Wanted: Wife (6 page)

Denny winced, holding up his hand. “Ease up on the metaphors.
Please
.”

“As silly as you think it sounds, I thought it might make an interesting book.”

“So now you’re all,
Eat, Pray, Love
? Sweetheart, it’s so been done.”

I waved him off. “The point is, I’ve been wanting to write something serious for a while now, but my weird little stories were hardly life-altering enough.”

“So, you thought a trip into Dali-wood with that fop would be?”

“I’d hoped it would, until my life exploded a couple days ago. But you know what they say—when life tosses you lemons, make lemonade.”

He scowled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Look, remember that writer we did a story on over the winter?”

After a moment, he said, “The one who typed with her feet?”

“Right. And remember how her editor said if I ever wanted to write a book about my stories to give her a call?” He gave me a blank stare. “Oh come on—Mina Riley! From Haughton House. She was thinking a book of essays. Ring a bell?”

“Vaguely,” he said testily.

“I had figured I’d send her the Bhutan book, so I called her this afternoon and pitched this utility pole wife thing instead. Denny . . .” I poked his leg. “She went
nuts
.”

Actually, it had been more like, “Are
you
nuts?” The editor had paused for a moment, laughing out loud. “Jesus, Julie, when I said I thought I could sell a book of your crazies I didn’t mean you had to turn into one! Are you kidding me?”

“No, really I’m not.” And I had truly affected dead-certainty, even though deep-down the whole thing still felt like a beyond-the-pale prank. “Tell me a better way I could get the real story without becoming it?”

“But even immersion writing has its limits. My God . . .” Mina sighed deeply. “Does this Andy know what you want to do?”

“Not yet, but he will. I intend to be completely transparent about it.” Well, not in
everything
, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Because if he doesn’t, you’re skirting fraud, especially if . . .” She cleared her throat. “If I may ask, you
are
going to be his wife in every sense of the word, right?”

“Absolutely.” Though it was the one aspect that gave me pause; he was just so overwhelmingly
male
. “Even if I have to risk pregnancy.”

“What?” I heard a bang, as if she’d dropped her phone. “Are you serious?”

“I assure you I am.”

She laughed. “Oh my dear girl, do you have any idea what you’d be setting yourself up for? If I were you, I’d take some time and think about this very carefully.”

“Actually, Mina, time is the last thing I have. Andy’s only given me ‘til tomorrow to decide.” When she sighed I went in for the kill. “I’ve already prepared a proposal. Do you think if I sent it right over you can get me an answer today? And . . .”
Oh what the hell, this whole thing was insane so why not?
“A bit of an advance for mad money?”

It took a bit of convincing, but in the end she decided that anyone who had the nerve to go through with such a scheme deserved a shot. “But you better let me know how you’re doing now and then,” she had said. “I’m
not
financing Bluebeard.”

“So,” I said to Denny, cramming another skirt into the suitcase, “she just sent me the approval. I have five grand coming right away and another thirty when I finish.” I held up the contract. “I’m mailing it in the morning.”

“Good Lord . . .” he breathed, “she’s as crazy as you.”

“Denny, listen. What makes a man who looks like him, who’s financially secure and obviously intelligent, pick a wife like he’s buying a car? It just doesn’t make sense. There’s
got
to be more to him than the fancy packaging. I’m figuring it’s something big.”

“So if it’s a Pulitzer you’re after, I’m sure you don’t have to sign your life away.”

“Who says I am? You remember what he said: ninety day guarantee. If it doesn’t work out, I’d walk away with a nice severance.”

Denny stared at me like I’d truly lost it. “You’re doing it for the
money
?”

“I never intend to take a penny from him. I’m doing it for the
story
. But if I’m not part of it, no one, including this editor, will buy it. And if I happen to tarnish a certain scumbucket agent’s reputation in the process?” I tossed my hands. “Oh, well. Because I’m sure not going to let him ruin mine. As far as anyone will ever know, I dumped him
because of
our divine Mr. Devine.”

He seemed to accept that but only for a moment. “Just make sure your little plan doesn’t blow up in your face.”

“It’ll never get that far,” I said, tossing the journal into the suitcase. “Three months is plenty of time to get the skinny, and to make it seem like I gave the marriage a go. So save me a seat at your Thanksgiving table.”

“And what if he falls in love with you? Or worse, you fall in love with him?”

I shot him my iciest glare. “The contract says our marriage is a business agreement and that’s fine with me. After Richard, I’m never falling in love again.”

He laughed. “As if you ever have a choice.”

I sat on the suitcase, clicking it shut. “I always have before.”

“Then you’ve never been in love. Because when you are, there
is
no choice.”

I wasn’t about to argue; love was beside the point anyway. Especially the next day at the diner, when Andy leaned back in the booth and all the muscles in his chest strained beneath his polo. With the bright morning sun streaming through the windows, accentuating the strong bones of his face, I thought:
Who could think of love when all your lust impulses are on fire?

“I suppose I do owe you a story,” Andy said.

“That you do,” I said, smoothing the folds of my halter dress, resisting the urge to add
and I intend to make it my best one ever
. “Who knows? It might even be pretty lucrative. We might make some money on this.”

He shook his head. “If we do, you keep it. I have all the money I need.” He pushed aside a manila envelope. “May I ask you a personal question?”

I laughed. “Like ‘Will you marry me?’ wasn’t personal enough?”

His mouth crooked. “You’re right. I suppose it’s all downhill from there.”

I tilted my head, feeling coquettish. His faint accent, wherever it came from, was doing a number on me. “I’m being facetious.” I took a sip of water. “Go ahead.”

He paused a moment. “You recently became—how shall we say—
disengaged
, and story aside, I was wondering how much bearing that had on your decision.”

Canny, wasn’t he? “A fair question, but the answer is, none at all.”

“Hm.” He considered that a moment. “It’s just that I know I can be . . .” he smiled subtly, “rather
insistent
at times.”

“That you were.” I said, recalling how he loomed over me. “But I can make up my own mind, thank you.”

“I’m sure. But I don’t want you marrying me because you feel you don’t have any recourse.”

Something Denny said about this being the best offer I’d had in a while crossed my mind, and if he were there I would’ve smacked him. “I assure you, it’s not.”

“Was it your decision to break the engagement?”

Annika’s fat little face wormed its way into my head. “No. But if I knew then what I know now, I’d be breaking more than our engagement.”

“So you’re still angry.”

Now here I could be completely honest. “Damn right I am. The man locked me out of our apartment, froze our joint account, and got my TV contract cancelled.” I slid my water toward me, surprised I had already drained it. “Plus he left me for a woman he’s probably been seeing all along. So if you ask me if I’m angry, I think I have a right to be. But if you’re insinuating I’m still in love with him, you’re dead wrong.”

A little muscle on the side of his cheek twitched. “I would never insinuate, but that last bit is good to know. I loathe competition.”

I wanted to add something witty, but when those beautiful eyes crinkled and his mouth edged into a smile, all I could do was laugh. I relaxed almost immediately. “Oh, Andy, I doubt if anyone could remotely compete with you.”

He laughed softly, inclining his head. “Thank you.”

“For the compliment or for agreeing to marry you?”
He had a tiny mole just below his right ear.

“For agreeing to marry me, for having breakfast with me . . .” His gaze washed over my face, and my stomach fluttered. “For being so clever and so adventurous. But also, for finally calling me Andy.”

There went that flutter again. My God, the man was charming. “Well . . . it’s the least I can do. We
are
engaged.”
There. I said it
.

“That we are.” He signaled for the server. “Shall we have something to eat?”

Food was the furthest thing from me at the moment, but . . . “I suppose I should. Maybe something light?”

“I know just the thing.” And a few minutes later, we were breakfasting on coffee, croissants and fresh Jersey cantaloupe. “Enough?” he asked.

“Plenty,” I said, spooning into my half-melon. “Now, may I take a turn at the personal questions?”

“Certainly,” he said, tearing off a bit of croissant and smearing it with jam before popping it into his mouth. “Ask me anything.”

If he really meant that, then I hardly knew where to begin. Charmingly anachronistic or not, I had already caught on to how cagey he could be. “Even though I’ve agreed to marry you, I do need to know a bit more about you before I do. Your little fact sheet was rather spare, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Why give away company secrets before you hire for the job? But since you
are
hired . . .” He finished the last bit of his croissant, and then tore into another. “I’m forty years old, this past May. I was born in Iron Bog and lived there until I was thirteen. Then my parents divorced and I moved to Le Havre with my mother.”

Why I hadn’t caught on sooner was beyond me. “You’re French?”

“So, you’ve finally figured me out,” he said with a wry smile. “By ancestry, on both sides, but I’ve been on the sea so long, it’s hard to call any country home.”

“And a sailor, too.”

He laughed. “I come from a long line of merchant seamen: my father, my grandfather, his father, too. Sooner or later, though, we all end up in dry dock. Like when my father died this past spring, leaving me the farm.”

“Which is why, like them, you figured it’s time to come home and settle down?”

Something unreadable flashed behind those eyes. “The farm’s been in my father’s family for a hundred and fifty years. It was only logical that when I married, I’d come here.”

Logical
. “So your mother left . . .”

“Yes.” Andy stiffened almost imperceptibly, his spoon digging into his cantaloupe. “My mother missed her family and the bustle of the ports.” Then his gaze shot to mine. “Sometimes the silence of the woods can be deafening.”

It was a warning, and I knew it. But I also knew I wouldn’t be living there the rest of my life. “I’m from the city. Silence will be a welcome diversion.”

“It’s good you feel that way. You’ll be getting a lot of it.” He waved his hand dismissively, lightening the mood. “Anyway, I, too, went to sea after university, and—”

“Where did you go? College, I mean.”

“Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille,”
he said in such perfectly accented Gallic, my head spun.

“Marseille’s also a port city, right?”

“On the Mediterranean. Just couldn’t get away from the sea.” His mouth crooked. “But that’s the marvelous thing about New Jersey, isn’t it? You’re never too far from it.”

“A fact appreciated in Philadelphia as well. But come on, Andy, let’s be honest.” I leaned into him, affecting my most seductive interviewing mien. “You’re a handsome guy. Why would you think you needed to pick a wife the way you did?”

He blinked; for a moment I thought I’d caught him. At what I wasn’t sure, but there had to be more than he was letting on. “Why fool around with pretense? I want to get married and have children. So I went looking for someone who felt the same way. I knew if I were up-front about my expectations, the right woman would come to me. Was I right?”

“Well, yeah . . .” My second warning. He was certainly setting the ground rules, wasn’t he? Yet big story or not, I had my own as well. “But what
are
your expectations? Besides the obvious, I mean. I hope they won’t always be more important than mine.”

“Since our marriage will be based on
similar
expectations, I would never make you do anything we didn’t absolutely agree on. But you should also know this:”—his eyes darkened— “I’m a practical man, Ms. Knott. And a realistic one, too. I’m harboring no romantic illusions about this. We’re both in it for the same thing—our own self-interests, so if you have any reservations, please let me know now.”

A bit jarring to have it brought down to that level, but there wasn’t much I could argue with. “No,” I said, just as gravely. “How about you?”

“I know what I want when I see it. But I’ve also seen how devastating a bad marriage can be. That’s why I’m not only documenting these expectations up front, but I’m also giving us a way out if we find we’re not up to them. Still, I want you to know that even if our marriage doesn’t work out, I’ll take care of you. If anyone ever tries to harm you again . . .” His hand tightened around the mug. “They’ll have to answer to me.”

He left no doubt who he was referring to. “I appreciate that, but last I looked, no one’s chasing me with a hatchet. I think I can take care of myself.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment. Which makes me wonder . . . why give up everything to retreat to the woods and marry me?”

Should I tell him I had no intention of staying married? That even though we were starting out on a trial marriage, the idea of it ever being permanent didn’t enter in the equation? That it was all for the story, that it was
only
for the story, and I could justify it by knowing I’d never take a penny of his money? It wasn’t lying. Omission was hardly the same thing. So naturally, I tossed the question back to him.