The Millionaire Bachelor

by Susan Mallery

  “Is there a line?” the brunette asked.

  “No. I’m just hogging the mirror. The stalls are empty.” Cathy motioned in that direction and turned her attention back to the lipstick. The color was a brownish coral. At first she’d passed it over, thinking it was too muddy. But the women at the cosmetic counter had insisted she try it. Cathy was pleased. The lipstick had—

  “He’s as handsome as ever,” one of the women said, her voice slightly muffled by the distance and the closed door. “In that mask and cape, he looked just like a Broadway star in Phantom of the Opera.”

  Cathy looked over her shoulder. Both women were using the rest room. Apparently they’d forgotten they weren’t alone, or they didn’t care. Either way, as they were talking about Stone, she felt free to eavesdrop.

  “A tragic figure,” the other one said. “It’s a pity he withdrew so completely after his wife died.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Not what you’d expect. Not our type at all.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” the first woman continued. “Very plain. Apparently they’d been friends for years. Then one day he up and married her.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t. His parents were insisting he marry someone appropriate, and apparently he wouldn’t have any part of that. He said he would pick his own bride, then he married Evelyn.”

  “That’s right. Evelyn. I couldn’t remember her name. I met her a few times. She seemed very sweet, but not attractive at all. Still I never had much to do with her. I hadn’t known she wasn’t from a good family.”

  “That’s not the worst of it. She adored him. You could read it on her face. While he—”

  The sound of running water drowned out the woman’s words. Cathy nearly screamed in frustration. All she’d wanted was to listen. Was that too much to ask? But the sound of the water reminded her that she wouldn’t be alone much longer. She quickly pulled a couple of pins from her upswept hair and concentrated on the mirror as if her minor style disaster was all that was on her mind.

  The women walked out together. They hesitated when they saw her. She moved to the right to give them more room, then offered an absentminded smile.

  The blonde began to wash her hands. “He never loved her at all,” she said, her voice low. “She was nothing but a friend. He took her on as a project—you know, as a way to help her better herself. Of course, he knew she loved him, but that only made him pity her.”

  Cathy nearly stabbed herself with the hairpin. She didn’t know what to think. The woman couldn’t be telling the truth. Of course Stone loved Evelyn. He’d been in mourning for her for years.

  The brunette voiced her opinion. “Then why has he withdrawn from everyone? This is the first party he’s held in years. And no one has seen him anywhere since the accident.”

  “That’s not about her. It’s about the scars. Remember, he was hurt in the accident. How like a man to hide away, when women find that sort of thing very sexy. Of course, if a woman has so much as a pimple on her face, men go screaming in the other direction.”

  The two women laughed and left the rest room. Cathy stared after them, not sure what she was supposed to think. They couldn’t be talking about Stone, but of course they had been. Yet everything had been wrong. He loved Evelyn. She’d been his whole world. He’d as much as told her that himself. It had to be true. The alternative was too unthinkable.

  She finished fixing her hair, then sank into the upholstered chair in front of the mirror. Her head was spinning. Was any of it true? Could it be? Had he really not loved Evelyn?

  A project, the blonde had said. Someone he could feel sorry for. Someone he could fix.

  Her blood ran cold. She told herself that none of it was true, that even if it was, she wasn’t Evelyn. But the parallels were too clear, she thought unhappily. She, too, had been plain. She was poor and alone in the world except for him and what he offered her. Worse, she’d fallen in love with him.

  “Please God, it can’t be like that,” she whispered.

  A group of women entered the rest room. They looked at her oddly. She rose to her feet and took a deep breath. She had to get out of here. Maybe she could make her escape and walk around the grounds until her head cleared and she could think again. She felt as if her whole world had suddenly shifted and she didn’t know how to keep her balance. Anything but pity, she thought fiercely. She could stand anything but that.

  She stepped out into the foyer, then walked toward the doors. Strains of music drifted out from the tent. She was about to duck around it when she heard someone call her name.

  The man approaching her didn’t make her heart beat faster. All that happened was that she felt even more frantic about being on her own. Unfortunately Eric, one of the men from Stone’s office, couldn’t read her mind. He stopped in front of her and smiled. “They’re playing a waltz, Cathy. May I have this dance?”

  Before she could think of a polite way to refuse, she sensed more than heard Stone approach. He took her hand in his. “I’m afraid the lady has already promised this dance to me,” he said, and led her off.

  Cathy gave Eric an apologetic smile.

  “I’ve been watching for you,” Stone said as they entered the tent. “I was afraid you weren’t feeling well.”

  “I’m fine. I had a bit of trouble with my hair.”

  “It and you look very beautiful tonight,” he murmured as he took her in his arms.

  The music was lovely, a steady three-three beat that allowed her to follow him around the tent. There were more dancers now. Cathy stared at the costumes, tried to absorb the spectacular scene, anything to avoid thinking about what she’d just learned. There was no point in trying to talk to Stone now. Later, when they were alone, she would seek the truth.

  But even the pleasure of being in his arms wasn’t enough to keep her mind from racing. She didn’t know what to think. How much of it was true? What if it was all true? Then she was just another project to him. She wasn’t anyone special at all. She’d never thought he would love her but she had hoped that he would care…at least a little.

  She reminded herself that they were lovers. He wanted her in his bed, if nowhere else in his life. He couldn’t fake that kind of passion. Was it enough? She didn’t have an answer, but as her body grew cold, despite his closeness and heat, she had a bad feeling that it was going to have to be. Just like for Evelyn, her story wasn’t going to have a happy ending, either.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stone watched Cathy remove the pins from her hair. She’d already hung up her dress and taken off her makeup. She wore a short peach-colored robe with a matching nightie underneath.

  He stretched out under the sheets and waited for her impatiently. While he enjoyed her bedtime rituals, tonight he was already aroused and ready for her. He wanted her in his bed, his arms around her, her body pressing against his. He wanted to kiss her and taste her. He wanted to reach between her thighs and find her already wet for him. Then he wanted to plunge inside of her and take them both to fantastic release.

  “Thinking about it doesn’t make the wait any easier,” he mumbled to himself.

  Cathy glanced up and looked at him. “What was that, Stone?” she asked. She finished pulling out the pins, then reached for her brush.

  “Nothing. I was talking to myself.”

  “Oh.”

  She returned her attention to the mirror. He frowned. There was something different about her tonight. Instead of joking, she was quiet.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  She put down her brush, turned out the lights on the vanity, then crossed to the large bed. But instead of joining him under the covers, she settled on top of the blanket and pulled her knees to her chest.

  “I heard people talking at the party tonight,” she said.

  So that explained it. “I’m not surprised. A lot of them haven’t seen me in years. A few probably thought I was dead.”

/>   That earned him a quick smile. “I’m confident they were pleased to see that you weren’t.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that. My competitors would like nothing more.” He stuffed a second pillow behind his head. “Tell me what bothered you.”

  Cathy drew in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t say bothered, exactly. It’s just—” She shrugged. “I know it’s none of my business.”

  “I don’t have very many secrets.”

  “I heard two women talking about Evelyn,” she said. “One of them knew her, and the other had only met her a couple of times. They said you weren’t in mourning for her because you’d never loved her.”

  Now it was Stone’s turn to hesitate. He shouldn’t be surprised that people were talking. After all, he was prime fodder for the gossip mill. He had been for years. His time in solitude would have only made him more interesting…at least to some people.

  In the back of his mind, he’d always known the truth was going to come out. It had to at some point. Cathy was too much a part of his world to be kept in the dark, he decided. As long as he didn’t tell her everything.

  “I guess it’s time to come clean,” he said lightly. “It’s a long story, so you might want to get comfortable.”

  He patted the pillow next to him, but she shook her head. “I’m fine here.”

  She was sitting on the bed, but he felt as if she were a million miles away. He realized he would have been more comfortable telling her this while she was in his arms. At least then he wouldn’t have to depend just on facial expressions. He could read her thoughts in the tension in her body and the way she pulled back or hugged him close. This way she could keep her thoughts to herself. Which was probably what she wanted. Well, there was nothing he could do about it.

  “You know that Evelyn and I were friends,” he began. “After college I went to work in the family business. Evelyn was staying in school to get her MBA. My parents realized they had a son in his midtwenties and they decided it was time for me to get married. They threw a series of parties and invited all the young women they considered eligible. I knew that I was expected to choose one of them.”

  He thought back to those days. It had been summer, he recalled. Because Evelyn had been around a lot. His parents hadn’t wanted to include her but they knew better than to exclude his best friend.

  “I didn’t think it would be that big a deal,” he admitted. “I had never been in love, but I’d always had plenty of girlfriends. I thought this would be more of the same. But marriage is a serious business. Somewhere along the way I decided they weren’t going to make me choose someone just because of who her parents were and how much money she would bring to our family. Tensions got very high between myself and my parents.”

  He remembered the fights. His mother’s pleas, his father’s cold anger. The older man had taken him aside and informed him that every Ward for generations had been marrying for the good of the family. It was the first time he’d realized that his parents hadn’t been a love match.

  “I wanted more,” he said simply. “At least that’s how it started out. Then I got stubborn and decided that I wasn’t going to pick someone they approved of. One afternoon I was complaining to Evelyn about the situation. I told her all the qualities I wanted in a wife. Someone bright, easy to talk to, with a great sense of humor. I remember we were sitting on the beach. I’d escaped for the afternoon. She looked up, smiled and said, ‘Someone like me.’ I knew then she was right.”

  “So you proposed,” Cathy said.

  “Yes. And she accepted.” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. In a way I thought we were just joking. But when she started talking, I realized she was serious and she thought I was, as well.”

  The past returned, as it had many times before. “She said we would be good together, and I knew she was right. We’d always gotten along well. We liked the same things, had the same dreams. So I decided to go along with it, at least for a while. My parents were furious. They reacted in the worst way possible—they forbade me to marry her.”

  Cathy nodded. “That just made you more determined, right?”

  “I was twenty-six years old. Of course I dug my heels in.” The story was harder to tell than he’d realized. He knew he was to blame for what had happened between them back then. There had been so many signs.

  “We had a long engagement,” he said. “Over a year. I’m the one who pushed for that. I guess there was a part of me that knew what we were doing was wrong, but I didn’t know how to stop it or make it right.” He cleared his throat. “A couple of months into our engagement, I realized that Evelyn was in love with me. She had been for years. Marrying me was all she’d ever wanted.”

  “And you didn’t want to hurt her,” Cathy said softly.

  He nodded. “She was so incredibly important to me. I thought I could make it work. I loved her, but as a friend. At the time, I didn’t think there was a big difference. I was wrong.”

  There were many things he wouldn’t tell Cathy. Personal things that he and Evelyn had shared. He still remembered the first time they’d made love, but not the way most men remembered that event. Evelyn had been so eager. He’d known she was a virgin and he’d put it off as long as he could.

  Because he’d cared for her and they’d always had fun together, he hadn’t had any trouble getting hard. But there wasn’t any passion or fire between them. After a few times together, he found himself avoiding her physically. She’d been inexperienced enough that she hadn’t realized how little they were intimate compared with most other married couples. In the end, he hadn’t even been able to fake it.

  “The marriage was a disaster,” he said. “She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and I felt guilty all the time. I tried to make it up to her but I didn’t know how. All I could think of was that I was the only man she’d ever been with and I never really wanted her that way.”

  Cathy hugged her knees closer to her chest and reminded herself that she’d been the one to initiate this conversation. For reasons she couldn’t remember anymore, she’d wanted to know this information. Now she was sorry. The more he told her, the more real Evelyn became to her. Worse, the more similarities she saw in their situations.

  She loved Stone and she knew he didn’t love her back. She was from a different world; she’d been a virgin. The only differences she could see were that she and Stone weren’t married and that he wanted her in his bed…at least for now.

  Her body ached. It was as if every bone had been clubbed. It hurt to breathe, and her eyes felt gritty. His words cut her like daggers. She half expected to feel warm blood oozing down her arms and legs. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t really Evelyn. They were too similar by far.

  Unrequited love is one of the oldest stories around, she thought to herself. Lord, but she hated to be a cliché. Unfortunately she hadn’t had a choice in the matter. She couldn’t help loving Stone any more than she could help breathing. It was as involuntary.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You’ve gone pale.”

  He must never know, she told herself as she gave him a smile. “I was just thinking about what you said. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and Evelyn. She sounds like she was very nice.”

  “You would have liked her.”

  Cathy doubted that, despite the fact that the two women had something in common. And she didn’t think Evelyn would have liked her. They would have known each other to be the competition in a game they were both destined to lose.

  He pulled back the covers and patted the sheet. “Come to bed,” he said.

  She nodded, then stood up and slipped off her robe. Wearing only a short nightgown and panties, she joined him on the wide mattress. There was more to the story, she thought. But she wasn’t going to push to learn it all now.

  His arms closed around her and pulled her close. “Are you sorry I told you about Evelyn?” he asked.

  “Not at all.” Better to know, she thought.
/>   He brushed her bangs off her forehead, bent his head and kissed her. “I want you,” he murmured against her mouth.

  He did. She could feel his hardness pressing against her hip.

  Cathy kissed him back and willed herself to respond. But for the first time since they’d become lovers, she wasn’t instantly ready for him. When he reached between her legs, he gave a start of surprise. She could feel that she wasn’t ready yet. To divert any questions, she plunged her tongue into his mouth. He stroked her breasts, and in a few minutes she felt herself preparing for him.

  Later, when they’d both been lost in passion and had found their way back, she lay on her back in the dark. Stone slept next to her. Their hands were still entwined.

  She told herself that it didn’t matter. She wasn’t Evelyn, and this was a very different relationship. But the words offered no comfort. Mostly because they weren’t true. It did matter. There was no way for her to ignore the past, or the truth inherent in his story about his late wife. He hadn’t loved Evelyn, just as he didn’t love Cathy. Yet both women had loved him. In the end, that fact had destroyed Evelyn. What was it going to do to her?

  *

  Stone closed the file. “That’s enough for now.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Ula will be bringing lunch soon. She told me she’d made that mango-chicken salad you like so much.”

  Cathy gave him a quick smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “She’s very sweet, but I’m not hungry. Could you ask her to save it for me?”

  He frowned. “You aren’t eating lunch?”

  “Maybe later. I want to go for a run.” With that, she rose to her feet.

  The early-September day was warm, but there was a pleasant breeze blowing off the ocean. Cathy wore a short skirt and sleeveless blouse. Both showed off her figure to perfection, and he found himself wanting her. No matter how many times they made love, he was still hungry for her. But she walked into her office without turning back, and suddenly he wasn’t sure what she would say if he asked her to join him for a quick lunchtime tryst.