CHAPTER ONE
Nora Bowman hesitated at the bottom of the driveway and gazed at the dream house before her.
The clipped green lawn swept up a slight incline, leading to an immaculate porch and a cheerful sky-blue front door. At the back was a yard big enough for kids to run around in. From where she stood, she could see the top of the tree whose wide branches would one day hold a tree house. Although the property didn’t have an actual white picket fence, she could see one there anyway, keeping the tiny kingdom safe.
Behind that imaginary boundary lay Nora’s future.
A future of easy comfort and happiness.
Children would be born and raised in the embrace of that fence. A family would grow and thrive. It was…perfect.
Nora swallowed hard and eased the grip on the keys she held clenched in her fist.
The house had been a surprise. A big surprise. Vince had come home from one of his frequent work trips, slumped around in a foul mood for a few weeks, and then suddenly he’d been all smiles and had dropped into conversation that he’d bought himself a house.
She hadn’t even known he was looking.
Something had lit a fire under his butt, however: he had a plan for the future, and it all had to be sorted now.
He’d told her about the house at breakfast. On his way out the door of her apartment half an hour later, he’d suggested offhand that she let her lease run out. As they ate dinner in front of the television that night, he’d said they should probably think about getting married.
In retrospect, saying something had lit a fire was a bit of an exaggeration. Apart from the house, he’d seemed pretty grim about the whole thing. Grim, but determined.
So Nora, who found herself staring up at a dream house that wasn’t her dream, visualizing a future that was barreling toward her like a freight train, went along with it. She was thirty-six. They’d been dating for five years. The house purchase and the proposal had been a surprise, but she couldn’t say they’d come out of nowhere.
She’d just thought they were further down the line.
And that she’d have had a bigger part to play than simply accepting Vince’s plans.
Nora shook off the creeping panic and marched up the driveway. She flipped through the keys on her keyring to find the spare Vince had given her the last time he’d gone on a work trip, for her to stop by and water his prized ficus.
Her life was on track, she told herself. Things were exactly as they should be. Better, even. She was lucky: look at this place.
She hadn’t had to wrestle with the decision to take the leap into property ownership. She hadn’t even had to take on the commitment of a mortgage she’d be paying for the next fifty years. When she’d offered to share the financial burden, Vince had dismissed the suggestion with an uneasy laugh.
Things were going great.
Nora let herself in. She didn’t bother to take off her coat, since she was going to water the ficus and head home. It had been a long day at work, and her apartment was the other side of town. Sure, Beacon Falls was small enough that it wasn’t a long drive, but she was an hour past ready for lounge pants, fuzzy socks, and a giant bowl of pasta.
She slid her purse from her shoulder and dropped it onto the gleaming side table tucked alongside the door. The purse landed on a pile of mail, knocking a catalog to the floor with a hard smack.
Nora bent, picked up the catalog, and was about to set it back on the table when she froze.
The table was a dainty piece. It was made of a dark, glossy wood. It had elegant, curved legs.
And it hadn’t been there the last time she was.
Nora took an abrupt step backward and bumped into the door. Turning, she fumbled at the handle and darted out onto the porch to check the house number. Had she let herself in to the wrong…? No. It was the right house.
She stepped back inside.
Where had the table come from?
And the mirror hanging above it. Where had that come from?
Cautiously, she moved through the entrance hall, and stopped in the living room.
Okay. She put her hands on her hips.
Where had any of this stuff come from?
An enormous flat-screen television still in its packaging stood in front of the fireplace. A brand-new black leather sectional sat on the cream carpet, and a stack of cardboard boxes and bubble wrap had been pushed up against the far wall. It looked like the aftermath of Christmas morning, minus the tinsel.
Except it was March.
Nora left the living room and ducked her head into the dining room for a quick look before running upstairs. Woah. Changing direction, she walked over to the dining table. She reached out and smoothed a hand over the silky surface.
She could lie full-length on that thing, and still have some wood left over.
Twelve matching chairs were arranged around it, five down either side, and one each at the head and the foot.
Why the hell did Vince need such a big table? Or so many chairs?
Her stomach lurched with horror.
Dinner parties.
No.
What was going on? Was she in some sort of hell dimension?
About to run and grab her cell phone from her purse, call Vince and demand an explanation, she heard voices coming from upstairs.
There was someone in the house.
It couldn’t be Vince. He was in Minnesota. But one of those voices sounded awfully familiar.
And it was getting louder.
Nora walked backward so she had a clear line of sight to the stairs and, on the off chance it wasn’t Vince, she also had a clear escape route to the back door.
Someone laughed. She forgot about escape routes.
It was Vince.
She stood there, wide-eyed, and watched as he strode down the stairs, leading a giggling woman behind him. They were wearing matching white bathrobes, and the moment he hit the bottom step, Vince tugged on the woman’s hand. She stumbled against him with a laughing shriek, and he swept her into his arms.
Nora felt a bolt of detached jealousy. The last time a man had swept her off her feet, she’d been ten years old. Her father had scooped her off the sidewalk where she’d fallen off her bike and scraped one of her knees damn near to the bone.
She still had the scar.
Vince had never once lifted her up. He’d never even lifted her to her toes in an enthusiastic hug. He was always very careful of his back. He even sat on one of those special gym balls instead of an actual desk chair. At work and at home.
But he didn’t hesitate with this woman. He juggled her with the confidence of a pro as she tossed her head back in a cascade of platinum blonde hair, kicking her delicate bare feet.
Holding her high against his chest, Vince carried her into the dining room, heading for the kitchen.
“Hi,” Nora said as they walked right past her.
“Shit! Fuck!” Vince yelled.
The woman screamed and bucked in his arms. He dropped her, hauled her in close, and they swung to face Nora.
“Hi,” she said again, and added a wave.
Vince gawked at her. “What are you doing here?” he shouted.
“Watering the ficus.”
“Watering the ficus?” the woman said. “That’s so sweet. That’s so neighborly. Are you the neighbor?”
“Honey, this is Nora,” Vince said.
“Oh.” The woman bit her lip and pressed tighter into his side.
Nora turned back to Vince. He was having trouble meeting her eyes. “You’re back early,” she said after a long silence.
He cleared his throat. “We… Uh, we ducked out a couple of days before the conference finished. These things are a waste of time in any case. Right, Mel?” He looked at the woman for confirmation.
She nodded. “Been to one, been to them all. There wasn’t any point in hanging around when we wanted to get on with our new life.”
“A couple of days?” Nora switched her attention to Vince. “You’ve been back a couple of days?”
“Yeah. So you didn’t need to come and water the ficus. Thanks, though.”
“You didn’t think about calling me? Letting me know? Texting me?”
“It’s just a ficus, Nora. It wasn’t at the top of my mind.” He shot a smoldering look at Mel, who returned it. With interest.
“Vince,” Nora said.
“Huh?”
“We both know I’m not talking about the ficus.”
His eyes finally met hers, flickered away again, and then he pulled his shoulders back and stood tall.
“Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” Nora asked.
Vince firmed his jaw, brows lowering.
She knew that face. It was his no I didn’t squeeze the toothpaste from the middle/finish the toilet roll and not change it/drink out of the juice carton face. His admit no guilt face.
“No?” she said. “Allow me. Hi.” Nora walked forward, holding out her hand. “Nora Bowman. I’m Vince’s fiancée. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hi. Melissa Chase.”
Nora flinched and dropped Melissa’s hand as if she’d been electrocuted. “Chase?”
Melissa blushed.
“Yes. Chase.” Vince angled himself in front of the woman in a protective move. “Mrs. Melissa Chase. My wife.”
~ ~ ~
“Nora? Nora, say something. You’re freaking me out.”
Nora shifted on the hard dining chair—when had she sat down?—and took a deep breath. Her hands were cold. Glancing down, she saw her fingers, white-knuckled, wrapped around a glass of water which she held pressed to the center of her chest.
She’d bought that glass for Vince three years ago. It was one of a set of six.
Carefully, she set the glass on the table and looked at Vince.
He crouched before her, one hand on her knee, the other braced on the chair back. His robe was gaping, she noticed absently.
“Nora? Are you back? Jesus, what was that? You checked out. Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?”
“Yes, are you okay? Do you need a doctor?” He rubbed her knee. “Shall I call your mother?”
Because that’s what this situation needed to elevate it to the spectacular. Her mother, waving her arms around and demanding to know what Nora had done to drive Vince into running off and marrying some stranger. “Don’t you dare call my mother.”
“Then what do you need, honey?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “I need you to not ever call me that again. Ever.”
“Fair enough. What else do you need, hon… Nora?”
“How about an explanation?”
He reddened but met her gaze without flinching this time as he straightened and pulled out the chair next to hers. He sat and scooted himself closer to hold her hand.
“Nora.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “You have to understand. This isn’t about you.”
“I think it might be, though. Little bit. Since my fiancé just introduced me to his new wife. I can’t shake the feeling I’m involved somewhere.”
“This is awkward, and it’s nobody’s ideal situation, but… Nora, I fell in love.”
He waited for her to respond and when she didn’t reply, opened his mouth. She shook her head sharply and held up a warning finger. Vince shut his mouth without speaking and gave her an encouraging nod.
Right. Let’s see if she could get this out at normal volume rather than screaming. “When you say Nora, I fell in love, I’m going to guess you don’t mean with me.”
“No, I don’t mean with you. With Melissa. With my wife.” At the expression on her face, he backed off, raising his hands. “It was like lightning. A force of nature. Us together—me and Mel, not me and you—we’ve got crazy chemistry. You can’t ignore something like that!”
“Not even when you’re engaged to another woman?”
“No.”
“Did you try?”
“I—” He broke off, and swallowed. “No.”
“When were you planning on telling me, Vince?”
“There is no plan! That’s the whole point. I never planned any of this. We met up at the Minnesota conference, realized it was destiny, flew to Vegas, and here we are. I was going to call you, I guess, at the end of the week. Save you driving to the airport to pick me up.”
“But until then, you were just going to hide out here? Ordering furniture? Playing house?”
“It’s a pre-honeymoon honeymoon. Trust me when I say, furniture is hardly my number one priority right now.” He laughed and tipped his head in Melissa’s direction.
He laughed? Had he forgotten who he was talking to?
Nora looked from him to Melissa and back again. “You realize you’re a monumental jerk for doing this to me, right? You realize that a good man doesn’t go away for a conference, meet someone, fall in love, marry them on an acquaintance best measured in days, come home early…and never at any point give his fiancée a heads-up? It’s the sort of thing only a complete asshole would do. You know that, right?”
He tightened the belt of his robe and gave an abrupt shrug. “Yeah, but it isn’t the way you’re trying to paint it. Mel and I have been seeing each other on and off for eight months, and—”
“You were cheating on me for eight months?”
“Cheating.” He sucked his teeth, lifted and lowered his shoulders. “I don’t much care for that word. It’s so calculating and deliberate. I already told you, we were helpless in the face of our chemistry.”
“I don’t much care for the word either, Vince, but it’s what you did! If you’ve been cheating on me for eight months, why the hell did you even buy us a house?”
“I never said I was buying it for me and you.”
“You told me to let my lease run out! I was supposed to move in!”
“Fine. Buying the house was a knee-jerk reaction. I felt bad. The point is, Nora, you and I weren’t working. We haven’t been working for a long time.”
The fury building inside Nora flickered. Hurt took over.
“Us together, it was nothing more than habit. I know you felt it, Nora.”
“Then why did you propose? Guilt made you do that, too?”
Vince got to his feet and looked down at her. “There’s no need to get nasty.”
“I beg to differ.” Nora stood, fists clenched at her sides.
“You want to play it that way? Give me your hand.”
“What?”
“Your hand.” He lunged for her left hand, dragged it between them and shook it. “Where’s the ring?”
“I… What?”
“If we’re engaged, where’s the ring?”
“If we’re engaged?”
“No ring. It was never official, Nora. It was more a plan to be engaged than an actual legitimate engagement. Stop making me out to be some kind of villain.” He shook her own fist at her. “I never put a ring on it.”
“Oh, no. Oh, honey. That is not cool,” Melissa said in a soft, disappointed voice.
Nora wrenched away from Vince, and stiffened with astonishment as Melissa bounced over to stand beside her.
“You’re going to have to apologize for that one,” Melissa said to Vince, wrapping an arm around Nora’s waist and tugging her close. “Right, Nora?”
Whatever came out of Nora’s mouth wasn’t words, but Melissa seemed to take it for agreement, because she tossed her beautiful hair and gave Vince a challenging look.
Vince lifted his chin and leveled a smoldering glare right back. “I’ve been eaten alive by guilt over this,” he said. “I’ve apologized in my head a thousand times. I’m done apologizing.”
“I’d like to hear it out loud for myself,” Nora said. “Once would be nice.”
“Yes!” Melissa leaned her upper body toward Vince. “We want to hear it, Vin.”
Vin?
“What am I supposed to be apologizing for, then?” Vince’s voice lowered to a growl. “For falling so hard for you I don’t think I’ll ever hit bottom? For not being able to control myself when I’m around you, because I want you so damn bad?”
“That doesn’t sound like an apology,” Nora said. “And for clarification, I’m the one you’re supposed to be apologizing to. Unless it’s me you want so bad?”
“No,” Vince said, looking horrified. “Nora, no. It’s not you. It’s never been you.”
She gritted her teeth. “Sarcasm!”
“We’re waiting,” Melissa said. She bumped Nora with a hip. “Right?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s hear this apology, Vin. A proper one this time.”
“All right. I’m sorry that the thought of you in this house made sense, made all my dreams light up like they were plugged into the sun. I’m sorry I can’t wait to get you back into bed and make you scream my name again, if you can still scream after having done it four times already. I’m sorry your legs drive me crazy, especially when you wrap them around my shoulders and—”
“Ew, come on.” Nora jerked out of Melissa’s slackening embrace.
Vince ignored her. He took a step toward them, puffing out his chest. “I’m sorry I can’t help myself when it comes to you, and all I can think about is how you make me want to be an animal.”
Nora shot a side glance at Melissa, who began to pant as she drifted toward Vince.
“You are an animal,” Melissa said.
Vince swooped, knocking Nora with his elbow as he seized Melissa’s face and rained down noisy kisses, punctuated by Melissa’s breathy moans.
Nora took a long step back. “I’ll wait here for that apology, shall I?”
Vince tore Melissa’s robe down over her shoulders as she whipped his belt free.
“Are you kidding me?” Nora shouted.
Vince pulled away, eyes wild and face flushed in a way she’d never seen before. “Nora,” he gasped, “can we pick this up another time?” It was all he had time to say before Melissa grabbed him.
Turning on her heel, Nora marched out of the dining room. She snatched up her purse, let herself out of the dream house, and slammed the door behind her.