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Her body, despite her trying to scrub off his touch because it made her insane to keep thinking about, had not a second relented.
She relived every moment repeatedly, going around in circles and coming back to the only point that mattered. Silas Knight didn’t want a wife. At least not her. And yet they were married. She vowed to get to the bottom of his reasoning because the whole thing was bound to drive her to insanity.
She rose from the sofa, stretched a bit then picked out clothes for the day. She took another shower and changed into a long soft skirt, and a tank top, and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals.
She tied her long hair into a ponytail and then spent the next ten minutes dying for a cup of coffee. She also needed to find her phone. She had had it in the pocket of the skirt the whole night right up to the point where she had sat in his car. She needed to call her friends and explain the sordid details of her new marriage. But she stalled for both her phone and coffee because she had no idea whether Silas would be in or not.
An ultra-sleek wall clock told her it wasn’t even seven in the morning yet. He hadn’t come to the room, because the bed looked exactly as she left it after straightening it out.
She jumped up, scolded herself for being a wimp, and marched out the door. She had carefully picked up the broken pieces of the vase she had wanted to fling at his head but which had hit the door. But she would also need to ask him where he kept his vacuum so she could clear the area of any fine glass pieces.
Although a shard here and there under his foot might make her feel better.
Her heart pounding, she walked down the corridor and caught the elevator to the ground floor where she assumed it was where the kitchen lived.
She gritted her teeth and ordered herself not to be dazzled by the sheer luxury of his home. It’s better if she didn’t like anything about it. Exactly the way she felt about him.
She came to a startled halt when she found him talking to another woman in an alcove of the entrance hall. Suddenly she didn’t know what to do with her hands, her lips, her body. He had seen her and touched her and tasted her and she had no idea how she was supposed to react to seeing him the morning after when theirs wasn’t a happy marriage, let alone a civil one.
The woman was elegantly dressed in a dark gray skirt suit, her hair perfectly in place.
She almost fell over backward when Silas issued the woman a smile. She had no idea he was capable of such a simple human trait. So it must be her then.
“This is Alice Murphy, my housekeeper. She’ll show you around,” he said curtly. Really? Those were the first words out of his mouth after… after last night?
“It will be my pleasure and welcome to your new home, Mrs. Knight.”
Oh how much Arabelle wanted to not like Alice either but it was harder than not liking his house.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Ms.—”
“You can call me Alice, please.” She smiled with a motherly look on her face. “This way, if you please, Mrs. Knight.”
“And you can call me Arabelle.”
“I would love to call you Mrs. Knight. God knows we’ve been waiting for you to arrive for an age,” she offered another smile that lapsed into a husky chuckle and Arabelle knew she was never going to change her mind about not calling her Mrs. Knight. She would never, ever get used to being called Mrs. Knight. Never ever.
“Alice, will you bring Mrs. Knight back to me when she's done?”
“Of course, Silas.
Alice showed her each of the rooms, from the entertainment areas to the halls, and each of the many, many bedrooms. But it was the kitchen she was after and Alice read her mind when she poured her a huge mug of coffee so rich, smooth, and aromatic that she sighed after every sip.
“Oh, this is yours, I believe?” Alice retrieved her cell phone from her suit jacket pocket and handed it to her.
“Oh, thank you so much. I worried that I might have lost it.”
“I’ll give you a moment while I go and see to breakfast. I’m sure you have lots to catch up on.”
Arabelle smiled her thanks and immediately set about to message her friends. Ordinarily, she would tell them everything. But the instant she started to type, she shifted gears and messaged with a false impression of what was really happening to her.
So I’m married. To that guy. I’m all right. I’ll explain everything later.
She sent it to their friends’ chat and then turned her phone off. Her battery was about to die but Alice, who had returned, offered her a port to charge her phone.
She was then led to a place setting for one in a little dining room just off the kitchen, under a skylight where white sunlight flooded the room.
“Doesn’t Silas have breakfast?” she asked, hating herself for caring.
