The Millionaire's Cinderella Wife

“You’re doing it again.”

“Maybe because of all the extravagant compliments you’re paying me.”

“And again.”

“Ty, do you or do you not want a divorce?” she blurted out desperately.

“You wouldn’t contest it?”

Okay, Sierra. Don’t sigh. Don’t suck on a lemon.

She lifted her chin, managed not to gust out the big whoosh of air that tightened her chest, and said quietly, “No, of course I wouldn’t contest it.”

“You’ve had eight years to file for one, and you haven’t.”

“No, I haven’t. Neither have you. But I want to, now. It’s way overdue, don’t you think?”

Of course she was right, Ty conceded to himself. About seven years and eight months overdue, probably. He should have filed the papers himself, as soon as he’d realized that she had called his colossal, confident, angry bluff and really wasn’t going to follow him to Stoneport.

But he’d been stubborn about it. That was how he’d dealt with the hurt, by channelling it into sheer pigheaded pride. He wasn’t the one making their marriage impossible. He wasn’t wrong about any of this! Let Sierra take the steps to legally sever their union, if that was what she wanted.

She never had.

He’d been so cocky at twenty-four, so sure of himself, his goals, his decisions. “You know where to find me,” he’d told her.

“And you know where to find me!”

And the hurt and disappointment had eased with time and hard work, the way such things did. The way they must have eased for her, too.

“If it’s so overdue,” he answered her at last, “why haven’t you done something about it long before this? Why did it take some frothy magazine article to bring you here?”

She colored and shrugged, and paused for almost as long as Ty had, before she answered. “Let’s just label it a wake-up call, shall we? Principles have a limited shelf life, I’ve discovered.”

“Principles?” The word startled him. “Whose principles?”

“I’m not the one who walked out of our marriage. I’m not the one who wanted it to end. You did, Ty. So the divorce should have been up to you.”

“I never walked out of our marriage! I walked out of Landerville.”

“That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t! I was pretty clear on that at the time, I thought. There was no future for me there. Not one that could possibly have made me happy. I needed this.” He swept his arm around, encompassing his world.

“What’s ‘this’?” She hooked her fingers around the word to make the quotation marks.

“The ocean, the boats, a chance to make a future for myself in a place where I wasn’t just that more-or-less-orphaned Garrett boy who might get as far as managing the hardware store some day, if the love-struck mayor’s daughter from the right side of the tracks could keep him honest. But you still don’t get any of that, do you?”

“No, I don’t. Dad never looked at you that way.”

“The rest of Landerville did.”

“You weren’t just asking me to turn my back on a few narrow-minded attitudes. You were asking me to—” She stopped. Her cheeks were pink and angry and her dark eyes flashed. “A family is not something you can just walk away from, Ty. My family was not something I could just walk away from.”

He sat up straighter. “I don’t consider—I’ve never considered—that I was asking you to do that.”

“Just listen to us!”

Sierra did the lemon thing with her mouth again and he couldn’t find an answer. Yeah, listen to them! Back to square one. Back eight years to exactly what had slammed them apart in the first place.

She was so right. The divorce was overdue.

She sat there looking at him over the rim of her cappuccino cup and he took a moment to assess the changes in her. She’d been stunningly beautiful, to his eyes, when they’d gotten married twelve years ago. That graceful figure, as lean as a catwalk model’s. That creamy skin. That wide, expressive mouth. That dark, straight, silky hair, flowing like a satin waterfall down her back. Those big, slightly exotic brown eyes—a throw-back to some distant Cherokee heritage on her mother’s side.

And she was still beautiful. The hair was the same, only kept a little shorter and folded into an efficient pleat high on the back of her head, this morning. The figure was a touch more womanly beneath its conservative olive and beige top and skirt, but if there was a man in this world who didn’t like a few feminine curves in the right places, then that man wasn’t him.

Her eyes and her mouth and her skin?

Yeah, beautiful.

Stunning.

Except…

She looked tired, at certain moments. Stressed. Angry? Unhappy?

And her eyes and mouth and skin were the places where the problems showed, whatever they were. The sucking on a lemon thing. A tightness to her skin which sketched out to the world where her wrinkles would some day appear. A way of narrowing those dark eyes so that the fire deep inside them almost looked as if it had gone out.

If the limbo of their non-marriage gave an explanation for any of this, all the more reason to get it dealt with so that both of them could get on with their lives.

Ty gulped some coffee and took a bite of the cherry and cream cheese Danish, wondering how best to get down to the nitty gritty of lawyers and such.

They had no kids, no joint property acquired during their four years together. And Sierra had never been the grasping type. On the contrary she was far too generous for her own good at times. She would never stake any kind of a claim on the wealth he’d acquired since their split, and even if she did no judge would award it to her.

He leaned closer to her across the table. “There’s no reason why this can’t be simple and amicable and quickly dealt with, right? Since it’s what we both want?”

“No reason at all,” she agreed.

“Then, yes, let’s get it taken care of, get the ball rolling, before you head back.”

“I’d appreciate that,” she said. “No fuss.”

“No going over old ground.”

“No. Because we’ve—”

“Ty?” said a musical female voice that he recognized, and Sierra didn’t get a chance to finish.

Ty looked away from her tight face to find A-list journalist Lucy Little smiling at him, much more casually dressed than Sierra in clam-diggers and a tight little black tank. She seemed as relaxed and at home as if she lived here, even though Ty had had no idea she’d planned to come back to Stoneport once she’d completed the magazine story that was causing all the current trouble.

He wasn’t thrilled to see her, especially not at this moment. Sierra still looked so tight and emotional on the other side of the table, and his own feelings were attacking his sense of certainty like a guerilla-style ambush.

Before he could react to Lucy’ greeting, she leaned down, cupped her hand around his jaw and kissed him European style, once on each cheek. The second kiss caught the corner of his mouth and trailed away slowly enough to signal unmistakable interest, and he remembered a couple of cryptic comments she’d made about professional boundaries and personal needs during the three days she’d spent here last month.

Okay…

He couldn’t remember the exact wording, but the intent was much clearer, now. Their professional interaction was done with. Roll in the personal needs. Apparently all her questions about the state of his private life while she was researching the article hadn’t simply related to the banner Bachelor of the Year headline he’d disliked so much.

“Lucy,” he said, hiding what he felt behind the customary warmth he gave to clients. After all, the article had brought a serious surge in his cash flow. And it had brought Sierra, with her necessary wake-up call. “It’s great to see you back in town.”

“It’s great to be here. You knew I would be, didn’t you?” She looked at him through flirty lashes.

She pulled a chair across from the adjoining table and sat down, angling herself so that her veiled curiosity about Sierra wafted across one of her bare shoulders for a moment, disguised as a smile, then wafted away again. Sierra gave an uncertain smile in return, and took refuge in her muffin.

“I could have called, I know,” Lucy said, her smile disarming and self-mocking now. “But I had to come find out in person whether you’re pleased about the reaction to the article. We’ve had a ton of feedback at our end, let me tell you!” She gave a gurgly little laugh. “An astonishing number of e-mails and calls from women wanting your contact details. My editor is threatening me with a follow-up story.”

“Threatening you?”

She pouted her mouth. “I’m technically on vacation time, this visit. Don’t you remember what I said about professional boundaries, before?”

Yeah, he did.

Unfortunately.

The journalist wasn’t his type. Nothing to do with her looks. Dark and willowy like Sierra, Lucy could have been her sister. But he’d never responded to the combination of little-girl giggles, seductive body language and man-eating aggression that she displayed.

He’d been as warm and courteous to her as their roles required, while she was working on the article, but apparently she’d read too much into that, and now he’d have to set her straight. At least the dozens of women who’d tried to flirt with him over the past couple of weeks had given him plenty of practice at getting his message across.

“What more could you possibly say in a follow up story?” he asked her, a little too blunt about it.

“Well, the reaction, of course. The women. A-list is primarily a celebrity gossip magazine, Ty, and you’re a celebrity now.”

Like hell he was!

“My fifteen minutes of fame?” he drawled.

“A lot longer than that, if you play it right.” She sketched it all out, in far more detail than he wanted, while he gulped a refill of his coffee. Apparently, this could change his life.

No, thanks.

He liked his life just the way it was, apart from the small problem of needing an overdue divorce.

“Can I get back to you on that?” he said to Lucy, regretting again that he’d ever agreed to the original article.

He should have researched the magazine itself in more detail. He should have asked for the right to review and veto the article before it appeared. His main reason for agreeing to it had been to publicize issues about boating safety that he felt strongly about, particularly after the dramatic ocean rescue that could have cost four lives, and when he’d talked about all this to Lucy, she’d expressed only wide-eyed, enthusiastic agreement.

Boating safety? Of course! That couple should never have been out on the water by themselves in those conditions, for sure, and Ty was such a hero.

When the article had contained precisely one six-word quote from him on the risks he was concerned about, she’d apologized and talked about “my editor” and “cutting for length” and he’d taken her words at face value. Now, he wondered. He’d been uncharacteristically naive.

And he wondered, too, what would happen if he turned down a second article, point blank. Publicity and celebrity were two-edged swords. Never having experienced either on a major level, he’d over-looked this fact six weeks ago. But it didn’t take much imagination or experience, now, to realize that one deliberately negative story could turn the tide of a successful business and threaten to destroy everything he’d achieved and worked for.

“I’m on vacation time,” Lucy repeated. “Ten days. I told my editor I’d approach you regarding the second article, but nothing would be set in stone until my vacation’s over. Even then, I might hand the story on to a colleague. Boundaries, remember?” Again, her eyes glinted at him through her lowered lashes. “My integrity as a journalist means I have to be objective, and…well…it’s hard to be objective in certain positions…I mean situations.”

Her giggly, suggestive tone reminded him of the recent and unfortunate sailor suit woman who wanted to be “handled personally.” His heart sank.

Gina appeared again, leading two women to the adjacent table, from which Lucy had stolen her chair. She stood, apologized and slid it back. The two women sat down in a flurry of bag rummaging and menu shuffling and questions to each other about their sunglasses, all of which somehow managed to give them several long and unsubtle opportunities to look in Ty’s direction.

Gina mouthed at him, “Sorry. Last table,” and he realized that the place had filled up without him noticing.

There were a few regulars and a couple of tourist families, but most of the clientele was female, aged somewhere between twenty and forty, and every single one of them had either his Garrett Marine Sailing School brochure or his Stoneport Seafront Gallery brochure or his Nautilus Restaurant brochure in their hands.

He’d had each brochure printed with his own scrawled handwriting and signature. “Welcome to my world! Ty Garrett.” An astonishing number of women had taken him at his word.

“I should catch you later when we’ll have more time,” Lucy said.

Deprived of her seat, she obviously felt that she lacked panache, standing there. People were craning past the fish tank to look at her. And at Sierra and Ty. And he was by this time a lot more familiar with this neck-prickling awareness of public attention than he’d ever wanted to be.

“Here’s where I’m staying.” Lucy flipped him a card with the address and phone number of an upmarket bed-and-breakfast. “But I’ll call you, so we can set something up.” She gurgled her laugh once more. “Maybe I’ll even take a private sailing class.”

No.

This whole thing had to stop.

Now.

And he had to stop it at the source with something that neither Lucy nor anyone else in Stoneport could ignore.

Across the table, Sierra had quirked her mouth into a variation of the lemon thing that Ty couldn’t interpret beyond a general sense that she wasn’t impressed, and he realized that she represented the only obvious, tangible, workable solution to his current problem. If he didn’t act at once, though, it would be too late. It wouldn’t carry conviction.

He had to say it now, or not say it at all.

“Before you go, Lucy,” he said, his voice as smooth and casual as he could make it. “I want you to meet Sierra, the most important woman in my life and, I should tell you, the reason you won’t be able to call the next article Bachelor of the Year II.”

“Oh, really?” Lucy cooed, with a dazzling, clueless smile. Clearly, she was still a couple of steps behind.

“Yes, really.” He reached across the table and covered Sierra’s smooth, pretty hand with his. He would have caressed her if he hadn’t been so sure she’d snatch her hand away. “Because Sierra is my wife.”

Chapter Two

“Just tell me, if it’s not too much trouble, what that was for, Ty Garrett!” Sierra said to her soon-to-be ex-husband, through clenched teeth, as soon as the A-list journalist had gathered her shredded composure—her big-selling, drop-dead gorgeous Bachelor of the Year already, excuse me, had a wife?—and managed a more or less upright exit.

“Shh! Not yet,” Ty answered. “Not here. Let’s go.”

He stood up and grabbed tighter onto the hand Sierra was trying to snatch away. Then he gave a quick tilt of his head to Gina to say they were leaving, and began to weave his way confidently between the tables toward the café’s kitchen door. At least a dozen pairs of female eyes tracked their progress, and as she followed him Sierra heard several whispered comments.

“That’s him!”

“Lordy, what a body!”

“I have a private two-hour sail-boat cruise with him tomorrow…”

“Not here?” Sierra echoed, as the swing door closed behind them, shutting off the whisperings and the looks. The sounds and sights of a busy kitchen took their place. “Okay, Ty, we’ve tried your office, we’ve tried your café. What’s next down the list?”

“Have to be my place, I guess,” he said.

Well, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?

She didn’t know why it bothered her to think of continuing this confrontation with Ty on what was indisputably his own personal turf, but somehow it did. Maybe because she was too curious. She wanted to know what kind of a home he had set up for himself.

Sierra had gone back to live with Dad and her brother and sisters after the split and, because of their various needs, she was still there. In contrast, with no family ties and no budget constraints, Ty had only his own taste and lifestyle to consult. Did he inhabit a sterile bachelor pad? A designer decorated mansion? A permanent hotel suite?

She didn’t want to feel so curious about him, when they’d just agreed on a divorce. Still less did she want to think that there might be any threat to her emotional health in being alone with him. She was over all that. She had to be, for her own well-being.

So why this sense of nerves jumping in her stomach, and pulses jumping everywhere else? Purely because this morning had been so much more complicated than she’d initially hoped?

The best solution would be to discuss everything they needed to discuss in private at Ty’s, then get back to her motel, check out and leave town.

Still following in his wake, Sierra exited through the café’s service doors and found herself in the access lane that backed the waterfront buildings. Since the lane largely serviced the various Garrett Marine businesses, she wasn’t surprised to find it comparatively clean and well ordered.

The only item out of place was an ancient mud-brown sedan, parked crookedly so that it almost grazed the back wall of the next building and just left room for the delivery truck nosing its way past. The vehicle seemed to be one small step above a junk-heap shell, with dented panels, rusted bumpers and a silhouette that was thirty years out of style.

She nearly gasped out loud in disbelief when Ty aimed a key right for its passenger side lock.

“Decoy and get-away car,” he explained, so apparently she actually had gasped out loud.

“This is—”

“The car I was driving when I left Ohio, yes.”

“It looks—”

“Even worse. First three years here, it was the only car I could afford. I was plowing every cent that I could into the business, back then.”

He opened the door for her and nudged her into the front seat with a gentlemanly gesture. She would have resisted, except that a glance at the interior told her it was neat and clean and—good grief!—upholstered with glove-soft taupe leather seats.

“Appearances can be deceiving, I guess,” she drawled.

“Yeah, well, the original upholstery cracked and tore, and it seemed like I might as well replace it with something decent.”

“I don’t know why you kept this car at all.”

Loyalty? Sentimentality? Was Ty like that?

“Told you, as a decoy,” he said, as he arrived in the driver’s seat. “Don’t always want the whole town to know my movements. Which tend to be fairly obvious when I’m driving the Porsche.”

“I wish you’d been as concerned for your privacy when A-list approached you about the article.”

“Damn straight!” he drawled. “One issue we agree on, at least. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.”

“So why that ridiculous announcement to the journalist, just now? If you want privacy in your personal life, why tell the world that you have a wife, especially when we’re not going to be married a day longer than we have to be?”

“You saw what it was like, back there. And I’m sure your ears are as good as mine, so you heard, too. I’ve had it up to here, seriously, and notifying a very vocal journalist of the truthful fact that you and I are married seemed like a handy tool for dealing with it. You’ll notice she didn’t hang around.”

“She’s pretty.”

“She’s not my style. Neither was the sailor suit gal this morning. And none of the others were, either. And it’s not how I’d choose to start a relationship, in any case, even if there had been a woman who’d made my heart stop beating and my breathing get stuck from the moment I first looked at her.”

What would it be like, Sierra wondered, her own heart syncopating suddenly, to have Ty feel that way about her? Once upon a time he had. But he’d moved on since then, a lot farther than she had. His words hadn’t been intended as a reminder, she knew. It was purely her problem that she’d taken them that way.

She said quickly, “The hordes might flood back again when they find out we’re getting a divorce.”

“Who’s going to tell them?”

“People tend to notice when there’s no visible evidence of a wife in a man’s life, no?”

Ty swivelled in the driver’s seat to face her. The car still sat crookedly in the lane, challenging the driving skills of another delivery man hard on the tail of the first, but he ignored the guy’s problems and fixed her with a very serious, narrow-eyed gaze. It took him around four seconds to think the problem through.

“Then can I beg you on my bended knees to stick around for a bit, Sierra?” he said. “Help me out with this?”

“Stick around? Help? You mean act like we’re still really married? Are you joking?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Work it out, and get back to me.”

She put her hand on the door, intending to climb out, but he leaned across and stopped her, laying one arm across both of hers. She froze. His bare arm brushed her stomach, and would brush her breasts if she leaned just a little bit.

At one time they’d been way more intimate with each other than this, so she shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about it. Problem was, his touch opened up too many memories, and too many lost possibilities.

“I’m not joking, okay?” he said, with his voice dropped low. “I want this whole situation to go away, and that pushy, man-eating journalist’s attitude just now, on top of everything else, made me realize it’s not going to, not on its own. Or not before it’s driven me crazy, anyhow. I’m not the type to get my head down and wait out a storm.”

“No…”

“I like to take action. I need to. You knew that about me eight years ago.” True. “And it hasn’t changed. So I’m asking for help.”

“Now, that has changed,” she couldn’t help saying.

“What has?”

“You asking me for help.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s never happened before.”

He shrugged, dismissing her claim as either untrue or unimportant, but she had a strong inkling in the back of her mind that he was wrong on both counts. “Well, it’s happening now,” he said. “Stay. Couple of weeks.”

“I—I can’t.”

“You’re on school summer break. Your family can manage without you. Some people consider Stoneport a great place for a vacation.”

“I don’t need a vacation.”

He ignored the statement. “My place is big enough for us to keep out of each other’s way,” he said. “And I’ll be in my office or on the water most days. The only thing I’ll ask is for us to go out together a handful of times. In the Porsche, so that we’re noticed. Make it real romantic, so that everyone gets the idea. When the heat fades, we can each see a lawyer, and you can head back to Ohio with a new tan and some friendly divorce papers in your suitcase.”

It sounded easy, when he put it like that, yet Sierra still told him, “That’s insane.”

Probably because her inner reaction was insane. Her heart shouldn’t race like this. Her head shouldn’t spin. And she should absolutely not consider for a second that he was offering her a second chance at their marriage, because he wasn’t, and neither of them wanted one.

After eight years?

When even without the A-list article he probably had half a dozen beautiful, eligible, perfect women dangling after him at any given moment?

And, most important of all, when none of their reasons for splitting up in the first place had changed?

“It’s not insane,” he told her. “It’s practical. There’s no risk, is there, if we try this? After all, we’re already married, and on the verge of a divorce that any sane person could have predicted before the ink on our marriage certificate was dry. Nothing worse we can do to each other than that!”