A Wife by Accident

Author:Victoria Ashe [Ashe, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781410443793
Google: Q2x8tQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1410443795
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2012-02-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

When they arrived at the mansion the night before, Hayely had been exhausted in the utterly complete way only wrought emotions can bring.

Her entire life was changing from week to week, and her situation had improved slightly in her estimation. At least now she’d gotten rid of the thing she didn’t want—a job she loathed. Only now she was left missing what she wanted, and that wasn’t simply a career calling anymore. Her pretend marriage to Gary weighed heavily on her. The night before, their interaction had felt so comfortable, so vibrantly real that it was easy sometimes to forget the nature of their six-month relationship.

After the banquet, Hayely had fallen into bed exhausted. If only she could erase her recollection of him asking her to stay on as an employee after the six months were up. He’d been honest about his expectations all along. Was it too late to want more? She doubted a little shared time alone would take his original intentions and flip them one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.

Well into mid-morning, Hayely opened her eyes and knew she was alone in the big house. Gary was always awake with the dawn and gone to work before her own internal body clock stirred her. As she sat up, the entire Chamber of Commerce Banquet sprung to mind all in one quick memory. She moaned and then laughed out loud at the same time. There was no hiding it now—her secret was out. At least with no job to speak of, she didn’t have to awaken to the ring of an annoying alarm clock.

Hayely padded downstairs in a pair of slippers that resembled stuffed teddy bears and picked yesterday’s mail up from the table in the foyer. When had Gary added her name to everything? From bills to the newspaper, her name joined his on the label. Curious, she walked around the house surveying rooms. Just as she’d suspected, someone had hung up still more pictures of the two of them together—a large one in the living room and another in the unfinished library. The decorative frame stood out awkwardly beside the columns of empty bookshelves.

When the telephone rang, Hayely nearly jumped out of her slippers and her heart thudded wildly against her thick blue terrycloth robe. In all the time she’d spent in the house, never once had she heard the phone ring.

“Hello?” she answered cautiously. Was she or wasn’t she entitled to answer the phone in what the rest of the world thought was her own home? What was the correct protocol?

“Hayely, it’s me.” Gary’s voice rolled to her from across the line, caressing her all the way down to her toes just by speaking her name.

She breathed in to still the flutters in her chest. “You surprised me, Gary.” She’d almost called him something like “honey” in return and thought the better of it.

“Should I come home for an early lunch?”

Hayely held the phone silently to her ear for just a moment. “Yes.”

“I’ll be there.”

Hayely ran to the kitchen as fast as her teddy bear feet would allow.

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