Claiming His Wife (Unlikely Love) by Sam Crescent Read Free Book Online

he stopped and saw her. “Opal, what are you doing here?”
    “I was told to wait.”
    He turned to glare at his secretary. “From now on you send her straight into my office, do you understand me?”
    The woman nodded and left with her tail between her legs. Opal followed him into his office.
    “What brings the pleasure of your visit?” he asked.
    “I take it the new secretary isn’t looking up?” she said instead.
    “No. Practically useless. Scarlet would never keep you outside. She knows family come first.”
    “Maybe you could get her to work for you again?” she said.
    “In her condition she needs to rest. Enough about me and my life . What about yours?”
    She took the seat in front of his desk. “I wanted to ask you a question.”
    “Shoot.”
    “Well, it’s not a question really. I was wondering if you knew a lawyer who would be willing to handle a divorce case.”
    “On what grounds ?”
    “Mutual misunderstanding. A separation of sorts.”
    “Opal, who’s this divorce for?” Richard asked.
    “For me....and Tony,” she said.
    “Does he know about your feelings? Haven’t you tried to work something out?”
    Opal glanced around the room. This is why she didn’t want her brother handling the marriage. He asked too many questions, and she’d already caused a rift in their friendship.
    “I don’t need to talk about it. I think it’s time I let Tony go his own way. We’re not compatible or anything, and I don’t want to bring him any further shame.” The tears were so close to the surface.
    “What I saw last Friday would question the way you think,” he said.
    “Last Friday we were playing happy couples for an event.”
    “I don’t think that’s what it is.”
    “Look, this is hard for me already, Richard. Could you please file the paperwork or whatever? I don’t want to do this anymore. He’ll be free to go and marry Rita Brooke or whomever he wanted. I’m not here to trap him.”
    Silence met her outburst. She looked up to find Richard staring at her. “Do you love him?”
    “What?”
    “In all the years I’ve known Tony or you’ve known him, I never saw anything between you. I thought at one time you had a crush, and then you got married to him. Do you love him, Opal?”
    Two years ago she had been a happy-go-lucky twenty-year-old who’d been talked into doing what her parents wanted. All of her life she’d wanted to be able to make her own choices. In her world, she hadn’t been allowed to. Every time she had to get permission from her parents.
    “I don’t want to answer that,” she said. She knew in her heart she loved Tony. Always had and always would. Childish or stupid school-girl adoration wouldn’t force a man to suddenly change his mind. Tony would never see her as anything other than Richard’s little sister. She couldn’t live constantly loving a man who would never love her back. Or staring at magazine articles wondering if he saw the same flaws as other people.
    “I think you need to think about it. When a divorce proceeding starts and goes through, pulling it back is the hardest thing.”
    “I accept that.”
    “Do you really?”
    There he went, talking to her like a child. It was time she gave him the blunt truth.
    “Two years ago your friend Tony helped keep me from marrying a man I would never love. Our parents bought about that wedding to strengthen the Shaw name. Out of every person I knew Tony found me and helped me.” She bit her lip and stared at her finger with the rings on. “I think it’s time I give him his freedom back.”
    Opal stood and removed the rings. “When the papers get posted will you make sure he gets these? Tell him I said thank you.”
    Before Richard had time to convince her otherwise, she left the building. She walked all the way back to her house. On the mantel piece, the one and only wedding photo she had of her day lay framed. She picked up the picture and placed it on the fire. 
    ****
    Tony stared down at the