them apart, or was it more?
A peal of classical music caused her to search out the purse she’d dropped on Cahal’s leather couch, scrambling her cell phone from its depths. She’d turned it on only minutes ago, aware she couldn’t hide indefinitely.
“Lila?” Jack’s familiar voice held an odd mixture of relief and anger. “Where have you been for the past two days?”
First at her lawyer’s office and now back under her husband’s roof? Those words weren’t easy to say, on top of being perfectly ludicrous.
She settled on, “It’s a long story.”
Even longer beneath Cahal’s mocking eyes.
Lila turned her back on him. “Can we meet somewhere and talk?”
“I’ve got practice tonight.” He sounded aggrieved.
“How about afterwards?” Her dark eyes were on Cahal, aware that he could hear every word of their conversation due to the other man’s raised voice. She added, “We’ve really got to talk.”
Jack’s laugh was hollow. “That doesn’t sound good.”
She swallowed. “It’s not.”
A short pause followed before he said, “Tell me now.”
“I can’t,” she said. Not if she wanted to be free to be with him.
“Where are you?” Jack demanded. “I’ll skip practice and come get you.”
“No, no, don’t do that,” she protested. “It’s just the kind of thing that’ll put you in Coach’s black books.”
“I don’t care,” he insisted. “I’m worried about you.
My
career doesn’t come before you.”
The clear emphasis made Cahal turn and walk over to the glass wall. As dark as it was now early in the evening, little could be seen of the lake outside except for the shimmering smooth surface beneath pale moonlight and the occasional fleeting path of a boat.
“I’ll meet you at the arena after practice,” she said into the phone. “I’ll tell you … what I can.”
“Lila,” he hesitated for a fraction of a second, “I love you.”
Though she closed her eyes, silent tears slipped out. “I know.”
Cahal didn’t turn. “You can’t tell him anything about our reconciliation without violating our contract.”
Flipping the tiny silver phone shut, Lila brushed away the tears with the back of her hand. “I know that, too.”
His broad back was rigid. “So what are you going to say?”
She tossed the cell phone back into her purse and flopped down on the couch next to it. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? You’re probably dying to.”
He came away from the windows, his movements powerful yet supple, breathtaking in such a large man. He sat a careful distance from her, his denim-covered thighs spread and his strong hands dangling between them. His hands were beautiful, swift and expert, and the remembered touch of them made her shiver. This was the last thing she wanted, to rekindle a fire from the ashes.
Silver eyes traced her features. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Lila.”
She laughed unsteadily. “Since when do you have to try?”
He ought to know better; his life was governed by impulse and instinct. The worst infractions were often committed without any intention to injure but the results were still catastrophic.
“This is for the best, Lila.”
“Dammit!” She leaped to her feet. “You think you know it all, don’t you?”
He rose, too, but she’d never been intimidated by his size.
“No, I don’t think I know it all. I just happen to know you.”
“I’ve changed,” she insisted.
“You still love me,” he said. His voice was supremely confident, as if he was stating a naked truth.
“Loved,” she corrected. “Past tense.”
His mouth curved but not in a smile. “You never stop loving that first one.”
First what? First love or first lover? Perhaps she had been his first love but she doubted that she was his first lover. Certainly she wasn’t the last.
“Love,” she repeated the word with a bitterness that surprised even her. “It’s readily offered as a solution when so often it’s the source of the problem.”
Cahal thrust his hands in his pockets. “Are you telling me you don’t believe in love?”
Lila frowned. “I believe in trust and security.”
“And love comes after these?”
She wasn’t certain about that but she knew what she had to say to shut him up.
“For me, yes.”
He freed his hands then he pushed them through his flaxen hair. “I can give you those things, Lila. If you still believe I cheated — ”
“I don’t believe it,” she cut in. “I know it.”
She had proof. Evidence. Details.
“And your source is unimpeachable?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Cahal, I’ve told you before. I know you entertained women in your hotel suite while you were on the road. I know it. When you deny the truth, it just makes it worse.”
“What truth do you know of?” His voice was contemptuous. “I’ve never had a woman in my hotel room. Ever. It’s against the team rules and it’s against my moral values.”
His moral values! She couldn’t hold back a snort. Yet he was so adamant. So very believable.
Stubbornly, she’d wanted him to admit the truth before she showed him her proof but he never could. She realized that now.
Pulling out her phone, she said, “I know you had a blond woman in your hotel room in Los Angeles. She came around eleven and she left after midnight. Here is the proof you wanted.”
Turning her screen toward him, she displayed the first photograph of the woman’s back entering the hotel room, the room number displayed prominently on the opening door, with no more than a sliver of her husband’s face beyond. The time stamp on the photograph showed that it was 10:56
P.M.
Silently, she turned to the next photograph. 12:38
A.M.
The room number was the same. Cahal’s face was plain in the opened doorway as he showed the woman off, his head bent down toward hers as if they had just kissed.
He took a deep breath and blew it out in frustration. “Anyone is capable of lies if they have the right motivation.”
He wasn’t denying it!
“There’s an innocent explanation, Lila. That woman — Carrie Jones — works for my agent.”
“Convenient,” she said.
His motives were all too transparent. Good publicity made their marriage necessary to his public image and a last-minute reconciliation before their divorce — a true one — would provide priceless press. On a personal level, he had kept her the perfect docile wife for a long while and perhaps he thought that state was again obtainable.
“Do you honestly think Victoria is the first woman to chase after me?” he asked. “Even knowing that I was married doesn’t stop some people. But this woman was there for truly innocent reasons.”
That word again! Innocent. There was nothing innocent about him. He lied until he was found out, then he lied some more.
“It’s a problem,” he said. “But I only point it out to show you that anyone who tells you that I was unfaithful might have another motive — to ruin our marriage. Have you even questioned why someone was watching and taking pictures of my hotel room?”
“Because they couldn’t have you?” she asked sweetly. She knew that one of his teammates had taken the pictures as a joke, then sent it to Chris, who sent it on to her. As far as she knew, the whole league knew about her husband’s infidelity before she did.
A corner of his mouth jerked upwards. “You must find that unbelievable. When did you stop wanting me? Before or after that expensive university education?”
Close to a violent reaction, Lila spun around so that his contemptuous face no longer filled her vision. “Go to hell, Cahal. Just go to hell and leave me alone.”
“No chance,” his raspy voice shot over her shoulder. “If I’m going to hell, I’ll make sure you’re there to keep me company.”
At the moment she had no choice except to believe him. He’d shown that he wasn’t a man to make idle threats.
“Your idea of marriage is more like indentured servitude,” Lila muttered.
He smiled. “And I was going to offer you a ride down to the arena to meet your boy toy. How many slave masters would be so considerate?”
“He’s not my boy toy,” she delayed. How would it look to Jack if she showed up with her husband? “Jack is my boyfriend.”
“We could argue your right to have a boyfriend while you and I are still lawfully married. A lot can occur in two months.”
“Miracles are rare,” Lila replied, coming to a decision. Between the cold and Cahal, Cahal won by a slim margin. “We’d better get going or you’ll be late for practice.”