Page 47 of Substitute Bride

“By why would Genevieve want to marry him?”

“Well, he’s rich. Richer than James. Richer than Mitchell even.”

“I know that. But still. He’s so… so…”

Kelly obviously understood what Rose was reluctant to say. “I know. But sometimes money trumps all. I guess she finally resigned herself to never having James. It must have been the fake engagement that did it.”

Rose wasn’t so sure. Genevieve wasn’t the type to give up so easily. While she certainly hoped that the woman was out of James’s life for good, something made her very nervous about this story. “Maybe.”

“You should be happy, shouldn’t you? I mean, Morris Alfred Theobald III! What a perfect match!” Kelly studied her sister’s face with obvious confusion.

Rose shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m happy or not.”

Kelly must have noticed something about her expression because her face suddenly sobered. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Well, obviously something is wrong.”

Rose sighed. “I’m just kind of blah today. Nothing to worry about.”

“You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?” Kelly asked.

As far as Rose knew, Kelly had never been in love before, and the girl had absolutely no patience for the way women often acted foolishly for men. Maybe one day she would understand.

As it was, Rose was reluctant to admit it to her, but she also didn’t want to lie. “I don’t know. But I do know I’m not going to do anything even stupider.”

Kelly thought about this for a minute and then gave a little nod. “Good for you. No reason for us to be stupid if we can possibly help it.”

James worked late that evening, and he didn’t act unusual when he finally came home after seven. He talked to the girls about their day as he ate his supper—Rose and the girls had eaten earlier—and then he and his daughters went to read a book together.

Rose usually didn’t join them in the evenings since the family needed to spend time together alone, so she puttered in the kitchen and caught up on some e-mail until it was bedtime.

After they put the girls to bed, James paused in the hall.

Rose’s breath hitched, suddenly hoping he was going to say something about the night before.

“You heard about Genevieve?” he asked softly.

Rose managed not to droop in disappointment. “Yes. The news is all over.”

“I have no idea what to make of it. It seems too easy.”

“That’s what I was thinking too.”

“But I don’t know what trouble she could be up to—since she’s all the way across the country at the moment.” James looked very tired—so tired her heart went out to him despite herself. He rubbed his jaw as if it were hurting him again. “I guess we’ll just go with it and hope for the best.”

“Should we do anything else about the engagement?”

James shook his head. “I was thinking about that. If she actually gets married, then I think we can just lay low for a while—not go out in public together and not put out any more gossip. In a month or two, we can tell some folks the engagement has ended, and just not make a big deal about it. It will just go away.”

That sounded so easy and simple. Rose wondered if it could possibly be so.

She sure as hell knew that her feelings about the whole thing wouldn’t just go away so smoothly.

“Okay. We’ll wait and see then.” Her voice was light as if her emotions weren’t in a painful uproar about seeing James standing in front of her like this, looking clever and handsome and deep and sexy and everything she wanted. “Oh, I should give you back the ring then.”

She wasn’t wearing it. She wasn’t planning to ever wear it unless she had to go out in public with him again.