Marriage On The Edge

She whispered something he couldn’t understand as he thrust his hands up under her skirt. Her hips tilted towards his; he brushed his palm over the scrap of lace that covered her. She was hot, wet enough so he could feel the slickness of her through the lace; she burned like molten lava against his questing fingertips.

He groaned, and ripped the lace away. “Come to me,” he whispered…

“No!”

Her cry rose into the night, sharp and piercing as the gust of wind that had suddenly come from the sea. Gage didn’t hear it. He was lost, blind to everything but the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her on his lips. It had been so long. So long…

“No.” Her hand clamped over his; she twisted her face away from his seeking mouth. “Stop it,” she panted, “Damn you, I said stop!”

The urgency in her voice, the combined anger and fear, snapped him back to reality. He went still, his body numb as he became aware of her struggles. He blinked his eyes, like a man who has gazed too long at the sun, and looked down into her face.

“What?” he said. “What?”

She was trembling and she hated herself for that, hated herself almost as much as she did for having succumbed, for having let herself be caught up in one blind, foolish moment of passion.

“Let go of me,” she whispered.

Let go of her? Let go of her, when she’d just been coming apart like a falling star in his arms?

“Let go,” she said again, and what he heard in her voice now vanquished whatever dream had held him. Reality was her cold voice, her cold eyes…

Her contempt.

The fire inside him died. He stepped back, adjusted his tie, smoothed down his shirt. She fixed her shoulder straps, tugged down her skirt.

“That’s a dangerous game you were playing, lady,” he said, when he could trust himself to speak.

Her eyes flashed. “You were the one playing games, not me.”

“Dancing a man to the edge and then telling him to behave himself might win you applause in some quarters, babe, but sooner or later, you’re liable to do that to a man who doesn’t give a damn about the rules.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. It was hot out here in the garden, but the wind carried a chill in its teeth, or maybe the chill was inside her; it was impossible to tell and she didn’t much care. All that mattered was how close, how dangerously close, she’d come to falling into the trap again.

“I suppose you think I was the one who stalked you.”

“Stalked?”

She heard the growl in his voice, knew he was angry, but so what? She was angry, too, dammit, angry and hurt.

“Stalked,” she said. “Followed me, even though I made it perfectly clear I was trying to get away from you.”

Gage gave a bark of laughter. “Give me a break! You wanted me to come after you. I saw the way you looked at me. I understood what it meant.”

“It’s just a good thing you finally figured out what ‘no’ meant. Otherwise—”

“Otherwise, what?” A slow smile crept across his mouth. He reached out, traced a finger over her parted lips. “Be honest, baby. If I’d ignored that ‘no,’ I’d be inside you right now and you’d be—”

The crack of her hand against his cheek echoed through the silence of the night.

“You no good bastard!”

Her voice trembled. She despised herself for it, for the weakness that had sent her into his arms…and for the knowledge that he was right. For all those reasons and a thousand more, Natalie Baron lifted her chin, met her husband’s angry glare and spoke the words she’d once never imagined herself saying, the words she’d bitten back over the last endless months.

“Gage,” she said, “I want a divorce.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE sound of a lawnmower woke Natalie from a fitful sleep.

She blinked her eyes open, then shut them against the bright sunlight that poured into the room. That was a surprise. Hadn’t Gage remembered to close the blinds before he’d come to bed? It was something he always did, for her. The light didn’t bother him but she…

“Oh, God.”

Natalie’s whisper rose into the still morning air. Of course Gage hadn’t closed the blinds. This wasn’t their bedroom, this was the guest room. She and Gage hadn’t shared a bed last night.

Her throat constricted.

For the first time since the night they’d eloped, she and her husband had slept apart.

Well, no. Not exactly. Slowly, she sat up and swung her feet to the carpeted floor. Actually, they’d slept apart lots of times. More and more times, in fact, over the past year and a half. Gage was always off on business trips, exploring new sites for Baron Resorts, talking high finance with bankers from Bangkok to Baltimore, checking out the competition…

Or so he said.

Natalie pushed a fall of dark hair back from her face. She rose and made her way into the attached bathroom, trying to avoid seeing her reflection, but it wasn’t easy. The interior designer who’d “done” the bath had covered the walls with mirrors. Since the room was the size of the first apartment she and Gage had lived in, that meant lots of mirrors. Acres, or so it sometimes seemed. It wasn’t what she would have done—what woman in her right mind really wanted her reflection beaming back at her from every angle, first thing in the morning? But Gage had given the designer carte blanche.

“Everything subject to my wife’s approval, of course,” he’d said, standing there with his arm around Natalie’s shoulder.

“Of course, Mr. Baron,” the designer had replied, casting a fawning smile in her direction.

“Just don’t bother her with details,” Gage had added, with a just-between-us-guys grin. “My wife has enough to do without worrying about chips of paint.” He’d beamed down at her. “The country club tennis tournament, her charities…isn’t that right, darling?”

“Absolutely,” Natalie had answered. What else could she have said, with her husband and a complete stranger beaming at her as if she were some clever new wind-up doll?

Natalie brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and winced when she looked up and saw a universe of Natalies watching her.

“Ugh,” she said to the straggly hair, the pale face, the smudge of mascara beneath one eye that was all that remained of the makeup she’d never taken off last night. She could have: the guest suite was well-equipped. The designer had seen to that. Cotton sheets so soft they felt like silk, Unisex pajamas, fluffy white bathrobes, disposable slippers, sample sizes of cosmetics enough to stock a department store. Hairbrush, comb, toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, tissues…The man with the flutey voice had thought of everything. And when they had guests, part of Luz’s housekeeping duties was to restock whatever had been used.

The only thing the decorator hadn’t thought of was how a woman was supposed to feel when she awoke in the guest room because she’d told her husband of ten years that she wanted a divorce.

Natalie turned off the water and patted her face briskly with a towel. She hadn’t planned to say the words, not consciously. Not last night, certainly. But, really, she was glad she had. It was better this way. Why prolong things? She’d known, for a long time, that the marriage was over. That she and Gage were living a charade, known since she’d lost the baby—a baby, she’d realized, he’d never really wanted—that he didn’t love her anymore, that she didn’t love him. That—that—

“Oh, Gage,” Natalie whispered, and sank down in the middle of the tiled floor. “Gage,” she said again, her voice breaking, and she buried her face in her hands and wept until she was sure she could never weep again.

And, after that, she wept some more.

Gage awakened, as always, promptly at 6:00 a.m.

It was the habit of a lifetime, one he’d developed in those long-ago years when he’d first headed east from Texas. He’d figured out really early that a twenty-one-year-old kid with half a college degree, no discernible skills in much of anything that didn’t involve a horse, and a brand-new wife to support had to work hard at being an early bird if he was going to catch even the smallest of worms.

It wasn’t necessary now, of course. His offices didn’t open until nine but still, every morning, rain or shine, he was out of bed at six on the button.

Usually, he crept around quietly in the shadowy darkness with the bedroom blinds shut, doing his damnedest not to disturb Natalie. She always said she didn’t mind, that what she called her internal clock was still set at dawn.

But he’d vowed, a long time ago, that his wife would never have to creep out of a warm bed at dawn again. No way would he ever have to watch Natalie stumble into her clothes, then go off to a day spent waiting tables.

He could remember the time he’d told her that.

“I’ll take you up on the no-waiting-tables deal,” Natalie had said, laughing. Then she’d thrown her arms around his neck and flashed a sexy smile. “Come to think of it, staying in bed is a pretty fine idea, too…As long as you stay there to keep me occupied.”

“Occupied?” he’d said, with a puzzled look that was hard to maintain because just the light brush of Natalie’s body against his had always been enough to make him go crazy.

“Occupied,” she’d said, and then she’d threaded her hands into his hair, drawn his head down to hers, kissed him with her mouth open so that he could taste her honeyed warmth…

Gage’s face hardened.

Kissed him, exactly as she had last night, just before she’d said, “Gage, I want a divorce.”

He muttered an oath, kicked the afghan blanket from his legs, and sat up.

“Ouch.”

So much for spending the night on the leather couch in the den. Gage groaned, pressed his hands to the small of his back, and rose to his feet.

Leather couches were not made for sleeping. Neither was this room. It was too big, too impersonal, too filled with stuff. What man would want to share his sleeping quarters with a pool table?

Not him, that was for sure. But Natalie had stalked off to the guest suite, leaving the bedroom to him.

“You can have it,” she’d said with dramatic flair.

Gage groaned again as he hobbled across the hall to the downstairs lavatory. He could have it, but he hadn’t wanted it. That huge room, with its enormous bed, all to himself? With Natalie’s perfume and a thousand memories lingering in the air?

“No way,” he muttered as he splashed cold water on his face.

A man didn’t want to spend the first night of the rest of his life surrounded by reminders of what he was leaving behind.

Gage took a towel from the rack and scrubbed it over his face. Towel? That was a laugh. These puny things were more like handkerchiefs. But Natalie liked them. Natalie and that fruity designer, the one who’d hand-picked the leather couch Gage had thought, until last night, was only uncomfortable to sit on.

He looked into the mirror. A guy in a dress shirt and rumpled black trousers with a satin stripe down the side looked back at him. Hell, he was a mess. Hair uncombed, face unshaven…he looked like Chewbacca after a bad night, but what could you expect after six hours on a cowhide-covered rack?

A smile. Damn, yes. A smile, at the very least. Because now, if nothing else, he’d had his life handed back to him.

Gage stomped down the hall and up the curving staircase to the master bedroom.

Okay, maybe he hadn’t seen it that way, at first. Natalie’s announcement had been…upsetting.

Upsetting?

He shot an unforgiving glance down the corridor, towards the guest room and its closed door, where Natalie was still sleeping the sleep of what he supposed she thought of as the innocent and martyred.

“Let’s be honest here,” he muttered as he marched through the master bedroom and into the bathroom.

I want a divorce weren’t exactly the words a man expected to hear from his wife, especially after they’d been going at each other like two teenagers in hormonal overdrive…

Like the two teenagers they’d once been.

Pictures flashed through his head. He and Natalie, parked in his car on Superstition Butte. Natalie, her beautiful face pink and glowing after their first kiss. Natalie, crying out in passion in his arms.

Gage swallowed hard, slammed the bathroom door shut, and pulled off what remained of his rumpled monkey suit.

Sex. That was all it had been, all it had ever been. His father had tried to tell him that. His brothers, too. Well, no. Not Travis. By then, Travis had already taken off for parts unknown. But Slade had tried to make him listen to reason, and Gage had waved off his kid brother’s warnings, laughed them off, really, telling Slade he was too young to understand love, telling his father he was too jaded to understand it.

And now, it was over.

Oh, the heat was still there. For all he knew, it always would be. Natalie was a beautiful, sexy woman. Why pretend otherwise? And he was a man who had an eye for beauty.

Gage glanced at the ornate gold and platinum faucets jutting from the marble sink. Well, for some kinds of beauty. Not stuff like this. He shuddered. This was ugly. But Natalie liked it, the same as she liked the Spanish Inquisition couch.

“All to madam’s tastes, Mr. Baron,” the obsequious little interior decorator had explained any time he’d questioned a purchase.

All of which proved, Gage thought glumly as he stepped into the shower, all of which most definitely proved how little he and Natalie suited each other.

That was why her announcement last night really hadn’t come as such a shock. Well, it had, at first. He’d felt as if the ground were dissolving under his feet when she’d looked at him, her eyes cold, and said, “Gage, I want a divorce.”

“A divorce?” he’d repeated dumbly, as if saying the word might give it some real meaning, turn it into one he could understand.

“Yes,” she’d said. “A divorce.”

And then a bunch of the Holcombs’s guests had come traipsing through the garden, talking and laughing.

What’s the matter with you people? he’d wanted to shout. Don’t you realize that the whole world just stopped?

But he hadn’t said anything, partly because his brain seemed to have gone numb, partly because Natalie had swung away from him and was hurrying towards the gate that led to the beach. He’d gone after her, following as she made her way not to the sea but around the side of the mansion, up the walkway, to the front of the house.

She’d taken the long way. Evidently, she hadn’t been any more interested in pasting on a smile and saying good-night to a bunch of people than he was.

She was already heading for the street by the time he got to the driveway.

“My car,” he said to the kid with the pimples, pulling out the first bill from his pocket. “And make it quick.”

It must have been a hefty tip because the kid took off like a rocket and delivered the car thirty seconds later.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, but Gage was already in the Vette, pulling away, tires screaming as he raced after Natalie.

He slowed when he caught up to her and put down his window.

“Get in the car.”

She ignored him.

“Get in the damn car,” he said, and something in his voice must have warned her that he was in no mood for games because she’d stopped, wrenched open the door and climbed in.

“What does ‘I want a divorce’ mean?” he’d growled.

“It’s not Swahili, Gage. It means exactly what you think it means,” Natalie had replied without looking at him, and she’d sat silent as a statue all the way back to their house, where he’d roared up the driveway and come to a screeching, bone-jarring stop. She was out of the car, into the house, up the stairs in one fluid motion, with him hot on her heels.

“Natalie,” he’d said, “what’s going on here?”

But it was a pointless question. For starters, she didn’t answer it. And even a man as dumb as he could see what was going on here.

Natalie had marched towards the guest suite, not towards the bedroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he’d yelled.

She hadn’t answered that, either, and he’d felt his blood pressure zoom up the scale as the guest room door slammed behind her and the sound of the lock sliding home echoed like a rifle shot through the silent house.

So he’d stood there, hands balled into fists, brows tied in a knot, while the adrenaline pumped through his body at a thousand gallons a minute. Should he go after her? Demand answers? Should he break down the guest room door, break it down and…

And what?

He’d never felt more useless, more frustrated, more furious in his whole life.

And, short of doing something he knew he’d regret later, there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

Except not sleep in the master bedroom.

It wasn’t much, but it was something—something, it turned out, that had come close to breaking his back.

Well, at least it had given him time to think.

Gage shut off the shower, stepped out and strode into the bedroom with a towel tied around his waist.

Natalie wanted out? Fine. So did he. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d been thinking while he’d dressed for the party last night?

What they’d had, what he’d thought they had, just wasn’t there anymore. The truth was, they quarreled all the time. Over everything. Natalie didn’t hurry to the door when he came home. Hell, most of the time she wasn’t even there when he came home, not even after he’d busted his tail flying through five time zones to get to her, the way he’d done a couple of weeks ago after he’d opened the newest Baron’s in Samoa, where he’d had to grin like an idiot while some broad with too many teeth and not enough clothes had propped her boobs against his arm.

“Miss South Pacific,” the hotel manager had hissed into his ear. “It’s good for local business.”

And it would have been good as a little joke to share with Natalie. But the days of shared jokes and smiles were long gone.

Oh, she could still turn him on. There was no question about that. Gage reached into his closet, then stopped.

Except, now that he thought about it, even sex hadn’t been the same lately. There were the nights he thought about reaching for Natalie in bed, but didn’t do it. He was tired. She was tired. But hadn’t there been a time he hadn’t thought about reaching for her, a time he’d just done it? And, after they’d made love, hadn’t there been a time he’d never had to wonder if Natalie had—if she’d—

Gage grabbed for a shirt, a tie, a suit.

What did any of it matter? Last night, tossing on that couch, he’d admitted to himself that she had simply spoken the truth before he had. Their marriage had run its course. Marriages did that in his family. Just look at his old man, tucked in with wife number five. Just look at Travis, one down and swearing he’d never get trapped again.

Gage snorted.

And then there was Slade, who worked at staying single. And Caitlin…well, forget Caitlin. Not because she wasn’t really a Baron by blood but because his stepsister was too smart to even consider becoming a participant in the marriage wars.

Gage stepped into his briefs, pulled on his trousers and zipped them up.

Yessirree, today was the first day of the rest of his life. A life without a wife who’d made it clearer and clearer she didn’t love him.

She had, once. He knew she had. Maybe—maybe, if they hadn’t lost the baby…

His face hardened. The baby had nothing to do with it. Natalie hadn’t really wanted a baby, anyway. He knew that, now. That was something else it was time he admitted.

“Okay,” he said aloud. “It’s over. And I’m damn glad it is.”

“So am I,” Natalie said, and Gage whirled around to face her. His face reddened.

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“So I gather.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t you?”

The coldness in her face was like a blow to the heart. Gage’s mouth thinned.

“Did you want something?” he asked politely.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean…”

What did she mean? If only she hadn’t stumbled in without knocking. If only she hadn’t heard him say those words. He was right, of course. It was over and, dammit, she was as relieved as he was. Only—only he didn’t have to sound so happy…

“Natalie?”

She blinked. Gage had come closer. All she had to do was reach out her hand to touch him…

“Natalie? Are you all right?”

She swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry I barged in on you, Gage. I should have knocked, but the door was open.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have to—”

“You’re busy. I’ll wait until you’re finished and then I’ll—”

“No.” The word shot from his throat. “No,” he said carefully, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not busy at all. I’m just getting dressed.”

Yes. She could see that for herself. He was wearing nothing but a pair of gray trousers, zipped but open at the waist so that they drooped low on his hips. And he’d just come from the shower. His dark hair was still damp and uncombed. It lay over his forehead in a way that made her want to go to him and push it back.

Habit, she thought, and stood straighter. It was habit, too, that made her gaze drop lower, to survey that familiar body. The broad shoulders. The muscled arms and chest. The narrow waist that tapered to long legs…

Her gaze shot back to his face.

“That’s—that’s all right.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll wait.”

“Natalie.” His hand fell on her shoulder as she turned away. “Did you, uh, did you want something?”

“My clothes.” She made a little gesture that took in the white robe, hanging almost to her toes. “I need my clothes.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “I, ah, I thought you might have wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

About what? Gage’s vision clouded. How could she ask that? How could she sound so damned polite?

“About us,” he said tightly. “That’s what I thought you might want to talk about.”

She nodded. “I don’t think there’s anything to say,” she said quietly. “We both know our marriage is over. We’ve known it for a long time. I just finally put it into words last night.”

A muscle knotted in Gage’s jaw. “Of course,” he said politely. “You’re right. Now that I’ve had time to think it over, I know that.”

Natalie forced a smile to her lips. “I just…I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do next.”

“No. Neither am I.” He walked to the bed, where he’d dropped the rest of the clothes he’d taken from the closet. “Talk to a lawyer, I guess.”

“A lawyer.” Natalie stumbled a little over the word. “Yes. Yes, of course. Do we use one or do we use two?”

“Two,” Gage said in that same polite tone. He slipped on his shirt, began doing up the buttons. “Why don’t you call Jim Rutherford?”

“I assumed you’d want Jim.”

Gage shook his head. “That’s okay. You might as well deal with somebody you know. I’ll get someone else.”

“Yes, but…” God, what was wrong with her? What did she care what lawyer he used? His feelings weren’t her problem, not anymore.

“Landon. Grant Landon.”

“Who?”

The name from the past had tumbled from Gage’s lips without warning but now that it had, he knew it made sense. A friend. A real friend, one who’d known him in that long-ago time when he’d stood halfway between the defiance of his abandoned youth and the promise of the man he was to become.

“You met him in New York. I brought him by a couple of times when I was in law school. Remember?”

Did she remember? Natalie almost laughed, or maybe she almost cried. She’d never forget New York. Gage in school, at class all day, bent over his books half the night. She, working at the restaurant where the grease on the griddle probably dated back to pre-history. The little walk-up apartment on Eighth Street, where the water always gurgled in the pipes and the thin walls that transmitted every sound from the apartment next door.

And the joy. The happiness. The wonder of being Gage’s wife, of being able to begin each day seeing his face, of ending each night wrapped in his arms…