The Marriage Project

by Leclaire, Day

  “Where were we?” Harry asked. As if he didn’t know. The chemistry or instant attraction or instinctive male-female push-and-pull had been humming between them like a live current. Is it happening now? she’d whispered. Hell, yeah, it was happening, whatever “it” was. And it had been from the start, a fact she’d have admitted if she weren’t so damned stubborn—or apprehensive.

  “I can’t remember what we were talking about,” she lied without a hint of compunction.

  If there’d been any light, he suspected he’d have seen a blush vivid enough to rival Seattle’s most glorious sunset. He considered calling her on the lie. After all, he’d already let her off the hook once when she’d demanded he stay put on his side of the elevator. He’d been the perfect gentleman about the incident, too, politely acting as though he believed it was claustrophobia or fear that had prompted the remark, instead of a chemical reaction to end all chemical reactions. This would be the second time he’d let her off the hook. She might not know it, but she wouldn’t be given a third chance, a fact he’d make clear at the first opportunity.

  He’d learned long ago that life didn’t serve its delicacies on a silver platter. A man went after what he wanted, grabbing hold with both hands. Right now he wanted Madison Adams. Let her deny the emotions sparking between them if it made her feel better. Denying the truth wouldn’t make it go away. It simply made it easier to be caught defenseless, a fact he’d take delight in proving soon enough.

  At his continued silence, Madison broke into hasty speech. “So… How did you end up getting stuck on my elevator? You must have been in the building for a reason. I was here to have lunch with my grandmother, Sunny. She has an apartment on the fifteenth floor and was supposed to introduce me to this Jones character—the one from the book?—but he never showed. Figures, right? The good news is… Maybe I don’t have to worry about their relationship. It’s one thing to talk on the phone or communicate over the Internet. But when it comes to face-to-face and in person, that’s a whole different ball game. Don’t you think? Maybe he changed his mind about flying out to meet her.”

  Harry waited until she ran out of breath before responding, choosing to answer the most innocuous of her questions and comments. “I came here for a meeting.”

  “Oh. Consulting with someone on economic structures and models?”

  “I was asked to, yes. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll take the job.”

  “Is it a big corporation?” A hint of excitement threaded her voice. “Perhaps a certain gentleman who deals in computer software? Or… Who else has corporate headquarters in Seattle? Could your meeting have to do with airplanes, maybe? How about a national coffeehouse chain?”

  He smiled at her avid curiosity. “I’ve been known to deal with companies that size, but not this time. I’ve been asked to examine a very small group as a favor for my father. I guess you could call it a working vacation.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “No doubt they’ll be very grateful to have a man of your caliber look them over.”

  “Would you be? Grateful, I mean?”

  “The situation wouldn’t arise. As I explained, I have everything in hand,” she assured. “But I’m certain this small group will benefit from your expertise. Not everyone can be as clever at predicting economic growth and market trends as the two of us. Once they realize how much better off they’ll be, those in charge will be delighted to listen to what you have to say.”

  He leaned his head against the wall and swore beneath his breath. “What if the person managing this small group feels the way you do? What if he thinks he’s doing fine without my input?”

  “With your credentials you’ll have no trouble convincing him.” Her absolute confidence amazed him. “He’ll have no choice but to acquiesce to your superior knowledge and abilities.”

  “I’d rather not throw my weight around.”

  “Oh, right. You did mention that you were intimidating when it came to business.”

  “Very intimidating,” he reminded her.

  “You weren’t supposed to make me nervous, remember?”

  “And now I am?” Her complaint made him smile. “Should we change the subject again?”

  “No. I guess I can handle a small amount of nervousness. Besides, I’d like you to explain something.” She shifted in the darkness, the faint scent of her perfume slipping across the car to wrap him in soft feminine sweetness. “When you want to throw your weight around, how do you go about it?”

  Amusement vied with an intense flash of desire. “You sure this discussion won’t make your claustrophobia worse?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. Our discussion will help my claustrophobia.” She hesitated, as though scrambling for an excuse. “It’ll take my mind off it.”

  She was interested in him as a man and doing her best to hide the fact. Not that her best was all that impressive. Apparently possessing a practical nature didn’t include subtlety or deception. He wished he could see if her face was as easy to read as her voice. He was willing to bet he’d find her expression as open and candid as everything else about her.

  “If telling you about my work situation will prove beneficial, I guess it’s my duty to keep the conversation going,” he murmured.

  “Yes, please. Come on, spill. How do you intimidate people? I assume you don’t always have to?”

  “No.” He opened the first few buttons of his shirt and changed his position. Not that it helped. The floor of an elevator wasn’t the most comfortable place to lounge for hours on end. Fortunately, the company more than compensated for the lack of a chair or couch. “Most businesses want my opinion and pay well for it. But occasionally there’s a job where the principal owners are squabbling or there’s a high-level management struggle going on. So they call me in to settle the financial end of matters and offer an opinion. In those cases my presence is a source of conflict.”

  “Not very pleasant. How do you handle a situation like that?”

  “First, I send an announcement.”

  She chuckled. “Something along the lines of, ‘Prepare yourself. I’m coming’?”

  “You got it. I send very specific instructions detailing what I’ll require when I arrive. A nice long, nasty list. Hotel arrangements. Office space. Meeting times. Staff. Everything’s terse and to the point.”

  “In other words, you rattle their cages.”

  “I prefer to think of it as getting their attention.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I show up. Early. Most places that are in turmoil have been so busy arguing about how to accomplish my instructions that they’re caught off guard.”

  “Let me guess. They spend the next couple of days bending over backward to make up for a bad first impression.”

  “By which time, I’ve been able to fully assess the situation and personnel and come up with a financial strategy. I can tell them what will happen if they don’t make any changes and what will happen if they implement some of my changes and how they’d benefit best by doing precisely as I recommend.”

  “I assume most of them choose your final option?”

  “Most. But not all.” He shrugged. “And in a few cases, it’s too late. Some things aren’t fixable. It’s as simple and unfortunate as that.”

  Silence reigned for several minutes while she absorbed his comment. “Speaking of the unfixable. How much longer do you think it’ll be before they repair the elevators?”

  “A while.” He frowned. “Are you nervous again?” Maybe he shouldn’t have told her about his intimidation methods.

  “Just a tiny bit.” She rubbed her arms with swift, abrupt movements. “I thought it would get stuffy in here. But I’m cold. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “Would it make you feel better or worse if I sat with you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Would you like to try and see?”

  Her hesitation roused his protective instincts, instincts that vied with the urge to go after what he
wanted. Resisting that stronger, darker urge proved next to impossible, but he succeeded. Barely. He might chase his desires with every ounce of determination he possessed, but never at another person’s expense. Especially not a woman caught between desire and fear.

  She chose that moment to agree, unwittingly intensifying the silent, internal battle he waged. “Okay. Let’s try sitting together.”

  “Let me get my coat. That should help warm you.” He spoke as he moved so she could track his progress. Spooking her now wouldn’t be his wisest course of action. “Say something so I don’t accidently step on you.”

  “I’m here.”

  He crouched nearby. “And I’m right next to you.”

  “I can hear you breathing.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s sort of automatic with me.”

  She laughed at that, the sound a bit edgier than he’d have liked. “I’m being an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not.” He sat beside her, leaving a gap of a couple of feet between them. No doubt she’d appreciate his restraint, if not the frustration that restraint exacted. “My mother was claustrophobic.”

  That caught Madison’s attention. “She was?”

  “Yup.”

  “How did she handle it?”

  “Not well. I gather that elevators don’t bother you under normal circumstances?”

  “I’ve never liked them, but they’ve never sent me into hysterics before.”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are.” Though right at this minute, he doubted she considered herself any such thing. “Mom couldn’t ride in one without me or Dad. I can remember as a little kid Dad would sort of scoop her into his arms and she’d close her eyes and hang on until we were out again.”

  “Poor woman. What did she do when your dad wasn’t around?”

  “She’d hold my hand and have me talk to her the whole way.” That single act had instilled an overprotective instinct that troubled him to this day—especially when it interfered with achieving his objective.

  “Talk? Like you are now?”

  “Yes.” He wished he could see her. He’d never realized how much he used body language and facial expression to analyze a person’s thoughts and attitude. “Are you still cold?”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “Here.” He shook out his suit jacket and handed it to her. “This should warm you.”

  She fumbled in the dark for several seconds and he reached for her, his hands colliding with hers. “Let me help.” With a gusty sigh, her hands fell away and she held still. Ever so gently he draped the coat around her shoulders. To his surprise, she scooted closer and he wrapped his arm around her. Strike three, came the errant thought. Only, instead of being out, she was caught.

  “You feel sort of big,” she commented, clearly surprised.

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  He sensed her smile. “Is the reason that you are sort of big?”

  “Not sort of, I’m afraid. Definitely big.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t look intimidating.”

  “I didn’t want to make you any more nervous than you already were.”

  “I see.” She paused. “Thanks, Harry.”

  “Anytime.”

  “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve concluded that being claustrophobic isn’t the least practical.”

  He allowed himself the briefest touch, a quick reassuring stroke across her temple. Soft curls twined about his fingers in a welcoming caress. “I’m sure you’d control it, if you could.”

  “You may not have noticed, but my name’s not practical, either.”

  Reluctantly, he untangled his fingers from her hair. “Maybe you take after the Sunflower side of your family a little more than you thought.”

  “Don’t try and cheer me up.”

  Interesting. “Would you like to be more like them?”

  “Some days. Being practical all the time can be tough.”

  “It’s a heavy responsibility,” he agreed.

  She turned into him, inching closer. “Sometimes being practical can mean you aren’t able to take people’s feelings into consideration.”

  An odd note had entered her voice, the tone haunted by the ghosts of sad memories. “I doubt you’d ever do that,” he said in an attempt to comfort her.

  “Sure I would. I’d do anything and everything necessary to protect my family, even if it meant occasionally hurting their feelings.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because they love me even though I’m like my father.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time. And then she said, “It’s a very bad thing.”

  Hell. “Madison—”

  “It’s okay, Harry. Don’t mind me. I don’t usually dump on total strangers. I think it’s because we’re trapped and it’s dark and my emotions are all mixed up. And maybe it’s also because my family is going out of their way to be frustrating these days.”

  “In what way?”

  Somehow his fingers had become entangled in her hair again. This time he didn’t let go. “Oh, my grandmother’s fallen for this guy who thinks he’s a love expert. They’ve been conducting an affair over the Internet and now they’ve decided to meet. My uncle Daniel is being sued by a woman for being too helpful. And I have a cousin who calls every day with one emergency after another. The latest one is that he needs a new Mercedes.”

  “That’s an emergency?”

  “It is for him.”

  “And you take care of all these problems?”

  Her head dropped to his shoulder. The fit was sheer perfection. “It’s my job. Fortunately, I have an assistant to help me. Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “She’s a Sunflower.”

  “I gather her idea of assisting differs from yours?”

  “Dramatically. For one thing, she doesn’t have a clue what the word discretion means. If I want to keep something confidential, I can’t tell Rosy.”

  “Rosy Sunflower?”

  Madison chuckled. “Has a ring, doesn’t it?”

  “It sounds like you could use a little advice on how to handle your family.”

  She took instant exception to the comment. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, lifting her head. “There’s nothing they can throw at me that I can’t handle.”

  “Right.” He reassured her with a quick, soothing touch. To his relief, she curled close once again, her head returning to its resting place just above his heart. “Silly of me to even suggest such a thing.”

  “That’s okay. It’s only because you don’t know me very well.” She gave his chest a reassuring pat. “Harry?”

  “Still here.”

  “Thank you again.”

  He smiled at her formality. “You’re welcome again. Madison?”

  In response, she tilted her face upward a notch, her breath feathering his cheek in a strangely erotic caress. And then he committed the second craziest, most irrational act of his life—an inevitable one that came on the heels of dropping everything and flying out to Seattle over a simple intriguing document.

  He kissed her.

  She inhaled sharply, stealing the air from his lungs. Her spine went rigid and for a split second he thought he’d made a terrible mistake. He started to release her when she sighed, relaxing into his arms and giving him back his breath in sweet surrender. Wrapping her up in an embrace so possessive he didn’t have a chance in hell of disguising it, he drank in her taste, each kiss as ravenous as it was reassuring. Her hands splayed across his chest, measuring the muscle-ridged breadth before curling into the crisp cotton of his shirt. She clung to him, not giving any hint of hesitation or resistance.

  If anything, she encouraged him, wriggling closer until they were cemented from shoulder to hip. Her lips parted beneath his, soft and damp and slightly swollen from his aggressive demand. He accepted the unspoken invitation an
d delved inward, exploring with leisurely intensity. The urge to imprint himself on her rode him hard, but he resisted, unwilling to risk alienating her. The emotions might run hot between them, but they were also fragile.

  They were in a unique situation. Being captured in a cage of darkness had an odd effect on the senses. Life swirled in a mad dash outside, while they escaped its relentless influence. It gave them an opportunity to act on impulses they might have otherwise ignored. That didn’t stop him from facing a few hard facts. If he started something now, he’d be taking a huge risk, one he might very well regret once reality put an end to this moment out of time. Sure, he could push, forcing her to give way. But how would she feel about it afterward? Would she regret her actions? More likely she’d resent him for taking advantage.

  He just needed time. He had a woman in his arms who attracted him as no one ever had before. She was soft and yet firm, confident while still painfully vulnerable, intelligent and yet frustratingly stubborn. And he found every single quality more appealing than he’d have thought possible. Once he convinced her they were perfect for each other, life would be good. Life would be very good.

  He cupped her face, sweeping her angled cheekbones with his thumbs. Her face fascinated him, possibly because he’d only caught the briefest glimpse of her from behind the book she’d been reading when she’d first stepped onto the elevator. Her chin was well defined, no doubt an outward reflection of her stubbornness, while her nose felt straight and elegant. She had wide-spaced eyes and long silky lashes. Her eyebrows arched strongly and her forehead was feathered with tight ringlets. He couldn’t tell how long her hair was since she’d tied it up in some sort of intricate knot that rigorously subdued what he suspected would be a riot of curls. But she felt incredible in his arms. She felt like she belonged.

  “Well?” she asked impatiently. “What’s the verdict?”