by Raye Morgan
That did it. Now she had a lump in her throat. She coughed, hoping to dislodge it, but it stayed right where it was. There was no way she could say anything without starting to cry. And then she would feel exactly like a fool. So she stayed mum.
“I’m not asking for a whole lot,” he went on. “In fact, it’s more that I want to give you something than that I want to take anything from you.”
She looked into his eyes. He was right. She was acting as though she had to keep him at bay, as if she thought he was trying to rob her of her child. And from his point of view, what he was offering was protection, security and a father for a child she’d expected to raise without one. How could she turn down all this goodness?
And yet…and yet…
She saw Tom’s face again, heard the ugly words that cut into her like shards of broken glass, remembered how miserable she’d been, remembered how what at first seemed good could turn so bad. Could she risk living like that again?
Kane wasn’t Tom. She’d told herself that again and again, and she believed it. And yet…
She wasn’t ready to make that commitment, but she didn’t know how to explain it to him. Thinking quickly, she grasped at another problem she saw in his plan.
“Kane, I appreciate your honesty. I really do. And I understand your idea of a business partnership. I’m just not sure it can work.”
His brows drew together. “Why not?”
She hesitated. “You say it will be a purely business arrangement. That means, I assume, it will be platonic. But…” She licked her bottom lip nervously and avoided his gaze. “This is embarrassing, but…it seems to me that we have a bit of a physical attraction. Maybe you don’t feel it…” she added hastily, looking up into his face.
But he was laughing softly and he took her hand. “Oh, you noticed?” he said, smiling at her. “Believe me, Maggie. I feel it.”
That was a relief. And a danger. She didn’t know which was more important.
“Maggie, I don’t think you should worry about that,” he was saying, shrugging her fears away. “I know women always take that sort of thing much more seriously than men do. But men can control themselves too. We’re human beings, Maggie, not beasts of the jungle being pulled this way and that by primal impulses we don’t understand. We can handle it.”
Could they? Why did she have this little ache inside that said the opposite? But maybe he didn’t. Maybe he thought the chemistry between them was just one of those things—no big deal. Perhaps he felt this way with most attractive women he met. And how about her? How did she feel? She only wished she knew.
“So you think we’re very modern, do you?” she asked him brightly.
“Sure.”
Her smile was bittersweet. “I think you’re dreaming.”
“Why, Maggie.” He gave her a quizzical look, meant for teasing. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t think you’re going to be able to keep your hands off me?”
“Dream on, mister,” she told him tartly, though she knew her cheeks were coloring. “I’ll challenge you to a self-control contest any day.”
His eyes lit with amusement at that. “I just might take you up on that,” he told her, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing her fingers, though his gaze never left her face. “In the meantime, what do you say? Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Kane…”
“It might just work if we can keep it on a business level and not let things get too personal.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” She shook her head. “I just don’t see how it could work.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” His gaze intensified. “Maggie, we both married for love the first time. Now we’ll marry for more practical reasons. You wait and see. Things will work out much better this way.”
She searched his eyes. She wished she could believe the way he did. She wanted to say the words he wanted to hear, but she couldn’t. Too much of her life had taught her that optimism was a way of asking fate to cut your legs out from under you.
And at the same time, she cared about him, cared too much. She couldn’t give him the words he wanted, but she wanted to give him something, and she reached out with her hand and put her palm to his cheek.
“Kane…” she began softly.
He covered her hand with his own and his eyes glowed. For just a moment, she was sure he was going to kiss her. But a woman’s voice cut them apart like a knife slicing through ripe fruit.
“Kane Haley! You old rascal.”
Jerking away from each other, they turned to see a beautiful woman with a model’s face and a playgirl’s figure standing behind Kane’s chair. Kane rose reluctantly and the woman gave him the full flirt treatment, batting eyelashes and everything.
“You naughty boy, you were supposed to call me before the Zimmerman Charity Ball.” Her gorgeous wide mouth twisted in a little-girl pout. “Where have you been?”
“Jasparina,” he said with casual unconcern. “Sorry. I’ve been busy. Please meet Maggie Steward…my fiancée.”
The woman looked the tiniest bit taken aback, but her smooth sophistication took over immediately and she smiled her plastic smile and shook Maggie’s hand. “Congratulations, darling,” she purred, though it was not easy to tell which one she was talking to. “I’m with a party across the room. Why don’t you join us? Kane, some of your old friends are there….”
“Sorry. We’re newly engaged and in a hurry to grab a little time for ourselves,” he told her. “We were just leaving.” And he reached for Maggie’s hand to help her to her feet.
Maggie rose and looked from one to the other of these beautiful people. Kane was dismissing Jasparina out of hand. She could see it, and so could the raven-haired beauty. And Maggie knew why without having to analyze it.
The beauty wasn’t carrying his baby. But Maggie was. And right now, that was all that mattered to him.
But to introduce her as his fiancée! She cast him an outraged look and gave Jasparina a stiff little smile before heading for the door.
As they made their way to where the valet-parking attendant was holding their car, she found herself laughing with Kane about the incident.
“What are you doing?” she cried, turning her coat collar against a stiff wind off the lake.
“Forcing the issue,” he told her with a grin as he pulled her into the circle of his arm. He looked down into her face. “Maggie I can feel you trembling on the verge of saying yes. Come on. Do it.”
“Kane…” She was losing her resolve. It was melting away like the snow along the sidewalk.
“Do it!”
“Oh…” She was caught up in his wonderful smile. “Yes!”
“Yes,” he echoed, but his voice was reverential, and he pulled her close and kissed her hard on the mouth.
Maggie and Kane were getting married. She had a hard time focusing on the reality of her situation. Joy and fear kept tumbling after one another in her heart.
She was marrying the boss. What a cliché. She was having the boss’s baby. In another age, that would have been an insurmountable scandal. Now it was mostly harmless fodder for the gossip mill. But what would they all say once they knew? It made her blush to think.
The first people who had to know were Kane’s brother and sister-in-law, and they planned to have dinner with them almost right away. Maggie was nervous about it. What were these people who loved Kane going to think about him marrying his administrative assistant whom he had never given a second thought to before? What were they going to say about this crazy arrangement?
Kane drove them to Mark and Jill’s house and Maggie looked out the window as they cruised through a neighborhood very much like the one she’d grown up in. The houses were neat and two-story with wide front yards currently covered with snow. She had a sudden memory of the smell of apple pie baking, the sound of the radio playing her mother’s favorite classical music and the boys next door wearing their lettermen’s jackets and yelling good-naturedly to each other as they
came home from a hockey game. That was life in the neighborhoods. For some reason, tears came to her eyes as she thought of it. She’d lived in apartments too long.
Mark’s house was one of the nicest on his block, with a huge yard and trees in small clumps making it look as though the home were in the middle of a forest glen. As they went into the house, she could feel the warmth of the family that lived there even before she saw one of them.
Two little redheads came barreling down the stairs, leaping in the air with cries of triumph to land on their uncle. Kane caught them both and threw them down on the couch, tickling and wrestling and generally making them shriek with delight. Then he brought them both upright and introduced them to Maggie.
“Kenny and Jennifer,” he told her. “Say hello to your new aunt, kids.”
“Hi,” Jennifer said stoutly. A pretty little girl of about six, she was bright-eyed and friendly.
Kenny was younger and shyer, looking down at his pajama-covered feet and grunting his greeting.
“He’ll talk to you later,” Jennifer told her confidentially. “He has to get to know you first.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Maggie said with a smile.
There were various greetings as Jill and Mark entered the room, and then Jill was herding the children up to bed and Mark was showing Maggie his rare book collection. All things considered, they were making her feel very much at home.
Jill had made a mouthwatering cioppino and warmed sourdough rolls to go with it. She served the wonderful seafood stew in wide-lipped soup bowls and gave a running commentary about her Italian background as she spooned it out.
“How unusual,” Maggie noted, “for an Italian to have such red hair.”
Mark gave a quick burst of laughter. “Not really,” he said. “See, she forgot to tell you that her mother is Irish. For some reason, she keeps leaving that out of the picture.”
“I do not,” Jill retorted. “I just hadn’t gotten to it yet.”
They all laughed, and Jill proceeded to recount how her Irish grandparents had arrived in New York without a penny to their name and ended up owning and operating a bed-and-breakfast on Cape Cod.
“We never had much money in my family, but we spent every vacation in one of the best spots in the country.”
Maggie watched the interplay between Mark and Jill. It was obvious from the moment you saw them together that they were a team and that they loved each other very much. How did that happen? Was it just blind luck? Was it careful planning? Or did it take a certain personality to be able to mold your life with another’s?
Whatever it was, she envied it—and wished she knew the secret.
At the same time, she found herself watching Kane and seeing him with new eyes. This was a side of him she hadn’t known before. He was laughing and talking with his brother in a way that showed a deep affection between them and teasing his sister-in-law in a way that showed a wary regard that was loving, but just a little prickly around the edges. No doubt about it, Kane was a first-class guy. What would their relationship look like in another year? Would people be able to tell how they related to each other just by looking at them? Only time would tell.
Both of Kane’s relatives seemed to be very happy about his plans to marry Maggie. The only thing that gave them pause was the claim that their marriage would be for convenience only.
“You understand, this is entirely a business arrangement,” Kane told them earnestly as he finished the last of his roll. “We’re making a bargain here. We’re not marrying for love.”
“Yes, so I understand.” Jill looked sideways at Maggie for confirmation.
“No, not at all,” she said firmly, hoping she was making a convincing case.
“You see, we don’t love each other,” Kane told them with a shrug, speaking as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “We are marrying as the best way to take care of our child. End of issue.”
“Uh-huh.” Jill’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she looked from one to the other of them. “I understand completely.”
Maggie sensed the cynicism in her tone, and she reacted defensively. “No, really, it’s true. I’ve been married before and so has he. We both know the score.” She didn’t think Jill was buying it, and she went on, trying harder and harder to convince her. “I mean, if you just look at this objectively, you can see that I’m not Kane’s type at all. We would never have gotten together if it weren’t for the baby.”
Kane frowned, not sure he was crazy about the turn the conversation was taking.
“What do you think Kane’s type is?” Jill asked curiously.
But Maggie was on solid ground here. “Are you kidding? I used to arrange his dates for him.” Maggie sent Kane a challenging smile. “I’ve sent so many bouquets as morning-after flowers….”
“Not lately,” Kane said defensively.
“True. Not lately.”
“I’ve been too busy to date over the last year or so. Remember the TriPac merger? We worked night and day on that. And then there was this whole search for my baby.”
“Of course.” It surprised her that he seemed this displeased with the issue. After all, his well-known playboy past only made a stronger case for the basis of their marriage. Anyone with any sense knew she was not the sort of woman Kane Haley usually had on his arm as he cruised the town.
But now, she would be. That thought made her gasp softly. Was it really true? How could this be happening? One part of her was thrilled—and the other part was saying, “Just wait. Your happiness won’t last.”
“We’re not going to have any sort of ceremony,” Kane was explaining. “We’ll just go to City Hall on Friday and have it done.”
“Ah,” said Jill. “Like a tetanus shot.”
Kane threw her a scowl and went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “We would like to have the two of you as witnesses. If you have the time, I mean. If you’re not busy that day.”
“Of course,” Mark said cheerfully. “We’ll be there with bells on.”
“And maybe some clothes, besides,” Jill murmured.
“It should be short and sweet,” Kane told them. “We’ll just do the paperwork, say the vows and go to lunch or something.” He looked at Maggie for confirmation. “Then get back to work.”
“Really? That simple?” Jill gave Mark a significant look and kicked him under the table. “How very post-modern of you.”
Mark looked worried, as though he knew his wife was up to something, but Jill leaned forward and said, “Let us take you to lunch after the marriage thingee at City Hall. Okay? Let me make the plans.”
“Sure,” Kane said, raising a questioning eyebrow at Maggie, who smiled in agreement. “That would be very nice.”
They finished dinner, and Mark took Maggie aside to show her an old photo album with pictures of Kane as a youngster. Maggie crowed over them. Kane was definitely a charmer as a toddler. Then Kane and Mark went out to rent a movie while Jill and Maggie cleaned up the dishes. Jill got right to the point.
“Well, you’re probably curious about Kane’s first wife and first marriage.”
Maggie almost dropped a dish. “Oh. Well, yes, but…”
“Yes, I know.” Jill started rinsing off dishes and handing them to Maggie to put in the dishwasher. “You should ask Kane about it and let him tell you himself. But we both know he won’t tell you.”
Maggie hid a grin. “That’s probably true.”
“We know it’s true. But I think you have a right to know. In fact, you absolutely should know.” She handed her the last dish, switched off the water and turned to lean with her back against the sink. “You shouldn’t jump into things like this without knowing the track record.”
Maggie nodded. “You’re right.”
“So here goes.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Crystal was tall, she was elegant, she was beautiful. I couldn’t stand her. She was what they call an ‘expensive woman.’ Very high-maintenance.”
“Oh.” Maggie put the last dish into the washer and rose, turning to look at the pictures held by magnets on Jill’s refrigerator. Anything to keep from letting Jill see how this was affecting her.
“What, you may ask, did Kane see in her?” Jill went on. “Well, we know love is blind. And I guess he really did think he loved her.” She sighed. “That’s what makes it so great that the two of you aren’t in love with each other. You’re both going into this with eyes wide open.”
Maggie turned quickly to look into Jill’s eyes. She was joking, wasn’t she? But no. Her gaze was completely guileless.
“Yes,” Maggie said a bit breathlessly.
“Well, to continue, about Kane and Crystal. Kane could afford an expensive woman. But Kane is a very smart man. And once the first glow of intoxication died away, he began to notice that she seemed to love money a lot more than she loved anything human. So he wasn’t quite so generous with it any longer. And the less he gave, the more she raved, and finally, she cashed in her chips and went looking for a new sugar para>daddy.”
“You mean…she only married him for his money?” What an appalling thought. How could anyone marry Kane and not love him? She knew she wasn’t going to be able to do it. But she couldn’t tell Jill that. On the other hand, she had a sneaking suspicion Jill might just know. She looked at her more closely.
Jill could make a killing playing poker, she thought to herself.
“They didn’t like each other at all by the end,” Jill was saying. “She told me to my face that she only had so many years being this beautiful, and she thought she deserved to get more for it. That was how much she valued her marriage vows.”
“Oh, that’s awful. Poor Kane.”
“You have to admit, there was a certain logic to that. After all, once she isn’t beautiful any more she’ll be out in the cold. She certainly doesn’t have any personality traits to compensate.” Jill made a face. “Anyway, Kane doesn’t often make the same mistake twice. I think he had an inkling of what she was like, but he thought marriage would change her. Kind of a twist on the old saw that women think they can change the men they marry.” Jill shook her head. “People can’t be transformed so easily. It has to come from within them if anything real is going to change. And if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. And in this case, it didn’t happen.”