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“You weren’t. It wasn’t like that.” Dell took a step toward her. “Elise might have thought we would eventually marry—others might have thought that as well—but I never suggested that to her. And if there had been reason…if I had made promises or if she’d been pregnant, I would have done what was right, Regina.”
Regina sank back down on the hard mahogany of the settee, her breath whooshing out on an audible sigh. “I know you would have. You’re…you believe in duty. You rescued me.”
But it hadn’t helped, Dell realized. Regina was no longer a woman in sudden desperate need, as she had been when they had wed. She had security and work that she enjoyed. But her eyes didn’t light up the way they had when she’d shown up on his doorstep with some of his mail that had mistakenly been delivered to her house almost eighteen months ago. Unfortunate things had happened to her since that day, and he had been the unwitting author of some of those things.
“You know I haven’t always done the right thing where you’re concerned.”
Regina’s soft brown hair slid against the pale yellow of her blouse as she shook her head. “I haven’t always done the right thing where you’re concerned, either. Last week—” She frowned and began to pace.
Dell walked toward her, blocking her progress. He tilted his head, trying to see her expression, hidden as she refused to look at him. “What happened last week?” he asked.
Crossing her arms, Regina blew out a deep breath. “I was shooting a wedding when one of the guests, an older woman named Adele Tidings, noticed my name tag. She wanted to know if I was related to you, and once she knew that we were married, she wondered why she hadn’t seen me around when she’d been at several functions lately which you had attended, alone. I realized how awful the truth would sound, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just…lied. I told her that I’d been horribly ill for a long time.”
“Regina, Adele is nice but nosy. She had no business asking you personal questions. Don’t worry about it.” But Regina shook her head.
“No, you and I both know that I wasn’t sick. You helped me out when we wed, but I never even considered accompanying you to any of your social functions, even though I knew they were a part of your business. I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.”
“We didn’t make a bargain, Regina. We got married for good if unconventional reasons, and this year hasn’t been your happiest. You have nothing to apologize for.”
But the look in her eyes told him that she wasn’t buying his argument.
“You never mentioned anything,” she said, “but this article was written because there’s a rumor that you’ve been approached to open a new store in Chicago. I assume it’s true that one of your wealthiest customers is petitioning you to expand into her area and that she’s started a campaign with her friends to entice you into moving. They’re willing to wine you and dine you, to provide you with free advertising and do whatever it takes, but you’ve resisted even though it’s a great opportunity. The city of Chicago would consider it a coup to get you, and the article says that people at the highest levels are wondering why you haven’t at least looked into the matter.”
Dell blew out a breath. “People often wonder about things that don’t concern them.”
“They’re saying it’s because your wife has a business in Boston and you don’t want to upset her with a move.”
She looked so deliciously miffed that Dell almost wanted to laugh.
“Maybe I should remind them that I have a business headquartered in Boston and a fine old family home. Perhaps I simply don’t want to expand to the Midwest.”
She frowned, her nose wrinkling in that cute way it had. “Is that why?”
It wasn’t. He loved Chicago and he had been thinking of expanding there for a while, but it would have been unconscionable to desert his new and fragile bride in her hour of need while he left town for the long periods of time that would be necessary to embark on such a venture. The gossips were right, at least partly right. No matter the circumstances, O’Ryans took care of their families and they took care of the family name. Leaving a wife alone so soon after they had wed would have stirred up more gossip than breaking it off with Elise had.
“I’m just pointing out that there’s often more than one reason for doing or not doing something,” he said, evading the question. “And I don’t want you to worry about this. I’ll handle it.”
Regina stood suddenly and took a step toward him. “When I was ten and you were six, we didn’t know each other, but like everyone else in the area, I knew who you were. One day I was walking past this house and your father was explaining to you why an O’Ryan couldn’t run around barefoot in the summer the way the rest of us did. You had this longing look in your eyes and, not realizing that we lived in vastly different worlds, I felt sorry for you. I think I just saw a fleeting glimpse of that same look. The gossips are right. You’d like to pursue the Chicago connection, but you feel responsible for me. Well, no more. I don’t want to continue our marriage, Dell.”
Dell had been opening his mouth to dismiss her arguments, but that last sentence caught him by surprise. As if someone had unexpectedly punched him square in the chest with a jab that was sharp and surprisingly painful. He blinked. “Excuse me?”
Then her words caught up to him. “Why?” he asked.
A sad smile lifted her lips. Her brown eyes looked equally sad as she held out her hands, then let them fall to her sides. “We married for the wrong reasons, ones that seemed important at the time. Partly it was because you wanted to protect me. And I—” She shook her head. “I was scared and lost and it was too easy to say yes, to want to be protected. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, all you’ve given up. You can’t know how grateful I am. But I’m not lost anymore, and I’m not the type of woman who was made to be protected. Dell, we don’t have a thing in common.”
“We have a marriage in common.” He didn’t know why he was arguing. They were completely different kinds of people.
Regina laughed, a soft, pretty sound. “You know that’s not enough. You’re old money, good family, following the rules, doing what’s required, what’s right, while I’m a bit of a wild and fluffy mess and always have been.”
He opened his mouth. She put up her palm to stop him.
“You don’t need to defend me. I spent a lifetime trying to be what my parents expected and then finally realized that I was different. What’s more, I’m good at being different, and I like the fact that I’ve finally accepted my creativity and my tendency to be unpredictable, but I don’t fit into your world at all. I may be four years older than you, but you’ve always been the grown-up while I’ll always be…I don’t know. Me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“You’re right. There isn’t, but I’m not right for you, and—”
“I’m not right for you,” he said, completing her sentence.
Dismay crept into her expression. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not looking for romance. I don’t even want it anymore, so you’re not interfering with my love life.”
“I’m just interfering with your life?”
“No!” Her voice was a bit too vehement, Dell couldn’t help thinking, and he did smile then, even though he didn’t feel at all like smiling.
“Liar. Being an O’Ryan probably isn’t fun if you’re not used to it.”
She looked down at the magazine she still held. “People judge you, and I’m not helping your standing.”
“Regina, I’m not worried.” At least not about that. There had been good reasons why Regina hadn’t appeared at his side this year. But theirs had not been an ordinary marriage. It certainly hadn’t been what either of them would have chosen. And it hadn’t been rewarding.
A pained look came into her eyes. “Every day women come into the shop. They’re happy. They’re marrying because it’s what they want above all else, and that’s as it should be, but it’s not us. Admit it, Dell. This isn’t working out. We’re not a real couple. We don’t even touch.”
She muttered the last part, and Dell’s senses began to sizzle. “We could touch,” he told her, even though he had touched her only as a friend before their wedding night and never since. She had cried that night—long silent sobs she had tried to hold back. He had stopped. Since then he’d concentrated on just being a provider. He’d been willing to wait and be patient.
“No, we can’t,” Regina said softly. “It would be a lie. It wouldn’t work.”
He studied her. She’d obviously thought this through. “How do you know it wouldn’t work?” he asked.
She blinked, clearly startled.
“The marriage, I mean,” he continued. “Not the touching. How do you know the marriage wouldn’t work?”
Regina’s gaze met his. “It hasn’t,” she said softly, and he was pretty sure she was remembering the past months.
So was he, and what he was remembering was that Regina had been happy until she fell into his life and things had gone awry. He’d spent a lifetime learning to be a proper O’Ryan and protecting the O’Ryan reputation from any hint of scandal. But after he had married Regina and scandal had been averted, he had abdicated his responsibility as if his duty had been done. There had been no satisfaction in this marriage and yet…
“We haven’t really tried to make our marriage work, have we?” he asked. “You mentioned that Adele wondered why she hadn’t seen you around, but very few people have seen us together. Our marriage has been solely on paper, hasn’t it?”
“There were reasons for that. You were practically forced to marry me.”
Somehow Dell kept from reacting to that. “I chose to marry you, Regina.” But he knew deep down that he was lying, at least partially. There had been numerous reasons why he had married Regina, but guilt, duty, honor and the need to protect the family name—and her—had been supreme.
But had he really protected her? Had he done anything right where she was concerned?
Maybe. After she had delivered his mail that day, they had become distant friends of a sort. She was nothing like the women he saw socially, nothing like the women he bedded and nothing like the women he considered as the ones who might produce the next O’Ryan heir. But he had liked her. She had been warm and refreshing. They hadn’t known each other well, but they might have become friends if he hadn’t made a single wrong and hasty decision that had turned the world upside down and had, ultimately, led to them becoming man and wife.
And now here they were, on the verge of another hasty, reckless decision. But he had never been a reckless man. Reckless actions were usually the result of messy emotions and he had spent years learning the ways emotional slips could ruin lives. Haste and recklessness fostered failure, and he didn’t like failure.
“I chose to marry you,” he said again. “But I’ve been a poor excuse for a husband, Regina. And I think that before we give up on this marriage, we should give ourselves a chance to turn this thing around.”
Regina took a deep, audible breath. She paced a few steps, clearly agitated.
He followed her. When she turned suddenly, they were closer than they had been since their disastrous wedding night. Dell breathed in her light honeysuckle scent, and felt a small rush of attraction. Carefully he controlled his reaction.
“You don’t love me,” she said. “Elise—”
“No,” he said. “I don’t love you, but I don’t love Elise, either. I’m not interested in love and would never have chosen that as a rationale for marrying. You just said that you didn’t want love, either, so there are no impediments. I think we should begin again. Why shouldn’t we stay married since we’re already here?”
“Because now that I’ve had a chance to think rationally, I realize that I’m not O’Ryan material.”
“Too late. You’re already an O’Ryan.”
“Only because of a few words in a ceremony I don’t even remember.”
“That counts.”
She gave a cute little grimace, and Dell fought some primal male instinct to lean closer.
“Dell, this hasn’t been a good year, but I’m—finally—regaining my sense of independence and balance. Help me out here. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
He shook his head. “You’re trying to do me a favor by setting me free to continue on my previous course, but divorce is the wrong thing if we haven’t even tried to succeed. We’re married, Regina, even if we didn’t get here via the path your clients take. We should at least give ourselves a true trial run and get to know each other before we decide to divorce. There’s a chance we might make a success of this situation, after all. We could save ourselves a lot of trouble and the kind of unpleasant publicity that comes to those in the spotlight who marry and then divorce too quickly. Does that make sense?”
She looked a bit unhappy but she nodded. “I guess so. Yes.” Why did Dell feel that it was Regina doing him the favor now?
“How long a trial period?” she asked.
He considered. “How about two months? Long enough to get to know each other and become a couple.”
“I don’t know,” she began. “This still seems unfair to you.”
But Dell was warming to the idea. O’Ryans never did things impulsively. In fact, marrying Regina had been his only true impulse. His failure there was proof enough that slow and steady was best. For months she had been a silent stranger in his house, and he had accepted that. Now time was healing her, and there was renewed life in her eyes, vibrancy and spunk in her attitude and a woman emerging from the ashes. Yet he barely knew who she was. If they were going to end things, then he darn well wanted to know who he was divorcing. And if they were going to stay married, well…it was time to backtrack and uncover what had been covered. Methodically.
“If you’re still worrying because we’re not an ordinary couple, don’t,” he told her. “Not being in love is the best way. Love would only introduce complications and lead to possible rash mistakes. Emotional attachments would make it more difficult to end this later if that’s where we finish up.”
She had blanched when he had used the words rash mistakes and he cursed himself. She was probably thinking about her own past mistakes. He reached out and tucked a finger beneath her chin to distract her. “Let’s give our marriage a fair chance,” he urged.
Slowly she nodded, her soft skin sliding against his finger in a way that made him want to curve his palm against her jaw. “If that’s what you want,” she whispered.
He had no idea what he wanted, but he knew that when he decided, he wanted that decision to be based on logic.
Still, when he looked down at Regina rational thought slipped a bit. She had lifted her chin, and his finger had slid slightly down her throat, over silken skin that was made for a man’s caress.
“How about the touching part?” she asked in a choked voice, as if she’d read his mind. His body tightened. But her deep brown eyes were genuinely concerned.
He cleared his throat. “We’ll wait on that,” he assured her, hoping his voice sounded normal. “At the moment we’re just taking some time to make an effort and see if we’re going to stay together.”
“Or if we’re going to part,” she added, but he had the feeling that she had already decided that she wanted their marriage to end.
Maybe it would. They might be too different to make things work. But never let it be said that an O’Ryan walked away from a challenge or left a marriage before it was time.
Or left a bride unkissed. The phrase seemed to come out of nowhere. Just as Regina’s newfound spirit had. Now that he acknowledged that he was attracted to this reborn Regina with the soft skin and berry lips, he was going to have to stay more in control of himself. This time they would do things right, by the book. Letting his impulses run away from him where his wife was concerned was not a good idea.
Especially since neither of them was certain if they would still be husband and wife by the end of the year.
But a vision of those full lips still lingered after she had gone.
CHAPTER TWO
REGINA was at her desk at The Wedding Belles late the next day pretending to review her week’s schedule while she tried not to think about her future or the fact that it would soon be time to go home. The conversation with Dell yesterday had made her jumpy. Tall and dignified with that chestnut hair always in place and those unreadable amber eyes that seemed to measure everything, he was the picture of the elite male. Once again she had felt how ridiculous it was that a man like him should have been forced into marriage with a train wreck of a woman completely unsuited for him.
And that deep aristocratic voice of his always messed with her respiration and reasoning and made her feel as if she were babbling. She hated that. It reminded her too much of how her parents had always admonished her to be more normal and take the time for logic to kick in before she reacted to situations.
“If it were only that easy,” she muttered. She wanted to be the type of sophisticated woman who knew how to talk sensibly to a man like Dell without feeling dizzy, but that didn’t seem to be possible. Yesterday’s meeting with him hadn’t turned out at all the way she’d planned.
Suddenly she remembered that moment when he had suggested that they resume their role as man and wife and try touching each other…
Regina jerked at the thought and the pencil she was holding slipped out of her fingers. She lunged for it and knocked a photo album off the desk. It landed with a loud thud.
“Are you all right?” Julie’s voice called from the reception area.
Not even close. Two days ago she would have honestly been able to say that she felt fine, but this new situation with Dell made her heart positively race.
“I’m great,” Regina called, her voice muffled as she bent to pick up the album.
“Good. Could you come out here?” Julie’s slightly tense voice had Regina hurrying past a cabinet filled with frame and matting samples and rushing into the reception area.
Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the tall windows, onto the golden-yellow walls and oak flooring, turning everything bright. It was closing time and most of the customers had gone, so the usual bustle of the shop was missing. Other than that, however, things looked pretty normal. Except for the dozens of containers of yellow daisies just inside the door.
“Where did those come from?” Serena asked, coming out of her own space, carrying a length of satin ribbon from the dress she had been working on. “Callie, did you order daisies for a wedding? I don’t have any dresses on my list that would go well with that particular shade.”
“Don’t look at me. They’re not mine,” Callie said, her green eyes widening as she came out of the area where she created floral masterpieces and saw the mysterious display. “No orders for daisies lately.”
“Nope. They’re all for Belle.” Natalie slipped some sample pictures of her cakes into her pocket as she bent down to look at the cards.
“You should have seen what it looked like when the delivery guy showed up with his arms full.” Julie’s reddish-brown curls bounced as she spoke. “I felt guilty sitting at the reception desk, it took him so many trips. Where should we put them?”
“I don’t know, but Mr. Right must have been trying to create an impression.” Audra gave a low whistle.
“I’ve never heard Belle express a weakness for daisies, but as an accountant, I suppose I should admire the man’s thrifty ways.”
“So, the date went well, I take it,” Regina offered. Belle had been introduced to the man through a mutual friend over the weekend and all of them had been hopeful that she might fall in love again.
“Maybe he is her Mr. Right,” Callie said. The subject of whether there was a Mr. Right for every woman had come up lately at their weekly poker games. They’d all been friends for a long time, much longer than they’d worked together, and men were often a topic of conversation. And not always a comfortable one, Regina admitted. The friends were divided on their opinions, and some of them, herself included, had engaged in disastrous relationships. Was there a Mr. Right? It was possible. It was also possible that he might live on another planet and never show up, she conceded.
The click of a door sounded just then, and Belle came down from the apartment she kept upstairs, probably drawn by the chatter. The hard-to-ignore daisies and last night’s big date in everyone’s mind, the women couldn’t help but look up. Not that that was unusual. Belle, an ample and gorgeous curvy woman with shining silver beautifully coiffed hair was a presence. She commanded attention without even trying. She was also the most generous, kind person Regina knew. She had inherited this building, she owned the shop and she cared for the Belles as if they were her daughters. They loved her, and it was only natural for them to wonder about the flowers.
“So…he’s Mr. Right?” Audra asked, her blond hair sliding across her cheek as she tilted her head.
