“I suppose you’re happy,” she said to him. “You have what you want.”
“That’s right.”
“And we’ll have nothing. You must be so pleased.”
“I am.” He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against Ransom’s desk, crossing one ankle over the other. “What will you do?”
“Do you care?” she fired back at him.
“Tell me.”
His tone was so intent that, without further consideration, she did.
“I’m going to put the house up for sale, but as you know it’s in disrepair and heavily mortgaged. Jean wants to go to art school next fall. She already has interviews lined up. It’s very expensive, but she’s so talented. How can I tell her there’s no money to finance her education? She has such plans and hopes for the future. I don’t want her to be disappointed the way...” She stopped short, aware that she was revealing too much.
“The way you were?” Jack finished softly. “How were you disappointed, Jesse?”
Jessica raised her eyes to meet his, stymied. She looked away.
“What if I were to tell you that there’s a way for you to keep the house, get it back into shape and send Jean to school? You can even hang on to a job for your father. When he recovers he can draw a generous salary, more than sufficient to cover his needs. What would you say?”
Jessica stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “How?” she whispered.
“You can marry me.”
Chapter 6
“Marry you,” Jessica repeated stupidly.
“That’s what I said.”
“You’re offering me a deal?”
“If that’s the way you want to look at it.” His dark eyes were fixed on her features, but unreadable.
“I’m not sure I understand the terms,” she said warily.
“Then let me spell them out for you,” he replied, straightening and folding his arms on his chest. She hardly dared to breathe, waiting for what he would say next.
“Right now, you’re completely at my mercy. When we sign those papers I will own everything but the house, which is worth almost nothing anyway. You will have no money to live, to provide for your father’s recovery, to pay for Jean’s education. I can, if I choose, announce an estate liquidation sale in the local press, post signs on your door, and do any number of other unpleasant things to indicate that you are cleaned out, flat broke.”
“That’s clear enough,” Jessica murmured stiffly when he paused.
“On the other hand,” he went on equably, “if you marry me, I will conceal the true ownership of the mill and allow everyone to believe that your father is still in control. Only Ransom will know the truth, and he is ethically bound to keep quiet about it. Your father can, as I said, draw a salary and pretend that things are still the same. In fact they will be substantially improved, since my cash outlay will revitalize the business and my competition will be eliminated. I will repair the house, pay your father’s expenses and finance Jean’s education. No one will know about this transaction. The Portman name will be saved.”
“That’s blackmail,” she whispered, horrified at his bland, matter-of-fact recital.
“Call it what you like.”
“You’ll ruin my father publicly if I don’t go along with this?”
“I guarantee it,” he answered flatly. “And leave the three of you paupers.”
“What’s in it for you?” she asked bluntly.
He smiled slightly.
Jessica’s heart sank, and she locked her hands behind her back to still their trembling. For a moment at the beginning she had almost believed that he still wanted her. But all he wanted was revenge—revenge for the pain she had caused him with her desertion. He wanted to keep her with him, night and day, and make her pay for it.
“No,” she said clearly, and then more softly,“no.”
He didn’t seem surprised by her refusal. “Can you afford to turn me down?” he asked in that quiet, even tone that affected her more strongly than shouting.
“I won’t let you use me that way,” she insisted.
“And what will happen to your father?” he asked reasonably. “I don’t understand why you care about him, but apparently you do. And Jean? Forget about sending her to school. Where will she live if you have to sell the house? Would you purchase your pride at such a price?”
“It has nothing to do with pride,” Jessica whispered. “You have me cornered, and you want to capitalize on it.”
“Correct,” he replied, nodding.
“You’re sick,” she said, outraged at his bloodless manipulation of the situation and her. “This is perverse. Two people should get married because they are in love, not because one wants to victimize the other.”
“Ah,” he said sarcastically, “you’re disappointed in the manner of my proposal. We should be in a rose garden, with you in a white dress and violins playing as we exchange confidences. Is that the way it happened the first time, when you married Mr. Wonderful, Daddy’s fair-haired boy? Did he get down on one knee and declare his undying devotion, while chamber music swelled to a crescendo in the background?”
He stopped as the door opened and Ransom came back into the room. Jessica turned to the window, wiping her brimming eyes with the back of her hand.
“I’ll just read what I have here and see if it’s agreeable to both parties,” Ransom started, but Jack interrupted him.
“We may have a change of plans,” he said.
Ransom froze and regarded both of them cautiously. “Change?” he said.
“Yes,” Jack went on smoothly. “We may be talking about a merger instead of a buyout.”
“Merger?” the lawyer said, confused.
“Yes.”
“With what?”
Jack went to him and clapped his hand on the older man’s shoulder.
“Jessica and I have been rehashing it,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” Ransom replied. “I thought we had this all worked out to your satisfaction.”
“We did, but something new has come up.”
“Such as?”
“Look, why don’t you put a hold on this until you hear from me?” Jack advised him. “Miss Portman and I have some talking to do. We have to see if she can agree to my terms.”
“Can I be of any assistance?” the lawyer asked, looking from one to the other in consternation.
“No, not with this one, Jason, thanks,” Jack said firmly.
“Well, then, I have work to attend to in my other conference room. Feel free to stay as long as you like, and let me know what you decide to do.”
“Fine,” Jack said, and the lawyer left.
Jessica’s mind was racing as Jack turned to face her. Her first reaction of revulsion was changing to measured consideration. She began to realize fully what Jack’s plan would mean: a way out of this fiscal crisis for her whole family. But at what cost? There was one thing that she knew for certain: she would never tell Jack what had really happened ten years earlier. If Jack knew the truth, that her father had forced her to marry another man while carrying his child, he would not stop short of completely ruining her father financially and emotionally.
“Would it be a real marriage, or in name only?” she asked him, her face growing warm. “I mean, would you want...”
“Yes,” he said shortly. “I would want.”
“Of course,” she said softly. “My humiliation wouldn’t be complete without that, would it?”
“There’s that word again,” he said tightly. “There was a time when you didn’t think it was so terrible to sleep with me.”
“You were a different person then,” Jessica said fiercely.
“Yes, very different,” he agreed. “I believed you loved me. I hope I’m not such an idiot as to make that mistake again.”
“So I guess we understand each other,” Jessica murmured.
“I guess we do.”
“When?” she asked, already accepting the ine
vitable in her mind.
“As soon as possible,” Jack answered. “We don’t want to keep those bills waiting, do we?”
“Do you have to be so crass about it?” she asked, wincing, looking away from him.
“Why not? I don’t deceive myself that you would marry me for any reason other than my money,” he answered flatly.
Oh, you’re wrong, Jessica thought. You’re so wrong. “What will I tell everyone?” she said aloud, at a loss.
“Tell them any damn thing you want,” he replied. “I don’t care.”
“Where would we live?” she asked, trying to take it all in at once.
“At my place,” he answered. “It’s big, and you can arrange to have the work done on your father’s house while it’s empty.”
“What about Jean?”
“Can’t she stay with a friend until the house is ready?”
“I suppose so.” He seemed to have thought of everything; she had a strong suspicion that he had been planning this for a while. He’d just been waiting for her to understand that she was truly backed into a corner, with no alternative but to accept his efficient, emotionless proposal.
“Well,” he said impatiently, “what’s your answer?”
“Have you left me any choice?” she demanded bitterly, rounding on him and meeting his cold, impersonal gaze.
“You always have a choice,” he said. “You can turn me down if my offer offends you so deeply and try to find another way out of this.”
“There isn’t any other way, and you know it.”
“Then I take it your answer is yes?” he persisted, turning and gazing at her out of the corner of his eye.
Jessica bent her head deliberately, refusing to look at him. His gestures were so familiar, and yet his personality so alien, that the contrast chilled her, as if his body had become inhabited by another being. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said, nodding once, as if she had finally reached a conclusion he had long anticipated. “Why don’t you go on out to my car, and I’ll tell Ransom what to do. We can go for the license and the blood test right now.”
“I have my rental car outside,” Jessica said, as if this were a matter of great importance.
“Leave it there. We’ll pick it up later,” Jack answered, helping her into her coat. It was clear that once she had agreed to his plan, he did not want to waste any time executing it. He handed her his keys, and she went to the parking lot and unlocked his convertible. She ran the engine to warm it up as she waited for him. She knew that Jack had sent her along because he wanted to talk to Ransom alone, give him some kind of explanation for their sudden decision. Jessica could not imagine what he was saying to the lawyer, but she didn’t care. She felt as if her fate were out of her hands now, running wild, carrying her with its tide. When she took a moment to consider that marrying Jack had once been her heart’s desire she almost started to cry again, but she chided herself about weakness and held the tears back. When he slid into the car beside her she was composed and ready to do whatever he wanted.
“All set,” he said briefly, referring to Ransom. “Next stop, city hall. How long do you have to wait for the results of the tests?”
“I don’t know, a few days, I think.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. Maybe we should go by the hospital and see about getting your father transferred, too. I hear that place out by the lake is good. One of my drivers had his mother there, and he says it’s pleasant and the staff is very competent.”
Jessica turned her head to look at him. She didn’t know whether to thank him or scream at him for forcing her into this ludicrous sham of a marriage. “You mean Pine Manor?” she asked him.
“Yeah, that’s the name. They take people like your father directly from the hospital. They have a special floor for postoperative cases.”
“How do you know?” she asked suspiciously.
He met her gaze briefly, then looked back at the road. “I checked into it,” he said.
Jessica dropped the subject, certain now that he had been maneuvering her into this position since she came back to town. “I’ll need some time to explain this to Jean,” she said.
“I’ll take you back to the house after we’ve filed the application, and you can tell her then.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Jessica murmured.
“Why not tell her the truth?” he asked.
Jessica stared at him.
“I mean a version of the truth,” he clarified. “Tell her that we...knew each other when we were younger and when we saw each other again we just decided to get married.”
“Jack, she’s not a simpleton. She’s never going to buy a story like that without clarification.”
“Then tell her that your father broke us up, and it took us this long to get back together.”
“That makes it sound romantic and happy, instead of the travesty it really is.”
He didn’t say anything in response, but when she glanced over at him she could see that the little muscles along his jaw line were jumping wildly.
“I guess it’s better that she believes in the illusion,” Jessica murmured. “At least she won’t worry about me.”
Jack pulled into the municipal building lot, and they went inside to file an application for a marriage license.
* * * *
That afternoon, while Jack was booking an appointment with the registry office, Jessica told Jean about her forthcoming marriage.
They were having a snack in the kitchen after Jean got home from school when Jessica broached the subject.
“Jean, remember when you asked me what caused the break between Dad and me, and I said I would tell you about it when the time was right?”
Jean turned from the refrigerator, all ears. “I remember.”
“Well, sit down. I want to tell you about it because what happened then has to do with a decision I made today that will affect both of us.”
Jean sat obediently, her shrimp salad forgotten, her eyes fixed on Jessica’s face.
“Dad and I fell out over a boyfriend I had, a boy I loved very much. Dad didn’t like him because he was poor and came from a family Dad considered to be beneath us, lower class.”
Jean nodded silently. Whatever other illusions she had about their father, even she knew that he was an inveterate snob.
“Dad forbade me to see him,” Jessica went on, choosing her words carefully. She was determined to tell Jean the truth without alerting her to the true nature of her present relationship with Jack. “I disobeyed him because I thought he was being arbitrary and unfair, and because I couldn’t bear to be separated from the boy I loved. Dad found out about it, and we had a terrible confrontation. That’s why I left home when I did,” she concluded, biting back the rest of the story, which she didn’t want Jean to know.
“I guessed it might be something like that,” Jean said softly.
“The boy was Jack Chabrol,” Jessica added, waiting for Jean’s reaction.
“I thought there was something between you two the other night,” Jean said triumphantly, her eyes widening.
“Yes, and now he’s asked me to marry him,” Jessica concluded, getting it over with in a rush.
Jean was dumbfounded for a moment, then sprang out of her seat and embraced Jessica, almost knocking her out of her chair.
“Oh, my God, that’s so romantic I could just die,” Jean bubbled. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been separated all this time, and then when he saw you again he up and proposed, just like that?”
“Well, not just like that,” Jessica replied, mentally begging forgiveness for the rosy picture she was painting for her sister. “We had to straighten some things out first, but he asked me this morning, and I accepted. I wanted to tell you because I’m going to move into his apartment while we have this house repaired, and you’ll need someplace to stay.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Jean said airily, waving her hand dismissively, carried away by the s
torybook quality of it all. “I can stay at Claire’s house. They have seven kids. They’ll never even notice I’m there.”
“Are you sure?” Jessica asked worriedly. “I think I’d better call Mrs. Fairley and ask her. You really shouldn’t stay here, because they’ll be repairing the roof and the plumbing and the foundation, things like that, and the heat will be off and the hot water...”
“I told you to forget it,” Jean insisted, hugging Jessica again. “You can call Claire’s mother if you want, but she won’t care.” She began dancing around the kitchen, humming under her breath. “We’ll have to line up the church, and I want a bridesmaid’s gown with one of those lace bibs, you know, and a bouquet of orchids and baby’s breath. And a picture hat, like from the twenties, with a satin ribbon down the back.”
“Jean, hold it. I hate to spoil your plans, but we’re getting married at the registry office next week.”
Jeans face fell. “Not in church, with a white gown?”
Jessica shook her head. “I’m sorry, puss, but with Dad’s illness we thought it would be best to play it down,” she said, glad she had an excuse that Jean could accept.
“Oh, yeah, you’re right.” Jean sighed. “I guess I forgot.”
“But you can stand up for me,” Jessica added.
Jean made a sour face. “I’m not old enough to be a legal witness.”
“Then I guess Maddy will have to do it. But you can wear a pretty dress and carry my flowers, I promise.”
Jean brightened at the prospect. “I saw the one I want in Carter’s last week. It’s a heavenly blue organza with a scoop neck.” Then she stopped short. “But I suppose we can’t afford it.”
“We can afford whatever you want,” Jessica said quietly. “Jack is paying for everything.”
Jean grinned. “And he’s rich, right? Gorgeous too. Boy, are you ever lucky.”
“Very lucky,” Jessica repeated, without meeting her sister’s eyes.
“Does he have any brothers?” Jean asked suddenly, struck by a new thought.
“He has several,” Jessica answered dryly. “But they’re all up in Canada with his mother.”
“How old?”
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