His Marriage Bonus

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  NO KIDDING, Mitch thought as he walked over to the window and looked out on the traffic in the city streets below. Because if Lauren ever found out about the deal he’d been offered by her father, the deal he had yet to tell her about, even after they made love, she would never forgive him.

  Lauren came over to stand beside him. She had a concerned look on her face. “You look…upset.”

  Thinking how very beautiful she looked, even with damp hair and no makeup, Mitch traced the curve of her face with the back of his hand, said gently, “I was wishing your father hadn’t made that deal with us.”

  “I know.” Lauren tucked her hands in the lapels of his robe and smiled up at him wistfully. “I’ve thought that, too. But he did. And I want 10 Gathering Street.” She shrugged her slender shoulders and continued earnestly, “I’m aware we have one more date to go, but I really feel, in my heart, that the property is already mine. And I know you need and want the Deveraux-Heyward companies merger just as much, so…since we’re both benefiting, and since we both went into this with our eyes wide open, all our cards on the table, it really isn’t the same thing as what happened to me with fiancé number two, because it’s all aboveboard and out in the open.”

  Except it wasn’t, Mitch thought uncomfortably. Not on his side, and maybe not even on hers.

  “It’s not as if you have anything to gain from continuing to see me after tonight’s date,” Lauren continued logically.

  “But I do want to see you after tonight,” Mitch said, meaning it with all his heart. He didn’t care what she had done up to this point—that was water under the bridge as far as he was concerned.

  “I know,” Lauren said sincerely. “And I want to see you, too. But as for the rest of it, I could use the funds my father promised me if I married you, because fixing up the mansion and restoring it to its former glory is going to cost a lot of money. But I don’t need them,” she told him stubbornly, “and more to the point, I don’t want them, so first chance I get, I’m going to tell my father to forget about the marriage bonus.”

  “No,” Mitch said, determined to protect Lauren in every way he could now that she was his woman in every way but name. “I don’t want you to do that.” He regarded her seriously. “It’s something your father wants to do for you, and I don’t think you should refuse such a generous gift from him because it would hurt his feelings. Besides, I know if we eventually do decide to marry that we’ll marry not due to any business deal or potential profit to the two of us, but because of the way we feel about each other.”

  Lauren wrapped her arms around his waist and cuddled against him playfully. She gave him a teasing wink. “I thought you were all for the marriage-run-as-a-business-instead-of-a-relationship theory.”

  “I was.” Mitch grinned back, enjoying her company more than he had ever enjoyed any woman’s. “But being with you has made me see things differently, Lauren,” Mitch said honestly, bringing her closer yet and looking deep into her eyes. “There’s only one reason two people should ever get married,” he murmured, kissing first her temple, then her cheek, then her lips. “And that’s because they’re in love, and they want to spend the rest of their lives together.”

  And, one day soon, if things worked out the way he wanted, the two of them would be doing just that.

  MINUTES LATER, Mitch was in the bathroom shaving when he heard a cell phone go off. Wondering if it was hers or his, he turned off the water, wiped his face and eased the door open. Mitch tensed when he saw Lauren perched on a chair next to the window, her back to him, talking in a low excited voice. “I understand…you have other people you work with. No, no, he’s going to be so happy when I tell him, believe me. Monday and Tuesday would be great. I am sure he can rearrange his schedule. Well, I’ll make him. Oh, thanks again, Lance, you are a lifesaver. I mean it. Bye.” A blissful expression on her face, she hung up.

  Mitch walked into the room still blotting his face. Maybe it was time for some of that pillow talk he had been so wary about. Working hard to keep his suspicions to himself, Mitch nodded toward the phone. “Was that anything important?”

  Lauren hesitated, then shook her head. “Just something for my dad I’ve been working on for quite a while,” she said vaguely, refusing to elaborate. “Kind of a present, although it’s sort of for business, too.” She gathered up the glittering silk-chiffon ball gown she’d had on the night before. Her emotions suddenly in check, she looked past him at the lavishly appointed bathroom. “My turn?”

  Mitch nodded, and started doing up the fasteners of his white tuxedo shirt. Oblivious to his doubts about her trustworthiness, Lauren swept past him into the bathroom. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  If she wouldn’t tell him, there were other ways to find out what Lauren was up to. Mitch pushed aside his guilt, waited until the door shut, then headed for her cell phone. He punched a button and the list of incoming calls popped up, starting in order of last received. Again, to his frustration, it said merely Private. Swiftly, he scrolled through the numbers for the past couple of days. Ron Ingalls came up several times, so did her father, even Mitch, and his mother, who no doubt was calling Lauren about the house-hunting they were engaged in. But nothing that would tell him who Lance was.

  More baffled than ever, Mitch put the phone back down just as Lauren came out of the bathroom. Not sure whether she had seen him with her phone or not, he turned his attention away. I’m not cut out for this, he thought culpably. He’d never make a good industrial spy. It required too much subterfuge. And yet, like it or not, he had to protect the family company. Especially since he was the one talking merger with Lauren’s father.

  A cordial but distant expression on her face, Lauren turned her back to him and asked, “Can you help me with my zipper?”

  “Sure.” Wondering all over again if he could really trust Lauren as much as his emotions were telling him he could, Mitch obliged, his fingers brushing the silky bare skin of her back.

  “Mitch?” Lauren murmured as he struggled with the hook-and-eye fastener at the top of the zipper.

  “Hmm?”

  “How well do you know Ron Ingalls?”

  Mitch tensed. If he didn’t know better, he would think Lauren was now checking out him. Fortunately, she had no reason to mistrust him. “We’re business acquaintances,” Mitch said, keeping his tone noncommittal. Finished, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. He looked down into her face. “Why?”

  Lauren smiled, and looked, if possible, even more emotionally distant as she tucked her gleaming golden-brown hair back into the style she had worn the night before and secured it there with two long pins. “He really went out of his way to do a favor for me. I need to get him a gift and I’m not really sure what I should buy.” Lauren was still fussing with her hair as she moved to the bureau. “I thought maybe you might have some idea what would be appropriate.”

  “A fruit basket?”

  Lauren frowned as she checked her hairdo in the mirror. “Something a little more personal than that. Besides—” she shrugged as Mitch came to stand beside her and she searched Mitch’s face for clues “—I’m not sure if Ron is a fruit aficionado or not. I can’t recall ever seeing him eat any, even when it was on a buffet.”

  “You’ve got a point there.” Mitch paused, glad Lauren apparently hadn’t seen him messing with her cell phone again. He would not have wanted to try to explain that. “Ron plays a lot of golf,” Mitch continued informatively. “Maybe you should give him a pass at a course he’s been wanting to try.”

  “That’s a good idea. Thanks.” Lauren stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips. “We’ve only got one problem,” Lauren said as she turned back to face him. “We can’t leave the hotel at eleven in the morning dressed like this.” She swept a hand toward her evening gown and his tuxedo.

  Mitch shrugged, and did his best to put his doubts aside. Whatever Lauren was doing was probably all a lot more innocent than it seemed, including the phone calls. “I
f you’d prefer to wear the hotel bathrobes…” he teased.

  “I’m serious.” Lauren’s lower lip jutted out. “Some of the guests at my father’s party were staying over last night. Plus, a lot of very prominent people lunch here. There’s no telling who we might run into in the lobby.” She might not have been all that cautious in the heat of passion last night, but she wanted to be cautious this morning.

  “So we won’t go through the lobby.” Happy to protect her from gossip, Mitch picked up the phone.

  Minutes later, they were being escorted ever so discreetly out the service entrance to their car by the hotel manager. Mitch paid him handsomely for his effort and then drove her to 10 Gathering Street.

  Lauren groaned again as she saw the contractor trucks sitting at the curb. “You’re having work done on the weekend?” Mitch asked, surprised.

  “I forgot. I told the electricians to go ahead and get started with the rewiring this morning. And yes, I know it will cost a lot more to have them working today instead of during the week, but I want to go ahead and get the house as safe as possible as soon as possible, and getting the rewiring done will greatly reduce the risk of fire.”

  “Can’t argue with you there. If it keeps you safe, it’s well worth the extra cost.” Mitch leaned across her to study the front of the house. They both frowned as they considered a tactical approach to the problem. “Looks like they’re working on the downstairs,” he said.

  “Front and back,” Lauren noted. Which vetoed a back-entry. Wishing she had worn something a little less sparkly the evening before, Lauren slunk a little farther down in her seat. She put her hand over her face. “I really don’t want to run into those guys dressed like this.” They were the most skilled craftsmen in all of Charleston, but were prone to teasing. Usually, she didn’t mind their wisecracks, and gave back as good as she got. But this morning she wasn’t up to any joshing—however genial—about the sudden, sexual turn of her relationship with Mitch. It was too new, too precious, too private. Plus, they all knew and did work for her father. She didn’t want to chance anyone deciding to act paternally and share information with her father. It was bad enough the prediction he had made the evening before—that she was afraid to let her guard down for fear of what would happen—had been oh so correct!

  “We could go to my place in Mount Pleasant,” Mitch suggested lazily.

  Lauren didn’t have to think very hard to know what would happen if they did—they’d be back in bed in no time. “I don’t have any clothes there, either.”

  Mitch merely grinned, letting her know her hypotheses had been right on the money. “Yet,” Mitch corrected with a smoldering look that set Lauren’s pulse racing. “If I have my way, that’ll soon change.

  Lauren flushed. She had the feeling, by impetuously continuing her affair with Mitch, she had gotten in way over her head. “Back to the problem at hand,” she said crisply, waving Mitch on.

  Obediently, Mitch turned the Lexus away from the curb and continued driving down the shady, tree-lined street. “What about at your dad’s apartment in the city?” he asked almost too casually. He braked at a stop sign and searched her eyes. “Do you keep anything there—for emergencies?”

  Funny, Lauren mused, perplexed, that Mitch would think to suggest that. “Actually, I do,” she said, a little embarrassed she hadn’t thought of that idea herself. “It’s easier than having to go home and change if I drop by and Dad asks me to play a quick round of golf or go out sailing or something. And there’s not going to be anyone there this morning. Since it’s the weekend, he should be at the house in Summerville or playing golf at the country club there.” This late on a Sunday morning, her father would not even be in the city.

  Noting the way was clear, Mitch stepped on the accelerator again. “You want me to drive you over there?” he asked, looking eager to help.

  “Would you mind?” Lauren asked as a horse-drawn carriage full of tourists turned into the street in front of them. “I need to drop off another key to 10 Gathering Place anyway now that I’ve had the locks changed.”

  “Not at all,” he said, seeming pleased by the solution they’d found.

  Her father’s apartment building—which catered to executives who actually lived elsewhere but wanted a place to stay when they were in the city during the week—was as quiet as always over the weekend. Lauren used her “emergency” key to let them inside the penthouse. “Feel free to look around and make yourself at home,” she said. “I’m going to go change.”

  HERE IT WAS, Mitch thought as Lauren disappeared into the guest bedroom to change her clothes. The perfect opportunity to explore and see what he could find out about Lauren and her father and what they might or might not be planning behind the scenes. And it hadn’t taken much effort on his part to get here, either, he thought guiltily, moving about the spacious penthouse apartment, feeling more like a spy than Lauren ever would.

  Bypassing the master bedroom and bath, Mitch checked out the living room and the small galley kitchen and, finding nothing suspect, moved to the study beyond. Like the rest of the apartment, it was neat as a pin and showed no clue that Payton Heyward had fallen on hard times. The bookshelves were filled with books on the shipping industry, business management, tour books about the many ports his company served and several golf books and videos.

  In one corner there was a computerized putting cup and an automatic putt return, as well as several custom-made golf clubs. Frustrated, Mitch turned his attention to Payton’s desk. There was nothing on it except a Palm Pilot and a humidor. Which was odd, Mitch thought, since he had never known Payton to smoke, or even offer anyone a cigar. His mood tense, Mitch opened the lid of the humidor and his jaw dropped at what he saw.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It had to be her imagination, Lauren reassured herself firmly as she stripped off her evening gown from the night before and slipped into a white short-sleeved golf shirt and buttercup-yellow shorts. Mitch had not been eager to come over here and have the chance to look around. Just because Mitch and his father were her father’s fiercest competitors, just because the two men were about to engage in complicated merger discussions, was no reason for Mitch to try to spy on her father through her.

  And yet, Lauren couldn’t deny the fact that, for the second time in a week, Mitch had been messing around with her cell phone back at the hotel. The first time, he had said he was just comparing her model phone with the type he already had. But today, she was sure he had been handling it again when she had walked out of the bathroom and surprised him.

  She didn’t want to think he was using her, especially after the wonderful way he’d made love to her, and the way she was falling head over heels in love with him. And yet… Lauren sighed.

  It had to be her imagination, Lauren told herself firmly as she knelt to put on her shoes, then, on a whim, elected against it. Either that, or a misconception on her part. Deciding there was one way to find out what Mitch was really up to—if anything—she eased the door open ever so gently. And slipped back out into the hall, padding silently through the empty living room, past the equally empty kitchen to her father’s study.

  Her heart sank at what she saw.

  Mitch was standing at her father’s desk, her father’s Palm Pilot in his hand. “What are you doing?” she demanded, upset.

  Mitch looked up at her, his expression grim. “I’m checking you and your father out. And I have to tell you,” he continued angrily, “after what I just found, I’m very glad I did.”

  Lauren blinked in confusion. She was the one who should feel betrayed here! Not him! “What are you talking about?” she asked hoarsely.

  Mitch’s lips thinned into an unhappy line. “Why didn’t you tell me your father was ill?”

  LAUREN BLINKED, stunned by the unexpected accusation. “He’s not!”

  Mitch regarded Lauren with a skepticism that stung. “You don’t know?”

  “No. And I don’t believe you, either,” Lauren said emotionally.


  “Then believe this,” Mitch directed flatly as he flipped open the lid of the expensive humidor. The electronic controls showed it had not been turned on or used to store cigars. Instead, it had been filled with a half-dozen medicine bottles, the dates on some of them going back months. “And this.” Mitch opened a desk drawer and revealed several medical books, a thermometer, a notebook and pen. “The calendar on your father’s Palm Pilot reveals he’s been having medical tests and doctor’s appointments for the past six months.”

  Lauren scanned the notebook Mitch had given her, her pique with him momentarily forgotten. “According to these notes, my father’s been having fevers and a lot of pain for months now,” Lauren said. Finding that her legs would no longer support her, she sank into a chair and, trembling, looked over at Mitch. “No wonder he’s suddenly in such a hurry for me to find a reliable man and get married. He’s dying!”

  “Hey,” Mitch corrected quickly as he crossed to her side, his pique with her apparently forgotten. “We don’t know that.”

  “Then why hasn’t my father told me about any of this?” Lauren demanded, tears running down her face, aware she had never felt so concerned and upset as she did at that moment.

  Mitch touched her shoulder gently. “He probably just didn’t want you to worry.”

  Lauren wiped her tears away, then stood and studied Mitch intently. “And you didn’t know about it, either,” she surmised tightly.

  “Not until just now,” Mitch admitted reluctantly. “Although my father and I both suspected that your father had to have some ulterior motive for wanting the merger. His complete change of heart was too sudden to be taken strictly at face value.”

  “Which is why you’ve been investigating him,” Lauren guessed.