Page 35 of My Wife

Husband?

Husband?

Clay.

The imageI have in my head of Clayton Rivers is a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old boy with thick sandy brown hair and pretty green eyes. He was the boy next door. Handsome. Hard-working.Mine.

He was the man who worshiped the ground I walked on, who loved me, he denied me nothing, and who simply disappeared one terrible October morning.

Dead, I tell myself. I thought he was dead.

But though Clay looks older… harder… damn it,sexier… he’s not dead.

He’s also not my husband anymore.

Once he’s sure that I recognize him—once he can sense that I’m not about to run… yet—he sets me down. I take a few hurried steps away from him, and then Istare.

His eyes are darker than I remember. He’s not as scruffy as Tommy, though my Clay was always clean-shaven. This man looks like he hasn’t seen a razor in a week. His hair is longer. Shaggier. There are hard lines that weren’t there before.

He never had any freckles, either, but beneath the moonlight, I see a few stray dots.

My stomach lurches.

Blood.

That’sblood.

He has a knife. Between the black outfit and the weapon, I knew he had to be the one responsible for killing Tyler.

And Madison.

And Summer…

Only… Clay’sdead. Or he’s supposed to be. I thought it was Tommy if anyone, or maybe a stranger, but I know that face… that body… thismanintimately.

It’s Clayton Rivers, and I have no idea how this is possible.

Do I run? Faint? Throw myself at him, sobbing? Scream?

No. I stand there and stare as he waits for me to dosomething.

When I can finally speak again, I say the most obvious thing I can: “You’redead.”

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he quotes, a hint of a smile softening his features as he lifts his knife, pressing the tip of the blade against his bottom lip. “Surprise, Cyn. Did you miss me?”

I don’t answer that. I can’t. If I admit that I missed this man every single fucking day after he disappearedand he was alive the whole damn time… no.No. He doesn’t get to ask me questions. He left me. Now he wants to reappear and fuckingterrorizeme?

I don’t know who this man is, but he’s notmyhusband.

“Who are you?” I demand. “What are you doing here? There isn’t supposed to be anyone else on the island. How did you get here?”

The Clay I knew loved it when I was inquisitive. He was even more pleased when I made demands, showing him my dominant side—so long as he could still take control in bed, of course.

So when he smiles and my hard nearly fucking breaks agin to see that it’s tainted, it’s cruel, but it’s still Clay’s smile… I don’t want to believe that I know this man. That it’shim. I don’t wantto… but how can I, especially when he knows my name—and that’s not all?

“Easy, babe.”Babe…why does he think he can call me babe? Here, on Halo Island, where… “I took the first ferry over at ten. I gave him Aaron’s name.” He chuckles, and it’s dark, shivers run down my spine. “Fuck knows he wasn’t going to need the ride.”

What? We didn’t get the message from Aaron that he wasn’t joining us untiltwo. “ How did you know he wasn’t coming?”

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