Paper Marriage Proposition Read Online Free PDF Page B

with his nearness. Each quiver and tingle of awareness reminded her of every want and need and craving not appeased for years, for a lifetime.
    Stopping the lawyer in midsentence, she glared at the dark, still man across the table, and firmly whispered, “I don’t want your settlement. It’s you I want, you’re the only one who can hurt Hector.”
    He betrayed no reaction, except that, on the table, his fingers slowly curled into his palm.
    “Now, in case any child results out of your union, Mr. Gage gets full custody,” the lawyer said.
    Shock swept through Beth. “There will not be a child.”
    Her reaction was so wild and instant, Landon threw his head back and gave a bark of laughter. The sound was such an unexpected rumble, striking such a discordant note with the rest of his composed self, it sent an uninvited jolt into her system. Outraged, she glowered. He really thought this funny?
    To risk a child for a little bit of sex with the man!
    “You’d take a child away from me?” Beth asked, disbelieving. “Is that any way to start a marriage? An association? A war team?”
    His eyes danced in what seemed like mirth. “The way I see it, Beth, we start with honesty, which is more than I can say for my last marriage.” He sobered almost instantly, and his shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I distrust everyone, please understand.”
    Her chest contracted. He could’ve reached inside her with those tanned, blunt hands and squeezed her heart.
    Beth understood too well.
    He’d lost one child, and he wouldn’t lose another.
    He’d been betrayed. Just like Beth had been betrayed.
    And when you stopped believing in people, deep down there would always be a part of you that you would never give, that nobody could ever again reach.
    Landon wouldn’t trust Beth—but he would help her. And how, she marveled, had she enlisted such a man’s aid? She knew a gift from the universe when she saw one.
    And there he was, sitting across the table—beautiful and ruthless. God help her.
    No, God help Hector Halifax when Landon Gage was through with him.
    The thought invigorated her, exhilarated her. It could’ve been foreplay for the way her body responded to the idea of her new husband stomping all over Hector for all the times he’d stomped on Beth.
    Relaxing in her seat, she confessed with a mischievous grin, “I’m still marrying you, Landon. Toss any more hoops you want me to jump through, but I’m still marrying you.”
    A flicker of admiration passed across his face. Then the awesome silver in his eyes turned molten, his jaw bunched tightly—and he appeared shockingly…eager. A strange gravity entered his voice. “How about you sign those papers now, Bethany?”
    The white-haired lawyer nodded in the direction of the document. “Miss Lewis? If you please?”
    Bethany.
    No one ever called her that.
    Trying to dismiss the fact that he’d made it sound so intimate, like Bethany were his pet name for her, Beth signed the dotted line with a flourish and pointed the end of the pen at Landon. “Mrs. Gage,” she said, correcting the lawyer.
    Landon’s eyes flashed. For a slow heartbeat, Beth pictured him lunging across the table, hauling her to him, and feasting on the lips he’d rejected the night before.
    “I’m a Gage now,” she whispered.
    “Not yet.” Slow and sure, his lips formed the wickedest, most dangerous grin she’d ever seen. “Gentlemen, I’d like to be left alone with my fiancée.”



Four
    A tense silence descended as soon as the doors sealed shut with a soft click . Then Bethany spoke. “I think we should talk about our plan. I want Hector groveling, Landon. I want him penniless, honorless, childless and whimpering like a whipped dog.”
    Landon’s eyebrows rose.
    He gazed at her and struggled not to show the way her words affected him, stirred his deepest, darkest appetites.
    He had lied to his brothers.
    She was so damned cute like this, murderous and practical, she probably didn’t