“I have never heard of anything so preposterous! That can’t be possible.”
“I’m not going to tell you exactly why it’s possible, just believe me, it is. That paper that says we’re married is valid only if I admit to being Lucas Holt.”
“But you have admitted to being Lucas!”
“To you.” He grinned. “Not to anyone else.”
“That’s not true. Sheila thinks you’re my husband. You haven’t denied it to her or to anyone else.”
He shrugged. “Lots of couples pretend to be married so no one can accuse them of immorality. I wonder what your friends would say if they thought you had been pretending all this time?”
Sharisse took a long, deep breath. It would mean scandal, and he knew that.
“But there was a ceremony and—”
“—And you have no witnesses to that ceremony. Your friends would only think you were trying to save your reputation. It’s human nature to believe the worst of someone if there’s enough gossip. You know that.”
“You can’t do this to me,” she told him firmly. “We have to be married!”
“Why?” His voice rose. What was behind this?
“Lucas, I know you must have been surprised to find that I’m still your wife.”
“Surprised is not what I was.”
“If you’ll just let me explain. I had every intention of getting that annulment, but when I returned home, my father still insisted I marry Joel.”
“Your sister’s husband?”
“Yes. You see, Stephanie loved him. Didn’t I tell you that before? But my father wouldn’t listen, and he would have forced me to marry Joel. If I hadn’t told him I was already married, I would be Mrs. Parrington now. He didn’t like it, of course. He tried to find you, to find out what you were like, I guess.”
“Didn’t you tell him I was a bastard?”
She was stung. “I didn’t tell him what a deceitful cad you were, if that’s what you mean.”
“Me?” he exploded, and grabbed her shoulders in a rage. But one look at her wide, frightened eyes, and he didn’t shake her, just pushed her from him.
“Let’s talk about deceit—yours,” he said coldly. “Mrs. Hammond, wasn’t it? Daughter of John Richards? Eighteen years old, you claimed to be. Destitute—a widow—estranged from your father. Have I forgotten any of your lies?”
She cringed. “Lucas, I can explain.”
“Can you?” He was shouting now. “What if I had really been some poor fool who wanted a wife? Did you even think about that when you answered my advertisement? Did you?”
“I didn’t answer it!” Sharisse shouted back. “My sister did!”
They stared at each other in surprise. Then he said, “Sit down, Sharisse, and start from the beginning.”
She did, explaining again about Joel, and Stephanie. “She was so heartbroken that I was about to marry Joel that she didn’t know what she was doing. You can’t blame her, Lucas. I had intended to send back your tickets along with a letter from Stephanie. But after I left New York, I found that my jewels were missing.” She didn’t explain why, but hurried on. “I had no choice but to use the tickets, because I had no money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this when you arrived? Hell, I would have made a deal with you. We could have helped each other without all these lies.”
“I would have, but you were so formidable. I was afraid. I had hoped you would simply disapprove of me and send me back East.” He laughed, but she ignored it. “What deal would you have made? Why did you need me there, Lucas? Did it have something to do with Samuel Newcomb?”
“Your father found out about that, did he?”
“Only rumors. Did you really ruin Sam? On purpose?”
“That’s why I was there in the first place,” he said, unashamed. “Sam was too well-protected to kill, but breaking him was just as good. Well, after a while, Fiona started messing things up for me by making Newcomb jealous. I didn’t want him hostile at that point, so I figured my having a fiancée would put his mind at ease. It did.”
