Now, solution...
“Maybe you should sign up for multiple dating sites...”
“And hinge everything on the hope that I get someone perfect right away?”
When every potential candidate would know about Natasha, her show and the impression they were giving?
She needed to think. Considered calling her mother.
The man needed a wife. Not a lover. Just a wife.
“So, I’ll marry you.” Everything inside her froze as the words popped out of her mouth. Everything but the thoughts that were tripping over themselves. “It would be the perfect stop to any hope Claire could have of eventually getting anyone to believe the kids are better off with her. Who would dare take children away from America’s sweethearts? Or even think about doing so? Dedicated dad, great family cooking show mom...
“We could get married on Family Secrets,” she went on. “Have contestants provide our wedding dinner. Our cake. Everything. Think about it. It would be the romance of the year, televised nationally. Viewers will eat it up. Public perception will be set. And there’s a silver lining, too. Ratings will soar, which means Family Secrets’ value soars. And our signature beef will soar, too. It’s what’s called in the business world a win-win.”
She was rambling. But not like an idiot. Every word made perfect business sense. It was the deal of a lifetime. And she was putting it together on the spot.
The feeling she got when she knew she was onto something big, something winning, had never been stronger.
Until she noticed Spencer Longfellow standing in front of her, mouth open, staring at her like she’d lost her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HAD THE WOMAN just proposed to him? The idea was so preposterous, Spencer couldn’t believe she was serious.
Or even that he’d understood her correctly.
“The next segment doesn’t start until January,” she said, “so it couldn’t be a done deal by Christmas. But we could announce our engagement on the special, one episode, live Thanksgiving Day show. That should do the trick as far as Christmas vacation is concerned. There’s no way the kids can be gone since they’ll be playing such a big part in the wedding and we’ll need fittings, rehearsals, scripting. They’d need to do some filming for ads and...”
The nerves in the back of his neck felt like they might snap. She just didn’t stop. Didn’t shut up.
There was no way he was going to let his kids be part of some kind of circus act.
“No ads with the kids.” He got some words out. Considered them a victory.
She frowned at him for a minute but was blessedly silent. And then nodded. “You’re right. That wouldn’t be good for them. I’m still new to this whole kid thing, but don’t worry. I will defer to you on everything where they’re concerned.”
“Are we negotiating?” He almost laughed.
Completely serious, she nodded. “Of course.”
He couldn’t believe this conversation was real. That he was standing in the cabin he’d lived in alone so many years before, with a woman who was so much larger than life she’d begun to believe her own hype.
“You don’t negotiate marriage,” he said.
“You do.”
“No. I do not.”
“What do you think you were proposing to Jolene?” She shook her head, spread her hands. “It was a business arrangement. You wanted her to agree to live in your home, love your children and be a partner to you. In exchange, you’d be a loyal partner to her.”
“You live in Palm Desert.”
“Yes. But I’ll have an office here, too. A lot of couples have two homes. It makes sense that you’d stay here, with the kids, because you can’t do your work anyplace but here. You need to be on your ranch. And the kids have school.”
“So we’ll live apart.” He wasn’t considering the idea. Still wasn’t even sure she was serious. But it was so...outlandish, he wanted to hear her out. For future laughs, if nothing else.
“Not as far as anyone else is concerned,” she said. “I’m working this out as we go, but think about it. I could live in the city during the week as needed. Commute when necessary. I’ll have the office here made larger, and when I can, I’ll work from the ranch. And sometimes you and the kids can come to the city. Just to keep up appearances. We can take them to shows. To the zoo. All the things parents do with kids, whatever they want. My condo has four bedrooms, so there’d be plenty of room. We could keep clothes in both places...”
She was getting way too far ahead of herself. He couldn’t even imagine this scenario on some situation comedy featuring the ridiculous.
It was time to preserve his plan.
“I want a wife.”
“You want a business partner.”
“No, I want a wife. I want to have the same woman in my bed for the rest of my life. Someone to grow old with. And...maybe have more kids with.”
Finally she’d shut her mouth. Tight.
But only momentarily. “Good luck with that anytime soon,” she said. “With our keeping up our on-screen flirtation for the foreseeable future. Think of Jolene’s reaction.”
“A lot of actors in Hollywood are married to people other than their on-screen partners.”
“You said you didn’t have anyone else in mind here. So you’re back to finding someone on the internet in time for Christmas.”
If he hadn’t been so flabbergasted, he might have admired her tenaciousness. Kind of reminded him of his own.
But he’d also remembered something else. Another threat posed by any legal battle Claire Williamson might wage against him. Discovery. If he was married, there’d be no reason to look.
If he was married to a reality TV star, even if the truth came out, he’d have enough money to protect the ranch. And probably wouldn’t need to because everyone knew that stars had dirt hiding in the corners of their closets.
He’d be seen as...imperfect...but not inadequate. In the future Natasha was painting, no one would dare challenge his right to his heritage.
But...
“It’s a business deal, Spencer,” she said, her tone not quite mocking. “Granted, a creative one, but then, I’m a creative person. I think outside the box. A lot of times, that’s where you find answers to problems that seem insurmountable.”
She wanted him to believe she was for real. And she was completely outside any frame of reference he had to pull from.
“We take it like any other business deal, one step at a time. If, in the future, you meet someone you want to marry, we can always part ways.”
How could she make something so wrong, so ludicrous, sound...almost plausible?
“I’ll be traveling quite a bit for the show over the next weeks,” she told him. “And more overall since I’ll be doing two other location segments. It’ll be understandable that I’ll be in and out...”
He couldn’t do this.
He had to make it stop.
“I want a wife,” he said. “A real relationship.” Did she get what he was saying?
She stared at him.
“I understood you the first time,” she told him. “So...fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes. We’ll go into this understanding that you want a real marriage and that I agree to those terms. I would stipulate for the record, however, that I will need time to build up to that point with you.”
Blood thrummed through him. Igniting him. Shutting down his brain.
He’d never heard anything like it. Was still standing there out of incredulity. Horrified and curious to see how far she would go.
“I suggest that over the next eight weeks, we concentrate on the courtship. As I said, I’ll be traveling a lot with auditions, and now scouting potential locations for future shows, but when I�
��m not on the road, I’ll spend as much time here as possible.” She was pacing, a look of concentration on her face, as though she were addressing a board of directors. “It will work well since the studio renovations will be under way, and I need to be getting to know any potential sponsors I can find locally. You can introduce me around, which will help pull me into your fold.”
Fascinating the way her mind worked. The focus, the way she brought everything together, it was like...art.
Business art.
“You and the kids should come to the city, as well,” she said. “Visit the condo. We’ll get some photos. Nothing big. Nothing that will expose the kids. Maybe we keep them in shadow and just you and I are visible... We can work on that. I’ve got a public-relations firm on retainer. I’ll call them.”
He needed a notepad to keep up with her.
“Then, at Thanksgiving, we make the engagement announcement. We can have the PR firm work on the logistics. Followed by a January wedding.”
The whole situation was so fantastical he almost wished it was real. Just so he could watch it happen.
“I propose a six-month period after the wedding to settle into living together, to flesh out exactly what that looks like, how many nights a week we spend in each other’s homes, that sort of thing, and then, at that time, we can proceed to move forward with the relationship side.”
He couldn’t just keep standing there.
“We’ll need a prenuptial agreement,” he said. “Something that keeps Family Secrets and the condo yours and Longfellow Ranch and all of its holdings mine.” He was playing along with her out of perverseness. Looking for the way to catch her. To show her that her idea was preposterous.
She didn’t even blink. “Of course.” Clearly she’d assumed as much.
So he went for the big guns. “And the kids? I retain sole custody of them.”
Her pause gave him pause. She stopped pacing. Faced him. He could almost see the thoughts speeding through her mental thoroughfare.
“I don’t know how that works,” she told him. “I mean, legally, if I’m their stepmother, that would automatically give me rights. And...if anything ever happened to you...well, you’d rather they stay here with me than go to Washington, right?”
Bearing a tone he’d never heard before, a certain vulnerability, her words touched him like nothing else in the conversation had done.
He felt like a jerk for messing with her.
“Natasha, I’m grateful for your offer. Frankly, the exuberance with which you jumped on board has me stunned. I don’t know that anyone has ever come to my aid with such...ferociousness. I’m still trying to comprehend why you’d do such a thing. But...surely...you have to see that this is crazy.”
“You like me.”
“Of course I like you.”
“You kissed me like you really like me.”
“I like kissing you,” he conceded. Now was not the time to think of that craziness. He’d fumbled once. And been with her several times since without repeating the mistake.
“I know it’s unconventional, Spencer.” She was sounding more like herself, and yet...softer. In some ways, he was facing a woman he’d never met before.
He didn’t like being blindsided.
“But you and I...look at us...we’re unconventional.”
He wasn’t. That was the point. He was a reliable family man with respectable standing in the community. A successful landowner, with more than a hundred years of heritage backing him. A good father. His whole reason for wanting a wife...before Claire came into the picture...was to complete the conventional image.
Getting ready to tell her so, he got out, “I—” when she cut him off.
“You made a plan to marry, Spencer. If one woman didn’t want you, you’d move down your numerical list of potentials to choice two. You want a partnership without love and all of the drama and unpredictability it brings.”
Crap. Did she have an answer for everything?
Then it occurred to him to turn it on her. She’d said if he found another woman, she’d release him from their...agreement. But...
“I’m not the type of guy who’d be okay with his wife taking an interest in other men.”
She shrugged. “I figured as much.”
He had to rattle her. He didn’t even know, at that point, why it was so important. It just was.
“You’re telling me that in order to help me, a near stranger, you’re willing to sign away the probability of you ever marrying for love?”
Her chuckle was pretty much his undoing. “I’ve known for years that that wasn’t going to happen,” she told him. “Look at me, Spencer.”
He was looking. That was part of the problem. He liked what he saw far too much. And knew that other men did, too. Eventually one would come along whom she liked back, and...
“I’m...determined,” she said. “Or...to put it bluntly...bossy. I’m far too good at calling my shots to give anyone else the right to do so. But here...this situation...it doesn’t just help you with your two major goals in life—keeping your kids on the ranch with you, safe and happy, and growing the ranch into a business that will give them lifetime security—but it also helps me. My life...it’s been missing something. Tabitha and Justin...they fill those holes.”
When her words faded away, his full attention came to the fore. She’d faltered once before in this conversation. Talking about his kids. She loved them. Or was close to it.
The game had just changed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WHEN SHE KNEW she was onto something powerful, something right, Natasha didn’t give up. She was her mother’s daughter. Aware of this tendency, she channeled it, as her mother always had, into something positive.
And she lived a mostly lonely life. Keeping herself apart from others who could fall prey to her strengths. Angela had been around so long not only because she was great at her job but also because she could hold her own with Natasha.
Natasha was positive that while her proposal to Spencer Longfellow had crossed boundaries of expected behavior, it was the best answer for all four of them. Spencer, the kids, her. The minute the idea had occurred to her, she’d gotten that feeling. The one that led her to victory every single time.
Still, being right didn’t guarantee success—most particularly in this current matter. She couldn’t force him to marry her.
Spencer had a will of his own. Maybe even as strong as hers. Angela respected him, and that was saying something.
He wasn’t jumping on the idea. Worse, he seemed almost to be...laughing at it?
“Just out of curiosity, how do you see this relationship being good for the children down the road?”
Raising her head, she studied him. He was completely serious.
Sensing the possibility of a turn in the negotiations in her favor, she thought carefully before replying.
“I see them growing up with two champions in their lives, two people who love them unconditionally and who will always be there for them.”
“What if we decide to end our arrangement?”
Shrugging, she shook her head. Didn’t need time to think about that one. “They’d still have two champions in their lives, two people who love them unconditionally and who will always be there for them.”
“What if you found out, somewhere down the road, that I have some dirty little secret...?”
“Do you?”
“Maybe.”
He was baiting her. “Are you involved in anything illegal?”
“No.”
“Anything immoral?”
“Of course not.”
“I suspect we all have things that we don’t tell the world. We’re entering an unusual, perhaps lifelong, business arrangement, Spencer. Not giving up our autono
my.”
The designation was key. She couldn’t do it otherwise.
And suspected that neither could he. He was more like her than he seemed ready to admit, as committed to his ranch as she was to Family Secrets—and any future ventures she’d create if Family Secrets ever served its time.
The sky was her limit. Not Spencer. Or anyone else.
“You’re really serious about this.” He was staring her right in the eye.
She didn’t blink. “I am. Believe me, I know it’s out of the blue, but can you think of a reason why it isn’t a good decision? Why it won’t work?” Because she couldn’t.
Except... “Depending on how much time I spend here, I might have to bring Lily here to live.” Which, now that she thought about it, did work, because then the kitten wouldn’t be alone so much when she traveled.
“Fine. Cats are good in farmhouses. They keep the mouse population down.”
Her heart started to pound again. She thought of her mother up on the bench. The deep breath. The focus. “So, you’re agreeing?” she asked when she could.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m agreeing to think about it.”
She wanted his answer. “For how long?”
His grin screwed with her focus. “You got someone else on the hook?” he asked.
He knew she didn’t. “If I’m going to be embarking on a project of such a scope, I’ll need time to prepare. We have a Thanksgiving deadline for our announcement if we plan to forestall any viable attempt Claire would have to make to take the kids for any period of visitation over Christmas.”
As always, sticking to the facts, to the logic, brought the answers. Kept the solution in clear focus. Susan would be proud of her.
Susan. She’d have to tell her mother she was getting married.
If Spencer agreed.
For the first time, she felt a note of real doubt. Saw it, not felt it. Her mother was a strong proponent of freedom. She’d lived her whole life as an example to Natasha of who she was and how to live with who she was.
Her mother was not going to approve of a marriage—any marriage—for her daughter. But only because she’d be certain that such a union could only end in disaster.
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