THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED

by Christine Rimmer

  She gave him her best level-eyed stare. "Don't bet on it. I'm a lot meaner than I used to be. And besides, you weren't a multimillionaire when I divorced you. You were just a lawyer in a big firm, killing yourself and ignoring your wife, spending every waking minute clawing your way to the top. Now you're so rich, I might not be able to resist making a bid for half of all you've got."

  "So." He was smiling again. "You know how much money I've got."

  The truth was, she had followed the stories about him. "I have a pretty good idea."

  "From whom?"

  She shrugged. "I read the newspapers."

  Six years ago, Mack had taken on a class-action suit against a major automobile manufacturer, a suit no one else in his firm had been willing to touch. He'd ended up going out on his own to handle it. And his share of the final settlement had come to ten million dollars.

  He advised with some irony, "If you're after my money, you'll be happy to hear that I've at least doubled the ten million I started out with."

  "I'm sure you're a very wise investor."

  "No, I take big chances. And they pay off."

  "Well. Good." She stabbed the air with her index finger. "That means more for me when I take you to the cleaners—which I will, Mack. I swear I will."

  He regarded her for an endless count of five. She glared right back at him, thinking how easy it would be to pick up her dinner knife and hurl it at his heart.

  At last he said in a musing tone, "You've developed a temper. I don't remember you having a temper before. You were sweet and shy. And you cried instead of getting mad."

  She pushed back her chair again and stood. It felt a lot better, looking down on him. "Right. I used to be a wimp. But now I'm all grown up. I make my own decisions. And I have a life. Do you understand that? There is a man I want to marry and a business I need to run. I can't leave my store for two weeks. And I certainly can't leave my fiancé to run off with another man."

  "I'm your husband."

  "You are not my husband, not in any but a purely technical sense."

  He lifted a brow at her, insolently, as if her assertion didn't even deserve comment. "I'm sure you can find someone to look after your store."

  "I am not going to find anyone, because I'm not going anywhere."

  He set his half-finished glass of wine on the table and rose slowly to his feet. "Just leave all this right where it is. The restaurant will send someone over tomorrow morning to deal with it." He pulled a business card from his back pocket and set it on the table. "Call this number. Tell them what time you want them to show up."

  She didn't even glance at that card. She looked right at the maddening man standing across the table from her. "I am not—repeat, not—spending two weeks with you, Mack."

  The look he gave her then was almost tender. "Think about it, Jenna. Two weeks isn't that long. We'll go to my place in Key West. I think you'll like it there. The house is old, like this one. It needs … a woman's touch."

  "Hire a decorator."

  He didn't reply to that, only looked at her indulgently before adding, "Once the two weeks are over, you'll be rid of me for good—unless we both decide we shouldn't be divorced after all."

  She couldn't hold back one sharp, disdainful cry. "I don't need two weeks to decide that. I decided that a long time ago."

  He actually had the gall to pretend to be wounded. "You're really hurting my feelings here."

  She gaped at him, wondering how he could joke about this. It was not funny. Not funny in the least. "This is … blackmail. It's … it's kidnapping. It has to be illegal."

  He shook his head. "It's not. Trust me. I know. I'm a lawyer."

  "Mack. Please." She pulled out all the stops and stooped to pleading. "Please. There is no point in this. Don't you see? Nothing good can come of it. I don't want to … to reconcile with you. It's over for me. And even if it wasn't, how can you possibly imagine that forcing me to go away with you would somehow make me change my mind?"

  "Answer me this. Is there anything that would make you change your mind?"

  "Absolutely not."

  "Then this is the only option I've got."

  "That's insane. I just told you it can't work."

  "Maybe you're wrong. And since you have no other suggestions…"

  "Suggestions? You want suggestions? What about keeping your word? What about giving me those papers and going back where you belong?"

  He shook his head. "Uh-uh."

  "Mack. I don't want to get back together with you. And I do not want to spend two weeks alone with you."

  "But you will spend two weeks with me. If you want those divorce papers."

  "Mack, be reasonable. You have to see that doing this will get you nowhere."

  He smiled, a rueful smile. "I'm staying at the Northern Empire Inn. Give me a call when you're ready to agree to my terms."

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  The phone rang at nine. It was Logan, calling from his hotel room in Seattle. He said that he was learning more about the advances in the treatment of childhood infections than his practice could afford. There was a certain very pricey piece of state-of-the-art equipment he wanted to buy.

  As he talked, Jenna tried to keep her mind on what he was saying, tried not to think about Mack, about how angry she was, how trapped she felt. About what in the world she was going to do now.

  "Jenna? You still with me?"

  "Of course. I'm right here. How's the food there—and are you getting enough sleep?"

  "The food? I've had worse. And yes, I'm getting plenty of sleep. What about you? Miss me?"

  "Desperately."

  He chuckled. "Don't overplay it. I'll become suspicious."

  Suspicious. Oh, Lord. If he only knew.

  And he should know. She would have to tell him.

  But not now. Not on the phone from seven hundred miles away.

  She'd tell him when she could sit down with him, face-to-face, after he returned home.

  He asked, "So what are you and Lacey up to tonight?"

  "We're not. I came home and there was a note on the fridge. A hot date, it said."

  "I didn't know Lacey was seeing someone in Meadow Valley."

  "I don't think she is. It's probably just one of her old high school friends, Mira or Maud—or maybe both."

  "The terrible twins. Scary." He spoke jokingly. But he wasn't joking, not really. Logan had never approved of Lacey's old friends. He didn't much approve of Lacey, either, though he always treated her kindly, partly for Jenna's sake and also because he liked to think of himself as Lacey's "honorary" older brother.

  "The twins are all grown up now," Jenna reminded him. "And they've settled down considerably. They haven't spray-painted obscenities on high school walls or gotten caught breaking and entering for years. Maud's married and a mother—and a darn good one, from what I hear."

  "That's reassuring," Logan muttered dryly. "Seriously. Is Lacey all right? She seemed a little … subdued the other day." Logan had been at the house when Lacey had first arrived from L.A.

  "She's fine. Just taking a break from the rat race, she said. A few weeks in her hometown. Some rest and relaxation. Oh, and she also mentioned that a certain gallery owner had been talking about showcasing her work. Evidently the deal fell through somehow."

  "A disappointment." His tone was knowing.

  "That's what it sounded like to me. So if she seems a little down, that's probably why."

  "She'll get over it."

  "Of course she will."

  "What she ought to do is get a real job. She's twenty-five years old, after all. Time to make a few realistic decisions. There's no reason she couldn't move back to Meadow Valley permanently. That house of your mother's is half hers now. As soon as you and I get married, she could have it to herself. Plenty of room to set up a studio and paint in her spare time. She ought to—"

  "Logan," Jenna cut in gently.

  He was silent, th
en he chuckled. "I know, I know. None of my business. But she is your sister. And I worry about her."

  "I know you do. And it's very sweet of you."

  "Tell me again how much you miss me." She could picture the loving smile on his handsome face. The image made her feel about two inches tall.

  "Jenna? Are you there?"

  "I miss you," she said. "A lot. And I…" Her throat closed up. She had to swallow before she could get the words out. "I love you. Very much."

  "And I love you, Jenna Bravo. Did you get those papers in the mail from Florida yet?"

  "Uh. No. No, I'm afraid that I didn't."

  "Well. It's only been a few days. We have to exercise a little patience, I suppose."

  "That's right. Logan, I…" But no, she told herself again. Not now. It's not right to tell him something like this over the phone.

  "What is it?" Concern threaded his voice. "Is something wrong?"

  "No. Nothing. Nothing at all. I just … I'll be glad when you're home."

  Softly he agreed, "So will I."

  Jenna hung up feeling like a two-timer, a woman of questionable moral character, dishonest and bad. She could have killed Mack McGarrity. She muttered a few choice expletives under her breath.

  And then, before reason could reassert itself, she got out the phone book and looked up the number of the Northern Empire Inn.

  She dialed it quickly, and when the operator answered, she growled, "Mack McGarrity's room, please."

  He picked up after the first ring. "McGarrity here." His voice, so deep and firm and resonant, vibrated along her nerves, sent a shiver moving just beneath the surface of the skin.

  She could hear a television in the background, a man talking, then audience laughter. "Hello?" he said, impatient now, sounding like the old Mack, the oh-so-busy Mack, the Mack who'd dragged her to New York City without bothering to get her input on the move—and then hardly had a spare moment for her once he got her there.

  She opened her mouth, then shut it without making a sound. What was there to say that she hadn't already said?

  She heard him draw in a breath. And then, in tender reproach, he whispered her name.

  "Jenna…"

  She lowered the handset and laid it oh so carefully back in its cradle.

  * * *

  Jenna didn't sleep well that night. She couldn't get comfortable in her own bed. And then, when she finally did drop off, she had a dream about Mack.

  About making love with Mack.

  In the dream, their lovemaking was every bit as beautiful, as sensual and sweet and soul shattering, as it had been in real life.

  They lay on a white bed—the bed in the window of her shop, as a matter of fact. In the dream, though, the bed drifted in some warm and safe and hazy place. It floated, with Jenna and Mack naked upon it, in a kind of misty void.

  Mack touched her, the way he used to touch her—in the beginning, when it was all so new and magical. When what he'd found with her was still enough to make him put aside temporarily the demons of ambition that drove him.

  His eyes were the sky, blue turning cloudy. His hands, so warm and strong, moved over her body in a lazy, arousing dance. She moaned, and he kissed her, the deepest, longest, most sensual kiss she had ever known. It went on and on. She pressed herself closer to him and realized that he was already within her. There was that perfect, full sensation of joining.

  Her eyes drooped closed. His kiss deepened even more. Impossible, that a kiss already so deep could continue to intensify. But it did. And they were moving together, sighing together, on the wide white bed in the middle of a warm and lovely nowhere.

  Then all at once she was standing in the waiting room of a doctor's office, looking through the receptionist's window.

  And it was Logan, not a receptionist, who stared back at her. "There's no cure for you, Jenna." His voice was icy cold. "I'm afraid your case is terminal."

  She woke with a cry, sitting straight up in bed.

  * * *

  The next day Jenna looked in the phone book for the number of the attorney who had handled her divorce from Mack. It wasn't there. She remembered the address, so she drove by the attorney's office that evening, on the way home from Linen and Lace. But her lawyer had moved. The building was now occupied by a florist's shop.

  Logan didn't call that night. Jenna felt guiltily grateful for that. As long as she didn't talk to him, she didn't have to keep asking herself if it was better to tell him the truth right now—or to wait until she could tell him to his face.

  Sunday, Linen and Lace opened at one in the afternoon. Jenna went out at a little after ten o'clock and bought bagels and cream cheese. Then she woke Lacey and the two of them sat in the breakfast nook, warm September sunlight pouring in the windows, drinking coffee and sharing an impromptu brunch.

  Lacey talked a little about her stalled career dreams. She'd been living in L.A. for five years now. She shared a downtown loft—in a rather rough neighborhood that made Jenna nervous—with a friend, a fellow artist. Lacey painted every chance she got, and she was making connections, building a network of people who knew and liked her work. Every now and then she'd sell a painting. But as yet, her long string of jobs waiting tables and serving at private catered events were what paid the rent.

  Jenna really did believe her sister had talent. And Lacey had come a long way from the troubled, rebellious teenager who'd once been known by her teachers as the Scourge of Meadow Valley High. Now Lacey really cared about something.

  "You work hard," Jenna told her. "And you love what you do. You just keep working. Someday you'll get the recognition you deserve."

  Lacey had what Jenna always thought of as a naughty angel's face—wide blue eyes, a lush, full mouth, a delicate nose and beautiful pale skin. She liked to wear tight-fitting tops and flowing, semitransparent skirts. To Jenna, she always seemed a cross between a rock star and a fairy princess.

  Now the full mouth was stretched to a grin. "It's obvious why I come home—to hear you tell me that I'm bound to succeed."

  "And you are. I know you are. Do you need money?"

  "No, I do not. I'm managing just fine."

  They shared a second bagel and Jenna poured them each more coffee.

  Then Lacey asked, "So what's gone wrong in your life lately?"

  Jenna tensed, but tried her best not to let Lacey see it. "What do you mean?" She hoped she sounded breezy. "Everything's fine."

  Lacey leaned closer. "Come on. It's me. Your bad baby sister. I grew up spying on you, remember? I saw you get your first kiss."

  This was news to Jenna. "You did not."

  "I did. You kissed that redheaded boy, the one with all the freckles, whose ears stuck out. Chuckie…"

  Jenna felt her cheeks coloring. "Oh, God. Chuckie Blevins."

  "You were thirteen. And that Chuckie. He was some kisser. He slobbered all over you—and you wiped your mouth after. But in a very Jenna-like way, so considerately, waiting until Chuckie wasn't looking."

  "I can't believe you were watching that."

  "You bet I was. It was probably the most exciting thing I ever saw you do." Lacey shoved a thick hank of curly blond hair back over her shoulder and sipped from her coffee cup. "And I still want an answer to my question. What's going on?"

  "I don't—"

  "Oh, stop it. Something is going on. You try to hide it, but you've got that worried, nervous look in those eyes of yours. It's the way you looked when you ran away from Mack McGarrity."

  Jenna stiffened. "I beg your pardon. I did not—"

  Lacey didn't even let her finish. "You did, too. Okay, okay. You called it a visit home. But you brought your cat with you, for heaven's sake. And you never did go back to New York. You bustled around here, inventing little cleaning and decorating projects to spiff up the house, acting busy but looking worried and sad, putting on fake smiles and trying to stay upbeat. But I could see. Anyone who cared about you could see. Something was very wrong."

  "Well,
my marriage was ending. Of course I was worried. And I didn't go back to New York because there was no point in going back. It was over between Mack and me."

  "Jenna, I'm saying that you've seemed the same way for the last couple of days—not sad this time so much, but worried and really preoccupied. And I want to know what's bothering you."

  Jenna looked at her sister for a long time, torn between the probable wisdom of keeping her own counsel and the real need to share her problem with someone she could trust.

  Need won out. "Mack's in town."

  Lacey set down her bagel without taking a bite of it. "You're joking. It's a joke, right?"

  "No. It's no joke."

  "In town? Where in town?"

  "He's staying at the Northern Empire Inn."

  "And he came to town to see you?"

  "Yes."

  "Does Dr. Do-Right know?"

  "Lacey, I really wish you'd stop calling Logan Dr. Do-Right."

  Lacey wrinkled her nose. "Sorry." Then she put on a contrite look. "Let me try again. Does Logan know?"

  "I'm telling him as soon as he gets back from Seattle."

  "Translation. You haven't told him yet." Lacey picked up her bagel again, looked at it, then dropped it for the second time. "I can't stand it. Talk. Tell me everything."

  "It's awful," Jenna warned. "It's embarrassing and unfair and just plain wrong. And if I thought I could get away with it, I'd do something life-threatening to Mack McGarrity."

  "Just tell me what's going on."

  So Jenna explained the whole mess to her sister.

  At the end, Lacey asked, "Have you called your lawyer about it?"

  Jenna sighed. "I don't have a lawyer, not as of this moment. The lawyer I did have has apparently closed up shop and moved away. He's not in the phone book anymore. And yesterday I drove by the address where he used to have his office. There's a florist shop there now."

  "Great," Lacey remarked, in a tone that said it was anything but. "So you need a new lawyer."

  "That's right. And I'll need a good one, I think. If I do end up having to divorce that man for the second time, he's promised me he'll think of a thousand ways to drag things out all over again."

  "You know, he's always been kind of an S.O.B."