Million Dollar Marriage

by Maggie Shayne

  Their first anniversary. Maybe they’d eat it to celebrate the divorce. Lucy met Holden’s eyes, and knew he was thinking the same thing. Why did the idea hurt so much?

  She closed her hand with his around the knife handle, and together they poised it over the cake. “Make a wish,” Holden whispered.

  And she closed her eyes and wished with everything in her that this dream was real.

  Then her eyes flew open. A baby, she thought frantically. I meant to wish for a baby.

  But the blade was already sinking through the cake and the family was clapping their hands and cheering.

  Holden took Lucy to his wing of the house when she started looking as if she’d had enough. The party had gone on for a couple of hours, even after the cake was served. Drinks, snacks, family chatter and coffee, the usual Fortune family chaos.

  He hoped she’d liked it. He thought she had.

  He guided her through his wing, showing her the small, private kitchenette, and the living room, the tiny office he kept here for those rare occasions when he had to work from home, the large bathroom with its sunken, whirlpool bath, and finally, the bedroom.

  Their bedroom.

  “Um…I can arrange things so you have your own bed. I’ll do that tomorrow. I should have thought—”

  “You thought of everything, Holden. That was really sweet, what you did for me.” She sank onto the edge of the bed, looking tired, maybe a little weepy.

  “It was too much, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t have had them all here to—”

  “No.” She lifted her head, met his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had…a family around me.”

  “I know. That’s why I thought you’d like this.”

  “I did like it. I just don’t think I’m clear on why you did it.”

  Holden frowned, tilted his head. “I—I don’t know. I mean, I wanted to do something nice for you.” He tried a tentative smile. “Is there a clause in our agreement that I can’t do nice things for you?”

  She closed her eyes. “No. It was nice. And I’m grateful. I just…” She shrugged. “I never realized you could be so thoughtful.”

  He shrugged. “Well, now you do. Surprise.”

  She averted her eyes. Seemed nervous. As if she were avoiding looking at him. Finally she got to her feet. “I’m going to take a shower. It’s late, and I have to be at the hospital early in the morning.”

  Ah, so that was it. No sex on her mind tonight. Maybe she was overwhelmed by his family after all. Or by him. Or maybe she felt odd sleeping with him in the house with other people around, though they were all so far away it couldn’t possibly matter. And no one would bother them.

  She turned toward the bathroom. He caught her arm. “Wait a minute.”

  She faced him, her eyes wary.

  “Lucy, you don’t think I’m…expecting anything, do you?”

  Lifting her brows, she pretended not to know what he meant.

  “You do, don’t you? Lucy, just because you and I had sex at the cabin doesn’t mean I’m expecting you to be all over me now that we’re back here. Don’t feel like you’re under some kind of…pressure here.”

  She blinked, apparently surprised again. “Then it’s…it’s all right with you if we don’t—”

  He lifted a hand, touched her cheek. “Of course it’s all right with me. And you don’t need to make excuses, either, Lucy. Sex wasn’t part of our bargain. I don’t ever want you to come to me for any other reason than because you want me.”

  She blinked. “I… You…” Then she sighed, shook her head. “You’re not the man I thought you were, Holden.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve given me a few revelations, too, lady.” He smiled at her, threaded his fingers in her hair and gave it a playful tousle. “Go take your shower, Mrs. Fortune. You can wear one of my T-shirts to bed. And tomorrow we’ll get the rest of your stuff packed up and shipped over here, if that’s okay with you.”

  She nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  It was later, when she went to sleep in Holden’s bed and he lay in the next room on the sofa, making sure she didn’t feel any kind of pressure, that the guilt rose up again. Not a small wave this time, but a big one. What the hell did she think she was doing here? Holden Fortune was pretty obviously not the man she had believed him to be. Oh, he was convinced, it seemed, that he was just like his father. Thoughtless, selfish, obsessed with sex and women and cheating on his wife.

  But Holden was different. That was becoming more and more obvious to her. All the years she’d spent telling herself she hated him, blaming him for everything that had happened to her…they made no sense now. No sense at all. And tricking the man into getting her pregnant suddenly seemed wrong.

  She wasn’t sure she could go through with it now.

  Damn him. Why did he have to turn out to be such a decent, caring man after all?

  “Where is Lucy?” Mary Ellen asked when Holden came into the breakfast room for his morning coffee. He could have had a cup in his own little kitchen, but when he’d awakened to find Lucy already up and gone, he’d been lonely. And even though he knew what was likely awaiting him, he’d decided to face the music and have breakfast with his mother.

  “She had to be at the hospital early this morning.”

  “Oh? Well, that’s all right. Gives us a chance to have that talk I promised you.”

  “Mother—”

  “Holden. I know why you did this. Or at least why you believe you did this.”

  He frowned at her, his filled cup in one hand, the coffeepot in the other. “Why I believe I did what?”

  “Married Lucy, of course. You believe you married her so that you could inherit your share of your father’s estate. And don’t deny it, Holden. I know you better than you know yourself.”

  Holden took a deep breath, prepared to argue with her, then let it out, seeing in her sharp gaze that she did, indeed, see right through him.

  “Sit down, Holden.”

  He set the pot down, pulled out a chair, and took it. “Don’t lecture me on this, all right? Lucy and I are both adults, and we both know what we’re doing.”

  Mary Ellen nodded. “Then she knows your reasons for marrying her?” She searched Holden’s face, but he didn’t admit or deny a thing. “Well, that’s a relief. At least you didn’t deceive her into this. I assume she had her reasons for agreeing, though I can’t imagine why a woman like Lucy would marry for anything less than love.”

  She waited, brows lifted high.

  Holden hated the way she had of getting to him, making him spill his guts when he had no intention of doing so. “She needs funding for an obstetrical clinic to care for low income women.”

  “I see.”

  She was looking at him again. Just looking at him.

  “Look, I’m not going to let her get hurt in this thing. I’m well aware she’s not the kind of woman I have any business being with, and—”

  “She’s exactly the kind of woman you should be with, Holden.”

  He blinked, scratched his head, and looked at his mother. “What?”

  “She’s perfect for you. A lady, Holden, a far cry from the trollops you’ve been dating as you continue on this endless search of yours for…for whatever it is you’ve been trying to find. Don’t you see?”

  Slowly, Holden shook his head. “No. No, I don’t see. Look, I’m like my father. You know that. I’m a no-good—”

  “Be careful, son. I loved your father.”

  “And suffered your whole life because of it. You think I’d put Lucy through that kind of hell?”

  “No. You wouldn’t.”

  “Damn right, I wouldn’t. She’s special, Mom. She’s…she’s good and she’s clean and she’s…she’s like you. She reminds me of you.”

  Mary Ellen bit her lower lip, and her eyes began to water.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t…” Holden got up, went around the table, and hugged his mother gently. “Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” />
  “Then don’t say such sweet things to me, son.” Lifting her head from his shoulder, she looked him hard in the eyes. “You’re nothing like your father, Holden. I know. I lived with the man, and I’ve raised you. I know you as well as I knew him, inside and out, and I am telling you, you’re not like him. You’re afraid you are, you believe you are…but you’re not.”

  He sighed deeply. “Hell, I wish I could believe that.” He straightened away from her, returned to his seat, picked up his cup and sipped his coffee.

  “I remember when you were in high school. You talked about Lucinda once or twice. I remember the way you looked whenever her name came up. Like a child longing for a candy that was up high, on a shelf he couldn’t reach. I knew then that she was special to you.”

  “No, Mom, I think you’re letting your imagination run a little bit wild on you.”

  “You fell in love with her way back then, didn’t you, Holden? But you convinced yourself you weren’t good enough for her. Didn’t you?”

  He shook his head, denying every word of it, but his gut ached and his chest felt tight.

  “If Lucy had asked you to fund that clinic,” his mother went on, “would you have agreed to it? Even without this…this marriage agreement?”

  Meeting her steady gaze, he nodded.

  “And don’t you think she knew that?”

  “No. She seems to be amazed every time I do anything even the slightest bit decent for her. I’m sure she never would have thought I might back her clinic without getting something for myself in return.”

  Mary Ellen frowned. “I think you’re underestimating her. She’s a smart woman, Holden. Sharp. I think she could have asked you for that money, and had it. And I know she could have asked Ryan, or Matthew and Claudia, or even me, and we’d have helped her fund this thing. And I think she knows it.”

  Holden set his cup down carefully. “So what are you getting at?”

  “She married you, Holden. But not because she had to. She could have had her clinic without resorting to such drastic measures. So, logic would dictate, she must have had some other reasons for agreeing to such an outrageous proposal.”

  His mind was filling with questions. Thanks to his mother. God, this had all been so simple before. Now it was getting more complicated by the minute. “What other reasons could she possibly have had?”

  His mother shrugged. “Maybe, Holden…she loves you, too?”

  “Now wait a minute!” Holden was on his feet again. He stood so fast he sloshed coffee on his hand, and then he slammed the cup down and sloshed some more. “That’s ridiculous. She knows me, she knows what I’m like. Hell, after what I put her through in high school, she all but hated my guts. No, Mom, there’s no way in hell—”

  “What you put her through in high school?” his mother asked, her delicate brows lifting as she took a sip of her favorite tea. Chamomile. Must be her secret for always being so calm, so cool, so damned poised.

  “Never mind. That doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, everything matters, dear.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He paced away, paced back again, shoved a hand through his hair. “She’s not in love with me. She’s not going to fall in love with me. She’s going to be my wife, on paper, for a year, and then she’s going to take her money and leave.”

  Mary Ellen set her china cup onto her saucer with a deliberate precision, got slowly, gracefully, to her feet, and folded her arms over her chest. “Holden.”

  He stopped pacing, turned to face her.

  “I like her. She fits in this family. She is exactly what you need. And she is most certainly staying.”

  Holden felt under attack. His brows went up. “What do you mean, she’s staying? Look, she and I made an agreement and—”

  “You love her, Holden.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You love her.”

  “I’m fond of her, yeah, but I don’t—”

  “Holden, darling, stop fighting so hard. Listen to your heart, not your head. You’re in love with the girl. Now get over yourself, swallow your pride, and set about making sure she feels the same.”

  Holden closed his eyes and sank into his chair, feeling as if his legs had turned to jelly.

  “And, Holden?”

  “What?”

  “That’s an order, sweetie.”

  He opened his eyes. His mother sent him a sly wink across the table, an encouraging smile, then she got to her feet and left him alone.

  “She’s wrong.” Holden looked at his coffee, but didn’t drink it. It didn’t hold any appeal all of a sudden. “She’s dead wrong,” he told the cup. “I don’t love her. For God’s sake, if I loved her I wouldn’t have told her at least a dozen times that I didn’t, that I never would, that things between us were going to be totally unemotional. Would I?”

  The coffee cup didn’t answer. Instead, the brew inside gleamed with a reflection of his own stunned, stricken face, and mocked him with it.

  “Oh, hell,” he whispered. “I think I love her.”

  Gina Gonzales stood arm in arm with her husband, her palm pressed to the glass, her face damp with tears, when Lucy came up beside her. She looked in at the row of pink-skinned newborns in their plastic bassinets, and past them, at the incubator that held Gina’s premature daughter and the tubing running from the newborn’s IV pole to her body. So tiny. So fragile.

  Lucy put a hand on Gina’s shoulder. “Her doctor says she’s doing better today.”

  Gina nodded, her eyes never leaving her child. “Sí. He told me so this morning. But still, she is so little, compared to the others.”

  “She’ll grow, Gina.”

  Gina nodded.

  “Have you named her?”

  A slight smile, and Gina managed to glance Lucy’s way for a moment. “She is named for you, Lucinda.”

  “Oh my….” Lucy was so touched she didn’t know what to say. “Thank you. I’m honored.”

  The child’s father nodded firmly. “She is strong. She will be well.”

  “Yes, she will,” Lucy agreed. “Gina, I wanted to talk to you. You can go home today.”

  Gina’s eyes widened as she turned to face Lucy fully for the first time. “Without my baby?”

  Lowering her head, Lucy said, “She needs to stay. It’s for her own good, Gina. She needs to be stronger before we can let you take her home.”

  “But I cannot leave her!” She turned to her husband and he put his arms around her, held her close.

  “Dr. Brightwater, you cannot make my Gina leave our baby behind. I will find some way to pay you, but I—”

  “No. No, wait a minute. You both misunderstand me completely. Listen, come and sit down, let me try to explain.”

  Reluctantly, the couple let her lead them down the hall and into her office. She poured coffee for them from the pot she kept in the corner, handed them each a cup, then perched on the edge of her desk.

  “Now, first things first. Gina, you are well, healthy and strong. I couldn’t keep you here even if you were a millionaire. It has nothing to do with your income, only with the fact that I can’t fill hospital beds with healthy people when there are so many others who need them. Other women, having babies, who need to rest and recover afterward. You wouldn’t want me to have to turn them away, just so you could use a hospital bed you don’t need, now would you?”

  Blinking her eyes dry, Gina shook her head.

  “You can see your baby as much as you want. Stay with her all day every day if you want to. No one is going to restrict your visits.”

  Lowering her head, Gina said, “But I cannot. We live on the other side of town, Dr. Brightwater. There is only the pickup. Miguel needs it to work and—”

  “Then stay here, near the hospital. There are motels and—” As soon as Gina’s eyes met her husband’s, Lucy knew she was way off base. They couldn’t afford that, either. She pressed her lips together. Getting personally involved was a big no-no, but in this case…

&nbs
p; “How long will little Lucinda have to be here?” Miguel asked.

  Lucy shook her head. “It depends on how she does. But it’s going to be at least another week. Possibly two.”

  Gina lowered her head and sobbed softly. Miguel looked pained, and pale. “How will we ever pay for this?” he muttered.

  “We have programs, financial assistance for low income families.” Lucy got up, turned to rummage through the mess on her desk for the applications. She finally found them and handed them to Miguel.

  He only held up a hand and shook his head. “I have seen these before. I make more at my job than those papers say I can make. We do not qualify for this assistance of which you speak.”

  “I was afraid of that.” Lucy lowered her head, shaking it slowly. It was a trap she’d seen all too often. Patients without insurance, their meager income a bit too high to qualify them for aid, a shade above abject poverty. But that was still too little to give them any hope of paying their hospital bills. She knew this baby’s hospital stay could spell financial ruin for its family.

  “All right. Listen, I can help you with part of your problem.” She went around her desk, opened the big bottom drawer, and pulled out her purse. Then she extracted a set of keys, took one off the ring and, carrying it to Gina, pressed it into her hand. “I have an apartment, not far from here. Actually, it’s within walking distance.”

  Gina frowned, looking confused.

  “I…just got married, and I’m living in my husband’s home now. There’s no reason you can’t use the apartment until the baby is released. All right?”

  The two looked at each other, eyes widening. “You…you would do that for us?”

  Lucy smiled and went back to her desk, grabbing a pen and a notepad. “Here’s the address,” she said. “It’s not hard to find. Go to the end of this street and turn right. Second building on the left. Apartment 10-C. Okay?” She tore off the sheet and handed it to them.

  Gina took it in a trembling hand. Then she came around the desk and enfolded Lucy in a hug. “God bless you, Dr. Brightwater.”

  Lucy smiled and hugged her back. “Now, why don’t you go back to your room and get dressed while I get your release forms in order, hmm?”