The Wicked Wife (Murder in Marin Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

friends. She had stolen far too many boyfriends for any of the girls who admired her in freshman year to still be speaking with her by the time they began their junior year.  
    She then told of how she caught the eye of a top fashion photographer in just her sixth month in the business.
    “It was amazing,” she related, in the retelling of a story that had grown more polished over the last ten years. “He took me under his wing and recreated my portfolio. He was a genius! An amazing photographer, very gay, and very brilliant.”  
    William gave a warm, knowing smile, completely unaware that this second part of Willow’s creation had several lies.  
    Yes, Michael Pierce, was a top fashion photographer, but Willow plotted all that would occur in their relationship, beginning with how they met. In little time, she seduced him. She drained him not only of his creative energies, but a long list of contacts as well—all of who helped form her carefully constructed ladder of success.  
    The very top rung was reached with her seduction of Henri LeBon, a man who previously was uninterested in taking a female lover.
    Their liaison was intermittent, and mutually beneficial. LeBon never objected to Willow’s propensity toward other lovers, like the Viennese maestro, for example. In fact, he met many of his future partners through his relationship with the woman he faithfully insisted was his muse.
    Of course, much was left out of the true story of Willow Bukowski. Perhaps of greatest interest to William would have been the three-year relationship she had with his partner, James.  
    The two had enjoyed an on-again, off-again affair, but James was perfectly happy with that. He was certainly wise enough to know that Willow was a woman to be enjoyed whenever the rare opportunity presented itself, and discretion was a must for both her career and his marriage.
    And, as such, he had a selfish motive in putting Willow and William together. If there was a chance that she might become the next Mrs. Adams, his opportunities to savor the delicate delights of her mystical charms might dramatically increase. After all, why spend half a year traveling around the world promoting a perfume when you’re married to one of the world’s wealthiest individuals? In James’ view, every additional day she spent in the Bay Area increased his chances of luring her back to his bed.  
    As for her motivation for having him as a lover, he was quite certain that Willow’s passion for him was based on the occasional insider stock recommendations he would pass her way, all of which helped to grow Willow’s three million-dollar nest egg: first to six, and then doubling again to twelve. James could have been disbarred and faced imprisonment for sharing his clients’ information. But unlike Martha Stewart, he reasoned, Willow was not a particularly attractive target for federal investigators looking for cases of insider trading.
    James was so taken with Willow that he put his professional reputation, his marriage, and his twenty plus year relationship with William all on the line, just for those few intoxicating occasions when the stars aligned and he found himself with his arms enfolding this amazing creature.

    Either the fire needed to be stoked again, or it should be allowed to burn out. In any event, Willow suggested that it was late and she should be getting home. A part of William hoped that she would spend the night in his bed wrapped in his embrace. But Willow, who read men far better than they could read themselves, learned years ago that in the heat of passion, men love the explosive ferocity of a whore, but in marriage, they first and foremost want a Madonna.  
    Thus far, in her relationships with men, she’d had all she could ever need, want, or imagine. But in William, she found a man who could serve a completely different purpose in her life. To Willow’s way of thinking, fortune had put her in William’s path because he was the man who