Obviously she’d miscalculated. Here he was in all his masculine glory, tall and powerful, the picture of a man of consequence. And here she was, slightly plump, less than willowy, a very ordinary woman who only exuded confidence behind a camera. They were so mismatched. This arrangement could have such dire consequences for her. But she had agreed to the plan.
“Regina? You’re looking a bit dazed. Are you all right?” Julie asked, moving closer as if to protect her.
Regina nodded. “Oh, yes, I’m great. Just caught a bit off guard.”
But there was no more time to prepare herself. Here he was, pushing through the door, causing the little bell to tinkle brightly as if to say, “Dell’s here! Every woman in sight, start acting like an utter fool!”
Not me, not me, Regina told herself. She pasted on a smile, remembering their plan.
“Dell! How very nice to see you!” she said a bit too forcefully. Purposely she avoided looking in her friends’ direction. She tried not to think about the fact that they would surely wonder why she had gone from a never-comment-on-your-husband woman to an idiotically smiling wife.
A look of mild amusement crossed Dell’s face. “How very nice to see you, too,” he agreed.
“I—is there something you needed?” she asked.
“That is, I—what a surprise to have you show up here!”
Again, that look of barely concealed amusement flashed over his features. “We’re married,” he reminded her.
Regina looked up into his eyes even though she knew the danger of that. “I know.” Actually she felt a bit like a newlywed today, a bride who barely knew her husband.
His gaze met hers, direct and unflinching and intense. “I thought we might go out to dinner together,” he said.
His voice dipped low, and despite the fact that she knew that this was just Dell’s way of making a concerted effort towards their trial marriage, Regina felt a little queasy at the thought of people watching her with Dell. What if she looked as besotted as every other woman and someone caught that look on film? How utterly embarrassing and humiliating would that be?
She tamped down her reservations and nodded. “Dinner together? That sounds…nice.”
He laughed. “You needn’t make it sound as if I’m forcing you to watch ten years of home movies.”
Regina couldn’t help it. She laughed, too. “Dinner would be nice,” she agreed. It wasn’t Dell’s fault that he had such presence. “Let me get my purse and camera and we’ll go.”
As she passed her friends, they gave her questioning looks. Regina knew she’d been acting flustered, but to their credit they didn’t appear to have interrogated Dell when she returned and were simply quietly chatting about Chicago. The Belles were protective of each other, but they also respected each other’s boundaries. She loved that about them. They obviously realized she didn’t want to discuss the details of her marriage.
Which was good, since there wasn’t anything to discuss.
Until now.
Trying not to think about that, Regina headed for the door, calling goodbye. Dell slipped around her and held the door. He followed her outside into the fading sunshine, then handed her into a limo that seemed to appear by magic. But then, Dell had always been a man in control of every situation. Unlike herself.
“Thank you for taking me to dinner,” she managed to say. “I have to say, though, that it was unlike you to just show up.” Dell was a man who always lived on a schedule.
He nodded. “Yes, but then we’re in somewhat uncharted territory right now, aren’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never been a real husband,” he said in that deep, low voice that made her think about what real husbands did. All the things real husbands did. Like sleeping naked with their wives.
Okay, she was definitely going to have to stop those kinds of thoughts. “Well, I’ve never been a real wife.”
“That’s why we’re going to talk. We left things rather open-ended last night. We need a plan.”
Dell’s deep voice rolled over her and Regina’s palms began to tingle. She had never been good at plans. That was part of the reason she had done stupid things and Dell had been forced into marriage with her. Dell was very good at plans. He was the one who had proposed that they marry.
Unable to stop herself, Regina folded both palms across her heart, trying to calm herself down.
“Regina?” he asked, his voice filled with concern.
“We’ll make a plan,” she agreed.
“Good,” he said with a smile that did awful, wonderful things to her insides. “I’m going to do my best to be the perfect husband.”
Oh, no, don’t do that, she wanted to say. This is a marriage of convenience. I don’t even want to risk feeling more, a move that could be disastrous. But…
“I’ll try to be a model wife, too,” she said weakly. If only she could figure out how to do that while keeping this marriage risk-free. “Dell?”
“Yes?”
“What exactly is a model wife in the O’Ryan world?”
A look of dark amusement filled his eyes and he took her hand, running his thumb over the gold and diamond band that circled her ring finger. “Let’s go to dinner,” he said.
But he hadn’t answered her question, had he? Maybe her answer wasn’t important. He probably knew she wasn’t capable of being a true O’Ryan. He had wed her out of pity and duty and honor and now he was stuck with her, a poor substitute for Elise Allenby who really would have been a model O’Ryan wife.
A slim and unfamiliar thread of pain ran through Regina followed immediately by a very familiar sense of indignation. She had spent her life trying to please and falling short, and had promised herself never to go that route again. Yet she hadn’t said no to this marriage or this plan.
Well, Dell was the one who had opted to extend their wedding. He knew what he had for a wife.
Or did he?
Maybe I can be the perfect O’Ryan bride, Regina thought. But she didn’t pursue that thought any further. Some things couldn’t bear up under too much scrutiny, could they?
Sometimes a woman just had to fly on faith and hope for a miracle.
CHAPTER THREE
DELL watched Regina pick at her food. Had he been bullying her? Probably. He’d spent a lifetime learning to be an O’Ryan and sometimes it was difficult to remember that he didn’t have to be that way with his wife.
His wife. How had that happened?
“Regina, before we begin, I want to say that I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.”
She stopped toying with her food and looked up, those deep caramel eyes studying him carefully. Regina had the most amazing eyes, clear and utterly transparent. He had startled her and now she was nervous. “I shouldn’t have thrown you together with Lee,” he clarified, then realized that it was the first time his cousin’s name had been mentioned in a long time.
She shook her head. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“And if I insist it was?”
“You don’t get to say.” Regina speared a piece of asparagus. “What happened with Lee is on my head.”
But she was wrong. That day when Regina had shown up with his mail had