Free False Pretenses by Catherine Coulter

the entire tenth floor and it was filled with eighteenth-century French and English antiques. She was almost afraid to touch anything. She was still, deep down, a bourgeoise from the Midwest.
    What would happen? What did she want to happen?
    It was nearly midnight when she began to play. The action on the new Baldwin grand was stiff, so she broke it in with Gershwin, then moved to Chopin. She was wearing one of Rowe’s shirts, a white oxford with a button-down collar. Very conservative. She wasn’t wearing anything else.
    He led her back to the bedroom. She was on the point of sleep when he said against her ear, “My darling, have you mentioned our relationship to Rod Samuels?”
    She shook her head against his shoulder. “No, it’s too private. It’s not part of my . . . well, reality with him.”
    â€œGood,” he said. “I don’t want to share you with anyone. You’re mine, Elizabeth, all mine.”
    She thought she heard him whisper that he loved her as he stroked his big hand down her back, and she fell asleep filled with a sense of safety and belonging.
    Â 
    Christian Hunter sat behind his Victorian mahogany desk in his library, a gold pen held between his fingers, a blank sheet of stationery before him. Rowen Chalmers. Something had to be done about him. He stared down at the blank paper, then wadded it up and tossed it into the wastebasket. It hit dead center and he smiled. He’d played basketball in college. He hadn’t lost his touch. He must remember to move the wastebasket a bit farther away, perhaps against the wainscoting so he could bank some of his shots.
    He pushed the button on his private line, then dialed a number he knew very well.
    A gravelly voice answered.
    â€œHunter here. Talk to me.”
    The man talked, at great length. When he stopped, Christian said nothing for several moments. He propped his feet up on his desk. “Excellent,” he said finally. “Continue. I’ll call you on Tuesday.”
    He gently set the phone back into its ornate cradle and leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. When he heard the soft knock at his study door, he frowned, but only for an instant.
    â€œChristian?”
    â€œJust a moment, Susan,” he called back.
    She was waiting for him in the bedroom, wearing only the very expensive peach silk negligee he’d bought for her. She was blond—dyed, of course, but that didn’t bother him overly—and she was wearing the tinted green contacts he’d ordered for her.
    She was beautiful, he thought, watching her for a moment. But her breasts were too big. He walked to the stereo and slipped in a CD. The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra filled the silence with the Third Brandenburg Concerto.
    He felt himself growing hard and began to kiss Susan.
    â€œCan’t we ever listen to something neat? Like the Beatles, Christian?” she said, squirming against him.
    â€œNo, we can’t. You’re only twenty-one, Susan. The Beatles were way before your time.”
    â€œBackstreet Boys then,” she said, giving him a grin. She felt his fingers press against her. His fingers moved. She climaxed in the allegro third movement.

5

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    J onathan Harley felt the headache grow, pounding at his left temple, a steady building of pain that made him close his eyes and sit perfectly still. He never had headaches and it disconcerted him. He thought of calling to Mrs. Maxwell to bring him aspirin, thought of it until he heard his wife’s voice, shrill, demanding, calling to him.
    Another scene, another screaming match with no winner, not that there ever could be a winner, of course. So much change, he thought, change that brought a wife whom he no longer knew or understood. He had, he realized, stopped caring about Rose three years before, when he’d found out about the Italian gigolo she’d met on a cruise ship. And slept with. And admitted sleeping