His Marriage Bonus

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  The phone rang. Mitch leaned back just enough to be able to reach into the breast pocket of his suit coat and extract his cell phone. He checked the caller ID screen, pushed the button. Frowning, he held the phone to his ear. “Yeah, Jack, what’s up? …I don’t know. Well, if he’s not answering…yeah… I’ll be right there.” Mitch ended the connection and slid his cell phone back into his suit jacket. He released Lauren with a beleaguered sigh, the sexual electricity of moments before forgotten. “We’ve got to go. There’s trouble at the docks.”

  Lauren picked up her handbag from the floor next to the sofa. “What kind of trouble?” she asked, sincerely interested.

  Mitch looked at her with sudden wariness. “Problem with a shipment,” he said vaguely, after a moment, looking strangely loath to confide anything in her at all. “The company attorney, Jack Granger, can’t find my father—he’s not picking up his cell phone—so I’ve got to handle the situation.”

  Lauren wondered if that was all Mitch was upset about. Somehow, it seemed like more than just that worrying him. “Does this happen a lot?” she asked casually as they walked outside to his car, wanting somehow to help him feel better about whatever was going on, even if it was just by talking about it.

  Mitch tensed as they reached the passenger side. “Lately, more than I’d like to admit,” he said, making no move to open the car door for her. “What about what happened just now?” Mitch backed her up against the side of the Lexus and caged her there with his arms, one hand planted on either side of her. “Does that happen often?” All too aware of the sudden pounding of her heart, Lauren leaned back against the metal, putting as much distance as she could—which wasn’t much—between herself and his strong, hard body. Flushing self-consciously despite herself, she asked, “Does what happen often?”

  Mitch favored Lauren with a challenging half smile she found even more disturbing than the way he was holding her captive. “Do you tease men about seducing them?” he queried in a low, inherently seductive tone.

  Lauren’s neck and shoulders drew taut as a bow, even as she defiantly lifted her chin. “I’m not a flirt, if that’s what you’re asking,” she stated plainly.

  Mitch shifted so his feet were braced slightly apart, his knees nudging hers. “You were doing a pretty good job of it,” he observed, giving her a narrow-eyed glance.

  To both our surprise, Lauren thought, aware she had never before teased a man in such a wanton manner. She couldn’t even say why she had done it exactly. She’d just felt Mitch pulling away from her in a way he hadn’t earlier in the day. And she’d wanted to goad him back into the reckless good cheer and impulsive sexuality that had so marked their encounter earlier in the day. She had wanted this week of dating to be something she didn’t have to think about or consider. She had wanted it to mean nothing more than a reckless, meaningless fling that was forgotten almost as soon as it happened. And the only way she had known how to accomplish that was to keep the chemistry flowing between them—to the point it overrode all common sense and customary judgment. Too late, she saw what a mistake that had been. She wasn’t an impulsive person, and neither was Mitch. “Just giving you a hard time,” she said lightly.

  Mitch quirked an eyebrow and looked down before returning his probing gaze to hers. “You did that, all right.”

  Lauren’s jaw dropped in shock. She was flooded with embarrassment. “Mitch!”

  Ignoring her censure, he cupped her face in his hands and rubbed his thumb across her lower lip in a way that had her heating with desire from head to toe. Looking at her, Mitch warned softly and seriously, “Don’t play with fire, Lauren. Not unless you want to get burned.”

  LAUREN WAS SILENT during the drive to the docks. As much as she loathed the scolding way he had done it, Mitch had been right to warn her away from any disingenuous behavior. She had been prodding him unnecessarily, in a way she had instinctively known he wouldn’t appreciate. She wasn’t sure why. Except that, deep down, she was angry he had seemed, on some level, to be holding her at arm’s length this evening, after coming on to her so strongly that afternoon. And also angry that he hadn’t told her father what he could do with his proposition from the get-go, but instead had helped talk her into it! Not that she’d been a hard sell, Lauren admitted ruefully to herself. She had wanted to turn that mansion into the beautiful showplace it should be for so long. To be able to do that and call it her own home, too, well, it would be a dream come true. She was still going to have to figure out how to sell enough property to be able to pay for the renovations, of course, because there was no way she was marrying Mitch to get the money to do that. But she figured she would solve that problem over time.

  Meantime, all she had to do was keep Mitch at arm’s length during their dates for the rest of the week. Given the way they had just ticked each other off without really even trying, she was pretty sure she could do that. She just had to keep him wanting the same thing. Given the vaguely irked look on his face, that too seemed like a done deal.

  Jack Granger was waiting for them in his office when they arrived at the Deveraux Shipping Company. The company attorney looked ruggedly handsome in a button-down white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt.

  Jack took one look at Lauren, then turned to Mitch and, looking much more weary and disillusioned than a successful, career-driven bachelor in his early thirties should, said grimly, “Damn it, Mitch. You know how your father feels about consorting with the enemy. How could you have brought Lauren Heyward here? Tonight, of all nights!”

  BESIDE HIM, Mitch felt Lauren take a step back. Her shock was every bit as palpable as his own anger. Jack Granger had worked for the firm for years. First as a dockworker, summers while he was in high school, later as an intern. Now he was the company attorney, and, as a personal favor to the Deveraux clan, the legal expert the entire family relied on for advice. Jack had recommended the lawyer who handled Mitch’s divorce for him.

  Consequently, Jack knew things about what had gone on between Mitch and Jeannette that no one else in the world knew—save Jeannette, Mitch and their two attorneys. But that didn’t mean Jack could chastise Mitch when it came to company business. On the executive level, they were on equal footing. Mitch looked out for the continued growth of the company. Jack enforced existing contracts, even when those contracts were handshake deals. As CEO and president of DSC, Tom Deveraux presided over them both. And it was Tom both wanted to please.

  “Excuse me?” Lauren stammered to Jack.

  Mitch held up a hand, letting Lauren know it was all right, he could handle this. He turned to Jack. “My father knows I’m seeing Lauren tonight.”

  Jack grimaced at Mitch and raked a hand through his dark blond hair. “I doubt Tom would approve of you bringing her here when we’re in the middle of a crisis.”

  No helping it, Mitch thought. He wasn’t about to bow out on his date with Lauren and lose his chance at merging the two most powerful shipping companies on the entire eastern seaboard. Not even if Lauren’s being here made Jack uncomfortable. “Like I said, Jack, my father knows Lauren is with me,” Mitch repeated evenly, letting Jack know with a glance the decision had been made. A decision for which Mitch was fully accountable. Mitch sat in one of the two armchairs in front of Jack’s desk and signaled for Lauren to do the same. “Now, what’s up?”

  Jack sighed and took a seat behind a desk littered with contracts. He leaned back in the leather chair, rested his elbows on the chair arms and steepled his hands in front of him. “There’s been a delay with the five hundred luxury cars we were supposed to ship to Miami tonight. Only half of them arrived,” he confided, concerned. “LC Motors insists we wait for the rest of them before taking off. Meanwhile, we’ve got containers of perishable foods on the ship that need to go out as scheduled tonight.”

  What a mess, Mitch thought. He was glad Jack had called him in to help handle it. “Have you tried putting the rest of the
cars on a different ship?” Mitch asked.

  Jack nodded. “Nothing’s available for five days. Everything else is booked solid.”

  Mitch slanted a sidelong look at Lauren. To his chagrin—he would have much preferred she had been bored or distracted—she looked as tense and concerned and attentive as he and Jack. “Those shipments can’t be moved around?” Mitch asked.

  “No.” Jack frowned again. “It’s all cargo from regular clientele.”

  Realizing it was going to be a long evening, Mitch stood. Preparing to head for his office, he took off his suit jacket, unbuttoned his collar, and loosened the knot of his tie. “Let me see what I can do.”

  Jack gave Lauren a considering look, which seemed to warn her from doing anything that would hurt the Deveraux or the company they owned, as she rose to accompany Mitch down the hall. “I’ll keep trying to get in touch with your dad,” Jack said before they left.

  Lauren and Mitch walked down the hall the short distance to his office. “Tough break,” she murmured sympathetically as Mitch opened the door to his own suite of offices and turned on the lights.

  “Yes, it is,” Mitch agreed. The question was, how to fix the situation without giving either Lauren—or by extension, her father—a chance to take advantage or betray him, and prove his father and Jack Granger right about her, and her motivation, after all.

  Lauren sat down and waited patiently while Mitch worked the phones. To Mitch’s chagrin, he noted uneasily that though he gave her some old Business Week and Fortune magazines to flip through, Lauren secretly appeared to be hanging on to every word he said, even as she turned the pages and pretended to read the material in front of her. Were Jack and his dad right? Mitch wondered as he made yet another call. Was Lauren with him simply to uncover anything that would give her dad the edge in the ongoing competition between the two firms? Or was he right? Mitch wondered. And this was all simple coincidence, albeit an unfortunate one. Problems were a dime a dozen in any business. And missed shipments happened all the time. Generally not, however, when he was “contracted by gentleman’s agreement” to have the daughter of his fiercest competitor, and a savvy businesswoman in her own right, with him.

  Half an hour later, Jack came back in. “Any luck?” he asked Mitch hopefully as soon as Mitch hung up the telephone.

  Mitch shook his head, displeased to report, “LC Motors and Specialty Foods are both threatening to take their business to one of the Web-based exchanges on the Internet to find alternate transportation if we don’t do as they want.”

  If possible, Jack looked even grimmer. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

  Mitch shrugged. “The only thing I can. Order the ship to get under way immediately, with whatever cargo is on it. And then talk to Payton Heyward. See if he’s got a ship we can use for the rest of the cars as soon as they arrive. We ship a lot for both LC Motors and Specialty Foods. We can’t afford to lose either’s business. And that means keeping to the contracted schedule as close as possible.”

  Jack shot another long considering look at Lauren before turning back to Mitch.

  Mitch knew what Jack was thinking. Jack was thinking he shouldn’t be giving any business to a competitor. Had Mitch not wanted to merge firms with Payton Heyward, he would have agreed. He would have found some other company to handle the cargo rather than do anything to strengthen their chief rival. But he did want to merge firms with Payton, and this was the surest, quickest way to prove that the two powerhouse shipping companies could work together in ways that would benefit—and empower—both.

  “You can’t do this on your own,” Jack warned humorlessly at last. “Your father is going to have to sign off on it.”

  “If you can find him, I’ll be glad to turn this problem over to him,” Mitch promised. “Until then, I’m going to use my executive powers, as second in command, to do what I have to do to solve the problem.” And the first order of business was to get the loaded ship under way. The second was to find Payton Heyward and get him to cooperate with Mitch in a way Payton had never joined forces with Mitch’s father.

  Mitch studied Jack. “Are you with me or not?” he asked.

  Jack nodded reluctantly. “I’m with you,” he said. “I just hope you know what you’re doing. ’Cause if you don’t, and this backfires on us in any way, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “DO YOU HAVE PROBLEMS like this all the time?” Lauren asked as they drove the short distance to the penthouse apartment where Payton stayed during the week, in lieu of commuting back and forth between Charleston and his Summerville estate.

  “Unfortunately, nowadays, we do,” Mitch explained, trying not to get too used to having Lauren’s soothing, perfumed presence in the car beside him. He turned to look at her as they waited at a red light, and explained, “It used to be that a shipping company established a regular clientele—these were all usually handshake deals—and then the two stuck together, through good times and bad. If there was unusual weather or some other calamity, it wasn’t a problem. Chiefly because there was nowhere else to turn. Now if something goes wrong, a customer can just switch on his computer, go to one of the auction sites on the Web, post his needs. The customer will start getting bids immediately and will usually find an alternate shipper within twenty-four hours.”

  Lauren frowned, looking, Mitch thought, more troubled than someone should who had no interest at all in the family business. “But your family’s company doesn’t do that,” Lauren supposed slowly, her soft tone as sympathetic as her pretty, dark brown eyes.

  “No, and neither does your father’s,” Mitch said as the traffic light changed, and he pressed his foot down on the accelerator again. “And that’s beginning to cost us both. And it’s a shame. We should both be doing business on the Web as well as the old-fashioned way.”

  Lauren raked her teeth across her lower lip. “Why don’t you do that if it’s something you need to be doing to stay competitive?”

  Mitch sighed as he turned into the parking lot and guided his Lexus into a visitor space. “I can’t speak for your father,” he said as he cut the engine and turned to Lauren. “But we haven’t done so yet chiefly because all our container ships are filled to capacity, as is.”

  “Then why worry about it?” Lauren asked, getting out of the car before Mitch could get around to help her.

  Mitch took her elbow as they headed toward the building entrance. “Because the way the shipping business is conducted is changing, Lauren, and both our companies need to change, too—at least stay ahead of the curve. Otherwise, five years from now both could find themselves out of business.”

  Lauren said hello to the uniformed doorman and headed for the elevators at the other end of the elegant marble-floored lobby. “If you merge, will you force some of the auction sites to fold?” she asked.

  “No.” Mitch stepped into the elevator behind her, taking in the appealing perfection of her skin. “Although statistically about half will fail on their own, anyway, due to poor plans, etcetera. But we will make ourselves stronger, bigger, more competitive. And that’s what both Deveraux and Heyward shipping companies need to do if we’re to keep growing,” he said, looking deep into her eyes and trying to determine once again if he could trust her as much as his gut told him he could.

  “I guess you’re right,” Lauren commiserated as she leaned against the railing that lined the back of the elevator and looked up at him. “Whether we like it or not, business—any kind of business—is tough. To stay on top, you really have to be on your toes all the time, not just between the hours of nine to five.”

  Like now? Mitch wondered, excruciatingly aware this problem had conveniently happened during the hours of his first arranged date with Lauren, at a time when his father was oddly, and unusually, out of touch with the office.

  His instincts kept telling him it was all just a coincidence.

  Bitter experience, and his involvement with his ex, told him to be on guard for something more complex and dev
iously underhanded.

  “WHY WOULD I HELP bail you out?” Payton asked, after he had let them both into his apartment. He looked just as suspicious as Mitch felt when Mitch had first learned of the problem.

  Excruciatingly aware that although the two of them were tentatively discussing a merger, they were still chief competitors, and not in any way bound to do favors for each other that would hamper their own capacity to do business, Mitch looked Payton straight in the eye. “Because Deveraux Shipping Company will pay you to ship those cars as soon as they arrive at dawn tomorrow morning. And I know you have more shipping capacity than you need right now, thanks to the purchase of those brand-new, state-of-the-art container ships you bought last spring.”

  Payton studied Mitch with something akin to respect while Lauren waited nervously nearby. “We’ll get the full fee?” Payton ascertained.

  Mitch nodded, knowing now was where it would get particularly tricky, and said, “Minus a ten percent referral fee, of course.” After all, he reasoned practically, Deveraux Shipping had to make something on the deal. Given how thin their profit margins were these days, the lost revenue was going to be hard enough to absorb as it was.

  Payton sipped the vanilla-flavored protein shake he had been preparing when they arrived. Despite the way he was dressed—in a golf shirt and slacks—he remained the hard-edged businessman. “That’s highway robbery,” he growled.

  “It’s also business you wouldn’t have if I weren’t putting it in your lap.” Mitch took a drink of his own smoothie and found it disgustingly bland and chalky. With effort, he kept from grimacing, even as he noticed Lauren had simply put hers aside. But then, maybe she’d had one of these vitamin-laced health concoctions before. “You don’t have long to decide,” Mitch continued. “If you can’t help me, I’ll go to the next shipping company on my list.”

  Lauren crossed her legs and continued to watch the byplay between the two men. She might say she hadn’t the least enthusiasm for the family business, but there was no doubt she had understood and latched on to every word that was being said, both here and earlier, in the Deveraux offices, Mitch noticed. Which meant he was going to have to be more careful than he had expected, because the merger hadn’t happened yet. And might not happen, if at any point during the week Lauren changed her mind and refused to keep her deal with him. Or Mitch failed to convince his own father it was what they needed to do, not just to survive, but to grow.