The Replacement Wife. CAITLIN CREWS
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extravagant home in Newport, Rhode Island, so perhaps Becca had expected mythical modern castles on Fifth Avenue. It was just one more part of the Whitney mystique. But all that was inherited opulence, handed down from one Whitney to the next ever since the glory days of their Gilded Age friends and contemporaries, American royalty like the Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts.
But this … this was something else. Real people, Becca thought almost numbly, still looking around in awe, didn’t actually live like this.
Except Theo seemed perfectly at home. He had his cell phone to his ear and was murmuring something in an undertone as he sauntered through the elegant room, seemingly unmoved by the sheer luxury all around him. And yet Becca knew without a single doubt that it was all of his design—from the richly colored Oriental rugs at her feet, stretching across hardwood floors polished to a gleam, to the furniture she did not have to be told was incredibly expensive, all of it seeming to belong exactly where it was, as if it had grown there, mahoganies and blacks and scarlets, and all of it inviting, not stuffy. Her gaze rested for a moment on the set of deep, lush-looking sofas in one corner, set to take advantage of the fireplace and the dizzying view. There was interesting art on the walls and the shelves were lined with important-looking books and more intriguing objects—vases, small boxes, statues. A wrought iron spiral stair wound up to the floor above, that boasted an open gallery to take advantage of the great room’s vastness. Opulence and invitation, everywhere she turned.
Was she really expected to stay here? With a man who walked through this room as if it were commonplace, unworthy of his notice? A cold shiver worked its way down her spine, making goose bumps rise up in response. Who would she be when all of this was over? Because she knew, once again, on some deep, incontrovertible level, that what she’d put into motion by agreeing to be here would change her forever. What would be left? a small voice asked inside of her. Who would she be when she’d finished playing Larissa?
You will be yourself, she reminded herself sternly. Finally free of the notion that these people are important to you in any way—that they matter at all.
“Muriel will show you to your rooms,” he said, startling her when he stopped and turned. She was suddenly afraid that her mouth really had dropped open and that she’d been gaping at the things he owned like a country bumpkin. Like the poor relation to his wealthy employers that she, in fact, was.
As for the other things she’d been thinking, well—she shrugged them off. It was too late now, anyway. She was here. The papers were signed. And Emily needed this. More than that, she needed to do this for Emily, so Emily would never have to do anything like this, with these horrible people, herself.
She needed to make her mother proud, in whatever way she could, even all these years later. She owed her mother’s memory at least that much. At least.
And she would walk out of here with her head high, knowing exactly who she was. With all of the Whitney legacy firmly behind her. Finally.
Swallowing hard, she turned to the woman she hadn’t even seen enter the room from somewhere off to the left. The kitchen? Servants’ quarters? Narnia? Nothing would surprise her, at this point.
“I need to take a few calls, but I will come find you in about forty-five minutes,” Theo said, his voice all business, matter-of-fact. It made her realize that he had not been using that voice before, in the car. Or at the Whitney mansion. She frowned.
“Fine,” she said, her thoughts too muddled to say anything else. Why would this situation be anything but business to him? Why should his voice alter at all? Had she not imagined that softer look after all?
His amber eyes flicked over her, making clench her fists in unconscious response as her heart thumped painfully hard in her chest, an answer to her silently asked questions that she refused to acknowledge.
“Our first order of business will be your hair,” he said, those captivating, intriguing eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at her.
She reached up to touch the end of her chestnut-colored ponytail automatically, but she wasn’t surprised. Larissa was as famous for her peroxide-blond mane as she was for her questionable behavior and pointless existence. Becca hadn’t really thought through the specific details of this charade, but dying her hair made sense.
“Will you be making me a blonde yourself?” she asked, meaning to sound dry and arch, but her voice came out much softer, much more uncertain, than she’d intended, as she found herself imagining those strong hands in her hair, against her scalp.
His gaze seemed to darken, and it was worse than the usual kick of amber—it seemed to creep inside of her and turn her into something knotted and raw. She had to remind herself to breathe.
“I will make you exactly what you have to be,” he said. As if he’d heard her worst fears. As if she’d spoken them aloud. His dark head tilted slightly to one side. “The question is whether or not you can handle it.”
“I can handle anything,” she threw at him, feeling goaded beyond her endurance—and yet he only stood there, so calmly powerful, and watched her. It made panic—and something much hotter, much darker—roar through her, blistering everything in its path.
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
And with that, Theo Markou Garcia was gone, leaving Becca feeling overwhelmed—and something else, something she refused to call bereft—in the middle of the vast, beautiful room.
“Come,” Muriel said, and led Becca off to her doom.
Blonde, she was even more of a threat, Theo thought with a mixture of temper and resignation.
And then wondered why he’d used that word, as feelings he did not care to identify coursed through him. Threat. How could she possibly be a threat? He was Theo Markou Garcia and she … she was whatever he made her. He stared at the girl as she sat before the mirror in the guest suite he’d allocated her. She was looking at herself with her cloudy-green eyes dark. She looked fragile and a little unnerved, as if she did not know what she’d gotten herself into.
But most of all, she looked like Larissa.
Françoise was a hairdressing genius—known for her discretion even without the giant sum Theo had paid her to ensure her silence—and had created a true masterpiece. The hair was a symphony of blondes, from a sun-kissed pale shade to the lightest honey, cascading around her like an effortless blonde wave and framing the face that was undeniably Larissa’s.
Larissa, but with fire and emotion in her eyes. Larissa, but so much more alive. So much more aware. Not anesthetized and dull-eyed.
She was like a ghost in reverse, this girl, with her raggedy clothes and her off-color eyes, eyes that should have been green and were instead that mossy, changeable hazel, like a version of Larissa that had never been. Her nose, perhaps, was more narrow. Her chin was a touch stronger, her lips fuller. But he had to search out the differences. He had to look hard to see them. If he didn’t know better, he would have assumed this was Larissa Whitney herself.
No one would look at this woman and think she was anything but the real thing. Because no one saw what they did not expect to see. Theo knew this better than anyone. He had fought against the markers of his humble beginnings most of his life, until he’d met Larissa and had used that very roughness to hide behind. She’d thought she was taking home the kind of man her parents would hate, yet one more of her rebellions. She’d had no idea how ambitious Theo was. Not at first.
“It is an extraordinary likeness,” he said, because he had stared too long, and he could see the nerves Becca struggled to hide. He even sympathized. He remembered how nervous he’d been when Larissa had first noticed him, when she’d chosen him—and how cold he’d gone inside when he finally understood that she wanted only to use him to infuriate and appall Bradford. Just as he remembered what it had taken to turn instead into Bradford’s favorite. She’d never forgiven him.
He could see himself in the mirror, hovering behind her like some great Gothic brute—but