Her father outdid them all. He came storming down the hallway as soon as he was alerted that Marlowe was in the building.
Payne Colton’s eyes met and held his daughter’s. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded loudly, frowning at her.
Confronted with her father’s harsh greeting, it made Marlowe regret that she had turned down Bowie’s offer to come with her to her office. He would have definitely been her buffer.
No, she thought, she was a big girl, a mother-to-be. She could fight her own battles.
Marlowe searched her father’s face, doing her best to try to read between the lines. Had he heard about the stalker? Did he even care? She didn’t have a clue.
“And hello to you, too, Dad,” she responded cryptically.
What happened next took her totally by surprise. Her father threw his arms around her, embracing her and giving her what amounted to a bear hug.
“Dad?” she asked uneasily, utterly stunned by his action. She could count on less than five fingers of one hand just how many times her father had demonstrated this sort of affection for her. Holding her breath, she waited for an explanation.
Releasing her, Payne drew back his shoulders. “Chief Barco stopped by the house late last night to notify us that he arrested a lunatic stalker working in the mail room and that lowlife had tried to kidnap you. Barco scared your mother half to death,” her father informed her in an accusatory voice. “That poor woman must have called you more than a dozen times.” He demanded, “Why didn’t you pick up?”
“I turned off the phone,” she explained, trying to subdue the wave of guilt she felt. “After what happened, I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me and try to get back to my old self.”
Her father frowned. “I understand all that, but you still have an obligation to the family,” he reprimanded. “When you didn’t answer, we didn’t know what to think. You could have saved us all that grief.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Marlowe apologized.
But one of her brothers took offense at the way their father was badgering Marlowe. “C’mon, Dad, give Marlowe a break,” Rafe chided.
She didn’t like being defensive, but she liked being blamed for having a normal, understandable reaction even less.
There was no such thing as being cut any slack when it came to her father. “That homicidal maniac almost succeeded in kidnapping me,” she stressed, repeating what her father had already acknowledged.
“But he didn’t,” Payne said, pointing out the obvious. And then normal curiosity got the better of him. “How did you stop him?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” Marlowe answered, then told her father something she knew he didn’t want to hear. “Bowie did.”
Payne’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows drew together, forming a single squiggle. “The Robertson kid? What was he doing in your office after hours?” he demanded.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Marlowe answered her father, deliberately sounding nonchalant, “saving my life when he didn’t get an answer from the bodyguard he hired to watch over me.”
“He did what?” Payne demanded. His face turned a bright shade of red as he tried to come to terms with what his daughter had just told him. “What the hell is Robertson doing hiring bodyguards for you?”
“Bodyguard, Dad, not bodyguards. There was just the one,” she emphasized. “And to answer your question, Bowie hired a bodyguard for me because he was worried about me. For good reason.”
That was clearly not a winning argument in Payne’s estimation. “We Coltons can take care of our own,” he said bitingly, throwing back his shoulders.
“Apparently we’re not very good at it,” Marlowe contradicted, “because if Bowie hadn’t come to check on his man, we might not be having this conversation right now. Just admit it, Dad,” she retorted, losing her patience. “Bowie did a good thing.”
“Yeah, after he did a bad thing,” Payne declared, deliberately staring at his daughter’s still flat stomach.
Disgusted, Marlowe threw up her hands. “There is just no talking to you!” she cried, completely exasperated.
“Well, you’re going to have to, missy,” he informed his daughter. When she looked at him quizzically, he explained his comment. “As our new CEO, you’ll be reporting directly back to me.”
She had been expecting this ever since he’d let Ace go, and it had been weighing heavily on her mind. “About that,” she began, since her father had given her an opening. “I don’t know if I can handle being a CEO and an expecting mother.”
The look on Payne’s face told her that he harbored no such doubts. “You underestimate yourself, Marlowe,” her father said. “I have every confidence that you’ll rise to the occasion.”
“But,” Marlowe began, feeling that her father was not being realistic, “I’m going to be a new mother in a few months,” she stressed. And that opened up an entirely new, unknown world for her. A world she knew nothing about and one she felt she needed to focus on, in order not to shortchange the baby, herself—or Bowie.
That argument was not a deterrent for her father, however. “So, you’ll find a good nanny. Hell, I’ll even pay for one,” Payne told her, then declared, “There, problem solved.”
“Not really,” Marlowe told him. He was being far too simplistic. “And even if finding a good nanny did solve my problem, what about all the other mothers who are working for Colton Oil?”
Her father looked completely lost. It was obvious that he wasn’t following her. “What about them?” he asked.
Marlowe sighed. “Does Colton Oil even have a day care center?” She knew it didn’t, but she was trying to make a point.
Payne looked at her blankly. “What?”
She did her best to patiently explain what she was thinking. “I feel awful that I never even thought about that until it suddenly affected me directly.”
Her father scowled at what he felt was convoluted thinking. “Why should you?” he asked her. “I certainly didn’t.”
“That’s just the problem, Dad,” Marlowe insisted. Couldn’t he see that?
It was obvious that Payne was losing his patience with this discussion. “Marlowe, maybe you should take a few more days off,” her father told her. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“No, Dad,” Marlowe contradicted, “for the first time in a long time, I am thinking clearly. We need to set up a day care center right here on Colton Oil’s premises.”
Exasperated, Payne exchanged glances with Rafe. “So now you’re saying we need child labor?” her father asked sarcastically.
Marlowe tried again. “No, Dad, I’m saying we need a day care center on the premises. If I want to be close to my baby, other mothers, other parents,” she corrected herself, widening the circle to include fathers, too, “should have the same option, as well. How about it, Dad? Can we set one up here?”
Payne didn’t like being put on the spot like this, especially since it wasn’t his idea to begin with. “I’ll think about it,” he told her evasively.
But Marlowe shook her head. Her father’s answer wasn’t good enough to satisfy her.
“You need to do more than just think about it, Dad,” she insisted. And then she looked at her brother. “Back me up here, Rafe.”
Rafe said simply, “I think she’s right, Dad.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Payne asked his adopted son in a mocking tone.
The tone was meant to make Rafe back off, but the latter surprised him by digging in. “Yes, I do.”
Payne looked at him in disgust. “And just who is going to foot this bill?” he demanded.
“Oh, come on, Dad,” Rafe answered in disbelief. “You’re pinching pennies now? Having this day care center on the premises will buy you more goodwill than you can possibly imagine,” Rafe assured the overbearing head of Colton Oil.
Payne frowned
. He really hated to be forced to admit it, but he had to say that Marlowe and Rafe did have a valid point.
Although he wouldn’t come right out and say it, he demonstrated his agreement by retreating.
“All right, you two handle it,” he told the pair. “I’ll underwrite the day care center. Now let’s move on to more pressing problems,” he said authoritatively to the duo.
Marlowe and Rafe both knew their father was talking about trying to locate the real Ace, as well as finding the one whom they had thought of as Ace for all these years. There would be no peace until both of the Aces were found and the mystery surrounding their unorthodox switch was solved.
“I’m already looking into that, Dad,” Rafe reminded his father. “I still think the idea of hiring a private investigator is a good one. Think about it,” he said before Payne could protest. “If it’s our PI, we get to control what news is released and what is kept secret until such time as all the pieces of the puzzle come together.”
Marlowe nodded her agreement. “Rafe has a very good point,” she told her father.
Payne looked from his daughter to his son. “So now the two of you are tag teaming me?”
Marlowe wasn’t certain if her father had just made a joke. But for the first time since she had entered her office that day, she smiled at the larger-than-life man.
“Is it working?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Payne answered evasively. And then he finally conceded. “Yes,” he said. “But don’t let that go to your heads. Odds are that you’ve got to be right at least once in a while,” Payne conceded.
“Thanks, Dad,” Marlowe said. “Coming from you those are glowing words of praise.” His daughter was only half kidding.
Payne looked at her for a long moment, thinking.
“Seriously,” he began in a tone that was extremely subdued from the one he usually used. “Did that bastard hurt you? The stalker, I mean,” he added in case he hadn’t been clear.
“I know who you mean, Dad, and no, he didn’t. Thanks to Bowie,” she stressed, wanting Payne to acknowledge that she was here due to Bowie’s efforts.
Payne frowned as he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, tell the boy I said thanks,” he mumbled.
“Wow. More praise,” she marveled in surprise. “I’ll pass that along, too,” Marlowe told her father, clearly impressed by this magnanimous side he was displaying.
“Yeah, you do that,” Payne said in a low, less-than-enthusiastic tone of voice.
It was clear that uttering kinder words like this made the older Colton completely uncomfortable. Payne was far more in his element when he was shouting at people and ordering them around than when he was dispensing any sort of praise, no matter how much the other party might deserve it.
“Well,” Payne said, looking from one of his children to the other, waiting. “Anything else that we need to discuss?”
“Not that I can think of at the moment,” Marlowe answered. She turned toward Rafe. “You?”
“Nope,” Rafe answered. “I’ll let you know how things are progressing once I’ve hired that PI. I’ve got a number of candidates I want to vet first.”
Payne nodded, his thick salt-and-pepper hair falling into his eyes. He combed it back with his fingers out of habit.
“I expect nothing less,” Payne informed his adopted son.
“I know,” Rafe replied, well aware how his father operated.
“And you...” Payne turned toward his daughter, belatedly beginning to take on the role of a hands-on father, a role that wasn’t exactly second nature for him and didn’t suit him, either. But he was trying his best.
Surprised by her father’s attention, she asked, “What about me?”
“Your doctor say that you’re okay to go back to work?” he asked. “You and the baby?” Payne added after a beat.
Marlowe could only stare at her father. This was a first. A whole new side to her father that she had never seen before and she wasn’t sure how to react. He had never been a concerned father unless there was something about a particular child’s behavior that could be seen as reflecting badly on the company. Then he would make his displeasure known.
“Well?” Payne pressed. “I know you can talk, girl. You damn near can talk the ears off a brass monkey,” he declared. “Why aren’t you talking now?” Always one to anticipate the worst, Payne stared at his new CEO, waiting to hear the news. “The doctor say something bad?” he asked.
“No.” At least that much she could say honestly, Marlowe thought.
“Then he said it was all right to come back to work right after what you went through?” Payne pressed, watching her face intently.
He was like a dog with a bone, Marlowe thought. Once he latched onto something, he was not about to let it go until he was good and ready to. When Marlowe said nothing, his eyes all but burrowed into her.
“Well? What did he say, girl?”
Marlowe had never lied to her father. She thought of lies being in the same category as quicksand. Once she stepped into that territory, there was no getting out of it, and she didn’t want to have to go through the ordeal if she could possibly avoid it. Because she knew in her soul that no matter how finely crafted the lie would be, somehow, some way, her father would find out that she had lied to him, and then all those years she had spent building up and cultivating his trust would be lost to her in a single second.
“Well?”
“She didn’t say anything,” she finally said. She was very aware that not only her father was looking at her but Rafe was, too. She really wished that lies could come rolling off her tongue with ease, the way they did whenever Selina talked. But she lacked that particular talent, and most of the time, that was all right with her.
The next second, she berated herself for wanting to be like Selina in any manner, shape or form.
“Why not?” her father asked.
“Because I didn’t schedule an appointment with an ob-gyn yet,” she answered in exasperation.
Her father looked surprised, then thought her answer over. “I appreciate you being tough, but this isn’t just about you, it’s about—the baby you’re carrying,” he forced himself to say, although she knew it wasn’t easy, since the child in her belly was half Robertson. “You have a responsibility to it.”
She never expected to hear her father say anything remotely like that. To acknowledge her condition and even be concerned about her state. Especially since he was aware of the fact that the baby was Bowie’s—and the grandchild of his archenemy. A grandchild that would very possibly force the two families to come together.
“Point taken,” she told her father.
“So finish whatever you have to do,” he instructed, “And then call your doctor. Tell her what happened yesterday. Don’t leave anything out,” he said harshly. “And then do whatever she tells you to.”
“And if the doctor tells me to stop working?” she challenged.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Now I’ve got a meeting to go to,” he announced. Looking at Rafe, he said, “Let me know when you find a private investigator,” he ordered.
And with that, Payne walked out, leaving his two children flabbergasted in his wake.
Chapter 23
“Mind if I walk you home?”
Marlowe looked up from the assessment estimate for the proposed day care center she had been working on for the last few hours. She was surprised to see Bowie standing in the doorway.
Belatedly, his unusual question registered in her tired brain, and she looked at him as if his words weren’t computing.
He found her bewildered expression endearing. “What?” he asked innocently as he came in. And then he gave up his ruse. “Sorry, that’s my impression of me the way I might have sounded as a teenager.”
That cleared up nothing for her. “Why?”
“Well, since we didn’t travel in the same circles back then, I thought I’d pretend to go back in time to see what it might have been like if we did the typical, universal things, you know, like my walking you home after school, things like that.” Reaching Marlowe’s desk, he bent over to brush his lips against hers.
She found the taste of his lips exceedingly arousing as well as comforting. Without thinking, she sighed with pleasure. And then she laughed softly, warning herself not to slip into that trap.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” she asked Bowie.
He didn’t bother pretending to take offense. Instead, he merely grinned at her. “Yeah, maybe a little. All right.” He feigned thinking the matter over. “I’ll drive you home instead of walking.”
It didn’t seem right to have him chauffeur her around, even though she could easily let that become a habit.
“My car’s still parked here,” she reminded him.
“And it’ll still be here tomorrow,” he answered. “I’m sure the parking structure attendant won’t let anything happen to Ms. Colton’s car if it stays here for another night.” Bowie dealt any argument she was going to come up with a death blow by adding, “Your father will have his head.”
Getting up out of her chair, Marlowe gathered her things together. “My father’s not all that bad,” she informed Bowie, feeling it was her obligation to come to her father’s defense, especially after this morning.
Bowie just gave her a very dubious look. “Hey, legend has it that Payne Colton eats interns and new hires for breakfast.”
“Bowie—” she warned as she picked up her briefcase.
Bowie relieved her of the case, taking her other hand in his.
“Okay, I’ll stop,” he conceded, leading the way toward her doorway. “But that means you have to let me take you home.”
“Whose home?” Marlowe asked. “Yours or mine?”
He paused next to a coatrack, took the lone coat hanging there and slipped it onto her shoulders. Bowie kissed her again as he began to close her buttons for her. “Your choice.”
“Seriously?” She thought he’d have had this all plotted out at this point.
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