Susan Mallery: Wife in Disguise

The urge, the desire that had plagued him since he’d arrived a half hour before, bothered him. Women were a welcome part of his life, but they didn’t usually take over. He wanted to ask Rose to tell him every detail of her past. He wanted to find any other man who had dared to touch her and beat the crap out of him. He wanted-

He was crazy, he told himself. She was a client. They weren’t going to have a close and personal relationship. Besides, he’d already had one based on mutual physical attraction. That had gotten him married and then divorced. He didn’t plan to repeat either experience. He didn’t object to long-term relationships as long as they were grounded in compatibility and complementing personalities…not his gonads. Unfortunately, his body wasn’t listening to logic just now.

He forced his attention back to the job. “I’ll have to pull permits for the upstairs remodel,” he said. “I’ll work on the paperwork and get it all filed when escrow closes. In the meantime I’ll have the office draw up a contract along with an estimate of the work. Where should I have the papers delivered?”

She named a local hotel.

“Does someone else need to look at any of this?” he asked.

“Like my dad?”

“No. But a significant other, a lawyer?”

“Ah. Actually, I’m making this decision all on my own.”

He was more pleased than he had a right to be. Figuring that his attempts for control were already shot, he gathered his papers and stuffed them back in his briefcase, then headed for the front door. She followed, walking more slowly. When he remembered the cane and her halting step, he slowed his so she could catch up. She opened the front door.

“I’m looking forward to this, Del.”

“Me, too.”

They shook hands. He ignored the way the feel of her skin against his made him want to rub his palm over all of her. He was disgusting. Worse, he was acting like a teenager. She waved, then closed the door behind him.

As he started down the path, he paused to glance over his shoulder and study the old house. At one time he’d imagined himself living here. Now there was going to be a different owner. He probed his heart and found that he didn’t mind as much as he would have thought. To be honest, he couldn’t imagine Josie and himself living together. His feelings for her were well and truly dead. Which meant he had to stop thinking about her and instead focus on the very appealing Rose. Hardly a difficult job. In fact, he was looking forward to spending a lot of time with her.

Two days later Josie sat in her hotel room studying the contracts Del’s office had sent over. She read through the estimate of charges and a schedule of what would be completed when. Her pen hovered over the line for her signature.

Jan, from his office, had called to get her last name for the contract and Josie had been forced to come up with a fake one. Which was the name she was expected to sign on the contracts. There were probably dozens of legal implications to her lie, she thought glumly. Not that she intended to run out on the bill. It would probably be easier for everyone if she just came clean and told Del who she was. Except she didn’t want to.

Their conversation at the Miller place had been the first pleasant one she could remember. They’d been able to talk to each other like normal people, without screaming or accusing or either walking away. She’d found herself liking Del and enjoying teasing him. She’d liked the freedom of starting over as someone new. As Rose she could explore her relationship with Del from a safe distance, getting to know him again, finding out what she liked and didn’t like. He was still too good-looking, with an amazing body. She’d always thought he was sexy, and that hadn’t changed. But what did he think about her?

Josie leaned back in the club chair in her suite and sighed. She’d seen the spark of interest in Del’s eyes. She knew her ex-husband well enough to know that he’d been attracted to the woman he thought of as Rose. After setting the contract on her lap, she pressed her fingertips to her face. She looked so different, but she thought her new face was pretty-albeit in a different way from her old one. She wasn’t surprised that Del appreciated the more prominent cheekbones and smooth skin. He’d always liked her eyes and probably still did. So that interest made sense. What she didn’t understand was how he could find anything appealing about her body.

She pressed her hands to her legs, feeling the tired muscles quiver slightly. She was broken-nothing like she’d been before. How could he not be repelled by her weakness, her need for a cane? And yet he hadn’t been. He’d been friendly, solicitous and charming. With completely twisted logic, she liked that he found her attractive, despite her disability, and she hated that he was over her enough to be interested in other women. Even if that woman was her.

She wasn’t over him . Just spending an hour or so in his presence had been enough to convince her of that. She hadn’t dated much since the divorce, telling herself she was busy figuring out her new life. But now she thought the truth might be very different. She’d never given herself the time or space to recover from losing Del. Instead she’d put her feelings in a box and ignored them. Being around him every day during the remodeling was going to force her into coming to terms with her past. She didn’t look forward to the process, but she knew she would be stronger for having endured it.

Like physical therapy, her emotional recovery would be slow and painful, with plenty of setbacks. But it was the only way to be free of the man who used to be her husband.

“Ihave the permits ready to go,” Del told her from his seat behind his desk. “As soon as escrow closes I’ll take care of it.”

It was Monday morning and Josie had just spent a long weekend alone with way too much time to think. One of the things that had been on her mind was the reality that the name she’d given Del didn’t match the name on the escrow papers. She’d never been a good liar and she still wasn’t. Too much energy was required to keep everything straight. But she was in too deep now and she wasn’t about to back out by telling Del the truth.

“Actually I’ve spoken with the escrow people,” she said, forcing herself to stare into his dark eyes and pretend that everything was completely normal. “When I explained what I was doing, they offered to file the papers when they change the title. I’m heading over there this morning. I can take them with me.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said easily, as if nothing was wrong. Of course, for him nothing was.

“Good.” She opened the oversize envelope on her lap and drew out the signed contracts. She set them on his desk, along with a cashier’s check for one-third of the total amount required for the remodeling. “I signed them and initialed the changes.”

“I like an efficient woman,” he said, flashing her a smile.

She steeled herself against the crinkles by his eyes and the way his white teeth contrasted with his tanned skin. To distract herself from the overpowering maleness that was Delaney Scott, she looked around at his office.

He’d moved into a larger room since their divorce. Probably when his dad officially retired, she thought. The view was better-a big window overlooked the street. His old office had been in the back, next to the parking lot. As in the reception area, photos of restorations covered the walls. The cabinets and drafting table looked new, but the old wood desk was the same one he’d had for years. She recognized the gouge in the left-front corner-the result of a dropped circular saw. She knew that the middle drawer stuck, that he kept a stash of red licorice in the bottom drawer and that they’d made love on the desk at least a half dozen times. The last had been on a Sunday morning when he’d come into work to escape their latest fight, and she’d followed him, determined to have the last word. They’d been screaming at each other when the atmosphere had suddenly changed. One second they’d been saying how much they hated each other and the next they’d been tearing at clothes and kissing frantically.