Jackson took a deep breath. Walter, why didn’t you tell me? “Thanks, Harry. That answers my question.”
After hanging up the phone, Jackson pushed the Bingham contract aside. He let out a low growl and then Jamie entered his office with Peter Bingham at his side.
They might as well have been invisible.
“Good news,” Jamie said as he ushered their prospective client toward one of the chairs in front of Jackson’s desk. “Mr. Bingham has made a decision.”
Jackson pinched at the tension building between his eyes. Heather had lied to him from the very beginning. She was, in fact, the conniving, selfish woman she’d tried to make Madison out to be. She’d used Walter, a man he adored, to get what she wanted. Unforgiveable.
Focusing his attention on his brother and Mr. Bingham was impossible.
Jackson realized he didn’t care about the damn contract. The thought made him want to laugh out loud. He didn’t care about anything but the woman he kept picturing in his mind.
Madison in her overalls at the coffee shop, laying down the law. Madison on their wedding day, asking for a dance. Madison wearing a skimpy bathing suit, trying to seduce him. Madison’s warm body wrapped in his arms at night. If he tried hard enough, he was pretty sure he could feel her soft lips on his. She always made him feel loved. She made him feel as if he were the only person on earth who could make her happy. She made him feel special.
The realization that he wanted to spend his life with Madison was not the suffocating sensation he thought he would feel. She loved him with all of her heart--just as she loved those kids. All she had wanted was to be loved back.
It hit him then, as if Dorothy’s house came down from the sky and landed smack on his head. He loved his wife. He didn’t want to live without her. He prayed it wasn’t too late.
Jamie groaned. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
“That’s terrific,” Jackson replied. He stood, giving Jamie a wide grin as he shuffled through mounds of paperwork, letting documents and pencils scatter to the ground in the process.
Jamie eyed him worriedly.
“Ah-ha! There you are!” Jackson held up his prize for all to see.
“So glad you could find your keys, Jackson.” Jamie looked at Mr. Bingham and squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “As I was saying,” Jamie went on, “I explained everything to Mr. Bingham, told him how we’ve been working on the deal of a lifetime—”
Jackson headed for the door.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” Jamie asked.
Holding onto the door, Jackson said, “I’ve got to.”
“Life and death I suppose?” Jamie muttered.
That’s it. Jackson headed back toward his brother so fast Jamie ducked, as if he thought his brother might slug him. Jackson laughed and gave Jamie a big, brotherly hug instead. “You’re brilliant, little brother. Absolutely brilliant!”
“Yeah, whatever you say,” Jamie replied, smoothing out his new Armani suit.
“Sorry, Mr. Bingham,” Jackson said to the older man, “but it’s my wife’s birthday today and there’s something I have to do before it’s too late.”
Mr. Bingham appeared speechless, but nodded nonetheless.
Jamie glanced at his watch. “It’s too early. The shops aren’t even open yet.”
But Jackson didn’t hear a word as he ran down the hallway.
~~~
Madison opened the door, disappointed to see Mr. Razzano and Heather standing on the other side. “Hello,” she said stiffly, “I didn’t realize you two were such good friends.”
Mr. Razzano’s bald head glistened with sweat. Heather nudged past him, stepping inside. “Well, isn’t this quaint. Feeding the homeless again, I see.”
Madison lowered her voice to a low growl and said, “These kids have never done anything to you, Heather. Another snide remark and I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Patting her perfectly coiffed hair into place, Heather chose to keep her mouth shut for the moment.
“Mrs. Lang,” Mr. Razzano began. “Heather—I mean, Ms. Garrett, came to my office the other day to tell me your marriage to Jackson was the result of an offer you made him in a bar. An offer that was to include the exchanging of money after you received your inheritance. And since it has been brought to my attention that you have moved out of Mr. Lang’s home, I had no choice but to come here today and see for myself what exactly is going on.”
Madison glanced over her shoulder. Jen and the kids had gathered around. They had on their party hats and behind them on the coffee table was a lopsided cake surrounded by gifts made out of paper and love.
She smiled, letting Jen and the kids know everything was going to be all right. They had one another. She’d find a way to help them. “Mr. Razzano,” Madison said, “the truth is—”
“—is that my wife thinks I forgot her birthday,” Jackson cut in, taking everyone by surprise as he headed up the path leading to the front door.
Jackson ushered Mr. Razzano into the house, so he could stand in the doorway and talk to all of them at once. “My wife,” Jackson went on, “is sensitive about birthdays and special occasions. As I’ve never been married before, I had no idea women could be so hardheaded, so stubborn.”
Madison crossed her arms over her chest and waited for him to finish.
“As you can see for yourself, she came back here to teach me a lesson.”
Madison opened her mouth to disagree, but Jackson cut her off.
“My wife thinks I don’t understand. She believes I work too many hours. She thinks I don’t love her.” Jackson scratched his whiskered chin. “The honest-to-God truth, Mr. Razzano, is that I can’t live without her.”
A layer of skepticism was quickly replaced with definite interest as Madison listened more intently to the rest of what Jackson had to say.
“Guess what, darling?” he said loud enough to be heard over the small crowd standing behind her. “I love you.”
Heather moaned.
“And I didn’t forget about your birthday. In fact, I brought you a present.” His large frame blocked the entire doorway. He moved out of the way to make room for Adam.
“Adam!” Erin shouted, crying as she ran to hug him. The smaller kids followed suit, swarming around the gangly teenager, happy and relieved to see that their friend, the boy they considered to be an older brother, was okay.
A tear slid down Madison’s face as she went to Adam and took him in her arms, holding him close. He smelled like dirt and sweat and that special Adam scent that was his alone. She’d begun to think the worst, but seeing him now, touching him, brought more than joy to her heart.
Her gaze lifted, filled with gratitude as she peered into Jackson’s eyes. Thank you, she mouthed as the other kids dragged Adam away to get the scoop on his latest adventures.
Jen already had Mr. Razzano engaged in a conversation about the sun’s damaging rays and how he should put sunscreen on the top of his head.
Smiling, Madison noticed an unfamiliar sparkle in Jackson’s eyes as he entered the house and moved toward her.
“Where was Adam?” she asked, not ready to know whether his talk of love was real or just another show.
“At the Riverside Cemetery having a talk with his mother. I guess he even stopped by to say hello to Eloise Lang.”
“Your mother?”
He nodded. “I’ll tell you about it later.” Jackson stepped in front of Heather before she could escape unnoticed. “Heather,” he said. “I had a talk with Harry Connors today, and he just called me again a few minutes before I arrived here. He wants to meet both of us in his office first thing Monday morning.”
“Oh, I can’t,” Heather said. “I’ll be—”
Jackson’s dangerous glare stopped Heather from jabbering on.
With a frustrated groan, she nodded her agreement and then walked out the door, leaving them alone, at least for the moment.
Madison peered into his eyes. “What’s going on?” The gold band
on his left hand caught her eye. What was he up to? “We don’t have to continue this charade any longer,” she told him. “The kids and I will figure out a way to stay together. We’ve already made plans for bake sales and Katy makes fabulous jewelry. The kids are going to help her design a website so she can sell her hand-crafted pieces. All proceeds will go directly to CFC.”
Fretful lines etched his forehead. “Didn’t you hear what I said earlier?”
“Which part?” she asked.
“The part when I said ‘I love you.’”
“Oh, that.” She nodded her head. “I heard it. I figured it was for Mr. Razzano’s benefit.”
Gazing into her eyes, Jackson swept a strand of hair out of her face and said, “I love you, Madison. You’ve made me feel whole again, maybe for the first time in my life. Poor ol’ Cupid must have used up his whole bag of arrows trying to make me see it. Today, though, one of his blasted darts struck me right here.” He laid a hand over his heart. “I can’t live without you, Madison. I need you.”
He pulled a folded paper from his pocket and said, “I have a lot of explaining to do and someday I hope you’ll forgive me for not believing in you and especially for not being truthful.”
“Jackson,” she said. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
He nodded.
“What about commitment?” she asked. “That awful word that causes you to break into a sweat? I don’t want to be thought of as a burden. I deserve better. I want to be loved and cherished…forever.”
“I’ll always love you. Every day of the rest of my life. And longer.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the paper in his hand, needing a moment to unravel her thoughts. She’d spent the last three days convincing herself that she and Jackson weren’t meant to be together. And now here he was telling her he would cherish her for the rest of her life.
“This is the deed to CFC,” Jackson said, dangling the paper in front of her. “I have an offer you can’t possibly refuse.”
“You do, do you?” She’d never seen him look so nervous, so tired, so desperate.
“Come home and be my wife forever,” he said.
It seemed all her prayers had been answered. But still…something was missing. “That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it. Although my rules are a little different than yours,” he said, “but we’ll have to talk about that later when we’re alone.”
“What about children?”
“As many children as you want.”
Her eyes widened.
“Okay,” he amended, “no more than six.”
Extending a hand, she gave him a dazzling smile. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Lang.”
Jackson glanced at Adam and smiled when the boy gave him the thumbs up.
Instead of taking Madison’s hand, he pulled her close and sealed the deal with a kiss.
~~~
Thanks for reading An Offer He Can’t Refuse! I hope you enjoyed it.
* This book is lendable. Feel free to share it with a friend.
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* An Offer He Can’t Refuse was the very first contemporary romance I wrote after writing two time travel romances. The story has been modernized in that I had to replace regular phones with cell phones, etc. If you want to know when my next book comes out, please sign up for my mailing list at http://www.theresaragan.com/.
Other books written by Theresa Ragan are:
• Having My Baby
• Taming Mad Max
• Finding Kate Huntley
• A Knight in Central Park
• Return of the Rose
• Here Comes the Bride (coming soon)
• The Billionaires’ Christmas Club (short story written with D.D. Scott)
Thrillers written by Theresa Ragan under the name TR Ragan are:
• Abducted (Book #1 in the Lizzy Gardner Series)
• Dead Weight (Book #2 in the Lizzy Gardner Series)
• A Dark Mind (Book #3 in the Lizzy Gardner Series - coming June 2013)
For a sneak preview of a few of these titles, please turn the page.
Having My Baby
They watched each other for a moment, sizing one another up before an irritating beep brought them back to the moment at hand.
Jill squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingers into the mattress.
Moving to the side of the hospital bed where Chelsey had been, Derrick reached over the side rail and took her hand in his. “It’s okay,” he said, although he wasn’t feeling okay, and she certainly didn’t look okay. It hadn’t been much over five minutes since her friends left. What the hell was going on?
With her eyes clamped shut and her teeth gritted, the veins in her neck and forehead looked ready to burst.
His heart rate accelerated as he tried to think of something to say to comfort her and take her mind off of the pain. “Maybe we should do that breathing thing,” he said.
She didn’t answer him, but her fingers squeezed tight about his hand, and damn, she had one powerful grip.
The beeper on the monitor wouldn’t stop beeping. That worried him.
Jill brought her knees to her chest, blankets and all.
He leaned closer and rubbed her shoulder. “Is that helping?”
Her eyes shot open, startling him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly turned her head full circle and spit out pea soup. Instead, she reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt along with a little skin and said, “Get your baby out of me!”
He might have laughed if he wasn’t bleeding and in pain and if she wasn’t pinning him with the scariest look he’d ever seen in his life, which was saying a lot considering his mom had been the queen of scary faces back in her day.
In the blink of an eye, Jill Garrison had transformed from a sweet young lady into a woman possessed by the devil.
“If you don’t do something,” she said, “I’m going to scream.”
“I think we should breathe instead.”
“I think you should—” Her face turned scarlet, and she scrunched her nose as if she was chewing on sourballs. And then she did exactly what she said she was going to do. She screamed, an ear-piercing sound that set his teeth on edge and made his brain hurt.
Where the hell was everybody?
~~~
Finding Kate Huntley
Another crash sounded. Kate stepped back and then threw her weight into the door.
Shit that hurt!
She yanked the pistol from her hip pocket and fired two shots at the lock. The door swung open and she stepped inside, weapon drawn, eyes wide.
Jack stood in front of the open window; his face made up of hard lines and suppressed fury as he held onto a pair of ankles, dangling the Haitian man with the ponytail out the window.
Jack’s chest rose and fell with each breath. “What took you so long?”
Ignoring him, she took inventory of the broken chair, tilted bed, and jagged pieces of glass scattered across the wood floor. “Nice.”
“Yeah, I thought the place could use a little redecorating.”
She smiled.
The thug hanging out the window grunted, his curses muffled by the crowds shouting to him from two stories below.
“So,” Kate said, “what’s the plan?”
Jack looked over his shoulder at her and lifted a handsome brow. “It was the kiss, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That was a lie. Even now, she wanted him to let the man drop two stories, take her in his arms and kiss her again, long and deep, hard and soft all at once.
“I knew you’d miss me,” he said. “I just didn’t know how much.”
“Don’t get too excited. I followed you because I’ve decided it’s time I went back to the States. I have some unfinished business to take care of.”
“I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”
She
shrugged.
Grimacing, he struggled to keep his grip. “I talked to Harrison,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “He’s arranging for a private plane to pick us up in thirty minutes.” Sweat trickled down the sides of his face. “Let me take care of Charlie here and then we’ll go.”
“Let me help,” Kate said. She moved to his side and took hold of the man’s legs. “I’ve got him.” As soon as Jack loosened his hold, she let go. Charlie dropped two stories to the ground. Somebody screamed. A loud crash followed.
“Okay,” she said, dusting off her hands. “Time to go.”
Jack looked out the window. “I wanted to question the guy.”
She lifted her shoulders. “There’s no time.”
The severe expression on his face expressed his exasperation with her. He grabbed a vinyl backpack from the floor and began stuffing his belongings inside. “You really are something, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
~~~
Taming Mad Max Excerpt
“Nice to meet you, Max,” she said without sincerity. “I should be going now. If you’d like, I could give you a couple of names of nutritionists who might be able to help you.”
Max waggled a finger at her. “You don’t like athletes. I can see it in your eyes.”
She let out a small feminine laugh that might have been cute under different circumstances. “You caught me, Mr. Dutton. You’re right. It’s pro football players I have a problem with. They’re needy and, you know, sort of full of themselves. It would never work.” The door opened and promptly clicked shut. The woman was gone.
Despite the warning bells going off in his head, Max found himself hurrying out the door after her. Sure, she set his teeth on edge, but he hated the idea of somebody not liking him, especially for no reason. He was charming. Women of all sizes, shapes, and ages fell at his feet on a daily basis. Besides, something wasn’t right. The woman acted as if they had met before. “Hey!” he called out, “I didn’t catch your name.”
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