Paper Marriage Proposition (18 page)

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.

He wasn’t alone. Comfortably clad in a flowery dress and a pair of maroon cowboy boots, his mother nailed the Texan matron look down to a tee.

“What are you doing here?”

“I come here every week. Why wouldn’t I visit my grandson?” Her weathered hand stroked the name, and Landon lowered his face, said softly, “He’s not mine, Mother.”

She didn’t jerk at the news, only regarded him with that impenetrable coolness of hers. “You were always the one ready to make the tough decisions for the family. And I think you’re so used to making them, you can’t believe anything can be good and simple anymore.”

“Nothing in my life has ever been good or simple.”

“But it is. Bethany fell in love with you. And you with her. Good. And simple.”

Landon didn’t respond, fought not to think of her, remember the ways her lips curled into all kinds of mischievous or shy or soft smiles.

He tossed a twig into the air. “I’m not sure she loves me. I’m not even sure what was real and what wasn’t.”

“I know what you were fighting for, Landon. You’ve never been vindictive. You’ve always done the honorable thing. You weren’t fighting for revenge, you were fighting for a family. The family you deserve. A woman touched your heart, even when you didn’t want her to, and you were fighting for her. Are you going to quit now? When you’re so far ahead in the game?”

He remembered her. Her dense lashes had glittered with tears. She’d annihilated his mind and senses. How could she have filtered through his defenses?

Because he’d seen her uniqueness and he’d let her.

And she’d let him in, as well.

And he knew then that he would have no other family.

But the one he’d already claimed before the world as his.

Easily tackled in an hour, if not less.

Sighing, she opened the front door to check if any boxes remained out on the porch and frowned when she spotted a small one.

The plain brown box sat meekly on her doorstep, just over the new rug that read “Welcome.”

Beth didn’t remember having seen it there before.

Confusion mingled with curiosity as she shook the box. Something thudded inside. “What the…” Her hands flew to open the package.

A brand-new little black book. That’s exactly what she discovered.

A brand-spanking-new little black book exactly like the one that had once brought her and Landon together. Halifax was in jail and wouldn’t ever bother her or David. So why this sense of nervousness at the sight of the new book? And where, God, where, did this strange excitement come from?

Because it reminds you of the day you met Landon…

Her throat filled up with emotion at the bittersweet memory, and, carefully, afraid of what she’d find, or maybe more afraid of what she wouldn’t find, Beth opened the book to page one.

Her pulse shot up. There, inside, on the first page, lay a note, written in Landon’s handwriting. She read the note once, failing to go back for a second read when her eyes blurred. It was a silly note, from a man who’d always criticized anyone for writing his sins in a little black book. And now he was writing one of his.

Landon Gage is a fool,
it read.

Eyes stinging, Beth looked up and saw him as a big dark blur. Him. He was there, standing there, his presence warm as a sun. He stood on the steps of her new home, looking clean and manly and slightly rumpled without a tie.

Beth blinked, feeling like a thousand angels were sweeping her off her feet, but it was only one man. Just one man, a prince to her.

A frisson of expectation went through her as she waited for him to say something,
please
say something, because she seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

He leaned against the front porch balustrade, under the shade, watching her somberly. “Hi.”

Stifling a tremor that rushed from the top of her head down to the tips of her toes, Beth clutched the book to her body, still unable to believe he stood here, in the flesh, at her doorstep. “Hi, Landon.”

God, she’d missed the sight of Landon Gage. She felt it proper to say something, but her mouth felt like a prison for all the words she wanted to say and couldn’t.

She drank up his image as if she were seeing him for the very first time, examining the fit of his clean tailored slacks and button-down shirt, remembering the lean, hard body underneath. He’d cut his hair, and he looked very young and very handsome.

With a halfhearted smile, Landon took a step closer. “There’s this man I need you to exact revenge upon. An imbecile who was about to make the biggest mistake of his life,” he said direly.

His voice did things to her, awakened her body so that her senses swam. Flutters invaded her, whizzing in her chest, her stomach, her head. “So that’s what the book is for,” she said.

“It’s for revenge, Bethany.” Landon’s forehead creased as he took yet another step closer. “He’s undeserving, this man. Extremely undeserving. And I can think of no one else who could torture him as well as you.”

“Torture him?” Her temperature jacked up another degree.

He gave a slight nod. “Uh-huh. I need you to stare him in the face, every day, so he remembers what he almost let another man take away from him. I need you to be ruthless, to have absolutely no mercy on him, and above all, I want you to make him pay. It’s a matter of revenge, Beth. And this man…” The determination in his eyes arrested her. “This man is begging for it.”

She didn’t laugh. She could tell by the tension in him, in his face, that it cost him his pride and ego and everything he valued to say it.

Oh, God, Landon was begging for
her.

Her palms itched to touch him but instead she wrapped her arms around herself, unsure of how to verbalize her sentiments. Sentiments in the lines of:
I love you, yes yes yes, amen to whatever you’re proposing!

Should she invite him inside? She wanted to. But the house was still a mess, and her pride smarted at the mere thought of Landon discovering that she’d be living with only the bare necessities. Then she realized that in a faded T-shirt, shorts and sandals, she wasn’t much of an improvement over her small, plain home.

“Sounds like a good plan.” She remained in place at the doorway, unsure of what to do next. Her heart pounded a mile a minute and she still struggled to catch her breath. “But there’s one problem.”

He went rigid. He surveyed the empty lots that flanked her house, where in the future she’d have neighbors. “A problem,” he said. His jaw squared, and when the wind blew in her direction, it brought his clean scent of soap with it.

She hauled in a good lungful of him, unable to stop a shudder. “A big problem.” She stepped out into the porch. Closer to him.

His eyebrows slanted over his eyes, and wearing that worried frown, Landon Gage looked adorable. He pinched the bridge of his nose as though trying to stifle a headache. “What kind of problem?”

Beth could barely speak, the emotions rising inside her too powerful to rein back. “That I have no more hate left.”

She canted her face to his, and the feelings of passion and need she felt for him overflowed her. Heat spread across her midsection while a swirl of desire took form in his glinting silver eyes.

“I have only one feeling lately, apart from sadness, and I have so much of it I don’t know what to do with it.”

The features of his face went taut with emotion as he took one more step, the final step. The one that brought him so close she could feel his breath, his heat, inhale his scent. “What is it that you feel, Beth?” He stood only inches from her, tall and dark and patient and so male she felt coy and shy.

She wanted to touch him, wanted to so much, but for the moment lacked the courage. “Like I said, I don’t know what to do with it.”

It was Landon who couldn’t seem to help himself any longer. Pain streaked through his face, tightening his features as he moved. He framed her cheeks with his hands, his fingertips caressing her temples. “I love you, Mrs. Gage.” His chest expanded under his shirt as he inhaled and set his forehead on hers. “I love you and I want you to tell me you feel this for me, that you love me, only me.”

Her body responded to his evocative words, to his calling her by his name. Her blood bubbled in her veins. A head-tingling sensation swept through her and it made her faint.

He wanted her; he was here for her. And Beth wasn’t going to make him beg.

Never, not for a moment in the past months, had she been confused about this. Him. And the fact that she wanted to be with him. She’d dreamt every night over the past lonely weeks, waiting, praying, that Landon would come to terms with the specialness of what they had together. That he’d love her more than her pride and realize Beth was not Chrystine.

Beth loved him. Had been spoiled for any other man but Landon.

She’d settle for nothing less than him.

“I meant what I said in court, Landon.” She took his jaw in her hands, her eyelids fluttering as she rose on tiptoe to brush his lips with hers.
“I love you.”

Her soft kiss seemed to take him by surprise, and it took him a moment to take action, but then he released a low, rough groan. He encircled her waist and kissed the breath out of her, his hands wandering her curves, gripping her tight against him.

He exhaled as though he’d been holding his breath for too long. “God, Bethany.” He leaned in again, this time taking her mouth slowly and deeply, savoring her taste, allowing her to savor his, then he took her hands between both of his. “I’m sorry,” he murmured huskily against her. “I’m sorry for being such a fool.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you about Nathan.”

“I’m sorry you ever married that bastard, Beth, and that I almost let him take you away from me.”

“And I’m sorry I ever met him! But then, maybe…” A thought struck her, and it was so funny, she smiled. “But then he brought us together, didn’t he, Landon?”

Amusement lightened his expression, and a fingertip came up to still her lips. “The only good thing he did in his sorry-ass life. Beth, I need you. I need my wife. Marry me again. For real this time. No hidden agendas. Just two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together.”

Beth grabbed his shoulders and kissed him, kissed him hard and felt him respond to her with fierce hunger, and her breath shortened until she panted. “Our first marriage was realer than anything in my life. I didn’t want to get divorced.”

Out of his back pockets, Landon yanked out a roll of papers and without ceremony tore them up, scattering the snow-like pieces across the porch. “Then we won’t.”

“Were those the—”

“Divorce papers? They were before I ripped them.” He signaled toward the house, his eyes alight with mischief. “Want some help moving out?”

“Oh, God, I just moved in.”

“Show me around then?”

She laughed. “I know what you want, Mr. Gage.” She gestured him into the house and kissed him again. “The mattress will arrive later,” she murmured seductively.

He kicked the door shut and imprisoned her against him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her buttocks in his big massaging hands. “We don’t need a mattress.” He spoke huskily against her. “All we need to start again is this.” He pulled out another roll of papers from behind him. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy burning this prenup. We’ll have another one drawn.”

“So we can discuss intimacy with your lawyers? No, thank you!”

“So we can discuss my millions and millions and how much you want.”

Frowning, Beth seized the prenup and ripped it in two, because trust begot trust, and she wanted to start with lots of it. “I just want you, because you’re you, and not for any other reason.”

He broke into a smile and squeezed her hard. “Damn, Beth, that’s about the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Wait until I tell you about the little red number I was wearing at court.”

He swept down and seized her lips with his, and he kissed her with hunger and heat, stroked the sides of her body while he raked his teeth down her neck, over her shoulder, pulled her faded T-shirt down to reveal her flesh and swirl his tongue against her collarbone. “I don’t care about the red number. I care about what’s beneath it. About this. My wife, and how fast I can get you naked.”

Clinging to him, she kissed him for all the times she hadn’t kissed him. “I’m all yours, Gage.”