Their weekend getaway in a Canyon Suite with a breathtaking view at the drop-dead awesome Phoenician luxury resort hotel in Scottsdale put Stephanie in a chill frame of mind. A full day of spa services, including a delightful couples experience in a private “tranquility suite” set a promising mood for their super romantic dinner and the promise of an evening of delicious sexy times with her hunk of burning man love.

Being married to Calder Dane had definite benefits!

She couldn’t wait to tell the ladies about the fabulous hotel. Especially Remington. The phoenix legend loomed large over the fancy five star with spa offerings like body wraps, gem stone healing treatments, harmonic singing bowls, and every massage therapy imaginable.

Sliding on a pair of delicate sapphire drop earrings, a gift from her husband, Stephanie inspected her reflection in the vanity mirror. The sapphire was believed to protect the wearer from harm, and more importantly, represented loyalty and trust—something she and Calder had in spades.

“You are beautiful as always, Duchess.”

Finding him in the corner of the reflection, watching her from the doorway, induced a long sigh and a blushing smile. As an old-fashioned romantic, Stephanie was a devotee of husband pleasing. Putting that expression on Calder’s face was everything. As long as he looked at her like that forever, she was a happy Southern belle.

With a dazzling smile on her face, she swung about on the vanity bench to face him. Adopting his favorite pose—legs crossed, back and shoulders straight—she fluffed her hair like a practiced flirt and ogled her spouse with a very deliberate head-to-toe eye sweep.

The man was hot. Period. In Calder’s case, age was just a number. A sexy baby boomer with a body that melted her brain, she had to love the way he quite boldly rocked his long hair. Calder’s designation as the Thor of Family Justice was deserved. Loving him full-stop as if there was no tomorrow was Stephanie’s absolute pleasure. Sharing his bed and his life were a bonus that she’d never dreamed possible when she was in her forties and the dating pool of men was a murky puddle.

“Shugah,” she drawled, “you dropped a ton at the spa. The least I can do is put on a good show. You like, I gather?”

He clapped slowly and crossed the dressing room to stand directly in front of her. The move was classic Dane. She was sitting. He was standing. By boxing her in with his suggestive bulge in her face, Calder cracked open the lid on a night of seductive foreplay.

Let the sexy time begin!

Cupping her boobs, she jostled the soft mounds a bit and made a pouty face. “Too much? I’m not sure. Can’t wear a bra with this show and tell dress.”

“Fine by me.” He chuckled. “I’ve got no issue with every man who sees you knowing that what’s beneath the sexy outer layer belongs to me.”

Was that the answer she expected? Of course. Calder got off on the arm candy thing, and thank heavens because arm candy was something she pulled off without effort.

“Right back at you, Mr. Dane. Nice suit, by the way. Shows off your manly, um, charms.” She punctuated her meaning by brazenly admiring the bulging asset waiting for her attention.

Stephanie met his eyes when he gently raised her chin with his fingers. “I want you to know,” he began in a serious tone, “that it’s damn fucking difficult to play this out in pretty words and gestures.”

“What’s that mean?” she asked as confusion landed on her face.

Calder chuckled and stroked the column of her neck. “It means, Mrs. Dane, that picturing you sucking my dick with your hair in my fist and sexy drool dripping from your chin is not something that can be prettied up in word or deed.”

A slow smile of understanding, a female growl of pleasure, and a carefully performed wetting of the lips let him know how she felt about his statement.

“I see the herbal wrap for men did its job.” She chuckled. “What did the attendant promise? Rejuvenated sex drive?”

He smiled. The fire in his eyes made lovely tingly things happen in her lady parts. The taunt he answered with made her giggle.

“My sex drive is directly correlated to how much my wife can take.”

She stood and shimmied the way any smart woman would when her husband was watching every move. Her sleeveless clingy dress was gray with a hint of blue that complemented her fair coloring. Instead of something low cut and obvious, she went with a high-neck style that showed off her bare shoulders. The dress featured strappy cuts out from throat to midriff that made her boobs the star of the show.

Her dashing husband grinned and leered. He did so enjoy a good show. She slid her hand through the arm he offered and hugged against him.

“Champagne, Mr. Dane. Lots of it.”

He led her from their suite in a slow crawl through the opulent resort, arriving at their reserved dining table where he put on a show of his own by pulling her chair out, licking a bare shoulder, and ending with a sweet kiss.

As he sat across from her, Stephanie’s heart went pitter-patter. The candlelight and sweet aroma of fresh flowers made the moment magical.

Indulging one’s woman was the privilege of every married man—so sayeth his brother-in-law, the inimitable Cristián Marquez.

Calder mentally smiled. The quote was an oldie but goodie. And at last, he understood what Cris meant. Seeing his beloved glow with happiness as he mastered the art of wifely indulgence gave him an enormous sense of satisfaction. Every second of being with his Duchess felt good.

Moment upon moment stacked together to create the perfect romantic interlude. Their meal was fantastic. The champagne chilled perfectly. Dessert was as decadent as he hoped, and through it all, he had the pants charmed right off him by a wicked Southern belle with naughty tastes.

In the middle of the table made intimate by its small size, he stroked the soft skin of the hand he lovingly held. She was regaling him with a charming story about Tori as a young girl when a voice he hadn’t heard in a very long time cut through the romantic haze and shocked him into silence.

“As I live and breathe, is that Calder Dane?”

Stunned by the husky British accent calling his name, he knew a moment of absolute panic when a woman he hadn’t spoken to in decades flew into his arms the instant he stood. He caught a fleeting glimpse of his wife’s face, frozen in shock, as the woman hugged him like a python.

Carter Beckwith. Holy fucking shit. No matter how he parsed this, it wasn’t going to be good.

“Carter,” he muttered. “What are you doing here?”

She kissed him before releasing her serpent-like hold on his body and took a step back. The way she checked him out scared the fucking hell out of him.

“Female indulgence.” She chortled.

He cringed at her choice of words.

Stephanie cleared her throat. If the gates of hell opened at that moment to claim him, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“Oh, uh, Duchess. I’m sorry, darling.” He sidestepped Carter and took up a protective pose at Stephanie’s side. With a hand resting on her shoulder, he performed a hideously awkward introduction.

“Stephanie, this is Carter Beckwith. We worked on several projects together a long, long time ago.” He put an extra dollop of zing on the second “long,” hoping that time and distance would make a difference.

“Carter, this is my wife, Stephanie. Stephanie Dane.”

“You’re married?” Carter cackled with far too much disdain for his liking. “Color me surprised.” She leered at him so suggestively he started to sweat. “And disappointed.”

Calder was certain he caught a whiff of his balls being singed by his wife’s fury. Not only was Carter deliberately ignoring his wife, but she was also trying to stake a claim. On him. Stephanie’s rigid posture got fiercer as each second went by.

“And to a Duchess.” Carter’s accented purr was dripping with disdain. “How charming and so colonial.”

She made colonial sound like the worst insult of all time with her fake snotty British outrage. He glanced at Stephanie. She was white as a ghost. There was no saving this situation—not after Carter’s glaringly obvious dismissal of his wife.

That was when the dark-haired witch looked at Stephanie. The eyeball exchange between the two powerful females made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

The worst thing that could possibly happen occurred in slow motion. Stephanie placed her napkin on the table and slowly stood. She didn’t meet his eyes. He swallowed hard. His whole body began to thrum with tension.

“Yes, well, I can see you two have some catching up to do. Don’t mind me for dashing off. I’m looking forward to a peaceful night’s sleep.”

Carter looked triumphant until Stephanie closed in for the kill.

“Our little one keeps us awake.”

“You have a child?” Carter didn’t disguise her shock.

“Yes, we do,” Stephanie, cooed. “Maybe Calder can show you some pictures. I’m off. Nice to meet you, Carter.”

Before another word could be said, his Duchess calmly made her exit.

“A wife and a child, Calder? I don’t know how to react. What does she have that I didn’t?”

A soul, for one thing, he thought unkindly.

“Excuse me, Carter, but you made your choice, as did we all, a long time ago.”

“I only married Emery to get your attention. After all the time we spent together, Calder, I rather expected you to man up.”

“Enough, Carter. Stop revising history. We worked together. The sexual part of our friendship was short-lived. We haven’t spoken in decades. Let’s not spoil our record, hmm?”

He walked away and stopped to briefly chat with the hostess. As he left the restaurant, he looked back and found Carter watching him. He felt nothing. Pretty much anything that happened in his life before he met Stephanie didn’t matter. Not one little bit.

Hurrying after his wife, he took a slow, deep breath before going into the suite. He crossed his fingers and hoped Stephanie wasn’t on a warpath.

The absolute last thing he expected was to find his wife in tears.

“Oh my god, Calder,” she wailed as he entered the suite. “Did you sleep with that horrible woman?”

Her tears startled him and made Calder feel like a worm.

“Honey, shh,” he gently murmured. Taking the seat beside her on the sofa, he reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.

“Don’t tell me to shush,” she snapped. “That woman all but dropped to her knees. Were you in love with her?”

“No, no,” he answered hastily. “It wasn’t like that. Stephanie, it was thirty years ago.” He knew it was a lame comeback that wouldn’t make things better, but he used it as a stall.

A weekend of indulging his beloved came to a dead halt now that his far distant past stopped by for a poorly timed visit. Would it look weird if he asked for a time-out so he could call Cristián and ask for advice? Once upon a brain-dead time, his brother-in-law came perilously close to losing Ash. It was all stupid, of course, but women operated on emotion, and what he remembered of that time was Cris’s learning curve and how he was ready to move heaven and earth to hang on to the woman he loved.

Stephanie angled away from him and hugged the arm of the sofa. The dismissal coupled with her tears sent panic straight to his soul.

No, no, no. This couldn’t happen. A chance meeting with an old lover, and he used the term old for a reason, shouldn’t hold the power to so completely fuck shit up. But Carter Beckwith was an accomplished cunt, and yes, he meant to use that word. The British had a special way of hurling flames, and the woman he knew from way back in the day was a veteran torch wielder.

Anger that Stephanie felt the heat from Carter’s bitchiness consumed him. He wasn’t a revenge kind of a guy, but he swore on everything holy that she was going to pay for hurting his Duchess.

Sinking to the carpet at her knees, he emotionally prostrated himself before his wife so she’d understand how serious he was.

“Stephanie.”

She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes but still would not look at him. He reached for her free hand. There was the slightest hesitation, but she let him clasp her small hand in both of his. Staggering relief swept through him.

He clutched her hand and pressed it against his heart. “Honey, you are my everything. Please talk to me. I’m dying here. Tell me what I can do to make this right.”

Seeing her lip quiver was almost his undoing. Stephanie was a tough lady wrapped in a delectable creampuff exterior. He’d never seen her crack—not like this.

A raven-haired threat slipped inside the perimeter, taking Stephanie by such surprise that her whole world wobbled.

Carter Beckwith. She thought the name and instantly filled with loathing. Who the goddamn fuck was the she-devil and why did she materialize now? When everything was so lovely and perfect?

She didn’t ignore the anguish in her husband’s voice as he knelt before her and begged. Ricocheting zings of panic and anxiety raced through her body. At no point had she ever considered that a former lover of her husband’s would materialize out of thin air and threaten what they had.

Calder pressed her hand to his chest. She struggled for composure and answered his plea with words she hadn’t planned. Sometimes, bold honesty, no matter how terrifying, was the only way.

“She wants you. Now. Today. This moment. And she was clear about it, Calder. I know you’re going to say that this despicable woman is in the past and that I shouldn’t worry.” She turned to meet his eyes. “Says a man who doesn’t see what a woman does.”

“Stephanie, I do not give a royal shit fuck about Carter. I’m serious. She isn’t the past. She’s just a moment in time.”

Her sigh sounded like a jet engine. She carefully slid her hand from his and touched the corner of his mouth. “Yes, well that moment in time wears she-devil red lipstick.” She held her finger so he’d see what she could—that Carter fucking Beckwith put her mouth on his, while she, his wife, watched.

“Shit,” he growled. Reaching into his suit jacket, he withdrew a handkerchief from the inside pocket. Frantically wiping his mouth, he scowled at the evidence left behind on the white cloth.

“Calder, there’s never going to come a time when you will find yourself on the outside looking in if a former lover of mine appears. My husband is dead, and the few liaisons that took place over the decades of being widowed would never qualify as loverish. I’m an adult. I realize you didn’t live like a monk.”

He made a sound that expressed his unease, but she kept going. If they couldn’t be honest, they had more trouble on their hands than anything a demon succubus dished out.

“But she was more than a passing fling, wasn’t she? And unless I’ve lost my touch, that woman has evil intent where you are concerned. Maybe she wants to settle an old score or prove a point. It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter because I don’t give a shit. Sweetie, don’t read anything into this.”

“I just meant that it doesn’t matter in the bigger scheme. Why she feels it’s okay to behave like a bitch isn’t the point. She’s no amateur. For whatever reason, she lobbed one across the road right in front of us. Of me.”

As she saw it, whether Calder recognized it or not, everything was on the line. She knew women like Carter Beckwith. They were a dime a dozen on the pageant circuit. Morals and boundaries meant nothing, and winning at all costs was what motivated them. She didn’t doubt for a second that the Beck-witch woman would gleefully tear Calder’s marriage and life to shreds simply for the hell of it.

She liked calling the menace Beck-witch. It fit.

The gourmet meal she had earlier started gurgling in her stomach. She wasn’t normally an upset tummy person, but the present circumstance had to count for something.

Her heart ached for Calder as she stood and looked down at him. She could see he was devastated by the unexpected turn of events.

“I need some time to think.”

“Oh god, Stephanie. You’re scaring me.”

She snapped. “And you think I’m not scared? Jesus Christ, Calder. I get that it’s not your fault, that you don’t care about the past, but someone needs to tell that to the Beck-witch. And yes, I said that correctly.”

Stepping away from him, she softened her tone but didn’t back down.

“I’m sorry that I’m scared but …” She shrugged.

The man she loved with every fiber of her being slowly got to his feet. “I love you,” he croaked.

“Oh, shugah,” she murmured. “I love you too.”

She accepted his embrace and struggled not to start crying again. It wasn’t like her to react this way.

Her gurgling stomach cut the tender moment short. Sprinting to the bathroom with no time to spare, she made it in time to violently toss her cookies until she was too wiped out to do anything except lay on the tile floor.

Calder lovingly took care of her. He cleaned her up, helped her put on one of his T-shirts instead of the sexy negligee she’d hung in the closet, and carried her to the enormous bed.

They didn’t make love, but he did hold her throughout the long night as she battled with her conflicting emotions. Every time she moved or sighed, he proclaimed his undying love and devotion.

At first light, she cried in his arms and then pulled it together.

“I want to go home,” she whimpered into his neck.

An hour later, she clung to him as they started for Bendover.