Gorgeous Grooms: Her Stand-In Groom / Her Wish-List Bridegroom / Ordinary Girl, Society Groom. Jackie Braun
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with the game.”
“Ask yourself this: why did you come to the choir loft?”
“I received a note. And a good thing, I’d say.”
“Who sent the note?”
She shrugged. “I thought it was you, but obviously not. Whoever sent it, I owe him or her a debt of gratitude.”
“I’d say you’re already paying it.”
“Are you implying Stephen sent me the note?”
“Ah, now you’re catching on. He set me up, Catherine. He knew about the will’s codicil and he had to make sure I didn’t get married.”
“Even if that’s the case, did you have to fall so neatly into his trap?”
“How do you know he didn’t bribe the wedding planner to seduce me?”
“Because if you’d truly loved me you wouldn’t have been seduced.”
“Do you think Stephen loves you?”
She didn’t answer. This wasn’t about love.
“Just watch your back. He’s using you.” And with that he was gone, leaving unsettling questions in his wake.
Stephen walked Catherine to her door. Her bedroom door. It seemed silly and unnecessary and sweet all at once. Something fluttered insider her. Anticipation? Nerves?
Suspicion?
Derek’s words echoed in her head. She pushed them aside, but her hammering heart was not so easily ignored.
“I had a good time tonight,” he said.
“You sound surprised.”
“Those things usually aren’t very entertaining.”
“Must have been the company,” she replied.
His smile came slowly. “Must have been.”
No one was present to fool, but he sounded so sincere. Suddenly she needed to know.
“Did you send me the note?”
“Note?”
“On my wedding day. At the church. Did you send me the note to meet Derek in the loft?”
His eyebrows lifted in…surprise? Dismay? But his voice held neither when he replied, “I did.”
Her heart twisted. “Why?”
He ran a hand through his hair, nearly turned away. But then he leveled that intense gaze at her instead. “I thought you should know. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Derek with someone else. While you were dating there were…others.”
“Others?” Now it was her stomach that felt knotted. “But why didn’t you tell me then, or after Derek proposed? Why did you wait until my wedding day?”
His gaze remained intense, but some other indecipherable emotion seemed to cloud his dark eyes. “It wasn’t any of my business. But you seemed nice and, well, I overheard him tell the wedding planner to meet him in the loft. I thought you could assess the situation for yourself, make your own decision.”
It seemed to make sense, not quite chivalrous, but close, and in keeping with Stephen’s aloof nature. Still, doubts nibbled at her.
“You didn’t know about the codicil then, though? Right?”
“Why the sudden questions?”
“I’m wondering, that’s all.”
“That’s not all. You could have asked these questions at any time. Why now? Did Derek say something to you tonight that has you suspicious of my motives?”
“No, nothing.” She waved a hand, hoping to dispel the tension that had crept between them. Derek’s doing, she realized, and hated herself for handing him so easy a victory.
“He must have said something.”
“He just mentioned the note and said he thought you’d sent it. He said…It doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly it does.”
He seemed irritated and cold once again, not at all the man who had danced with her in the ballroom and stolen her breath with a kiss.
“He just made sure to remind me that you had a lot to gain if he didn’t get married that day.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know that, but he did. And he’s right. I had a lot to gain. I had even more to gain when I married you. You knew that, and yet you still proposed. Remember that, Catherine. You popped the question, not me.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. Let’s forget about this. It doesn’t matter. Derek is only trying to make trouble.”
He shook his head, resignation edging his tone when he said, “I thought you would have figured it out by now. That’s Derek’s specialty. Goodnight, Catherine.”
He turned away before she could say another word. At the other end of the long hallway she heard his bedroom door snap shut. With a heavy heart, she closed her own.
Chapter Seven
GIVEN his growing attraction to her, Stephen found living with Catherine a test of his will-power. Still, he rather enjoyed discovering her quirky habits and surprising interests. She was a good cook, better than he’d imagined a woman who grew up in a household where there was a hired professional to prepare the meals would be. He’d bet his last buck her mother didn’t know how to boil water and had not encouraged Catherine’s interest in the culinary arts.
And while she cooked she liked to sing. He found it amazing that a woman who looked like Catherine could be so tone deaf. He was surprised his Lab didn’t start howling whenever she tried to hit a high note. Of course, the dog wasn’t willing to bite that hand that fed him. And Catherine did a whole lot more than feed Degas. She’d barely been in the house a week when Stephen discovered his fickle hound camped outside her door. Now Degas was sharing her bed.
Lucky dog.
Stephen and Catherine had found some surprising common ground: old movies. He had long been a fan of black and white flicks. The genre didn’t matter, although he was partial to Alfred Hitchcock and anything that starred Humphrey Bogart. They had that in common, except for her it was Cary Grant. She could recite entire scenes from An Affair to Remember. For him, it was Rear Window and The Maltese Falcon.
A few times a week they would spend a couple of hours in one another’s company, suitably chaperoned by the work of some legendary Hollywood filmmaker. Then they would walk up the stairs together as the house grew dark and quiet around them, offer one another a stilted goodnight and turn their separate ways. Long afterward he’d lie awake on the cool sheets of his big bed, wondering if the same need that hummed through his blood was depriving her of sleep as well.
Most weekends they spent following their own pursuits. This weekend, however, they were expected at a tribute dinner Saturday night that the fire department was putting on to raise funds for the families of three firefighters who had died battling a warehouse blaze earlier in the year. The invitation had come to the house, addressed to the both of them, marking the first time they were invited to an event as Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Danbury. Stephen didn’t really want to go. The gossip and speculation about their marriage had yet to quiet down. But he was just old-fashioned enough to believe that where his wife went he went, despite the particulars of their marriage.
Catherine plucked the square of ivory vellum off her bureau and tucked it into the small beaded clutch that was the same shade of emerald as the full-length gown she wore. The gown was new, a flirty Versace that left one shoulder bare and required her to skimp on dinner to wear it to its best possible advantage.
She was checking her reflection in the mirror a second time when Stephen tapped on her door.
“Catherine,