The Substitute Wife Dallas Schulze

Cat leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and

watched in silence as Devon zipped the suitcase closed and

set it on the floor before going to her dressing table, where

she began sorting through the rows of bottles, her

expression serious as she considered the important

question of what makeup to pack for an elopement.

Devon's room always made Cat feel a little like Gulliver

entering the land of the Lilliputians, or maybe Dorothy

stepping out of the tornado-tumbled farmhouse into Oz.

The rest of the rambling old house was filled with

mismatched furniture, worn rugs and faded draperies. A

handful of nice, if slightly scruffy, antiques sat cheek by

jowl with garage sale rejects. It was comfortable, livable,

undistinguished. In contrast, Devon's room was all pale,

polished wood and thick peach carpeting. Floral drapes in

peach and soft, warm green hung at the windows. The

overall effect was feminine without being frilly, and it

suited Devon perfectly, which was the whole point, of

course. Devon's bedroom was designed to complement her

the way a black-velvet-lined jewelry box was meant to

enhance a strand of pearls. And it succeeded admirably.

The peaches-and-cream prettiness of it always made Cat

feel too ... everything. She was too tall, her coloring too

vivid, her legs too long, her hair too red, too curly. It wasn't

so much Devon's bedroom that made her feel that way, Cat

thought, as it was Devon herself. When she'd first met

Devon, she'd been a gawky thirteen-year-old, all legs and

arms and hair. Devon had been twenty, a tiny, blue-eyed

blonde, delicate as a china figurine. A brief spell of hero

worship had died a natural death under the influence of

Devon's benign indifference and unremitting shallowness.

Even at thirteen, Cat had known there was more to the

world than makeup and boys.

"I really think you should tell Luke yourself that you're

breaking off the engagement," she said, giving it one last

try. "If you're going to break his heart, you at least ought to

do it face-to-face."

Devon shook her head as she selected half a dozen

bottles and set them aside. "No, Luke has a nasty temper.

I'm not going to let him spoil this for me. Besides, I'm not

breaking his heart. He'll be mad, but it's not like he's in

love with me or anything." She caught Cat's surprised look

in the mirror and huffed a little sigh as she turned to face

her. "Look, I didn't tell anyone this before, because it

wasn't anyone's business, really, and I knew people would

think it was ... well, maybe a little weird, but there's

nothing wrong with it. No one was being hurt or anything."

Devon must have seen Cat's total lack of understanding,

because she stopped, drew in a deep breath and got to the

point. "Luke and I had a ... um ... a sort of business

arrangement."

"Business arrangement? I thought you were getting

married."

"We were. That was the business part of it." when Cat

stared at her blankly, she laughed, more annoyance than

humor in the sound. "You shouldn't find it hard to

understand. Don't they do that kind of thing all the time in

those books you read? What do they call it..." She groped a

moment, then smiled when she found the phrase she was

looking for. "A marriage of convenience. That's what we

were going to have. Only with sex, because, really, how

convenient would a marriage be without sex?"

A marriage of convenience? Devon and Luke Quintain?

The thought made Cat's head spin. That sort of thing

didn't happen in real life. Real people didn't make pretend

marriages. Except apparently they did, or at least they

made pretend engagements, although maybe the

engagement had been real, even if the marriage was-would

have been-fake. And could you call it a fake marriage if

they were sleeping together?

"Why?" It was the only word that managed to slip past

her confusion.(7)