Improperly Wed by Anna DePalo Read Free Book Online

choose to fight your divorce suit, you’ll remain my wife for quite a while longer.”
    â€œSo you plan to fight it?”
    â€œWith everything I’ve got.”
    â€œI’ll win eventually.”
    â€œMaybe, but I’m sure the Wentworths won’t appreciate the notoriety.”
    He was right, Belinda thought with a sick feeling. If this scandal deepened, her family would be horrified. And she felt ill just thinking of the Dillinghams’ reaction.
    â€œYou’re the Marchioness of Easterbridge,” Colin said, driving his point home. “You might as well start using the title.”
    Marchioness of Easterbridge. She was glad her ancestors weren’t around to hear this.
    â€œIt’s a good thing you chose to keep your surname on the Nevada marriage license,” Colin continued. “Otherwise, you’d have been erroneously representing yourself as Belinda Wentworth rather than Belinda Granville for more than two years.”
    â€œI remember choosing to keep my name,” she shot back. “I wasn’t so completely off kilter that I don’t remember that detail.”
    Somehow, it had been acceptable to marry Colin but not to take the Granville name.
    Belinda Granville. It sounded worse than Marchioness of Easterbridge. Easterbridge was simply Colin’s title, whereas Granville had been the surname carried by his devious ancestors.
    â€œWhy are you doing this?” she blurted. “I can’t understand why we shouldn’t have a civilized divorce—or better yet, annulment.”
    He sauntered toward her. “Can’t you? Nothing has been civilized between the Wentworths and the Granvilles forgenerations. The ending of our…encounter in Las Vegas is further evidence of it.”
    Her eyes widened. “So it all goes back to that, doesn’t it?”
    He stopped before her. “I intend to make a conquest of the Wentworths once and for all—” his gaze slid down her body “—beginning and ending with you, my beautiful wife.”
    Â 
    Disaster preparedness.
    He’d laid the groundwork, Colin thought. He’d spent two-plus years planning for this moment, making sure he’d anticipated every likely contingency.
    â€œExcellent,” Colin said into the phone. “Did he ask many questions?”
    â€œNo,” his deputy responded. “Once he knew you were willing to meet his price, he was pleased.”
    And now, he was satisfied himself, Colin thought.
    â€œI believe he assumed you were a Russian oligarch looking to make a prime purchase.”
    â€œEven better,” Colin replied.
    If he knew Belinda, in the past few weeks she’d been quietly working to find a way to disengage herself from their union with as little fanfare as possible. But now he held a trump card.
    After ending the call, he looked up at his two friends. When his cell phone had buzzed, and he’d seen who was calling, he’d been too impatient for answers to ignore the call despite the presence of company on a Thursday evening.
    From their seats in upholstered chairs in the sitting room of Colin’s London town house, Sawyer Langsford, Earl of Melton, and James Carsdale, Duke of Hawkshire, exchanged looks. They all happened to be in town at thesame time and had met for drinks. Having removed their jackets, they all sat around with loosened ties.
    Like his two fellow aristocrats, Colin had had a more peripatetic existence than most, so his accent was cosmopolitan rather than British. Still, despite all being well-traveled—or maybe, because of it—he, Sawyer and Hawk had become friends. Thus it seemed oddly appropriate that the three of them would become romantically entangled at the same time.
    Sawyer had unexpectedly gotten engaged to Tamara Kincaid, one of Belinda’s bridesmaids. Hawk was intently pursuing Pia Lumley, Belinda’s wedding planner, in an effort to smooth out his bumpy history with