The Wicked Wife (Murder in Marin Book 2) by Martin Brown Page A

interests. “He is very nice, and certainly very wealthy. But mon Dieu , mon cherie ! I cannot see how he will ever make you happy.”
    Willow smiled, but didn’t say a word.
    “I think what will make you very happy is all that money, mais oui ?” he insisted with that knowing smile that irked her in the way only an intimate playmate can.
    “I’m not getting any younger, Henri. And besides, William is a wonderful man,” Willow said emphatically.  
    That led to LeBon and Allard exchanging asides in French faster than Willow could possibly hope to follow. She was annoyed, even agitated, but calmed herself with the thought that soon she would be well settled with a personal fortune that LeBon could only possess in his dreams.  
    She made what every member of her entourage agreed was an early exit from the nightclub where they had gathered.  
    “A wretched headache,” was her default reason of choice.  
    Fifteen minutes later, she slipped into bed next to William, who was in a deep, and much needed sleep. She chose not to disturb him, and instead considered whether her plan to show him the glittering side of her life had indeed backfired. Certainly, steps one and two had gone better than she could have hoped. But the idea of sharing the most glamorous aspects of her life had clearly fallen flat.  
    Tomorrow’s planned events, with LeBon present throughout the day, were likely to fall well short of her imagined scenario.  
    I need to reverse course, she thought.  
    Looking up in the dark at the room’s ornate ceiling, one that hinted at the splendor of the palace at Versailles, she realized she’d better devise a successful Plan B.  
    But what could that be?  
    Hopefully, it would come to her in her sleep. She had not come this far in her quest to replace fame with fortune to allow it all to unravel now.  

    The next morning at breakfast, William apologized for his exhaustion the night before.
    Willow insisted that it was she who should apologize. “It was thoughtless of me to plan such a busy schedule after you’d had a sleepless night, on top of a twelve hour flight.”
    “No, it wasn’t thoughtless of you. I’ve never slept well on planes, no matter how comfortable the seat. It’s the damn whining of those engines, I suppose.”
    She feigned a Eureka moment. “I have an idea, darling. I’m free after today, and I don’t have any other commitments for a few days after that. Why don’t we take off and go anywhere in Europe you’d like—just the two of us.”
    “Anywhere?” William said with an uncertain smile.
    “Anywhere!”
    “Okay. Let’s jump on the Eurostar and head up to Amsterdam.”
    “Absolutely,” Willow said enthusiastically. “What made you think of Amsterdam?”
    “When I finished at Berkeley, I wanted to just get away for awhile. So my dad said, ‘take off for a month or two and travel around Europe.’ I had been here with my parents, but never on my own. So I packed as little as I could get by with, and I took off. After a couple of lonely weeks in Madrid and London, I landed in Amsterdam, and fell in with a bunch of kids—all early twentysomethings, just like me. I spent four weeks there. In that month, I made up for all the partying I didn’t do in college. I got so plastered one night that I fell asleep with some of my pals in a plaza. I think it was near the Van Gogh Museum. I woke up the next morning as I was being poked by a police officer, who told me to get moving. Me, William Adams, sleeping in the street! It was just great.”
    The very thought of it made Willow laugh as well. “Let’s do it. But if it’s okay with you, let’s get a room. I don’t think my being photographed sleeping in the streets of Amsterdam would help perfume sales.”

    Willow spent a busy day and night completing her commitments to Project Runway . She also had a Willow Wisp perfume signing at Printemps, one of Europe’s oldest and grandest department stores.  
    Meanwhile, William