“Tricia!” he shouted as he walked through the open door of her apartment and kicked it shut.
Crouched on the floor taping a moving box, she startled.
“Sam, don’t say a word,” she said, rising to her feet. “It’s okay. I’m going home.”
“You’ve never lived in Paris.”
“I know, but home is where your family is.”
“I’m your family. I’m your husband.”
“That was just playacting.”
“No, it wasn’t. Whenever you say the words, those words, they come true. I love you,” he said, striding toward her.
She backed away, keeping the cardboard box between them.
“Sam, you’re just feeling sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for any of us, unless you get on that plane. I love you, Patricia. I just didn’t know it before.”
“Sam, I don’t believe you,” Patricia said. “I don’t think you’re lying to me, I just don’t think you know what your feelings are. You’re a gentleman who’s trying to do the right thing, saving me from the humiliation of having the biggest darned crush in all of Arizona. Well, I don’t need that protection. I have my feelings and I’m leaving with them, Sam. And you can tell the company whatever story you want. I didn’t tell Mildred anything when I resigned.”
“I don’t want to tell anybody anything! I want my wife!”
“I was never your wife. We never consummated our marriage.”
Sam sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair.
“When I left Barrington this morning, I wrote out a resignation letter and gave it to Mildred in an envelope that she’s going to give Rex if I don’t call her and tell her that we’re both staying,” Sam said.
“You don’t have to do that. I resigned.”
“If you won’t let me be your husband, I’m going to leave Phoenix. It’ll be your town. You don’t have to go anywhere. I’ll explain everything to Rex, about how it was my idea...”
“It wasn’t your idea.”
“It was, too. I’m the jerk.”
“You’re not a jerk. Everything you do you do because you’re an honorable man. An honorable, wonderful man who tries so hard. And I’m leaving because I’ve loved you—too much.”
“Patricia, you won’t stay?”
“so.”
“You don’t have to run to Paris. Both of us know how important it is to have a home, a real home, a permanent home. You’re happy at Barrington, happy with Phoenix. You stay. I’ll go.”
She softened.
“But your job is the most important thing to you.”
He shook his head.
“It’s you,” he said. “If I walk out of Phoenix, but I know you’re happy and that the damage I’ve done to you is diminished somehow, that’ll have to do.”
“You can’t give up your job,” Patricia said.
“Can and will. Because I love you.”
She swiped tears from her cheeks.
“You can’t love me,” she wailed.
“Why not? What’s so impossible about it?”
“I’m not pretty, I’m not stylish, I’m not sophisticated, I’m not...”
He had heard enough. He kicked aside the moving box and took her in his arms, steadying her shoulders as they convulsed with the force of her sobs.
“This is what I love,” he said, tousling her hair. “This is what I’ve always loved. Even if I didn’t have sense enough to know it”
She looked up at him, eyes glittering like emeralds. He kissed a tear that glistened on her lower lip. And then he kissed again, this time for real. This time swelling with the feelings he had too long denied.
“Patricia,” he said hoarsely. “Put your arms around me. It’s okay, baby, we’re married. Remember?”
She linked her fingers around the belt loops on the back of his jeans. Her smile was wide and Sam knew he could die happy with that smile as his last image. She blushed, making her freckles pop! with sun-touched color.
“You’re...you’re...you’re excited,” she said.
“Of course I am.”
She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.
“Do you think twenty-nine is too old to be a virgin?” she asked mischievously.
“Honey, I think twenty-nine is just right.”
Two hours later, Patricia bolted upright in bed.
“Sam, we have a problem,” she said.
He stretched lazily and Patricia resisted the urge to splay her fingers on his firm, hard chest
It would only get him going again, and while the prospect was delicious, it wouldn’t help matters any.
“If we have a problem, I’m too happy to care,” Sam said.
“No, darling, we have a real problem. Neither one of us has a job. I turned in my resignation. You told Mildred that you were resigning if you didn’t call back.”
He blinked twice.
“That’s a problem,” he agreed. “Because I was planning on buying you a new engagement ring.”
In four minutes flat, they walked out onto the front lawn. Okay, Sam’s shirt wasn’t buttoned. And he had never located his socks, but his shoes were on his feet, his jeans were zipped and that had to count for something.
Patricia’s mother stood leaning against the cab chewing a toothpick.
“I forgot all about you!” Patricia exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Forget it It’s the first unreliable thing you’ve done in your life. Shoulda started that when you were thirteen. Besides, I was having a good time,” Mrs. Peel said, taking a toothpick out of her mouth. “Did you know Igor here lived in Moscow when your father and I were posted there?”
“She good woman,” Igor said, sticking his head out of the driver’s-side window. “Good diplomat”
“We’ve been catching up on old times,” Mrs. Peel said. “And you look like you’re not coming to Paris.”
“We need to find out if we still have jobs here,” Sam said.
“Igor and I will put this stuff back in the apartment,” Mrs. Peel said, sighing. “And then I’m going to try to make my flight. Igor can drive fast. Be a good son-in-law or I’ll use my diplomatic connections to have you deported...to Texas.”
“I promise to be good,” Sam said.
After a flurry of hugs and kisses, Sam drove his new bride to the Barrington headquarters.
“Congratulations,” the receptionist greeted them. “I hear it was a beautiful wedding.”
“Thank you,” Patricia said, breaking into a run to catch up with Sam.
They took the elevator up to the top floor. Sam only faltered once, at the door to Rex’s office.
“If we don’t keep our jobs, we’ll manage,” he said. “Don’t look so down. Being unemployed would just mean that we’d have more time for making love.”
He kissed her for luck and Patricia resisted the urge to hold on tight.
“Good morning,” Rex said, looking up from his paperwork as they entered his office. “Don’t you two lovebirds look happy!”
“Rex, did you get any... paperwork from us this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Resignations?”
“Yes.”
“Are you...accepting them?” Patricia asked.
“I’m totally baffled by them. I thought you two were happy here.”
“We were. We are. But we’ve got a confession to make,” Sam said.
“Oh, really? Will it take long?”
“Probably.”
“Have a seat,” Rex said, and he pressed a button on his speaker phone. “Mildred, hold my calls. Sam and Patricia have come to talk to me. Now, children,” he said, directing his attention back to them, “what can I do for you?”
Sam held Patricia’s hand, soothing her trembling with a tight squeeze.
“Rex, we lied to you,” Sam said, certain that getting it out up front would be the most honorable thing to do. “We lied to you about being engaged.”
“You weren�
�t engaged?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re married now, so I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Rex said, brightening. “Does this mean you have come back to work?”
“You don’t understand. I lied to you. When you came to my office and told me you wanted to meet the woman I was going to marry, I wasn’t engaged.”
Rex drew his eyebrows together.
“You weren’t?”
“No, I had been engaged to a woman named Melissa Stanhope.”
“Of the silver mine Stanhopes?”
“Yes.”
“Thank goodness you came to your senses. I would have fired you just for staying with her. She’s a spoiled little number.”
“But Rex, I asked Patricia to pretend to be my fiancée for your party just so that you would think I was engaged.”
“We did it just to make sure that Sam’s job was secure,” Patricia added. “You had said that you would like the vice president in charge of personnel to have a rock-solid personal life.”
The door to the office opened.
“I brought their letters of resignation,” Mildred Van Hess said, approaching the desk. She held up a spaghettilike tangle of paper fresh from the shredder and dropped the pile in front of Rex.
“Oh, Mildred, I’m glad you took care of that,” Rex said. “Are you two kids taking that honeymoon or not?”
“But Rex, I lied to you!” Sam protested. “It was wrong of me.”
“Sam, are you married now?”
“Yes.”
“Then what do I care about how it all came about?”
“Because you wanted the vice president of personnel to be married, and so I did this just to make sure that I’d stay in my job.”
“I never wanted my vice president to be married,” Rex said.
“You didn’t?” Sam asked.
“You didn’t?” Patricia asked.
“I just wanted to see my friend Sam happy before I left.”
Sam blinked.
“Sam, you have a real good friend here,” Patricia said. “A real good friend.”
Sam looked at Patricia and then at Rex.
“If my words helped you find the love of your life, then I won’t apologize for giving you the idea that I’d only want you to continue in your capacity of vice president if you were married,” Rex said. “Patricia, remember, I told you I think that when you love someone, you should let them know. My mistake was that I didn’t know you two hadn’t let each other know.”
“Does that mean we still have our jobs?” Patricia asked.
“Of course, you silly,” Mildred said.
Sam squeezed Patricia’s hand.
“I guess I needed to have some help at seeing you,” he said, “even when you were right in front of me all along.”
As he kissed her, Rex put his chin in his hand and sighed.
“My fondest retirement wish comes true. Sam is happy at last,” he said, and then looked up at Mildred. “Ain’t love grand?”
Mildred did a double take.
“Yes, Rex, it sure is.”
Patricia shared a quiet, special glance with Sam. He looked at her, really looked at her—the way she’d always hoped, loving her and seeing all the love she had for him.
Women did it all the time. Asking out the man of their dreams. Taking chances. Falling in love. But Patricia had done it only once. Once in a lifetime.
With Sam, that’s all she needed.
Don’t miss Sophia’s story,
I MARRIED THE BOSS!,
by Laura Anthony,
next month’s
LOVING THE BOSS title,
available only in
Silhouette Romance.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5946-1
THE MARRIAGE MERGER
Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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The Marriage Merger Page 13