The Antonides Marriage Deal

by Anne McAllister

  “Fiancé?” She hadn’t mentioned any fiancé.

  But apparently Socrates had.

  “His name was Brian,” Aeolus told him. “He was a Navy pilot. Tallie knew him in college. They were going to get married. But he was killed. Training exercise, I think. That’s all I know.”

  But it explained a lot.

  “Socrates says she’s grieved long enough. She needs to get back out and meet people. Meet men.”

  She didn’t need to meet any more men! She had one.

  She had him!

  “She’ll be all right,” he said firmly, and vowed it would be so.

  “Easy to say. Not so easy when it’s your child,” Aeolus said. “Parents worry about their children. Like you. We worry about you.”

  “Dad—”

  “You can’t shut yourself off from life forever, Elias. You had a bad experience, yes. But you can’t refuse to live.”

  “I’m not refusing to live!” How did this suddenly get to be about him?

  “You have a bad marriage, you don’t run and hide. It’s like riding a horse,” Aeolus rolled on. “You fall off, you’ve got to get right back on.”

  Elias doubted that his father had ever been on a horse in his life. “Who died and made you Roy Rogers?”

  Aeolus laughed. “We care about you. You are our son. You work so hard for us. Every day of your life you give to us. It’s time we give back.”

  “By finding me a woman?”

  “It’s for your own good, Elias.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  Aeolus sighed. “I’m not sure about these women your mother has found. But if you don’t like any of ’em, I can find you a looker. I guarantee it.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Elias said with deliberate sarcasm.

  Aeolus was oblivious. “What are fathers for? I can fix you up with a chorus girl if you want. Just say the word.”

  The word Elias wanted to say wasn’t fit for his father’s ears. “I don’t want a chorus girl, Dad.”

  There was a moment of disbelieving silence. Then, “You do like women, don’t you, Eli?” His father sounded slightly aghast at the possibility that just occurred to him. “I mean, I never thought that was why Millicent—”

  “Goodbye, Dad.” Elias banged the phone down, then banged his head against his desk.

  It was nearly six when Tallie finished writing up her final comments on the Corbett’s matter. Then she read and signed the letters Rosie had left for her. She could have done them quickly and gone home, but she lingered, waiting, hoping that Elias would come in.

  She had barely caught a glimpse of him all day. He’d had a computer crisis, Rosie had reported. He needed to reschedule his meeting with the Corbetts. Then he’d had phone calls, and his brother Peter, and more phone calls.

  It was, basically, business as usual.

  Her day had been busy, too, with phone calls and letters, reading reports that Paul gave her and finishing up her own on Corbett’s. Then she’d spent time with Peter, had arranged a meeting for him with Theo and had rung him to tell him where and when to meet her brother in Newport.

  But through it all, she had lived on the memory of Elias’s lovemaking—the hunger, the passion and the promise of his last lingering kiss.

  What promise?

  She sat staring out the window, watching the sun set over Manhattan and not really seeing it at all. She saw Elias in her mind. She held Elias in her heart.

  Where did they go from here?

  A movement caused her to look around. And there he was, leaning against the doorjamb of her office, his top button open, his tie askew. She didn’t know how long he’d been there, just looking at her. But the sight of him sent a surge of joy straight through her.

  “Hey!” She smiled at him, but a smile wasn’t enough. It broadened into a grin.

  Elias straightened. “Hey yourself.” He flashed her a quick grin, but as quickly as it came, it vanished. He cracked his knuckles.

  “What’s up?” Tallie said. He looked uneasy. She frowned. Had he heard about her talk with Peter. Was he about to jump down her throat and accuse her of going behind his back. She didn’t want them to fight.

  “I want to explain—” she began, but he cut her off.

  “I’ve got a business proposition for you.” He came into her office and stood in front of her desk. She thought he might sit down, but he didn’t.

  He didn’t look at her, either. He cracked his knuckles again, then began to pace around the room, jamming his hands into the pockets of his khakis, then yanking them out again.

  Tallie, watching him, felt her anxiety level rise. “What sort of business proposition?”

  He stopped and turned to face her, meeting her gaze head-on, then took a breath. “Marry me.”

  Tallie had always heard that hearing was the last sense to go. But even though she could see Elias and, if she reached out, she knew she could touch him, her ears surely had garbled his words. She didn’t know what he had really said. But she thought she’d heard the words Marry me. But, no. There was no way on earth he could have said that.

  Could he?

  All of a sudden her heart began to sing. Her fears vanished. Her earlier anguished, I love him; he loves me not evaporated.

  She loved a man who loved her, too.

  A smile began to dawn, but Elias didn’t see it. He had turned to stare across the river at the Manhattan skyline. “I know you’re not looking for marriage,” he said flatly. “I know you don’t love me.”

  “I—”

  “But it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about love. It’s just good common sense.”

  Tallie’s heart caught in her throat. It wasn’t about love?

  “You ought to get married,” he went on stubbornly, still not looking at her. “You should have a family. You shouldn’t just have a job even if you love it. You should have more. A husband. Children. Your father wants you to have a family.”

  “My father? What does my father have to do with this?” Her voice was shrill. She knew it. She couldn’t help it. Then she had a further horrifying thought. “He told you that?”

  She would kill Socrates Savas. She would strangle him with her bare hands.

  “No. Not me.” Elias rubbed the back of his neck. “He told my father. My father told me.”

  And she would cut him up into little pieces, Tallie thought, mortified to the depths of her being. Thank God Elias had begun pacing again and wasn’t even looking at her.

  She took one breath and then another, then tried to sound rational when she was only feeling murderous. “And so you’d marry me,” she managed to get out with some semblance of calm, “because my father thinks I need a husband?”

  “Well, it would free you up to concentrate on business.”

  “You don’t think I’m doing that now?”

  “I think it’s all you’re doing. Well, not all.” His gaze flicked to meet hers, and she saw color rise on his neck. She knew what he was remembering. She was remembering, too. But it had meant more to her, obviously, than it meant to him. “I just think it would make things run smoother. And you told me you wanted to focus on business the first day you were here. All I’m trying to do is make it possible.”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t have answered to save her life.

  “I know about Brian,” he said when she didn’t speak. His voice was quiet, there was a hint of strain in it. But she didn’t know what it meant. “I know you loved him,” he pressed on. “That’s fine. This has nothing to do with that. That was then. This is now. And I thought—I thought if we got married it would make things easier for you. Your father would stop mucking around in your life. You could have your career and, eventually, a family. And—” he shrugged awkwardly “—you have to admit, the sex is good.”

  Maybe her father wasn’t the only one she would kill.

  “The sex is good?” Tallie clasped her hands in her lap so she didn’t wrap them around his throat—or any other vulner
able parts of his anatomy.

  There was a hectic flush across Elias’s cheekbones. “It is! You know it is. Better than good. It’s fantastic.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then?” He looked at her expectantly.

  “Anything else?” she asked after a moment. “In this business proposition?”

  Like I love you, for example.

  Elias scowled. He raked his fingers through his hair, chewed his lip, paced some more.

  Come on, Elias, she urged him silently. You can do it. I know she hurt you, but I won’t ever hurt you. I love you. You can say those three little words.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “It would get my old man off my back, too.”

  She blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

  “He and my mother are determined to do me a favor and set me up with every damn eligible woman in New York. My mother’s got a list as long as my arm of women she thinks would be suitable brides.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t!” He was almost shouting now. “I don’t want them shoving women down my throat. I can’t think when they’re plotting all these things. And now you’re here, they think I’ve got time and I can spend all of it on these silly women and—”

  “What a terrible trial.”

  “Well, it is. And you know it. It’s the same thing your old man wants to do to you. So the way I figure it, marriage would be the smart thing for both of us. Then we can get on with the rest of our lives without them pestering us.”

  “And the sex is good.” Tallie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Exactly.” Elias nodded emphatically, obviously relieved that she understood. “So how about it? Will you marry me?”

  Tallie swallowed and prayed the tears wouldn’t fall as she said the hardest word she’d ever had to say. “No.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AS MUCH as she wanted to say yes, Tallie couldn’t.

  Marriage, in her mind, was a sacred covenant between two people who loved each other. It was a lifetime commitment that promised faith and love and trust and forever.

  It was never just “business.”

  So all she could do was knot her fingers in her lap and shake her head. “No,” she said again, hoarsely. “Thank you, but it wouldn’t work.”

  She couldn’t marry him for the wrong reasons. She couldn’t love him when he only wanted “good sex” and easy business relations. But she couldn’t explain. Not without looking like a fool. Not without admitting she had fallen in love with him—and wished he also loved her.

  She chewed her lip and wished the earth would swallow her up, anything to get her out of this office where Elias stood staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  But then he shrugged casually, almost indifferently.

  “Whatever,” he said lightly. “Just a thought.” As if it didn’t matter in the least.

  Which should have made her glad she’d refused, Tallie reminded herself. And she would—someday. Really she would. But right now she just wished he would leave.

  “So,” he said after a moment. “I’ll be off then.” He started toward the door, then stopped and glanced back. “Afraid I’m not going to have time for any great sex tonight. I’ve got another commitment.”

  She felt as if he’d slapped her.

  Tallie sucked in a sharp breath and could only nod. Determined not to let him see how much his flippancy hurt, she managed one word. “Whatever.”

  It actually physically hurt her throat when she said it.

  For a long moment they just looked at each other. Elias’s expression was stony, nothing at all like the man who had made love to her last night. Then, in what seemed like slow motion, he shrugged, turned and walked out.

  Moments later the main office door shut. Not with a bang. Not with any emotion at all. Just a loud click.

  In the silence of the empty office, Tallie sat for a long time after Elias left. Everything in her hurt. She felt gutted. As hollow and agonized as when she’d come home from Brian’s funeral and realized that her life was stretching out in front of her—vast and empty and alone.

  It hurt.

  She hurt.

  It was better, she thought, swiping away a tear, all those years when she hadn’t felt anything at all. Then slowly, like an old woman, she stood up and hobbled out of her office and down the hall into the reception area. She stood by Rosie’s desk and turned slowly, taking it all in—the break room where only crumbs and a dab of poppy seed remained of this morning’s kolaches, the conference room where she had sat and listened to Paul and Dyson and Elias discuss and question and debate, where she herself had offered insights and had learned more than she’d ever thought possible, Elias’s tiny office with its wonderful mural, the small library with its volumes of maritime history and shipping manuals and, most of all, its beautifully crafted bookcases that she knew now had been Elias’s contribution.

  The whole place—the whole business—was all really due to Elias’s hard work. The rest of them added bits and pieces, but the company was his. It had started out as his family’s, but he was the one who kept it alive, made it thrive.

  She’d jumped at the opportunity to take the job when her father had offered it. But she hadn’t deserved it. She’d done nothing to earn it. And even though she knew she had made a contribution to the business, she hadn’t given anywhere close to what Elias had given to Antonides Marine.

  It didn’t matter that she was president and he was managing director, in the end it was Elias’s company.

  And it wasn’t big enough for both of them. Not now.

  She couldn’t work with him every day—couldn’t see him across the table in meetings or stand in the office and talk about day-to-day business matters and not ache for wanting him.

  And she couldn’t just settle for a hollow marriage and good sex. It had nothing to do with grieving for Brian. It had everything to do with wanting it all with the man she now loved. If she couldn’t have that, she didn’t want any of it.

  She rubbed her hand over the smooth oak of the bookcase, and then she sat down at Rosie’s desk and wrote Elias a note.

  When she finished it, she put it on his desk. Beside it, she left her report detailing the reasons she thought they should pass on the Corbett’s acquisition. She said her brother Theo would possibly be contacting him about a better idea. She hoped she hadn’t overstepped her bounds.

  At the end she wrote, “Everything I’ve done, I’ve tried to do for the good of the company. And that is why I quit.”

  She’d quit.

  Elias sat at his desk and stared at the letter in his hand.

  He’d found it on his desk just minutes ago when he’d come downstairs. It was brief and professional and to the point. Very polite. Very Tallie.

  Very gone.

  He sat there, staring at the note that trembled in his fingers, and he felt his throat close and his eyes burn. He clenched his jaw and tried not to feel anything. But he felt shattered. Lost. Empty. And furious.

  Damn it all, anyway! How could she just walk out? How irresponsible was that?

  Well, the hell with her. If that was the way she felt, it was better that she leave. He didn’t need her.

  But God, it hurt.

  Not that he let on. He made the announcement at a hastily called staff meeting. “Ms Savas has left the company.” He paused and looked at the shocked faces in the room. Then he added, “There are some bagels in the break room. Help yourselves.”

  They looked at him. They looked at each other.

  “What happened?” Rosie asked. “Why isn’t she here?”

  “She just quit? For no reason?” Dyson’s brow was furrowed. “I thought she liked us.”

  “I imagine she got a better offer,” Elias lied. If she hadn’t already, no doubt she soon would.

  “Still seems odd,” Paul mused, scratching his head. “Do you think we upset her?”

  “No, I don’t think you upset her!” Elias’s
tone was so sharp they all looked at him and blinked. Irritated at showing emotion, he shoved a hand through his hair, then took a steadying breath. “Just forget it, all right?”

  He tried to forget, too.

  He threw himself into his work. Over the next week he called Corbett and told him they had decided against purchasing his marine outfitter.

  “We’ve decided to move in a different direction,” he explained.

  “But—” Corbett sounded stunned.

  “We had long discussions about the future of the company,” Elias told him. “It wasn’t a decision made lightly. But while we’re developing new avenues, we just felt that we should stick closer to what we know—which is boats—not clothes.”

  “It’s that woman,” Corbett muttered. “She didn’t like us.”

  “Ms Savas is no longer with the company,” Elias said. “In the end the decision was mine.”

  But it was true that Tallie’s input had counted. She’d been right in her assessment, not of Corbett’s worth, but of its worth to Antonides Marine. She understood AMI’s focus. She knew its history, its successes, its failures. She had been a good president as long as she’d lasted.

  She’d been a good friend. A good lover.

  He tried not to remember. He worked day and night. He put up bookcases. He built shelves and cabinets and cupboards. He finished the first floor and went into the basement and knocked down walls.

  He was tempted once to knock down Martin who asked what he’d done with Tallie.

  “I haven’t done anything with her!” he snapped.

  Martin shrugged. “Then to her.”

  “Or to her!” Elias’s fists clenched. His gut twisted.

  He expected anyday to hear from his father that she had got some other hotshot job in a bigger company. But his father said nothing.

  Even when Elias asked point-blank if she was working for Socrates now, he just shrugged.

  “Socrates hasn’t mentioned her recently,” Aeolus said. “I think he was shocked when she left without telling him. He doesn’t know where she is.”

  No one seemed to know where she was.