Free The Tycoon's Bought Fiancée by Sandra Marton Page A

scared the hell out of him.
    Life—his life—was all about control. Control of the self. It was how he’d gone from being a kid enduring life in a foster home to a man with a law degree and a well-regarded practice. He’d only made that one slip, when he’d let himself think he was in love, let himself trust a woman who wasn’t to be trusted….
    The plane touched down with a thump. There was scattered applause, a few whistles, but David was already on his feet, reaching for his garment bag, making his way up the aisle to the door.
    â€œSir? Mr. Chambers?” The flight attendant smiled and sent a darting look over his shoulder. “Isn’t your wife—”
    â€œShe isn’t my wife,” David said fiercely. “She isn’t anything, not to me.”
    He left the flight attendant’s voice behind him, left everything behind him. Whatever it was that had happened to him in that airplane cabin was over. And he sure as hell was never going to think about it again.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HERE were few certainties in life.
    Stephanie knew that. It was, in fact, the very first certainty.
    The others ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.
    For instance, she knew that a pair of cardinals would rebuild the old nest deep within the shelter of the rhododendron outside the back door, come every spring.
    They were there now, on this bright, warm morning, the male in his bright plumage chirping encouragement to the female as she flew off for more twigs.
    â€œI don’t know that it’s the same pair, ma’am,” the gardener had said when he’d found her watching them that first spring, seven long years ago. “Might be younguns of the first two what built that nest.”
    It didn’t matter. If it was a new generation doing the building, that only made what was happening all the sweeter. Somebody, even if that somebody had wings and feathers, believed in home and family.
    And then there were the other constants, the ones that were not so pleasant.
    The way the good townsfolk of Willingham Corners looked at her whenever she drove into town. Not that it was very different from how they’d always looked at her, the men with sly smiles that made her skin crawl, the women with condemnation tightening their mouths.
    Well, that was surely going to change, and soon. Smirks would replace the smiles, and the looks of condemnation would be replaced by ones that said morality had, at last, triumphed.
    Stephanie glanced at the dining room table, and the letter lying on it. Oh, yes. Just wait until the town heard about that.
    They’d probably celebrate.
    Stephanie Willingham, Mrs. Avery Willingham, was going to lose the roof over her head and the ground under her feet. She was going to lose everything.
    Everything—including the one thing that mattered, that she had bartered her soul to possess.
    She should have known Avery would renege on his promise. His word had never been any good—another of life’s little certainties, Stephanie thought with a bitter smile, but one she’d only learned after they’d made their unholy bargain.
    There wasn’t even any point in telling herself that the documents Avery’s sister had produced were forgeries. It would have given Avery as much pleasure to have arranged the situation as it had given Clare to hint at it. It was the cruelty of the thing that had convinced her, the “joint tenancy” provisions carefully devised to make Clare Avery’s heir—and to leave Stephanie with absolutely nothing.
    Oh, yes, the documents were legitimate. It was Avery’s final gift—which only emphasized the last certainty.
    Men were a bunch of double-dealing bastards.
    They’d lie to get what they wanted and then fix it so that their promises were worth about as much as they were.
    Stephanie put her hand to her forehead. Except for Paul. Paul was different, and not just because he was her brother.