Read The Newlyweds for Free Online

all,” he told her. “I can afford to be generous. Besides, from what I hear, I just dote on my trophy wife and would do anything to indulge her.” And where the prospect of playing that role had made him feel like a complete sucker a few days ago, suddenly, for some reason, it didn’t seem nearly as distasteful now.
    â€œSo that’s how you made your reeking piles of filthy lucre,” she said, still smiling. Still seeming to be teasing him. And Sam still told himself he was only imagining it and not thinking wishfully. “You’re a steel baron.” She tilted her head to the side and studied him. “That’s going to make this role even more interesting to play, not to mention more challenging, since I’ve never really been a woman who went for the big-business-mogul type.”
    No, what was interesting, never mind challenging, Sam thought, was how badly he wanted to ask her just what type she did go for. Especially since she came from a family full of big-business-mogul types and seemed to be the kind of woman who had been groomed to marry just such a man. Then again, maybe that was precisely why she didn’t go for them. Tamping down his curiosity, he kept his question to himself. That was none of his business. And it wouldn’t be in any way helpful for working the case.
    In spite of his self-admonition, however—and much to his own horror—he heard himself ask her, “Are you saying you don’t think anyone will buy the idea of your being attracted to me, Logan?”
    Her eyes widened at that, and her smile fell. She didn’t seem to be teasing at all now, when she said, “Of course not. My God, any woman would be—” But she cut herself off before finishing whatever she had intended to say, her cheeks burning bright pink at whatever had inspired her to say it.
    And damned if Sam didn’t find himself wanting to move closer to her and demand to know exactly what she was thinking at that moment. Though it wasn’t necessarily his desire to know what she was thinking that made him want to move closer to her. No, unfortunately he was pretty sure it was his desire to do something else entirely that inspired that. Realizing it only made him feel even more rancorous. The last thing he wanted or needed was to get any closer to Logan than he already had. And why he understood that on one level but not another made him feel like a fool.
    â€œWhat?” he heard himself asking her in response to her stumble, not even sure when he’d made the decision to speak and knowing it was a mistake to do so. “Any woman would what?”
    Her eyes went wide again, in clear panic, and she opened her mouth, as if she were about to finish whatever she had been about to say automatically. But then she quickly closed her mouth again, clearly reconsidering and thinking better of it. Eventually, though, she did continue. “And we met in D.C., right? Which is totally credible since that’s where I went to college.”
    Although there was a part of him—a-none-too-small part, dammit—that didn’t want to change the subject, Sam reluctantly let it be. “Right,” he said. “You were living in the city, in Dupont Circle, and I was in the Virginia suburbs.”
    â€œBut I was managing an art gallery at the time,” she recalled correctly, “which is going to be a little tough to fake, because, quite frankly, I couldn’t tell you the difference between Jackson Pollack and Jackson, Mississippi.”
    â€œHey, at least you know Jackson Pollack’s name and that he was an artist,” Sam said helpfully.
    â€œOnly because I saw the movie,” she said by way of an explanation. “And that’s about the full extent of my art history education.”
    â€œAh.”
    She shook her head ruefully and crossed her arms over her chest, and Sam tried not to be too heartbroken about that. He also tried to