Eileen Wilks - The Wrong Wife

“That’s different.” Jaya flicked one elegant hand dismissively. “I do that sort of thing. You don’t. Besides, you aren’t even seeing anyone. So where were you?”

Cassie was granted a brief reprieve when another figure, tall and slim and male, appeared behind Jaya. “Cassie,” Mo said, smiling that slow smile of his. “I’m glad to see you got back in one piece, in spite of Jaya’s proclamations of disaster.”

. Cassie smiled back. Her two friends couldn’t have made a greater contrast. Mo was quiet and steady, with gentle eyes, a big nose, and a fair complexion that suited his curly blond hair. Jaya’s exotic looks came from combining a Hindu mother with a Scots-Irish-Mexican father. Her skin was dusky, her dark hair as thick and glossy as a wig, and she was bossy as all get-out. She and Cassie had been friends since the second grade.

In addition, Jaya was thoroughly, enthusiastically heterosexual. Mo wasn’t.

“So where were you?” Mo asked, moving Jaya aside so he could come in.

Cassie sighed. “I was in Vegas, actually,” she said. “I got married.”

“M-m-married?” Jaya looked from Cassie to Mo and back. “Cassie?”

Cassie nodded and held up her left hand, fingers spread to show her ring.

“Oh, my God.”

“Those were Gideon’s words,” Cassie muttered.

“Gideon,” Jaya repeated. “Gideon Wilde. You married him? You actually married Gideon Wilde? Oh, my God.”

“Isn’t he the man you told me about?” Mo asked. Mo’s lover had left him six months ago, about the time Cassie heard about Gideon’s engagement. They’d sat up with a couple of bottles of wine and talked their way into morning. “The one who was engaged to someone else?”

She grimaced. “He isn’t engaged now. She broke off with him a few days ago.”

“Talk about rebound,” Jaya said. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. You actually married him. How? Where? And you didn’t tell me! You didn’t even invite me!”

“You were singing at the club by then,” Cassie said. “And everything happened so fast—”

“Did you drug him? How did you get him to agree?”

“He asked me,” Cassie said, injured. “And I’ll have you know I didn’t say yes right away, either.” It had taken Gideon and Ryan working together almost a whole hour to get her to agree.

It hadn’t taken Gideon on his own that long to get her to set aside her idea of an annulment. Of course, he hadn’t exactly played fair about how he persuaded her.

She really ought to be upset about that.

“So what,” Mo asked gently, “are you doing here, if you’re married?”

“Packing.” Cassie bit her lip. Had she really agreed to leave everything she knew for a man who wanted her in his bed for a year? One year...and her brother had had to talk him up from six months.

She moaned and sank down onto the faded candy stripes of her sofa. “And before you ask—no, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m crazy. I’ve got to be crazy. How did I get myself into this?”

Jaya moved a newspaper folded to the Help Wanted section off the couch, and sat beside her. Mo sat on the other side. “Like usual, I imagine,” Jaya said, putting an arm around Cassie’s shoulders and squeezing. “You jumped in with both feet, damn the torpedoes and all that stuff. Just like you always do. Now, you tell me all about it. Who were you rescuing this time?”

“No one.” Cassie frowned. “Really, Jaya, I’m perfectly capable of minding my own business. I like to help people out sometimes, that’s all.”

“Whatever you say. Just tell me how you wound up marrying the man you’ve carried a torch for all these years. And why you’re so unhappy about it.”

“Not all these years,” Cassie protested. “Not continuously, anyway. I got tired of unrequited love when I turned twenty. Remember Randall?”

“Ha!” Jaya waved away the young man responsible for the loss of Cassie’s virginity with one scarlet-tipped hand. “That chipmunk doesn’t rate as even a minor distraction.”

“Randall was cute and sensitive.”

“Randall was a nerd.”

“Even if you don’t count Randall, I haven’t exactly been pining away. What about Max?” she demanded, referring to her only other serious involvement, with a baseball player she’d dated two years ago.

“Max is an idiot. A gorgeous idiot, sure, and even a pretty nice guy, which just made it harder for you to admit how much he bored you. He doesn’t count.”

“Then there’s Sam, or J.T., or any number of other guys I’ve dated—”

“Cassie,” Mo interrupted, “Jaya knows, and I know, that you date so many men because you think there’s safety in numbers. You like to fix the men you go out with—fix them up with a friend of yours or with a new job or just with a listening ear and good advice. You don’t go to bed with them, and you certainly don’t run off to Vegas with them. This Wilde is different.”

“That’s right,” Jaya agreed. “The fact is, you’ve never seriously tried to get Gideon Wilde out of your system. You’ve just played around at it. Now quit changing the subject, and tell us how you wound up married to him.”

So Cassie told them, leaving out a few of the really personal details, like her wedding night and what she’d told Gideon had happened. Or hadn’t happened. She wound up talking mostly about the ceremony itself—conducted in the Weddings-To-Go Chapel of Love.

“The three of us were on our way back from the license place,” she told them. “It’s open until midnight during the week and around the clock on weekends. Anyway, our cab passed this RV with a neon bride on the side, and Gideon flagged it down.”

Jaya laughed, and Cassie told her about the minister’s rhinestone-studded tuxedo, which had far outshone Cassie’s jeans and silk blouse. Mo, she noticed, didn’t say much. Finally, with a sigh, Cassie stood. “I’ve really got to get some things in a suitcase before the movers get here.”

“What do you mean ‘before the movers get here’?” Jaya went over to the tiny breakfast bar and lifted the lid of the pig-shaped cookie jar by one ear. The jar emitted a loud oink as she took out a couple of sandwich cookies.

“She said she was here to pack, Jaya.” Mo’s frown announced his opinion of her plans.

“But I thought—surely you’re not going to stay married, are you?” Jaya looked astounded. “I mean, running off to Vegas is a great adventure, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Moving in with the man—” Jaya stopped suddenly and pointed a cookie at Cassie. “Gideon does know you’re moving in, doesn’t he? You’re not planning to just surprise him?”

Mo laughed.

“Good grief! You do think I’m an idiot, don’t you? He knows. He gave me his key.” She ducked into her walk-in closet and heaved things around until she unearthed her suitcase. It was a huge relic her mother had found at some garage sale years ago. She dropped it on the bed and flicked the catches. “It’s his idea, actually. I wanted to get an annulment, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“An annulment?” Mo asked.

“Well, it might affect his business.” Cassie grimaced when she heard how lame that sounded. She pulled an armload of jeans from her dresser and carried them to the suitcase that lay flat and open, like a gaping maw, on her bed. “A lot of people knew about his engagement to Melissa, and how she ended things between them. He’s going to look foolish enough as it is, running off and marrying someone else on what was supposed to be the day he and the Icicle tied the knot. He’d look even dumber if we split as soon as we got back to Dallas.”

Both her friends just stared at her. She dumped the jeans in the suitcase, which swallowed them with room to spare, and tried to make what she was doing sound more reasonable. “A business reputation can be fragile. Some investors might lose confidence in Gideon over this.” The looks on their faces told her she wasn’t improving. Cassie gave up and went back to the dresser, opened her lingerie drawer, and pulled out a pile of colorful cotton, silk and nylon. The nightgown on top, a bright red wisp of silk, slithered to the floor. She bent to pick it up.