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feminine wiles she had to get it.   Logan wouldn’t have held back his passion with her as he did with Shelby, his blonde lover wouldn’t have allowed it.   Which was probably what had lured him away, she thought miserably, because his naïve virginal bride hadn’t been able to satisfy him.
    “It’s not that I didn’t want to be the perfect wife for you,” she chose her words carefully.   “For a while I even fooled myself into believing I could make you happy just because I learned how to manage running the house and be a gracious hostess.  And because I was so in love with you.”   Shelby drew in a shaky breath.   “But it wasn’t enough.”
    “It was enough for me, carissima .”
    He sounded so sincere she almost believed him, but just being this close to Logan, feeling the intense sexuality that seemed to exude from every pore in his body, Shelby knew she was only fooling herself again.
    “We’re just too different, Logan.   You’re a powerful man, so sure of yourself, so confident in everything you do.  You have a magnetism that draws people to you.   Doesn’t it bother you that your friends and business associates must think you’ve lost your mind to have married someone like me?”
    “Shelby, look at me.”  
    Logan waited until she lifted her head and then almost wished she hadn’t because the pain and fear on her face was so stark it wrenched his gut.  
    “I do not know why you cannot see how immeasurably beautiful you are, but I see it and so do my friends and business associates.   Do you want to know what they say about you, cara , about us?”
    “Logan…” she shook her head.
    “I will tell you anyway.   They envy me, Shelby.   You are elegance and grace, with a quiet beauty that has brought peace to my heart.   They see this and they want it for themselves.   I am a lucky man, they tell me, and they would give anything to have a woman like you; a woman who looks at me as if I am the only man in the world and does not demand anything but that I love her in return.”
    “And yet they all have wives or girlfriends who look like movie stars,” she said with a touch of cynicism.   “It seemed more like a beauty pageant whenever we entertained, Logan, but it was the men who competed.   It was a contest to see who could obtain the most beautiful woman, decking them out with the finest clothes and the most expensive jewelry and strutting around like proud peacocks because their woman was the sexiest or the most desired by other men.   I felt like the ugly duckling in a pond full of swans,” Shelby said miserably, “and I always knew it was just a matter of time before you saw it too.”
    “You are so wrong, cara mia .”   Logan brushed a soft kiss to her lips.   “I saw only you, and I was proud that my wife did not need any of those things to enhance her beauty.   You are like a delicate flower, so soft, so sweet.”  
    His eyes moved slowly over her face, settling on her trembling lips.   In all the time they had been married, he’d never once seen her look so desolate, not even on those few occasions when they had a disagreement.   Shelby always had radiant smile ready for him when he returned home from work or a business trip, her eyes lighting up as she launched herself into his arms.   No matter how bad his day had been, Logan could brush it off knowing his wife would be waiting at home for him, waiting to be swept up into his arms and kissed until her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were soft and dreamy.  
    He loved that part of each day, and come hell or high water, he was going to fix whatever was wrong so he could go home without feeling as if his heart was being ripped out because she wasn’t there to greet him.   Logan could see that Shelby was hurting too, but she obviously wasn’t ready to tell him the real reason she’d left.   Maybe it was true that she felt out of place among all the powdered and perfumed wives and girlfriends, but that