Male Order Bride by Carolyn Thornton Read Free Book Online Page B

also
needed something more soothing to occupy her evenings. The stress of
the boutique often brought her to near-exhaustion. If he ever called,
she thought, glancing again at the phone as she finished the first
bagel, Rafe Chancellor might turn out to be a welcome diversion this
summer. She needed someone just long enough to fill the slack time she
would have before the fall-winter season.
    There it was, the phone. Lacey hurriedly swallowed the
bagel she'd been chewing idly and got up from the table. What was she
going to say? She hadn't properly formed her greeting. Her heart raced
as she picked up the phone to say hello… and started
coughing when the bagel went down the wrong way.
    Terrific first impression, she thought, and managed to
croak, "Hello."
    "Lacey?" the voice on the other end asked.
    "Yes," Lacey said, laughing. She'd heard only her name
roll off his lips, but it was a nice voice, a voice she could easily
fall in love with. She laughed again and blurted out the first thing
that was on her mind. "You certainly have a novel approach."
    "What? Calling you on the phone?" he asked. Lacey blushed.
It wasn't Rafe Chancellor. It was Dominick Maynor, the last man she had
fallen in love with and "trial-married", and then had "divorced" in a
wrenching manner two years ago when she realized he was never going to
change his wine, women and whining.
    "You could have sent flowers," she said, hoping he
wouldn't realize she had thought he was someone else.
    "I didn't think you liked flowers."
    She didn't, not the way he sent them—whenever he
was feeling guilty because there'd been another woman in his life. The
flowers had always been followed by tender affection, sometimes for
blissful days on end. But eventually his honesty won over his sense of
"protection" of her and he would confess he'd been with a new woman.
Lacey eventually learned that roses represented heartache. She closed
her eyes now, remembering the most painful memories of their time
together, and wondered how she had put up with his dual romancing as
long as she had. "It depends on who's sending the flowers, whether or
not I like them," Lacey answered.
    He chuckled, that deep rich laugh she had once so loved.
"Maybe I should start sending them again," Dominick suggested.
    "No, thank you," Lacey said crisply. "Someone else is
doing the job quite adequately."
    "Oh?" The timbre of his voice deepened. Lacey wondered if
he was jealous. In all the time she had lived with him and endured his
affairs, trying to cope with his boys-will-be-boys attitude, she had
never once been unfaithful to him. It had probably been because he had
given her permission for promiscuity. It was allowed, he had reasoned,
because they weren't really married. Theirs was only a trial live-in
arrangement. Each time he came back to her, it was with the statement
"I still haven't found anyone I'd rather live with."
    Lacey had tried to change him at first. Then she had
learned to accept it. Finally she had decided it was not worth the
emotional hassle to live on this roller coaster of highs and lows,
especially when the lows became more frequent and more sustained.
    Finally she had gotten the courage to leave him. It had
taken her months to make the move after she had made the decision. But
once she had walked away and begun to rebuild her life, she had felt
free for the first time since she had met him. It hadn't come from a
lover's permission to take other lovers. She realized now that would
only have given him an excuse for his affairs. Her freedom had come
from within. She was free from another person's influence, free to
develop her own ideas. She discovered she liked living alone, although
there were times when she missed the company of a man. In the back of
her mind she couldn't erase the image of one day being a housewife with
a brood of children.
    Lacey didn't talk about Rafe Chancellor for Dominick's
benefit. She let him feel a little of the isolation and rejection his
affairs had