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Belle gave a big sigh. “Hon, I’m afraid I’ve had my Mr. Right, and when my Matthew died that was it for me. I’m just looking for Mr. Maybe-We-Could-Keep-Each-Other-Company, but not with this man. He seemed nice at first, but then he got too grabby. He almost pulled a button off the sleeve of my best rose silk blouse.”
“Well then, he’s history,” Regina said, giving her friend a hug. Belle loved nice things, especially clothes.
“I take it he didn’t ask first.”
Belle returned the hug, her comforting scent surrounding Regina. “I almost had to damage him for other women,” she said. “But I let him off easy by showing him the door and just giving him a quick wallop with my bag.”
Julie chuckled. Belle’s bag, a work of art, was huge.
“Looks like he’s sorry.” Natalie gestured toward the flowers. “Or maybe not. Those are some pathetic daisies.”
“Sweetie, it doesn’t matter.” Belle’s delicious Southern drawl stretched out the syllables. “That was the last straw. It wasn’t even fun and it was downright embarrassing. Imagine a woman of my years having to wrestle with a man! Despite the fact that my friend Rae Anne keeps calling me to encourage me to hop back in the marriage market, I’m through dating, and I’m just going to sit back with those of you who are married or almost married and let the rest of the world look for love.”
A chorus of objections echoed through the room. Regina and her friends might each have her own love or lost-love stories, but all of them wanted Belle to find a man who would appreciate her.
“I’ve got the shop, a good life and all of you girls for family,” Belle insisted. “That’s all I need. So, stop worrying about me. We’ve got weddings to plan and you have your own happily-ever-afters.” She cast a maternal glance around, letting her gaze rest on each woman. When she came to Regina, Regina wanted to squirm. Everyone had been so worried about her this past year, and these were her best friends in the whole world. They cared about her. But revealing the details of her personal discussions with Dell would feel too much like betrayal of a man who had bent over backward to help her when she had desperately needed help.
“Dell might be opening a store in Chicago,” she said instead. What was that surprised look on everyone’s faces? “What?” she asked.
Audra shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that you tend not to volunteer information about your husband. Not without a lot of prodding.”
“I know. I guess I’m just…” Not myself after the way that conversation went yesterday.
“I’m just excited,” she finished, somewhat lamely.
“Dell is very good at what he does, and it’s—it’s nice that his business is going so well.”
Heavens, why was she babbling so much? Probably because she had just agreed to try to be something resembling a real wife to Dell, and she didn’t have the vaguest idea how to go about that. Trying to transform herself into a genuine wife meant seeing him a lot more than she was used to, being near him all the time and considering the possibility that they might actually touch now and then.
The mere thought of that made her feel much warmer than the day merited. The memory of Dell’s finger brushing her chin slid right into her mind. Where was a fan when a girl needed one?
“Regina, you’re trembling,” Natalie said.
“You must be really excited about Dell’s new business venture,” Callie added, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, and Dell must be really excited, too,” Serena said.
“What do you mean?” Regina asked, but her friend was staring out the window.
Startled, Regina looked out the window to see Dell, a stern, handsome figure in his black suit, headed toward the shop. Her heart began to trip in a ridiculous fashion.
“I—maybe he has some business with the shop,” Regina offered, realizing how ridiculous that sounded. She knew why he was here. Their trial marriage was beginning in earnest.
“Hmm, powerful as he is, you don’t exactly think of business when you look at the man,” Belle offered.
Definitely not. Even wearing that serious expression, Dell was gorgeous, and several passing women stared at him as if they were about to melt right on the spot.
Regina frowned, even though she couldn’t quite figure out why. “Well, yes, Dell is attractive.”
Natalie raised an eyebrow. “You say that as if you’ve never noticed it before.”
“Of course I’ve noticed.” Even though that wasn’t strictly true. She had done her best not to notice, probably because their marriage hadn’t seemed real.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything like that about Dell before,” Audra said.
“Well, I should have. He’s my husband and he does have a great body. I’ve thought it.” The words came out so stilted and unnatural sounding that Regina half expected the ceiling to crash in on her.
For almost a year she had avoided even thinking of Dell as a husband. When they had wed, she’d been pregnant by his cousin who had deserted her, leaving Dell to save the day. He had, of course. After all, family honor and a baby’s future had been at stake. Given the circumstances, it had been easy to think of Dell as a savior rather than a husband. Marriage had simply made them housemates, not more. And after her miscarriage—Regina struggled to breathe—she had ceased to think at all for a long time. But now…
“He’s my husband,” she said again. At least for two more months.
“Yes, we know that, sweetie,” Belle said. “Apparently he does, too, since he’s here.”
Regina took a deep breath and looked down at her feet clad in eye-popping, chili-pepper-red espadrilles. Even after their talk about trying to have a real marriage, she had expected things to simply fall back into their former distant pattern. She would wait out the two months, living mostly in the shop where she felt free to be herself, and Dell would occupy his mansion and downtown office.
Obviously she’d miscalculated. Here he was in all his masculine glory, tall and powerful, the picture of a man of consequence. And here she was, slightly plump, less than willowy, a very ordinary woman who only exuded confidence behind a camera. They were so mismatched. This arrangement could have such dire consequences for her. But she had agreed to the plan.
“Regina? You’re looking a bit dazed. Are you all right?” Julie asked, moving closer as if to protect her.
Regina nodded. “Oh, yes, I’m great. Just caught a bit off guard.”
But there was no more time to prepare herself. Here he was, pushing through the door, causing the little bell to tinkle brightly as if to say, “Dell’s here! Every woman in sight, start acting like an utter fool!”
Not me, not me, Regina told herself. She pasted on a smile, remembering their plan.
“Dell! How very nice to see you!” she said a bit too forcefully. Purposely she avoided looking in her friends’ direction. She tried not to think about the fact that they would surely wonder why she had gone from a never-comment-on-your-husband woman to an idiotically smiling wife.
A look of mild amusement crossed Dell’s face. “How very nice to see you, too,” he agreed.
“I—is there something you needed?” she asked.
“That is, I—what a surprise to have you show up here!”
Again, that look of barely concealed amusement flashed over his features. “We’re married,” he reminded her.
Regina looked up into his eyes even though she knew the danger of that. “I know.” Actually she felt a bit like a newlywed today, a bride who barely knew her husband.
His gaze met hers, direct and unflinching and intense. “I thought we might go out to dinner together,” he said.
His voice dipped low, and despite the fact that she knew that this was just Dell’s way of making a concerted effort towards their trial marriage, Regina felt a little queasy at the thought of people watching her with Dell. What if she looked as besotted as every other woman and someone caught that look on film? How utterly embarrassing and humiliating would that be?
She tamped down her reservations and nodded. “Dinner together? That sounds…nice.”
He laughed. “You needn’t make it sound as if I’m forcing you to watch ten years of home movies.”
Regina couldn’t help it. She laughed, too. “Dinner would be nice,” she agreed. It wasn’t Dell’s fault that he had such presence. “Let me get my purse and camera and we’ll go.”
As she passed her friends, they gave her questioning looks. Regina knew she’d been acting flustered, but to their credit they didn’t appear to have interrogated Dell when she returned and were simply quietly chatting about Chicago. The Belles were protective of each other, but they also respected each other’s boundaries. She loved that about them. They obviously realized she didn’t want to discuss the details of her marriage.
Which was good, since there wasn’t anything to discuss.
Until now.
Trying not to think about that, Regina headed for the door, calling goodbye. Dell slipped around her and held the door. He followed her outside into the fading sunshine, then handed her into a limo that seemed to appear by magic. But then, Dell had always been a man in control of every situation. Unlike herself.
“Thank you for taking me to dinner,” she managed to say. “I have to say, though, that it was unlike you to just show up.” Dell was a man who always lived on a schedule.
He nodded. “Yes, but then we’re in somewhat uncharted territory right now, aren’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never been a real husband,” he said in that deep, low voice that made her think about what real husbands did. All the things real husbands did. Like sleeping naked with their wives.
Okay, she was definitely going to have to stop those kinds of thoughts. “Well, I’ve never been a real wife.”
“That’s why we’re going to talk. We left things rather open-ended last night. We need a plan.”
Dell’s deep voice rolled over her and Regina’s palms began to tingle. She had never been good at plans. That was part of the reason she had done stupid things and Dell had been forced into marriage with her. Dell was very good at plans. He was the one who had proposed that they marry.
Unable to stop herself, Regina folded both palms across her heart, trying to calm herself down.
“Regina?” he asked, his voice filled with concern.
“We’ll make a plan,” she agreed.
“Good,” he said with a smile that did awful, wonderful things to her insides. “I’m going to do my best to be the perfect husband.”
Oh, no, don’t do that, she wanted to say. This is a marriage of convenience. I don’t even want to risk feeling more, a move that could be disastrous. But…
“I’ll try to be a model wife, too,” she said weakly. If only she could figure out how to do that while keeping this marriage risk-free. “Dell?”
“Yes?”
“What exactly is a model wife in the O’Ryan world?”
A look of dark amusement filled his eyes and he took her hand, running his thumb over the gold and diamond band that circled her ring finger. “Let’s go to dinner,” he said.
But he hadn’t answered her question, had he? Maybe her answer wasn’t important. He probably knew she wasn’t capable of being a true O’Ryan. He had wed her out of pity and duty and honor and now he was stuck with her, a poor substitute for Elise Allenby who really would have been a model O’Ryan wife.
A slim and unfamiliar thread of pain ran through Regina followed immediately by a very familiar sense of indignation. She had spent her life trying to please and falling short, and had promised herself never to go that route again. Yet she hadn’t said no to this marriage or this plan.
Well, Dell was the one who had opted to extend their wedding. He knew what he had for a wife.
Or did he?
Maybe I can be the perfect O’Ryan bride, Regina thought. But she didn’t pursue that thought any further. Some things couldn’t bear up under too much scrutiny, could they?
Sometimes a woman just had to fly on faith and hope for a miracle.
CHAPTER THREE
DELL watched Regina pick at her food. Had he been bullying her? Probably. He’d spent a lifetime learning to be an O’Ryan and sometimes it was difficult to remember that he didn’t have to be that way with his wife.
His wife. How had that happened?
“Regina, before we begin, I want to say that I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.”
She stopped toying with her food and looked up, those deep caramel eyes studying him carefully. Regina had the most amazing eyes, clear and utterly transparent. He had startled her and now she was nervous. “I shouldn’t have thrown you together with Lee,” he clarified, then realized that it was the first time his cousin’s name had been mentioned in a long time.
She shook her head. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“And if I insist it was?”
“You don’t get to say.” Regina speared a piece of asparagus. “What happened with Lee is on my head.”
But she was wrong. That day when Regina had shown up with his mail had happened at a time when he was worrying about Lee, because Lee, orphaned young and raised with Dell, had been like a brother, a wild and socially awkward brother who had not been a hit with women. Regina’s unexpected appearance and cheerful disposition had seemed like a gift, a woman who could give Lee the confidence he needed to take his place in the O’Ryan empire. So Dell had sacrificed her to his cousin, and everything that had happened afterward was on his conscience.
He opened his mouth to tell her so.
Instantly she leaned closer. “Don’t do that O’Ryan thing,” she told him.
Dell blinked. “Excuse me?”
Regina placed her palms on the burgundy tablecloth. “Dell, I know how much responsibility you have. The O’Ryan Gemstone Gallery is only one arm of O’Ryan Enterprises and it must take an amazing amount of work to manage something like that. You don’t have to take responsibility for my problems, too. What happened to me this year wasn’t your doing.”
He drew his brows together, preparing to object.
“I need to get past it myself,” she continued, not allowing him to cut in.
“All right, we’ll drop that subject.” Dell blew out a breath and sat back in his chair. Not that he was agreeing with her, but if she needed to claim responsibility, he would allow her to do that. This time.
Silence set in. Regina looked around her, surveying the elegant surroundings, the tapestries on the walls, the string quartet playing softly, the tuxedoed waiters. She fidgeted with her spoon and squirmed on her chair. “This is nice,” she said.
Dell noted that she still hadn’t eaten much. He smiled. “Not your style?”
“It doesn’t have to be my style. It’s your style. I don’t really have a style, so at least one of us should have one,” she said.
Dell couldn’t help chuckling at that.
Regina smiled. He realized then that he hadn’t seen a genuine smile on her face since their whole fiasco of a marriage had begun. And it had been her sunny disposition that had first told him she would be right for Lee.
Dell brushed that thought aside, but his gaze drifted to her lips nonetheless. She had pretty lips, plump but not overly so. The kind of lips a man would like to feel beneath his own. He could see why Lee had let things get out of hand.
But his staring was making her uncomfortable. A trace of delicious pink climbed up her throat.
“You should smile more,” he said, almost without thought.
She gave an almost imperceptible nod. “I’ll try to remember that. Smiling at each other should be part of our plan, shouldn’t it?”
