Carolyn McSparren - The Wrong Wife

That was for sure, Ben Jackson thought to himself. Cupid must be laughing his head off, the sadistic little bastard. How could Ben, the conservative, left-brain, goal-oriented young law-and-order district attorney fall head over heels in love at first sight?

He was still thinking of her when the back door burst open, and Annabelle, her face as cheerful as an executioner’s, stalked down the back steps and stood staring out at the yard and carriage house.

The effect she had on him hadn’t changed.

He leaned back against the trunk of the tree and tried to study her critically in hopes that his rational mind would kick in before it was too late. This could not be happening. His mother must have slipped a love potion into his tea. She’d accused him of being a robot. But robots didn’t fall in love.

This wasn’t love. It was lust. Lust he could handle.…After all, a district attorney with a brilliant career ahead of him wouldn’t fall for a woman like Annabelle.

A woman with a scandal in her past from which she’d never escape.

Dear Reader,

Do you believe in love at first sight? I do. I knew the first moment I looked at my husband that he was the one.

Ben Jackson, law-and-order district attorney on the rise, doesn’t believe in love at all. He’s looking for the right wife—a partner to share his vision, to help build his career.

But he falls passionately for Annabelle Langley the moment he sees her, even though she couldn’t be a less suitable choice.

Fortunately, Annabelle would never dream of marrying Ben Jackson. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t intend to marry at all. She wants to go back to New York where nobody cares about her past.

Ben wants to uncover the truth so she’ll be free to love him. Yet the deeper he delves, the more damning the evidence against her seems. He’s not helping her—he’s hurting her!

Should he stop? Let her go? Or keep fighting for the love he knows they can have together?

I hope you’ll enjoy discovering the answer.

Carolyn McSparren

The Wrong Wife

Carolyn McSparren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Vonda Milnor, who taught me about heirloom lace.

For Pat Potter, Phyllis Appleby and Beverly Williams, the greatest brainstormers in the world.

For Emma DeSaussure Jett, who taught me to sew a fine seam—or as fine as I could manage.

Finally, in memory of Ann Lee, who brought this plot a good deal too close to home.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“YOU’VE SUCCESSFULLY avoided falling in love for years,” Elizabeth Jackson said to her son. “That’s not a good thing.”

“For me, it is.” Ben Jackson leaned back on the turquoise corduroy Victorian love seat and smiled sardonically at his mother. “Even Cupid couldn’t shoot an arrow through all the scar tissue on this particular heart.” Ben poked a finger at his chest. “I’ve had one love, remember. I neither need nor want another. Too painful.”

“Ben, you loved Judy, but that was in high school. And her death wasn’t your fault.”

“It was partly my fault. Although some of the blame must go to dear old Dad.”

Elizabeth frowned at her son. “Stop being so sarcastic. All I’m saying is that it’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.”

“You taught me not to stick my hand on a hot stove, but you want me to hold out my heart and say, ‘Hey, somebody come and stomp on this’?”

Elizabeth laid the piece of ecru lace she’d been working with onto the coffee table and gave her son a critical glance. “I’d rather have you bleeding all over my carpet than turning into a robot.”

“Whoa! I’m no robot.” He leaned forward. “I care a hell of a lot about putting the crooks away.”

“That is what you do. Is it not who you are. Or it shouldn’t be.”

“If Dad hadn’t gotten Elmer Bazemore acquitted of rape and attempted murder he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to kill Judy, and you’d probably have those grandchildren you keep talking about.”

She leaned across to put her arms around him for a moment. He held himself stiffly away from her. She released him. “Get an emotional life.”

“I’m trying, Mom. Within limits.”

“Not much chance with the women you date.” Elizabeth picked up the lace, adjusted her pince-nez and began to check it for tiny rips. “Everything between you and your girlfriends is so cool and rational. What kind of a marriage would that make?”

“The perfect kind. A partnership that will get me elected to my first full term as district attorney.”

“With two point five perfect children to round out the picture?”

“I’m not certain I’ll ever have children. I wouldn’t want to be an absentee father.”

“Your father wasn’t exactly an absentee.”

“He never attended a PTA meeting or soccer game. He never saw me pitch or Steve catch. He got home in time for maybe two family dinners a month if we were lucky, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas, unless one of his clients popped Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and had to be bailed out Christmas morning.”

“His clients needed him.”

“So did we. Then he bailed out on us. On you.”

“I’ve long since forgiven him for that. In fact, he did me a favor. If he hadn’t left, I’d never have started Elizabeth Lace and become a successful business woman.”

Ben slid off the sofa, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his chinos and strode over to stare out the front window of the big parlor. He knew his mother worried about him, but the still-attractive, slim woman with soft brown hair was busy with her own business, her friends, her suitor—who just happened to be Ben’s boss. She was there when Ben needed her, but she seldom intruded as she was doing today.

He watched for Brittany’s car. She was invariably early. In his mother’s big front yard a dozen different hues of azalea rioted around the aged oak trees while the early April breeze tousled the shaggy heads of Dutch iris.

Ben only felt truly at home in this house where he had spent his childhood. The Garden District, with its aging Georgian houses, was his favorite place in Memphis, particularly now, before summer heat drove everyone inside to air conditioning.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said. “I can’t forgive Dad for turning the law into a parlor game he played without regard for right or wrong.”

“And for Judy’s death.”

“How many other people died because of Dad and his courtroom antics?”

“He always said if the prosecution did its job properly, they won. His job was to defend his clients as best he could.”

Ben leaned back. “Too bad he was so good at it.”

“He did get off some people who might have been wrongly convicted, ever think of that?”

“If he did, it was sheer dumb luck that they were innocent. He didn’t care about that either. Just the way he didn’t care about us.”

Elizabeth laid the fragile piece of lace gently on the coffee table again and smoothed it as though it were skin. “We had some wonderful times, Ben. In the early years when we were struggling, your father and I had passion even when we fought. You aren’t passionate about anything except getting the felons off the streets.”