Something Wonderful Read online

  It seemed like an eternity before he finally spoke. When he did, his voice was calm and authoritative: “We have had two ‘beginnings,’ you and I—that first one at my grandmother’s house a year ago, and the one here in this house yesterday. Because of the circumstances, neither of them has been particularly auspicious. Today is the third—and last—beginning for us. In a few minutes, I will decide what the course of our future will be. In order to do that, I’d first like to hear what you have to say about this . . .” Reaching behind him, he picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and calmly handed it to her.

  Curious, Alexandra took the sheet, glanced at it, then nearly shot out of her chair as fury boiled up inside her, exploding through her body with the force of a holocaust. On the sheet, Jordan had listed more than a dozen “questionable activities” including her dueling practice with Roddy, her race in Hyde Park, her brush with disgrace when Lord Marbly tried to lure her off to Wilton, and several other escapades that had been relatively harmless, but when catalogued in this fashion read like an indictment.

  “Before I decide on the course of our future,” Jordan continued dispassionately, immune to the wrathful expression on her beautiful face, “I thought it only fair to give you a chance to deny any item on the list that isn’t true, as well as to offer any explanations you may wish to give.”

  Rage, full-bodied and fortifying, sent Alexandra slowly to her feet, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected he would have the gall to criticize her behavior. Why, next to the life he had led, she was as innocent as a babe.

  “Of all the loathsome, hypocritical, arrogant—!” she burst out furiously, and then with a superhuman effort, she took control of her rampaging ire. Lifting her chin, she looked straight into his enigmatic eyes and took infuriated pleasure in baldly admitting to the entire—grossly exaggerated—list. “I’m guilty,” she wrathfully declared. “Guilty of every single meaningless, harmless, innocuous incident on that list.”

  Jordan gazed at the tempestuous beauty standing before him, her eyes flashing like angry jewels, her breasts rising and falling with suppressed fury, and his anger gave way to a reluctant admiration for her honesty and courage in admitting her guilt.

  Alexandra, however, was not finished. “How dare you confront me with a list of accusations and give me ultimatums about my future!” she raged, and before he could react, she moved sideways out of his reach, turned on her heel, and headed for the door.

  “Come back here!” Jordan ordered.

  Alexandra spun around so swiftly that her shining hair came spilling over her left shoulder in a riotous waterfall of gleaming waves and curls. “I’ll be back!” she assured wrathfully. “Just give me ten minutes.”

  Jordan let her go, his brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown as he stared at the door she had slammed behind her. He hadn’t expected her to react quite so violently to the items on the list. In fact, he wasn’t entirely certain what he’d hoped to achieve by showing her the list, other than to somehow discover from her reaction if that was all she’d been up to while he was gone. The only thing he wanted, needed to know, was the one question he couldn’t possibly ask her—and that was who had shared her bed and her body while he was gone.

  Reaching over to the stack of papers on his desk, he picked up a shipping contract and began absently reading it while he waited for her to return.

  The list, he admitted to himself, had not been a sterling idea.

  That conclusion was emphatically borne out a few minutes later, when Alexandra rapped upon the door, stalked into his study without waiting for him to invite her to do so, and slapped a sheet of paper on the desk beside his hip. “Since you want to exchange accusations and offer opportunities for denial,” she told him furiously, “I’ll give you the same ‘courtesy’ before I hand you an ultimatum about our future.”

  Jordan’s curious glance shifted from her flushed, beautiful face to the sheet of paper lying on his desk. Laying aside the contract he’d been reviewing, he nodded toward the chair where she had been seated earlier, and waited until she sat down, then he picked up the list.

  It consisted of only sixteen words. Eight names. Of his former paramours. Setting the list aside, he quirked a speculative brow at her and said nothing.

  “Well?” she demanded finally. “Are there any inaccuracies on that list?”

  “One inaccuracy,” he stated with infuriating calm, “and several omissions.”

  “Inaccuracy?” Alexandra demanded, distracted by the glint of amusement in his eyes.

  “Maryanne Winthrop spells her first name with a ‘y’ rather than an ‘i.’ ”

  “Thank you for that edifying piece of information,” Alexandra retorted. “If I ever decide to give her a gaudy diamond bracelet to match the necklace everyone says you gave her, I shall be sure to spell her name correctly on the card.”

  This time there was no doubting the humor tugging at the comer of his mouth and she came to her feet—a proudly enraged goddess dwarfed by a dark, arrogant giant of a man. “Now that you’ve admitted your guilt, I will tell you what the course of our future will be.” Pausing to draw an infuriated breath, Alexandra announced triumphantly, “I am going to get an annulment.”

  The harsh words rebounded through the room, ricocheting off the walls, reverberating in the deafening silence. But not a flicker of emotion registered on Jordan’s impassive features. “An annulment,” he finally repeated. With the patience of a teacher discussing an absurd rhetorical issue with an inferior student, he said mildly, “Would you care to tell me how you intend to accomplish that?”

  His damnable calm made Alexandra long to kick him in the shin. “I’ll do nothing of the sort. You can discover what my legal grounds are from—from whoever it is that handles these things.”

  “Solicitors,” Jordan provided helpfully, “handle these things.’ ”

  Her ire at his condescending superiority was almost more than Alexandra could contain as he smoothly added, “I can recommend several excellent solicitors for you to consult. I keep them on retainer.”

  That outrageous suggestion was such an insult to her intelligence that Alexandra felt tears sting her eyes. “Was I such a gullible fool over you two years ago?” she demanded in a pain-edged whisper. “Was I so gullible that you honestly think I’d ask your solicitor to give me advice?”

  Jordan’s brows pulled together as several astonishing realizations struck him at once: First, despite her magnificent show of courage and unconcern, Alexandra was apparently on the brink of tears; second, the brave, innocent, engaging girl he had married had become a gorgeous creature of exotic beauty and spirit, but along the way she had also acquired an undesirable streak of fiery rebellion; last— and most disconcerting—was the discovery that he was as physically attracted to her now as he had been a year ago. More so. Much more.

  Calmly he said, “I was merely trying to spare you what will be a very embarrassing and completely futile ordeal in the office of some unknown—and possibly indiscreet— solicitor.”

  “It will not be futile!”

  “It will,” he stated with certainty. “The marriage was consummated, or have you forgotten?”

  The bold reminder of the night she had lain naked and willing in his arms was more than Alexandra’s taut nerves could withstand. “I’m not senile,” she retorted, and the spark of laughter in his eyes made her so desperate to demolish his damnable calm that she informed him how she intended to get an annulment, after all. “Our marriage is invalid because I didn’t choose to marry you of my own free will!”

  Instead of reacting with alarm, Hawk looked more amused than ever. “Tell that to a solicitor and he may laugh himself into a seizure. If a marriage was invalid merely because the bride felt obliged to marry a groom not of her choosing, then most of Society’s couples are—at this very moment—living in sin.”

  “I wasn’t merely ‘obliged,’ ” Alexandra flung back. “I was coerced, ca