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was he? So much for her grand entrance. She picked up the wrap she’d been trailing behind her and draped it over her arm.
    “Oh, wow.” Accompanied by a wolf whistle, Jack skidded to a stop on the hard wood floor. “Angela, is this gorgeous creature really you?”
    She ignored the reply she wanted to make and smiled seductively, tilting her head slightly to the side. Employing every sexy hint she’d ever read in the women’s magazines or seen on the computer, she ran the tip of her tongue over her glistening lips and batted her false eyelashes. Ones she’d learned to apply just for this night. He’d wanted a sexy, beautiful, successful wife and she’d worked hard to become just that.
    Pitching her voice down just a bit, she smiled again. “At your service.” At the bottom of the stairs, she did a slow pirouette, trailing the shawl and throwing a glance over her shoulder, lashes at half-mast. She’d even learned to wear contacts since he’d complained about her glasses. “Are you ready?”
    “Am I ever.”
    His throaty answer made her smile again. It must be working. Imagine Angela Bishop a vamp at age fifty-one. She laid one hand on his arm, bright red acrylic nails with a sparkly embedded on one forefinger tip, glinting in the light.
    “Here, let me.” He took her wrap and laid it around her shoulders, fingertips caressing the back of her neck. “Your chariot awaits, m’amselle.”
    Once he had her seated in the low-slung red Porsche, his latest purchase, he was whistling as he crossed in front of the car to the driver’s side.
    She had to admit Jack looked good, too. The black suit he’d paid far more for than half her wardrobe, with a white silk shirt, open at the neck to reveal curly chest hairs, set off his dark good looks as a heart-stopper. Who would ever dream looking at them, they were celebrating twenty-five years of marriage? While their two children were planning a family get-together to celebrate, she and Jack had opted to have this one night together, just the two of them.
    He torched off the motor and paused. “Where are we going?”
    “To the Mansfield.” She had set up this date, making reservations at what she knew to be his favorite restaurant. It was too high priced and too upscale to go to regularly, but once in a great while…
    “Sparing no expense, I hope.”
    “That’s right.” She smiled at him and purred, “You’re worth it.”
    He patted her knee and shifted the Porsche to drive. Four on the floor. A man’s dream, and a middle-aged man at that. Was middle age what was prompting his restlessness these last couple of years, his demand that she go out and get a job so they could have a better lifestyle? But perhaps she was feeling middle-aged as well, because she was going along with it, carefully remaking the old Angela into the kind of woman he raved about who worked in his office at the bank. Sexy and successful. Two of his favorite words when referring to women. And slim. Angela now weighed fourteen pounds less than when she graduated from high school.
    “Did you get my shirts at the dry cleaners? I have to leave for a short trip in the morning.”
    “No, I had two showings this afternoon and then I forgot. I’ll pick them up in the morning.”
    “My flight is at eight.” His tone bit.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I asked you to get them.”
    “But you didn’t say…” She cut off her reply. “Let’s not argue tonight, okay? I’m sure you have plenty more shirts to make this trip. How long will you be gone?”
    “Three days, four at the most. I guess I’ll have to buy shirts if I need more.”
    Since when had he played the martyr role? “Where are you going?”
    “Seattle. I have back-to-back meetings with marketing and mergers and acquisitions.”
    Was that a hint of pride she now heard in his voice? Since he’d given up sharing much business talk with her, complaining that she was never around to listen when she brought it up, she wasn’t