To Love a Stranger Read online

  “I agree,” chimed in Cecelia, while she paced around the room. “But there’s nothing wrong with playing it safe. It won’t take long for the blood test to come back.”

  Madeline nodded, but she was quickly developing a migraine. This simply couldn’t be happening. For six years she had been free from Russell Stone and the idea, however small, of returning to captivity was enough to threaten her sanity.

  Madeline took a deep breath and then whispered, “Maybe I should go back.”

  “Where?” both Cecelia and Lysandra questioned.

  “To Christopher’s. To take another look. To make sure.” Madeline stood from the vanity table and joined her mother in pacing around the room. “I’ll go crazy if I stay here, wondering.” She stopped pacing. “I can’t lose everything I’ve worked so hard for now. I’ve come too far. I’m too close to the label’s launch.”

  “If you’re going then I’m going with you,” Cecelia announced. “I want to see this man for myself.”

  Madeline groaned.

  Lysandra jumped up. “I want to go, too.”

  “I need one of you to stay here with the children,” Madeline said.

  “She can do it,” Cecelia and Lysandra responded, both pointing to the other.

  Madeline turned her imploring eyes toward her cousin. Both knew that it wasn’t fair to subject Russ and Ariel to Cecelia’s burnt or under-cooked meals and constant nagging.

  “Fine,” Lysandra relented, plopping back down on the bed. “I’ll stay, but I expect a full report on what’s going on.”

  “You got it,” Madeline promised. “One way or another, I’m getting to the bottom of this.”

  Dark sky. Angry clouds. Falling, losing altitude, losing control. Smoke. He could smell smoke.

  “Mayday! Mayday!”

  A voice, his voice, cried for help. Twisting and clawing, he struggled to fight his way out of the nightmare; however, the more he wrestled the faster he fell.

  “We’re going down! Dear God, we’re going down!”

  Suddenly he was plunging out of the sky at an alarming rate. He tried to scream again, but now he couldn’t squeeze air through his lungs. Blood rushed and then threatened to burst his eardrums, while every muscle in his body clenched in preparation for the inevitable crash.

  A second before impact, Russell’s eyes snapped open and his heart leapt at the sight of a lone figure hovering above him. Without thinking, he shot out his hand and gripped the stranger’s slim neck. He had every intention of squeezing until the small bones snapped in two, but a woman’s husky whimper parted the thick fog, clouding his judgment.

  “Rus-sell,” the woman gasped, while long, slender fingers raked at his hand. “Please…stop.”

  “Madeline,” he whispered. Recognition snapped into place and his hand dropped away from her neck as though it was a hot poker scorching his skin.

  Madeline jetted backward and toppled over the edge of the bed and hit the floor with a loud thump.

  “Oh my God, Madeline,” Russell rasped, and then rushed out of bed and raced to her side.

  Madeline scrambled away from him. “Don’t touch me!” she screeched, her hands covering her bruised neck.

  Russell held up his hands so she could see that he meant her no harm.

  “You tried to kill me,” she accused, her tone unforgiving.

  “I was startled. I’m sorry…I didn’t know,” he apologized. His guilt and his repulsion at what he’d done, what he’d been seconds from doing, ripped at his soul.

  Madeline’s beautiful eyes blazed with disbelief and mistrust. He could hardly blame her. Reluctantly, he backed away from her. “I’ll call for someone to come up and help you,” he whispered in remorse, and turned to reach for the phone.

  “No. Don’t,” Madeline barked.

  Surprised by the command, Russell turned and stared at his beautiful wife. His wife, he thought incredulously. Since when did he start believing that she truly belonged to him?

  “It’s okay,” she assured in a strained whisper. “I’m okay.” She climbed up on her visibly shaking legs. “It looked like you were having a bad dream.”

  Was he?

  “What were you dreaming about?” she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

  He stared back at her, his mind a blank. “I don’t remember,” he said. It was only partly true, but until he could make sense of everything, he elected to keep his disturbing dreams, or rather nightmares, to himself.

  It didn’t matter. The look on Madeline’s face clearly said that she didn’t believe him. Backing away, she said, “It was a mistake to come back here.” She pivoted on her black heels, but didn’t walk far.

  “Then why did you?” he asked, his curiosity getting the best of him. “You made it pretty clear last night you hate my guts.”

  She stood frozen with her back toward him. “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Madeline straightened her shoulders and lifted her head before she dared turn and face him again. “Are you really my husband?”

  Russell met her leveled gaze with one of his own. “I don’t know. I came here hoping that you could tell me.”

  Madeline stared into the man’s liquid black orbs with a racing heart and a million butterflies fluttering in her stomach—neither of which had anything to do with fear, but had everything to do with a burning attraction. “You’re not my husband,” she said, forcing each word out of her mouth. At the moment, she believed it. Her husband had never affected her like this.

  Russell dropped his gaze to stare at a vacant spot on the floor. “Do you believe that, or do you simply want to believe it?”

  Their eyes met again, and this time, Madeline felt the acidic burn of rising tears. “I want Russell Stone to remain dead and buried.”

  He physically flinched from her bitter words and in the next second, his entire posture slumped with disappointment. “Then I hope for your sake that he is.”

  Guilt stabbed Madeline’s heart. She had never seen a man look so remorseful and tortured. The old Russell Stone knew how to stand toe to toe with her and engage in a verbal combat that left everyone in New York with their ears ringing.

  That was what she had halfway expected when she raced back to Christopher’s. She wanted to scream, rake his eyes out, if need be. But now, she had to fight all that was holy not to take him in her arms and comfort him, tell him that everything was going to be all right.

  Even though it was far from the truth.

  “Why don’t you just go back to wherever you came from?” she asked as fat drops of tears rolled down her face. Better to get through this ugliness now than to drag it out. She wanted him gone.

  While she waited for him to respond, the silence in the room condemned her for being so ruthless. This man may or may not be her husband, but one thing she was certain of, this man was lost.

  He was not an actor and he was not faking his amnesia.

  “I’ll leave,” he finally said, and somehow managed to lift his shoulders a few inches. “If and when the blood test proves I’m not Russell Stone.”

  It was Madeline’s turn to be disappointed.

  “Do cheer up,” Russell said, stepping forward. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you.” He cupped her chin between his fingertips, locking their gazes once again. “I do have a confession though,” he said.

  “What is it?” she asked though she was scared to hear it.

  “I hope I am your husband. So I don’t have to ask permission to do this.”

  Before she could react, he leaned forward and planted his pillow-soft lips against hers. She sighed, melting into the kiss and gave no resistance when his hands fell and wrapped around her waist.

  He didn’t pull her closer, he didn’t have to. She willingly pressed her body against his with a carnal lust that shook her very core.

  One knock, and then the bedroom door bolted open. “Russell, Madeline is…” Christopher froze just as Madeline and Russell sprang apart.<
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  “Back,” Christopher finished his sentence with a lopsided smirk. “Well, well, well. Look who’s kissed and made up.”

  “Go to hell,” Madeline said, finally feeling her anger, however misdirected, return. She marched from Russell’s side, and breezed past Christopher with a rough bump to his arm.

  He laughed in her wake and then turned his amused gaze back toward his brother. “You still got the touch.”

  Russell flushed with embarrassment. “I think things are looking up.”

  Christopher just shook his head as he approached. “Let me remind you of something you have obviously forgotten: never underestimate a woman with a plan. And right now, you’re all that stands between Madeline and a hell of a lot of money.”

  Chapter 8

  “You kissed him?” Lysandra screeched through the phone. “Are you feeling okay? What possessed you to do something stupid like that?”

  “Please,” Madeline moaned. “One question at a time. I’ve obviously misplaced my brain somewhere.”

  Lysandra fell silent for so long, Madeline had to check whether she was still on the line.

  “Yeah, I’m still here. I just don’t know what to say. I thought you hated Russell?”

  “I did. I do, but…”

  “Yes?”

  Madeline gave up searching for logic and shrugged against the phone. “I can’t explain what happened.”

  “Well…does this mean that you think he is Russell?”

  “That’s just it, I still don’t know.”

  “Even after kissing him?”

  Again, logic escaped her. “Russell has always been a master kisser. It’s what made him popular with the ladies.”

  “Second to his money?”

  “I guess it’s all relative—but…when I kissed him, it was the same—but totally different. I can’t explain it any better than that.” Other than he swept me off my feet.

  Lysandra released a loud sigh. “Well, you set out to discover the truth. I guess this was one way to go about doing it.” Silence, and then, “I just wouldn’t make kissing him a habit.”

  Good sound advice. Madeline nodded against the phone.

  “Are you still there?” Lysandra asked.

  “Yeah, I’m here.” Madeline stood from the bed and paced. “It’s him,” she finally whispered. “No way this guy is an actor. As crazy as his amnesia story is, I think…I believe him.”

  “That’s not good news,” Lysandra said.

  Madeline stopped pacing and reviewed the kiss in her mind for about the hundredth time in the last ten minutes. What she remembered now and what she tasted then was possibility.

  Can a bad boy be reprogrammed?

  Madeline laughed at the question. There were way too many women crazy enough to think that changing a man was a possibility. Sure you can get them to take the garbage out every now and then and you’re one of the lucky ones if you could train them to keep their clothes off the floor, but change a playboy into husband material?

  Been there. Tried that.

  “You’re right, Lysandra.” She nodded. “I need to stay focused. “If he’s my husband, I just need to keep the peace until after the fashion line launch. I haven’t come this far to lose everything now.”

  Despite what Shaw thought, Denitra wasn’t dumb. In the past twenty-four hours in the Stone estate, she’d experienced a level of luxury she’d never known existed. Why settle for half the reward money when there was obvious so much more available?

  The idea of marrying shifty-eyed Shaw became less appealing and the handsome, amnesia gold mine Russell Stone became her new golden ticket—especially since the reunion between him and the missus looked more like the beginnings of a new world war.

  However, she was hardly in the same class as Madeline Stone. The woman exuded elegant style.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?” Shaw finally stopped huffing and puffing above her to actually notice she wasn’t participating.

  “Actually—” she sighed “—I do have a bit of a headache.”

  Shaw’s three-minute hard-on deflated and Denitra rolled her eyes, as well as her body off their silken-sheeted haven and made a beeline toward the bathroom.

  “Hey, what the hell has gotten in to you?” Shaw asked, trailing behind her. “You’ve been trippin’ since we got here.”

  “Oh, please. You’re imaging things.” She turned on the shower. “See if you can get me some aspirins or something. We’re expected at dinner in a few minutes.” Denitra tuned Shaw’s babbling out as she assessed her figure in the mirror. She definitely had the figure to capture Russell Stone’s attention—now she needed the polish.

  Just thinking what she should wear next to men and women who only wore top-of-the-line, designer clothes really did threaten to give her a headache. She wished she could be more like them.

  She’d have to learn and learn quickly if she wanted a man like Russell Stone to notice her.

  Russell stood before the bathroom mirror and took one last long look at his thick moustache and scruffy beard and then reached for the electric razor Coleman had brought him. At first, he felt like an invalid trying to maneuver the gadget, but within minutes he had the hang of it. When he finished, he roamed his hand across his now smooth skin and finally saw what everyone else did—Russell Stone.

  Coleman returned and proved to be one hell of a barber. Dinner didn’t call for an Armani suit, but Coleman had selected a black and gray Valentino number that draped his toned six-foot-two physique like an actor on the red carpet.

  “Are you pleased, sir?” Coleman asked.

  Russell kept turning before the bedroom mirrors, marveling at the transformation.

  “Sir?” Coleman prompted again.

  “Yes, yes,” Russell answered at last. “You did a good job, Coleman.”

  A smile lit Coleman’s eyes, but it didn’t touch his lips. Russell found the older gentleman an interesting oddity, but he liked him.

  “What time is dinner served again?” Russell asked, eager to see his wife again. Wife. When had he accepted that notion as fact? Probably the moment he laid eyes on her and started wishing it to be true.

  “Dinner will be served promptly at seven, sir.”

  “Coleman, it’s not necessary to keep calling me ‘sir.’”

  “Then what shall I call you?” he asked, maintaining his stoic expression.

  Silence, and then softly, “Russell. For the time being you can call me Russell.”

  At last, a smile curved the butler’s full lips. “As you wish.”

  Madeline expected Christopher to host another large dinner, this time for the curious, family and friends who’d missed the main event the night before. Instead, the table was set for seven.

  “This should be cozy,” Cecelia commented. “Less company means we’ll have more of opportunity to grill this impostor.”

  Madeline glanced at her overly bejeweled mother. “You think he’s a fake?”

  “Of course he is. Did you see that disgusting beard and moustache—and those clothes? The horror!”

  “Mother—”

  “I know what I’m talking about. Good breeding stays in the bones, amnesia or not.”

  Speechless, Madeline shook her head. She wondered for the umpteenth time why she had invited her mother.

  “Where shall we sit?” Cecelia asked.

  “Anywhere is fine,” Madeline said, drawing back the first chair she approached.

  Her mother’s hand wrapped around her arm like a steel vise and prevented her from sitting down.

  “I want you to sit next to him—the fraud.”

  Madeline didn’t like that idea. Despite her earlier bravado on the phone with Lysandra, she was certain, she needed a bit of distance from Russell in order to think clearly. “That’s not necessary, Mother. We’re going to be here all weekend. There will be plenty of opportunity to get up close and personal.”

  “I—”

  “I can’t see how anyone could forget a house like this,
” a woman’s low husky voice filtered into the dining room seconds before a curvaceous woman wrapped tightly in hooker spandex appeared in the doorway.

  Her familiar face teased Madeline’s memory and before she had a chance to figure out where she’d seen the girl before the shifty eyed private investigator burst onto the scene. He wrapped his arm around the woman’s curvy waist in silent possession. His arm candy looked none too pleased with him or at seeing Madeline.

  “Speaking of bad breeding,” Cecelia said icily.

  “I see you’re still here,” Madeline said with disdain dripping from her voice.

  “Until the check is written.” Shaw winked, and then added, “I’m more surprised to see you here. That was quite a performance last night. Very Dynasty-esque.”

  Madeline clamped her jaw tight until the urge to sock the P.I. in the face passed. It was going to be a long night, she thought.

  Cecelia stepped forward to fill the room’s sudden silence. “I take it then that you are the man who found this Russell look-alike?”

  “He’s the genuine article.” Shaw dropped his arm from his spandex goddess. “I stake my reputation on it.”

  Cecelia’s eyebrows soared to the middle of her forehead. “Well, excuse me if that doesn’t exactly cause me to sleep better at night.”

  Tiffani and Christopher glided into the dining room next. While Christopher wore a smile to rival the sun, Tiffani looked bored.

  “Hello, everyone,” Christopher greeted as his eyes scanned the room. “I see that our guest of honor hasn’t arrived yet.” His gaze settled on Madeline. “Given how chummy you two were this afternoon I thought you would do the honors of escorting him down to dinner.”

  Shaw was off the hook and Christopher now replaced the punching bag in her mind.

  “Again, my apologies for interrupting your afternoon delight.”

  “What?” Her mother and the spandex queen gasped.