A Wife by Accident Read online

  A Wife by Accident

  Victoria Ashe

  A WIFE BY ACCIDENT

  Copyright © 2011 by Victoria Ashe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any way by any means without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Please note that if you have purchased this book without a cover or in any way marked as an advance reading copy, you have purchased a stolen item, and neither the author nor the publisher has been compensated for their work.

  Our books may be ordered through your local bookstore or by visiting the publisher:

  www.BlackLyonPublishing.com

  Black Lyon Publishing, LLC

  PO Box 567

  Baker City, OR 97814

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, events, organizations and conversations in this novel are either the products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used in a fictitious way for the purposes of this story.

  ISBN-10: 1-934912-35-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-934912-35-5

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011921967

  Written, published and printed in the United States of America.

  Black Lyon Contemporary Romance

  For inspirations.

  Chapter One

  “I hate my job.” Hayely Black clenched her fist around a tangle of clothes hangers. She twirled the latest addition to her boss’ considerable wardrobe out of the front seat and onto her arm.

  “I hate my job,” she repeated to herself as she struggled to balance a stack of oversized boxes on the other arm.

  “And—” She paused and bumped the rickety car door shut with her hip. “I hate my job.”

  She couldn’t even see to walk, much less put one foot in front of the other safely. She just knew if she fell and broke a leg carrying out Kathy L. Mark’s errands, the woman would probably fire her for looking unprofessional with a cast that didn’t match her skirt.

  Hayely struggled with the boxes as a gust of wind threatened to knock them out of her hands. No, a year ago she would have never taken a job working for a woman like Kathy. But if she had to choose between putting up with the abuse to keep a steady paycheck or running back home with her tail between her legs—well, she couldn’t even consider the latter.

  With the packages precariously balanced, she took a few more baby steps, peered out from behind the stack, and moved cautiously forward. So far, so good. Now if she could just make it around the corner and inside to the elevator, someone in the office would no doubt see her and help.

  Hayely took a step forward and then another, when the impact of something very large and hard slammed against her. The next thing she knew, the boxes went flying up, hitting her in the face as they fell. The force of whatever she’d just run into pushed her backward with the packages and she wobbled atop her high heels before finally catching her balance.

  The overpriced clothing was still draped over her arm. Good. She breathed in deeply. At least she hadn’t dropped that. She looked down at the ground in front of her. The lids on the boxes had held tight. This was her lucky day, she thought, and then her gaze froze.

  A pair of well-worn, brown leather work boots with rugged black soles caught her eye. The realization struck her that this was no wall she’d run into at all. Almost afraid to see who was wearing those boots, she tucked her chocolate-brown hair back behind her ear and slowly took in the crisp new jeans. Hayely’s heart pounded furiously.

  “I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I couldn’t see you.” She panicked and started to take a step back. She’d started to feel bad about plowing over some poor man until she saw the collision hadn’t budged him an inch. A wall, she realized, would have experienced about the same level of damage.

  He put his hands out with his palms facing her. “Don’t—”

  “Really, I didn’t mean to.”

  Was he going to grab her? She’d heard about criminals targeting women who didn’t look like they could get away quickly. And Kathy’s boxes had ensured that. She took another step of retreat.

  “—back up,” he finished.

  Horrified, Hayely looked down at her feet. Somehow her attacker theory began to slip away the second that awful grinding, popping noise sounded from under her shoe. She grimaced visibly.

  “Not much for listening, are you?”

  Hayely lifted her foot and stared blankly at the crushed pile of golden metal and glass on the pavement. “Think there’s any chance a little superglue might do the trick?” She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the face.

  “That was a twelve-thousand-dollar watch.”

  Hayely’s pulse raced. Twelve thousand dollars? That was almost half a year’s salary to her. If she were the fainting kind, she’d have been flat on the ground next to the remains of the watch. The man’s voice held a quiet rumble of power in it, as if when he used that tone there was no doubt he would talk his way into getting exactly what he wanted. His voice reminded her of a river, rushing deep and strong around boulders in its path, wearing them away slowly.

  “You’re kidding? You have insurance for it? I hope.” She closed her eyes as he approached her. Please let him be insured.

  “I just bought it five minutes ago. So, no. There’s no insurance.” He held out a receipt for an item that cost a sum with more zeros on the end than she cared to count.

  Hayely opened her eyes and looked from the piece of paper up to his face. He didn’t seem as angry as she would have been in his place. She checked to see if his lips were clenched together into a tight line. The way a man held his mouth could reveal his emotions—thank goodness this particular man’s mouth still seemed relaxed. The corners of it even turned up just a bit. His hazel eyes didn’t looked crazed with fury either, but he certainly wasn’t letting her escape his narrowed gaze.

  “And I knocked it out of your hand and stepped on it?”

  He nodded.

  “You didn’t just drop it? It wasn’t already broken?”

  He shook his head the other way and crossed his arms over his plaid-shirted chest.

  She ran her hand over her forehead and felt a tiny indentation where the corner of the box had found its mark. “Well, I don’t know what to do about it.”

  He unfolded his arms. “You could try offering to pay me back for starters.”

  “Look, Mr.—”

  “Tarleton. Gary Tarleton.” He held out his hand to shake hers.

  Hayely took his hand and was surprised his touch comforted her, finishing off her nagging fears of being mugged. In fact, her insides did a funny little flip-flop as she felt the warm skin and rough calluses brush against her fingers.

  “I’m Hayely Black and there’s no way on God’s green earth I’ll be able to pay that much money back. I just don’t have those kinds of funds at my fingertips anymore.”

  “Don’t you have a job?” Gary asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Ever see what an executive assistant makes?” she asked.

  “You’re a secretary then. Can’t you get a higher paying job?” His arrogant expression told her it ought to be simple for her to just run out to the nearest company and take over the keys to the executive washroom.

  “What do you think? I have exactly one month of work experience to my name, and I had to start somewhere.”

  She hadn’t meant to run into him. She hadn’t meant to break his watch. And he wanted to lecture her on career advancement? What was she? A magnet for people who wanted to launch into this subject? This guy would get along great with her father.

  Gary scraped his hand across his rough, stubble-covered chin. “Monthly installments then.”

>   Hayely shook her head and thought of the two-weeks-past-due electricity bill on her kitchen table. “My paycheck barely covers the bills. I have to eat, too, you know.” Of course he didn’t know. The man bought twelve-thousand-dollar watches.

  “How about getting a loan?”

  “No collateral,” she countered.

  “From a family member?”

  “Definitely not.”

  If she ran back to her family for help with anything, her father would have her married to a wealthy old-money millionaire and registered for Harvard medical school before she could blink. She could hardly imagine anything she was less interested in.

  “Do you have any better ideas then?” That gentle, gruff roll in his voice told Hayely that the man—Gary was still calm. Maybe twelve thousand dollars wasn’t all that important to him after all.

  Hayely shook her head miserably and her shoulder-length brown hair slipped out from behind her ears. “No. I’m all out of ideas.”

  Gary stood and scrutinized her for a moment. “In this job of yours, I assume you do some supply ordering, some shopping?” he finally asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  He ignored her question. “How’s your sense of style?” He surveyed her suit and saw that it matched her shoes, which was good enough for him. Her makeup was applied with some subtle class, too. He took that as a sign of good taste.

  “I’m alright with colors and such, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Are you responsible?”

  “Usually. I mean, yes. Look, I don’t want to get personal with you. I just want to figure out what I can do to make it up to you for breaking your watch.”

  Gary smirked, turning one corner of his mouth up just a little more. He ran his fingers through his already unruly brown hair. “You’ll do.”

  “I’ll do what?”

  If he thought she’d trade her body for forgiveness of a debt, the Neanderthal had another thing coming. The way he was looking her up and down, it wouldn’t surprise her if he suggested it.

  Gary fell silent again. He walked over to her side and examined her hairstyle. Her sleek, unlayered hair and soft bangs gave her an air of simple sophistication. She kept herself in good shape and wore an understated suit that wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention. He ran his hand over his dark stubble again as he looked back to her face.

  “Nice features. Well spoken. Slight attitude, but he could overlook that,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ll definitely do. What I need is someone presentable, someone I’m not likely to become attracted to, though. Fewer complications that way. I can’t afford any distractions for a while.”

  “Again—what?” Forget she’d just broken his precious watch. Hayely thought she had a perfect right to be angry now.

  First this stranger, this irritating Gary Tarleton person, assessed her as if he were pricing livestock and then had the nerve to call her unattractive? She knew she was no supermodel, but she was a far cry from ugly. Where did he get off? She was about to tell him just what she thought of his personality when he spoke again.

  “Here’s the deal. I need two things in life right now - a temporary wife and an interior decorator. No questions asked. You’ll have to furnish and fix up the inside of my new house from floor to ceiling and show up for a few meetings and dinners where I’ll introduce you as Mrs. Tarleton. I don’t want conversation. I don’t want a friend. Just a business deal.”

  Hayely had no trouble meeting his gaze now. Was the man insane? She thought for a second that he was some desperate, middle-aged construction worker making a play for her. But what kind of construction worker could afford to plunk down twelve grand on a piece of jewelry?

  Besides, after really looking at him, she could tell he wasn’t more than a few years older than her—probably in his early thirties at best. He didn’t have any wrinkles except for creases of scrutiny at the corners of his narrowed eyes, and only one or two grey hairs mixed in with that scruffy stubble of his. He might have been good-looking if his expression wasn’t so terribly serious.

  She took in a gulp of air. “Huh?” Disbelief blocked her words.

  “I’m offering you a job. So you can pay off the watch.”

  Just a month ago Hayely had packed her bags, loaded up her car and started driving—all to avoid a life and a job someone else had picked out for her. But here she was, back between another devil and another deep blue sea.

  “I got as far as you needing someone to decorate your house. That I could do. But marry you like that? That’s not even legal, is it?”

  Gary narrowed his sparkling hazel eyes at her again. “I’m talking about a six-month commitment at best. A contract arrangement, binding and legal. You can come over after work or on weekends. I don’t care when you work or how many hours it takes to get the place finished. I just want it done well. If it is, we’ll call it even for the watch.”

  Six months? Hayely could feel the adrenalin surging through her blood. Could she agree to something so bizarre? Six months would buy back her independence, buy her way out of this situation … Her family didn’t need to find out about the marriage part, did they?

  She raised her chin high to look at him directly. “What if I don’t agree?” There. What would he say to that?

  The corners of his mouth lifted up higher—almost imperceptibly so, but definitely higher. If she’d known who he was, he was sure Hayely Black would have jumped at the chance. Every other money-hungry female in town would have, which was exactly why he couldn’t ask any of them. Too many strings attached, too many complications.

  “I’m glad you’re so entertained,” she said when he didn’t respond.

  “Your eyes look like shiny smoke when you get all emotional. Never seen pure grey eyes before.”

  “Drop dead.”

  Gary shrugged his considerable shoulders and hooked his thumbs into his pockets. “We could always walk down to the police station. It’s just a couple blocks away.”

  Hayely ran her hand across her forehead again and looked at the pile of pulverized watch. There was really no way she could imagine repairing the thing. The wind had already started to blow little bits of shattered glass and the watch’s tiny inner workings across the parking lot. She cursed that husky, quiet voice of his. She’d walked right into his trap.

  Gary tilted his head a little to the side. “Good. I’ll take your silence as a yes. Do you have a business card?”

  She fumbled inside her purse and handed him one of the company’s little sticky notes with her office address on it. Writing her name and phone extension on it, she moved in slow motion as if she’d slipped into automatic pilot mode somewhere under his gaze. What was she doing? She simply couldn’t see another way out of an expensive mess.

  “I’ll have someone courier over an agreement. Read it. Sign it.”

  He tucked her card into his shirt pocket with a frown and walked off across the parking lot with his big boots clunking on the pavement. He didn’t even turn his head to look back.

  •

  “I’m going to fire some idiot this week. I just haven’t decided who yet.” Kathy L. Mark stopped in front of Hayely’s desk and tossed a thick envelope onto it. “Maybe it’ll be someone who receives personal deliveries on company time.”

  With a saccharine smile she turned on her heel and walked off down the hall. Kathy always dressed in petite, tailored suits and worried openly about her thinning, anemic blonde hair, which she kept short enough to just brush the back of her neck. At sixty, she still fancied herself a traffic stopper. Hayely suspected that Kathy hadn’t been any great beauty even in her prime.

  Unkind thoughts were easy for her to have in that office. At least once a week, she and the rest of the staff suffered through Kathy’s threats to fire one of them. Hayely looked daggers at Gary Tarleton’s package, anonymously sent via a nearby law firm, on the desk in front of her. It had just turned her into Kathy’s target of the week. It was Hayely’s typi
cal luck that the ever-hostile woman had happened to walk through the reception area just as the courier arrived.

  Hayely’s workday had ended at five o’clock and it was already a quarter after. Did she dare leave so soon? She’d seen Kathy’s wrath when an employee didn’t donate an extra half an hour both morning and evening. But the envelope screamed to be opened. She thought she could actually feel it speaking to her fingertips.

  Hayely scooped up her coat and purse, and had barely gotten into the elevator before she tore open the package. A local attorney had drawn up the paperwork and it all looked very legal and straightforward. Could she actually sign it? If she did, a strange situation would become frighteningly official.

  She finished reading the document in her car and froze when she got to the last page. Gary Tarleton had drawn up the agreement exactly as he’d said except for that last paragraph. With unsteady fingers, she turned off her car radio so she could concentrate.

  “An extra ten thousand dollars?” Her hands started shaking as she reached deep into the envelope and retrieved the key to Gary Tarleton’s house. “Oh, Lord have mercy. He’s added a bonus.”

  With that much money she could maintain her independence, resign from K. L. Mark Enterprises, and actually find a job she enjoyed. Who knew? Maybe she was fated to become an interior designer and this was the universe’s way of showing her. And all it would take was six months of acting like Gary Tarleton’s wife. How bad could that really be?

  With a tremble, she took a roller ball pen from her purse and signed her name plain as day in indelible blue ink.

  Chapter Two

  Hayely put the key Gary had sent her into the lock of his front door. She didn’t think anyone was home yet—the place was far too quiet. She’d driven around the block several times before finally working up the courage to turn into his long, winding driveway.

  The address matched the one on the note he’d sent, but she must have made a mistake somewhere along the line. This creation of light grey stonework and colorful stained glass wasn’t a house; it came closer to being a castle, one with so much land behind it that she knew she was entering a kingdom.