Strange Bedfellow Read Online Free PDF Page B

Blake's return. They had been watching the reunion between husband and wife—or rather, the lack of it.  
    In that paralyzing second, Dina realized she had not so much as touched Blake, let alone joyously fallen into his arms. Her one swaying attempt had been accidentally checked by Chet's steadying hold. It would seem staged and faked if she did so now.  
    Equally startling was the discovery that she would have to fake it because, although the man in front of her was obviously Blake Chandler, he did not seem like the same man she had married. She felt as if she were looking at a total stranger. He knew what she was thinking and feeling; she could see it in the coolness of his expression, aloof and chilling.  
    As she and Chet approached the doorway, Blake stepped to one side, giving them room. He smiled down at his mother, his expression revealing nothing to the others that might let them think he found her behavior unnatural under the circumstances.  
    “If you were so positive I was alive, mother, why are you wearing black?” he chided her.  
    Color rose in Norma Chandler's cheeks. “For your father, Blake,” she responded, not at a loss for an explanation.  
    Everyone was still standing, watching, as Chet guided Dina to the empty cushions of the sofa. After she was seated, he automatically sat down beside her. Blake had followed them into the room.  
    Every nerve in Dina's body was aware of his presence, although she wasn't able to lift her gaze to him. Guilt burned inside her, gnawing away at any spontaneous reaction she might have had. It didn't help when Blake sat down in the armchair nearest her end of the couch.  
    The housekeeper appeared, setting a china cup and saucer on the glass-topped table in front of the sofa. “Here's your coffee, just the way Mr. Blake ordered it.”  
    “Thank you, Deirdre,” she murmured. She reached for the china cup filled with steaming dark liquid, but her hands were shaking like aspen leaves and she couldn't hold on to it.  
    Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a suggestion of movement from Blake, as if he was about to lean forward to help her. Chet's hand was already there, lifting the cup to carry it to her lips. It was purely an automatic reaction on Chet's part. He had become used to doing things for her in the past two and a half years, just as Dina had become used to having him do them.  
    Instinctively, she knew he hadn't told Blake of their engagement and she doubted if anyone else had. But Chet's solicitous concern was telling its own story. And behind that facade of lazy interest, Blake was absorbing every damning detail. Without knowing it, Chet was making matters worse.  
    The hot and sweetly potent liquid Dina sipped eased the constriction strangling her voice, and she found the strength to raise her hesitant gaze to Blake's.  
    “How...” she began self-consciously. “I mean when...”  
    “I walked out of the jungle two weeks ago.” He anticipated her question and answered it.  
    “Two weeks ago?” That was before she had agreed to marry Chet. “Why didn't you let ... someone know?”  
    “It was difficult to convince the authorities that I was who I claimed to be. They, too, believed I was dead.” There was a slashing line to his mouth, a cynical smile. “It must have been easier for Lazarus back in the Biblical days to return from the dead.”  
    “Are you positive I can't fix you a drink, Mr. Blake?” the housekeeper inquired. “A martini?”  
    “Nothing, thank you.”  
    Dina frowned. In the past Blake had always drunk two, if not three martinis before dinner. She had not been wrong. There were more than just surface changes in him during the last two and a half years. Unconsciously she covered her hand with her right, hiding not only the wedding rings Blake had given her, but Chet's engagement ring, as well.  
    “The instant they believed Blake's story,” his mother inserted to carry on his explanation, “he caught