My Secret Wife Read online

  Gabe Deveraux on baby-making with Maggie Calloway…

  Sperm donor?

  She’s lost her mind if she thinks I would just stand by and let her use the services of an anonymous sperm donor! A beautiful gal like Maggie deserves to know her baby’s father. Maggie should be loved and cherished by a good man worthy of her love, one who has won her heart.

  Maggie is as stubborn as she is lovely. So it’s going to take a bit of strategizing to convince her to change her mind. I am more than willing to be her baby’s father. Only, there’s no way that the birth of any child of mine would be the direct result of my utilizing something as sterile and impersonal as a sperm bank!

  We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

  Dear Reader,

  Millionaire. Prince. Secret agent. Doctor. If any—or all—of these men strike your fancy, well…you’re in luck! These fabulous guys are waiting for you in the pages of this month’s offerings from Harlequin American Romance.

  His best friend’s request to father her child leads millionaire Gabe Deveraux to offer a bold marriage proposal in My Secret Wife by Cathy Gillen Thacker, the latest installment of THE DEVERAUX LEGACY series. A royal request makes Prince Jace Carradigne heir to a throne—and in search of his missing fiancée—in Mindy Neff’s The Inconveniently Engaged Prince, part of our ongoing series THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY. (And there are royals galore to be found when the series comes to a sensational ending in Heir to the Throne, a special two-in-one collection by Kasey Michaels and Carolyn Davidson, available next month wherever Harlequin books are sold.)

  Kids, kangaroos and a kindhearted woman are all in a day’s work for cool and collected secret agent Mike Wheeler in Secret Service Dad, the second book in Mollie Molay’s GROOMS IN UNIFORM series. And a big-city doctor attempts to hide his true identity—and his affections—for a Montana beauty in The Doctor Wore Boots by Debra Webb, the conclusion to the TRADING PLACES duo.

  So be sure to catch all of these wonderful men this month—and every month—as you enjoy their wonderful love stories from Harlequin American Romance.

  Happy reading,

  Melissa Jeglinski

  Associate Senior Editor

  Harlequin American Romance

  Cathy Gillen Thacker

  MY SECRET WIFE

  This book is for my mom and dad, who, in the last year, have shown me what courage, determination and the power of love are all about.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Cathy Gillen Thacker married her high school sweetheart and hasn’t had a dull moment since. Why, you ask? Well, there were three kids, various pets, any number of automobiles, several moves across the country, his and her careers, and sundry other experiences. But mostly, there was love and friendship and laughter, and lots of experiences she wouldn’t trade for the world.

  You can find out more about Cathy and her books at www.cathygillenthacker.com, and you can write her c/o Harlequin Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.

  Books by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  37—TOUCH OF FIRE

  75—PROMISE ME TODAY

  102—HEART’S JOURNEY

  134—REACH FOR THE STARS

  143—A FAMILY TO CHERISH

  156—HEAVEN SHARED

  166—THE DEVLIN DARE

  187—ROGUE’S BARGAIN

  233—GUARDIAN ANGEL

  247—FAMILY AFFAIR

  262—NATURAL TOUCH

  277—PERFECT MATCH

  307—ONE MAN’S FOLLY

  318—LIFETIME GUARANTEE

  334—MEANT TO BE

  367—IT’S ONLY TEMPORARY

  388—FATHER OF THE BRIDE

  407—AN UNEXPECTED FAMILY

  423—TANGLED WEB

  445—HOME FREE

  452—ANYTHING’S POSSIBLE

  456—THE COWBOY’S MISTRESS

  472—HONEYMOON FOR HIRE

  483—BEGUILED AGAIN

  494—FIANCÉ FOR SALE

  506—KIDNAPPING NICK

  521—BABY ON THE DOORSTEP◊

  526—DADDY TO THE RESCUE◊

  529—TOO MANY MOMS◊

  540—JENNY AND THE FORTUNE TELLER

  556—LOVE POTION #5

  568—MISS CHARLOTTE SURRENDERS

  587—A SHOTGUN WEDDING

  607—DADDY CHRISTMAS

  613—MATCHMAKING BABY

  625—THE COWBOY’S BRIDEΔ

  629—THE RANCH STUDΔ

  633—THE MAVERICK MARRIAGEΔ

  673—ONE HOT COWBOY

  697—SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT MARRIAGEΔ

  713—SNOWBOUND BRIDE††

  717—HOT CHOCOLATE HONEYMOON††

  721—SNOW BABY††

  747—MAKE ROOM FOR BABY

  754—BABY’S FIRST CHRISTMAS

  789—DR. COWBOY*

  793—WILDCAT COWBOY*

  797—A COWBOY’S WOMAN*

  801—A COWBOY KIND OF DADDY*

  837—THE BRIDE SAID, “I DID?”†

  841—THE BRIDE SAID, “FINALLY!”†

  862—THE BRIDE SAID, “SURPRISE!”†

  870—THE VIRGIN BRIDE SAID, “WOW!”†

  937—HER BACHELOR CHALLENGE**

  941—HIS MARRIAGE BONUS**

  945—MY SECRET WIFE**

  HARLEQUIN BOOKS

  TEXAS VOWS: A MCCABE FAMILY SAGA*

  Who’s Who in the Deveraux Family

  Tom Deveraux—The head of the family and CEO of the Deveraux shipping empire that has been handed down through the generations.

  Grace Deveraux—Estranged from Tom for years, but back in town—after a personal tragedy—for some much-needed family support.

  Chase Deveraux—The eldest son and the biggest playboy in the greater Charleston area.

  Mitch Deveraux—A chip off the old block and about to double the size of the family business via a business/marriage arrangement.

  Dr. Gabe Deveraux—The “Goodest” Samaritan around. Any damsels in distress in need of the good doctor’s assistance…?

  Amy Deveraux—The baby sister. She’s determined to reunite her parents.

  Winnifred Deveraux Smith—Tom’s widowed sister. The social doyenne of Charleston, she’s determined never to marry. That’s not what she has in mind for her niece and nephews, though.

  Herry Bowles—The butler. Distinguished, indispensable and devoted to his boss, Winnifred.

  Eleanor—The Deveraux ancestor with whom the legacy of ill-fated love began.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  Gabe Deveraux met Maggie Callaway halfway down the steps to his beach house and regarded her with embarrassment. “Thanks for coming,” he said, waving as the last of the Isle of Palms fire trucks drove away.

  “You said it was an emergency.” Maggie looked at the charred interior of the rear of his house, then turned back to him. She was dressed as she always was when working—in work boots, nice-fitting jeans, a long-sleeved cotton shirt and an open khaki vest with multiple pockets. Her honey-blond hair framed her piquant face in tousled waves. Her kissable lips were softly glossed, her lively light-green eyes alight with interest as she looked him over from head to toe. “What happened here?” she asked, her gaze roving the wrinkled state of his clothes before returning once again to his unshaven jaw and weary eyes. At five foot five, she was som
e seven inches shorter than he was. “Did you finally decide to learn how to cook?”

  Gabe grimaced and shoved a hand through the short layers of his hair as he led Maggie all the way inside. “Actually, I’m not really sure how it happened,” he admitted.

  “Well, I am.” Penny Stringfield emerged from the master bedroom on the second floor and walked down the hallway overlooking the first floor to the stairs. The petite redhead was dressed in a hospital nurse’s uniform and carried a suitcase in one hand, a smaller toiletries bag in the other. “I put some soup on to boil and then forgot about it,” Penny explained to both Maggie and Gabe as she came down the staircase and walked over to them. “The pan boiled dry and the wallpaper caught fire, and the next thing I knew it was time to dial 911.”

  Her face filled with regret, Penny set her things down, propelled herself into Gabe’s arms and hugged him fiercely. Over the top of her head, Gabe saw Maggie’s faintly disapproving expression as she watched what was going on between him and his houseguest.

  “I’m so sorry, Gabe,” Penny said, in a voice still scratchy from the voluminous tears she had shed the night before. “I never meant to set your kitchen on fire while you were at the hospital. Especially after last night. If you hadn’t been here for me, well, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “I was glad to help,” Gabe said, knowing even as he spoke the soothing words how they would likely be misinterpreted by Maggie. He grasped Penny’s shoulders and drew her back so she had no choice but to look into his face. “You know that. But—”

  “But nothing,” Penny sniffed indignantly. “I’m moving to a hotel now.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said firmly. Recalling how devastated Penny had been the night before, when she had first showed up on his doorstep, Gabe’s heart went out to her. Although why Penny felt that Lane Stringfield was about to stop loving her, Gabe still didn’t know, because she hadn’t explained. All he knew for sure was that Penny was very upset, very frightened and agitated, and still very in love with Lane. People in that condition needed a friend. And since he was the one Penny had turned to, he felt bound to do whatever was necessary to help her.

  “Yes, I do, Gabe.” Fleeting regret crossed Penny’s face, as she wiped her tears away. “We both know it’s for the best,” she said, pausing to blow her nose delicately. “I never should have agreed to stay here with you in the first place. The last thing I want to do is drag you into the middle of the breakup of my marriage.”

  Gabe wasn’t so sure the Stringfield union was ending—after all, the two had been man and wife for five years now. Happily espoused, as far as he and everyone else could see. Surely, whatever the misunderstanding was, it could be cleared up.

  Catching the curious, slightly jealous expression on Maggie’s face out of the corner of his eye, Gabe faced his houseguest determinedly and tried again. “Penny—”

  “I’ll be fine, Gabe.” Penny stepped back and away from Gabe. “Really. I’m not so sure about your kitchen, however.”

  “Oh, we can fix that,” Maggie said, already eyeing the devastation with a professional kitchen designer’s unerring eye.

  “Good. Because I want to help pay for it,” Penny said emphatically. She picked up her bags, stepped past. “I’ll talk to you later, at the hospital, Gabe.”

  Gabe waited until Penny had driven away, then turned back to Maggie. As he had suspected, she did not look happy with him at all. “It’s not what you think,” he said quietly, guessing from the downturned corners of her soft lips what her thoughts were. “Penny Stringfield and I are not romantically involved.” He had not come between Lane and Penny the way he had inadvertently come between Maggie and his brother, when she and Chase were just days from saying “I Do.”

  Maggie shrugged her slender shoulders as she plucked a small spiral notepad from one of the pockets of her khaki cargo vest. “Did I say you caused the breakup of Penny’s marriage?” she said coolly as she removed a pen from another pocket, flipped back the cover on her notepad and began to scribble notes to herself.

  “You didn’t have to.” Gabe followed Maggie around as she inspected the damage the licking flames had done to his appliances, cabinets, walls and windows. Although all were still standing, all were so smoke-, flame- and water-damaged they were going to have to be ripped out and replaced. Needing some fresh air, Gabe tried to open the window and found the frame so warped it wouldn’t open. He went to the patio door opposite and opened that to let more fresh ocean air blow in. “I can tell by the look on your face that you’ve jumped to the conclusion that I’m responsible,” he continued as the first floor filled with the cool ocean breeze. “But it’s not true. Penny and I are just friends. All I was trying to do was help her out by giving her a place to crash until she calmed down.” And came to her senses, Gabe added mentally.

  “Look, Gabe, it’s really none of my business.” Careful not to back up against anything, Maggie tipped her head back and studied the soot clinging to every inch of his kitchen ceiling, “Since you and I are just friends, too.”

  “Yeah, well, that wasn’t really my choice now, was it?” Gabe said, as Maggie squatted down and tested the vinyl tile that had melted into the water-logged floorboard beneath it. “I wanted to date you.” And, in fact, had asked her out several times during the past few weeks, only to be turned down with one flimsy excuse after another.

  Exasperation swept into Maggie’s high, delicately boned cheeks as she stood. Propping one hand on her hip, she squared off with him again. “We have to face it, Gabe, whether we want to or not.” Regret shimmered in her pretty long-lashed eyes. “I caused your entire family a great deal of unhappiness when I broke off my plans to marry your brother just days before we were to walk down the aisle, and I did it because I was attracted to you.”

  Fresh guilt flooded Gabe. He refused to let it get to him as he met Maggie’s gaze, bluntly and emphatically reminding her of the reconciliation that had taken place a few weeks prior, after two years of considerable familial unrest. “Chase has forgiven us.”

  “But I’m not so sure the rest of your family has, or ever will,” Maggie replied. “Nor can I say I blame them. The whole episode was really humiliating and embarrassing for everyone. And we only made it worse when we tried to date, immediately after I ended it with your older brother. So I think, for a lot of reasons, it’s best we continue just to be friends.”

  Gabe sighed.

  Intellectually, he knew Maggie was right. His parents, sister Amy and brother Mitch were a long way from ever forgiving Maggie for the acrimony she had caused his already broken family. It didn’t stop him from wanting her. Nor her, he guessed, from wanting him. That had been proven weeks ago, when, without warning, they had met to talk about something else and suddenly found themselves kissing again. And worse, been spotted by Chase when they were doing so!

  Emotionally, he still wanted her—for reasons he had yet to closely examine. Reasons he probably didn’t want to examine.

  “So back to why you called me here,” Maggie said, commandeering Gabe’s attention once again. “What is it exactly that you want me to do for you?” she asked in a crisp, all-business tone that let Gabe know in an instant that any fantasies he might still be harboring about the two of them were not about to come true, now or at any other time.

  Gabe grimaced and pushed his disappointment aside, looked her straight in the eye and directed just as firmly, “I want all the damage cleared away, and my kitchen put back the way it was as soon as possible. So. Now that you know what I want—” Gabe regarded Maggie impatiently, folding his arms in front of him “—how fast can you do it?”

  WASN’T THAT JUST LIKE rich boy Gabe Deveraux, Maggie thought. To want what he wanted when he wanted it. Damn the consequences. “Right now, I’ve got a four-month waiting list,” she said, a trifle impatiently.

  Gabe shoved a hand through his midnight-black hair. His distress showed in his boyishly handsome face. “I can’t live like this.
I need my house repaired right away.” He fastened his gaze on her face. “Isn’t there anything you can do to speed things up?”

  Maggie had to turn away from the seductive expression in his blue-gray eyes. “Sure.” She shrugged, telling herself she was immune to the desire that shimmered through her whenever she was this close to his lean and athletic six-foot frame, now that she had learned the hard way that his interest in her would always be only a fleeting—and hence hurtful—thing. “But it would cost you double time.”

  Gabe beamed. “Done!” he said enthusiastically.

  Maggie told herself she was only accommodating Gabe’s wishes to help boost the profits of the home-remodeling-business-turned-kitchen-design emporium she had inherited from her mother and father the year before. She didn’t want to spend time with him, or do anything that would further the mounting sexual tension between them. Which was why she had avoided seeing Gabe—and everyone else in his family—until about a month ago, when a medical problem had prompted her to call Gabe, to get some advice—and a referral—she could trust.

  He had come through for her that afternoon, as she had known he would.

  But he had also kissed her.

  And stirred up a lot of feelings she hadn’t wanted to feel.

  Since then, Gabe and his brother Chase had made up and agreed to let the past be just that. Which left Gabe wanting to date her again. But knowing Gabe never dated any one woman for more than a few weeks, if that long, Maggie had declined. Repeatedly.

  And she was glad she had.

  She didn’t want her heart broken by Gabe again.

  Aware Gabe was waiting for her to continue, Maggie said, “I can get the guys to start clearing out the charred rubble this morning. But we won’t be able to do anything more than that until I clear it with the client whose job I was to begin tomorrow morning.”