Hector criticized the press, but Landon respected them and was clearly admired in return. Hector had hated that about him. Landon needed only to stand there, be cordial, treat them like human beings, not bend to them or try desperately to be liked by them, and they adored him. Whereas Hector used to bribe them.
“Have you met Kate?” Eleanor’s voice filtered through her thoughts.
Beth spotted a young redhead heading in their direction. She radiated so much energy, she could’ve been a little sun. Her lopsided smile had troublemaker written all over it.
Beth liked her instantly.
“I’m the caterer,” Kate said, offering a tray. “And you’re Beth. Hi, Beth.”
“Kate is also a friend of the family.” The affection in her mother-in-law’s words was also visible in her gracefully aged face.
“Almost family,” Kate corrected as she picked up an hors d’oeuvre from her own tray. She winked conspiratorially at Beth. “I’m going to marry Julian. Poor guy doesn’t know it yet.”
Beth glanced in Julian’s direction, but her gaze never reached him. Her eyes snagged on Garrett, who watched Kate as she tasted her creation.
“Umm. Delicious, if I do say so myself,” Kate said, and smiling, licked her fingers before a riveted Garrett.
She was playing a game, Beth realized. A game of jealousy. Kate waved at Garrett, smiling to him, and Beth could see the expression in Garrett’s face, tight with displeasure and heated with lust.
She thought about warning her of playing games with these men, with a Gage, but then bit back the thought. For wasn’t she in league with a Gage? And weren’t they, too, playing a game? Kissing, for crying out loud. With tongues. There absolutely had to be no more kissing—her son was at stake. Her entire future!
“Why are you all being so nice to me?” she asked Kate when her mother-in-law became engaged with another couple, for Kate seemed like someone who spoke the blunt, unfiltered truth. Honestly, if she were Landon’s mother and a strange woman had asked him to marry her in a week, for any reason, she’d want to smack both the woman and her son.
But Kate patted her shoulder. “We’re nice because you’re good for Lan.”
“Me? See, now you have no idea what you’re saying.”
She’d proposed a bloody game of revenge—she’d become some sort of vengeful witch. Courtesy of some sleazy bastard.
Kate propped a shoulder against the oak tree. “The truth is the last few years have been painful for the family, seeing Landon like he’s been.” Beth’s gaze drifted to the tall, breathtaking man currently dismissing the reporters. “He’s always been the head, and when he’s so quiet, so…unfeeling, well, there’s tension, you know? All he did was work and work and work, and that’s not healthy.”
Both women’s gazes were drawn to him. Landon turned his head to look at Beth, and as they stared, the corner of his lips twitched. She saw a glimmer of victory in his eyes, shining with satisfaction, as he slowly lifted his champagne glass to her in celebration. The press had bought it. The kiss, the engagement. They’d bought it.
Beth smiled back at him, lifting her own glass in a distant toast.
Partners in crime.
God, she loved having him on her side!
He loved the way she kept scouting the crowd for him.
Hell, he loved the way she kept trying not to smile at him.
And the way she’d melted, like pudding, when she’d kissed him.
“You do realize you’re smiling. Right, Lan?”
Landon tore his gaze from Beth and drained the last of his champagne flute. He’d been smiling? Like some idiot? He hadn’t realized. His mind had been spinning all night, plotting, planning. There was still no unleashing of his anger, and then the lust that had come afterward, with Beth’s kiss. “Halifax was here,” he told Garrett.
“What—tonight?”
“Son of a bitch talked to Beth.”
“Can you trust her, Landon?”
Landon stole another glance at her, one of many this evening. He needed to think with his head.
“I should post someone on her.”
“What about that detective who brought you all the dish on Chrystine and Halifax?”
“Is he still the best?”
“I think so, yes.” Garrett’s eyes, black as coals from their father’s side, narrowed thoughtfully. “Why would you want someone on her tail?”
Landon frowned into his glass, surprised to find it empty. “My own peace of mind.”
“You don’t think Halifax sent her to you, do you? How far can his fury run?”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, so pretty as she talked animatedly with Kate. “If it runs as far as mine then there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
Garrett propped his shiny Italian leather boots up on a stone bench. “You can still back out, Lan. You haven’t married her yet.”
Yes, he could. He didn’t need Beth to ruin Halifax, he knew that. But somehow, the desire for revenge just wasn’t as fierce without her.
He remembered how pale she’d been moments ago, how frightened, and the thought of her getting hurt made him grit his molars. “Halifax could be more dangerous than we think.”
“True.” Garrett shrugged. “Then again, I still can’t see why that guy hates you so much.”
“Because he wanted Chrystine… They were fooling around after she had the baby—remember all those emails the detective printed out for me? Hell, Garrett, I still can’t believe Beth was married to that scumbag.”
His son had died because of that bastard. Because of his selfish demands that Chrystine meet him the night of one of the worst storms on record.
The loss of that bright-eyed baby boy had almost killed Landon. No parent should have to feel it, no man, no animal, no innocent woman who’d do anything for her son.
“While I go poking into his business, I need to know Bethany’s safe. If she’s being followed, where she goes, what she eats.”
“Has it occurred to you she and Halifax might be out to ruin you together? She may still be loyal to him. In the end, Chrystine was.”
Landon pondered those words. But to compare Bethany with his first wife was unfair. Chrystine had been a social-climbing, self-centered princess, and Landon had known what she wanted from him from the start—his money, and the power his name would grant her. He hadn’t planned to give her either—until she got pregnant. And to a man like him, marriage had been the only option.