Secret Weapon Spouse

Not that he knew anything about women’s clothing, but even he could see that the suit she wore was too large for her slim, small frame, the cut all wrong. She wore it like armor, as if protecting herself, he thought with surprise.

And her hair. It was colored too dark for her pale skin and cut shoulder length, long enough that it often covered part of her face.

And those tortoiseshell glasses. The frames took away from the gold in her brown eyes.

He frowned, wondering why she dressed like that. The woman was too savvy for it to be anything but a calculated choice. Almost as if she was hiding from something, he thought, even more intrigued.

He realized she was looking intently at one of the men’s shirts hanging in the closet. “What is it?”

She let go of the sleeve. “Nothing.”

Like hell. As she came out, he slipped past her to reach for the shirt, wondering what she wasn’t telling him. Was she trying to protect him? Why else wouldn’t she tell him?

One glance at the shirt and he saw it was old, looked more like it might belong to one of the construction workers. “Her fiancé left behind only his old clothes, nothing he would bother to come back for. Is that it?”

She turned from where she had stopped midway into the room. “None of this proves anything.”

“You still want to believe this guy really loves my sister and isn’t just using her, don’t you? I admire your optimism,” he said as he joined her in the middle of the large room. “I guess optimism is something you have to have in your line of work given the divorce rate, but I’ve got to tell you, I don’t like any of this.” He glanced around the room. “What the hell is Caroline doing here? You’ve seen her more than I have the last six months. Doesn’t this strike you as odd?”

Samantha seemed to hesitate. “A little. Maybe.”

He looked at her and shook his head, unable not to smile. He actually did admire her for holding out hope that Preston Wellington III was a good guy with good intentions.

“Earlier today I had the feeling that Caroline wanted to tell me something and that’s why she asked me to meet her at your office.”

“You had no idea what it was?” she asked.

He shook his head. “But I can think of only one reason my sister would be living like this. She’s broke. What if her fiancé has taken all of her money and skipped out on her and that’s what she was going to tell me today?”

Samantha frowned. “But why go to the trouble of moving the wedding up three months if that’s the case?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe she thought she could save the relationship by getting him to the altar sooner.”

“Wouldn’t she just elope if that were the case?”

He laughed at that. “My father would cut her off without a cent of her inheritance if she did. No, she has to go through with the big wedding. It’s required of the only daughter of C. B. Graham and she knows that.”

“They were celebrating something,” Samantha said as she nodded toward an empty champagne bottle and two glasses on a nightstand beside the bed.

He’d been so upset over everything he hadn’t even noticed them until now. What would Caroline and Preston have had to celebrate? “He was probably just saying goodbye and she didn’t know it,” Alex said as he moved closer, noticing the lipstick on the rim of one glass and feeling a horrible sinking feeling as he imagined maybe one of his sister’s last happy moments.

That’s when he saw it.

He let out a curse.

“Nonalcoholic champagne?” Turning, he stalked into the bathroom where he found what he was looking for in the small wastebasket beside the commode.

“Holy hell, Caroline’s pregnant,” he said as he came out of the bathroom and saw Samantha Peters’s expression.

She didn’t look the least bit surprised and he realized she’d already figured it out and was way ahead of him.

Hell, he had the feeling she was way ahead of him on a lot of things.

SAMANTHA SAW ALL THE COLOR suddenly drain from Alex’s face.

He grabbed for his cell phone, panic in his expression. “No! The accident today.” He hurriedly tapped in a set of numbers. “Oh, no.”

Samantha went into the unfinished living room while he called the hospital. She stepped through a break in the plastic and opened one of the windows, needing fresh air as she said a short prayer for Caroline’s baby.

She caught movement from the dark shadows of a building across the street. Someone had been standing there looking up at Caroline’s building. The security guard? She couldn’t be sure. But why wouldn’t he just wait in his car on the street? Unless he needed to relieve himself and couldn’t leave the area until his shift was over.

Behind her she heard the rustle of plastic and said another silent prayer before turning. Alex pulled aside the plastic and stepped through into the dimly lit unfinished room.

She held her breath, afraid.

The confirmation of a pregnancy explained a lot—the change in the wedding plans, the way Caroline had looked yesterday, pale and shaky in Samantha’s office—and, unfortunately, possibly the missing fiancé.

“I just talked to the doctor. The baby’s okay,” he said, breathless and scared but looking relieved.

Samantha released the breath she’d been holding and smiled at him, surprised by the tears that misted her eyes. “I’m so glad.”

He nodded and pushed aside the plastic again so they could step back into the bedroom out of the construction area. She watched him move to the middle of the room, his back to her, as if he didn’t know where to go or what to do next. She knew the feeling.

After a moment, he faced her again and she saw that he was angry. “You knew she was pregnant.”

“I suspected,” she admitted. “She wouldn’t be the first bride to move her wedding up because of a pregnancy.”

His expression softened. “Sorry. I just feel like everyone is keeping things from me, you know?”

She knew.

He raked his hand through his hair, making him look all that much more vulnerable—and irresistible.

The stab of desire took her by surprise. Her first in a long, long time. She smothered it the way she would have a flickering candle. But unlike a candle flame, this still burned, a slow smoldering burn inside her that never let her quite forget.

“I have to admit, when she moved the wedding up three months, I did wonder,” he said and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, then seemed to think better of it and shot back up. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

She glanced back at the champagne glasses and bottle. She would come back. It would be fairly easy given that there was no security system installed in the condo yet and she’d made a point of letting the security guard see her—not that she planned to get caught when she returned.

Looking up, she felt a jolt as she saw that Alex Graham was watching her, frowning slightly—almost as if he could see beneath her oversize suits, the glasses, the dyed hair to the woman she tried so hard to hide.

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