by Jana Mercy
“What did you say?” Fire roared in his ears. He hadn’t heard her right. He shook the buzz from his head. She’d told him she didn’t expect anything beyond sex. He didn’t have anything else to give.
A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips. “I want to marry you, Chase.”
“You mean I heard you right?” His mouth dropped. He’d known. Known Adrienne wasn’t a good time girl. And he’d had to have her all the same.
Her expression became a bit leery. “Yes.”
“No.” The sole word immediately popped out of his mouth. “I won’t ever get married.”
Her face twisted with pain. “I have to get married.”
She had to get married? She’d been a virgin only last week. What the hell happened in Chicago? Then another throat strangling thought tethered him.
“Are you pregnant?”
Surprised wide eyes gave him the only answer he needed, but her head’s shake of denial was welcomed all the same. Panic still held him in a death lock. Marriage. She wanted marriage.
“I was afraid this would happen. I knew you weren’t my type of woman. That you’d want more, that you’d want a damn ring if I took you.” He jerked away, sitting up on the side of the bed. Her hurt expression cut him to the quick. He wanted to hold her, love her, but he couldn’t. He’d only hurt her more if he tried. “I’m sorry if I gave the impression I’d be willing to take our relationship further. This is all I want. All I’ll ever want. For however long it lasts. Take it or leave it, but it’s all I have.”
The bed creaked as she sat up behind him. Her hand reached out to touch his shoulder. He pulled away. Her touch messed with his mind. He needed every ounce of reason. She enticed too much. Hell, she made him want to risk everything and beg her to spend the rest of her life in his arms. But he couldn’t risk destroying her the way his mother’s life was ruined.
He cared about Adrienne too much to ever betray her as her father had betrayed his mother.
“You don’t understand,” she began, but he cut her off. It would be too easy to let the warm feelings she stirred within him bury the fear. He wouldn’t put her future happiness in jeopardy that way. He wasn’t a happily ever after kind of man.
“There will be no wedding in my future. Not ever.” He stood from the bed. Better to remove himself from temptation before he forgot all his good intentions and did everything within his power to erase the look of disillusion from her eyes--even if it meant promising her the world. Better to focus on those long nights he’d listened to his mother’s sobs.
Shattered by his words and strained expression, Adrienne failed to tell the reason for her proposal. Not once as she watched Chase dress did she mention Morrigan’s or her father’s trust. Instead, she used every bit of her wavering strength to keep her unshed tears at bay.
When he was fully clothed, he faced her.
“Hurting you is the last thing I ever want to do.” He raked his finger through his already ruffled hair, swallowed, then met her gaze with cold eyes. “No rush, but I’d like you to be gone when I get back.”
He turned and disappeared before she could utter a single word.
Obviously, she meant nothing to him. His touches and pleasure had given her hope, but then what did she know about such things?
She’d believed he cared, possibly returned her love. Maybe every man reacted to a woman the way Chase reacted to her.
Maybe he reacted to every woman the way he had with her.
The tears spilt.
She buried her face in his pillow. The scent of him mocking her, making sobs rack her body. When the tears stopped, she dressed, went to her suitcase, still sitting on the inside of the apartment door.
Averting her eyes away from the section of wall where Chase had taken her, she withdrew a business card from the side pocket. She stared at the scrawled cell phone number on the back.
With a weary heart, she walked over to Chase’s phone, picked up the handheld unit and dialed the number.
“Hillington,” the male voice answered.
“He said no.” She kept her voice level.
No more tears for what could have been. She’d face her future with strength and pride. After all, she was Adrianna Morrigan, daughter of the great Ted Morrigan. She’d tried and failed to grab hold of what she wanted.
Now, she’d do the right thing.
She took a deep breath. “I’ll marry you as soon as it can be arranged. Can you be here tomorrow?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chase had never considered himself a coward, but no other label suited him better on Tuesday morning. He’d hidden in his office all morning for fear of bumping into Adrienne.
Had she even come to work?
It had been all he could do to keep from calling to make sure she’d made it home okay last night. He hadn’t returned to his apartment until late. He’d wanted to be sure she’d left.
Yellow-bellied, chicken-feathered, low-life crawling snake. That’s what he was.
She’d caught him off guard with her proposal. What had happened to ‘not proposing’ to him?
Had she mistaken their weekend together as being more than lust?
Hell, how could he hold that against her? With her inexperience, surely it was only natural for her to mistake such phenomenal sex for something more? Even he’d questioned deep-rooted beliefs.
He shouldn’t have high-tailed it out of his apartment. But he’d felt trapped. Like a rat in a cage, he’d had to escape.
Not just from shock at her question, but from shock at the longing within him to say yes. To take that chance. With her.
But it wasn’t just him involved. If he married her and couldn’t be faithful, Adrienne would be the one hurt most. Never did he want to cause her pain.
Sure he’d hurt her feelings by his stunned reaction, but much better that than a husband’s betrayal. He wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge he’d cheated on a woman he’d committed to, that he’d been disloyal.
What was a man to do? He wanted her. Despite every desire not to, he cared about her. Cared enough not to risk betraying her. Cared too damn much.
He had to make her understand. Understand why marriage wouldn’t work between them. But hell if he’d give her up. He wasn’t that strong. He’d have to make her forget this crazy marriage notion.
Adrienne sat at her desk, antsy about the meeting between the two men in George’s office. Maybe she should have stayed in the meeting. But her head had been throbbing and she’d finished her part. Mel had been confronted this morning by her, Roger, and Drew. He’d been fired for conspiring with Drew to sell the formula of Weston’s new cancer drug to a competitor. Both men would have pocketed millions from the deal had it gone through. The board had been notified during her trip to Chicago that she intended to marry. Roger had made the motion to appoint her in her father’s spot, and George had seconded the motion via satellite.
Everything was in motion. George and Roger could finalize the details without her.
“Adrienne?”
She looked up totally surprised to see Chase standing in her office doorway. Never in a million years had she expected him to seek her out. Not today. Not in the next millennium.
“Can I come in?” He seemed unsure of whether or not she’d welcome him.
Maybe she should throw his butt out, instead she nodded. How could she refuse when she didn’t know if this might be the last time she’d see him? At least, as a single woman.
Denial ran through her. She sighed. She’d accepted her fate. Time had passed for denying the reality of her legacy as Ted Morrigan’s daughter.
“We need to talk about last night.” He stood next to an almost bare bookshelf along one wall.
“It’s okay, Chase.” Her gaze zeroed in on his cautious one. “I understand marriage isn’t your thing.” She shrugged with a brief smile she didn’t really feel. “Can’t blame a girl for asking her first choice.”
Chase looked at her in skeptical confusion
. “First choice?”
“Yes, I,” she began but was interrupted by George Weston’s entrance into her office. A tall, smiling blond man followed closely behind.
Adrienne’s eyes went straight past George to the tall man she’d learned more about in the past twenty-four hours than she had the entire time she’d known him.
He grinned from ear-to-ear. Obviously, the board went for the proposal that she and Roger had come up with during the long hours they’d talked and planned during the night. After she’d left Chase’s by taxi, Roger had called her at home to discuss their plans for their future.
Chase’s eyes narrowed as he turned to see who she looked at.
Roger looked at Chase for the first time. Adrienne gulped. Never would she have imagined Chase and Roger both standing at her desk this morning. Not even five minutes ago. The man she loved and the man she’d marry to save her father’s company.
Roger gave Chase a curious look that told Adrienne he knew exactly who Chase was. The man she’d proposed to. The man she’d wanted to marry instead of him. Not that Roger had been opposed to the idea. He’d been all for her marrying someone else and partnering with him to save Morrigans if that’s what she preferred. Roger’s only concern had been Morrigans.
Adrienne looked from one man to the other. Chase looked like a bulldog ready to attack at any moment, and Roger looked equally ready to tangle if Chase made a false move.
“Hillington?” Chase asked, looking back and forth between George, Roger, and Adrienne. “What the hell are you doing here?” Chase didn’t stick out his hand or greet Roger in any way.
“Here on personal business. Adrianna, are you ready to go to lunch?” Roger asked. He was playing devil’s advocate. She could see it in his mischievous eyes.
“You two know each other?” Chase’s brows drew together in a frown as he glared at Adrienne.
“Know each other?” Roger gave a quick chuckle. “Adrianna and I are—“
“Both from Chicago,” she interrupted, wishing he hadn’t used her real name. She didn’t want Roger to announce their engagement. She preferred to tell Chase in private that she’d be a married woman before the end of the week.
Roger gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. He walked over and took her hand in his. “We go way back.”
“Really?” Adrienne would swear she could hear Chase’s teeth grind following his one word question.
“I—“ Adrienne started, then, stopped as Roger said the words she didn’t want revealed to Chase with an audience.
“She and I are engaged.” Roger’s gaze dropped to her hand in his. Her left hand.
Chase’s gaze followed.
A huge diamond sparkled, mocking him ‘You had your chance and blew it’. But he hadn’t been willing to risk marriage, had he?
“When the hell did that happen?”
Roger bared his teeth in the smile of a business shark.
“Adrienne and I have been engaged for quite some time. Unfortunately because of a misunderstanding, she left Chicago shortly after her father’s death.” Roger shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe we needed some time apart to mature. Regardless, our wedding will take place this week.”
“This week?” Chase’s voice squeaked. Damn, he hadn’t even known he could hit that high of a pitch. Hadn’t known his insides could hurt so much yet still live.
“Oh, yes.” Roger flashed another smile, then pulled Adrienne’s bejeweled hand to his heart in a gesture of affection. “I lost her recently to some man she fancied herself in love with, but seems the fool didn’t realize what he had. His loss is my gain. I won’t take a chance on losing her again.” Roger’s gaze pinned Chase. “If she was your woman, would you?”
Damn, the man was everything the business rumor mill said, with the exception that Roger Hillington was known for his icy control. The man was pawing Adrienne like a randy seventeen year old.
Obviously, Adrienne affected the man’s control the same way she affected his. Sent it straight to hell.
Chase’s gaze fell to Adrienne’s. She stared at Roger with wide-eyes. Filled with love? He couldn’t tell. He willed her to look at him, and that simple, she did.
What he saw in her gaze stopped his heart.
She didn’t love this blond business tycoon. She couldn’t. Love did shine in her eyes. The same as it had all weekend aboard Sinbad and last night.
Love for him.
His breath swooshed from his chest.
“I’ve been known to do some damn fool things in my life,” Chase muttered, willing her to read his thoughts, his emotions, as she’d seemed to do moments before. “But, I’m a quick learner and don’t make the same mistake twice.”
George Weston cleared his throat when the room fell silent and stayed that way for longer than propriety called for.
However, Chase didn’t look away from Adrienne. Hope had flickered in her gaze. Hope mingled with love.
Without a doubt, Chase knew he would do whatever it took to keep her from marrying someone else, to keep her from ever looking at another man the way she looked at him.
Even if it meant marriage.
Adrienne was worth any risk.
He’d take any risk, face any danger to be with her.
Without wavering his gaze, he spoke. “George, maybe you could show Mr. Hillington around Westons. I imagine he wants to see more of one of Morrigans major holdings.”
The man had the gall to chuckle. He knew exactly what Chase was doing. How was he going to get rid of him and George when his motives were as transparent as glass?
Then Roger Hillington surprised him.
“Yes, George. Show me how you run this grand business from the bottom floor.” The man leaned down and kissed Adrienne on the neck, right below her ear, whispering something, then raised, saying more loudly, “I’ll see you later, darling.”
With those words, the confident, and very foolish to leave his fiancée alone with a tomcat like Chase, man left the room.
“Don’t blow it twice, son.” George Weston gave Chase a pointed look, then followed the younger man’s exit. George closed the office door soundly behind him.
Adrienne’s gaze lowered. “I’m sorry you had to find out about Roger that way.”
“You’ve been engaged the entire time I’ve known you?” He hadn’t meant to ask that. At least, not until he’d kissed her senseless, but she’d thwarted that plan with her quick apology.
“No,” she answered immediately. “Not really.”
He arched his eyebrow in question.
“I tried to give Roger his ring back the night I left Chicago. He refused to take it. I haven’t worn it since.” She glanced down at the ring on her hand. “Not until he put it back on me before his meeting with George this morning.”
“And just how is it that you know Roger Hillington?”
“He runs my family’s business.”
Her words didn’t register at first.
“Morrigans?”
She nodded.
Oh God. She wasn’t, she couldn’t be, she was.
Adrienne was Ted Morrigan’s daughter.
She was Adrianna Morrigan.
Oh damn.
“My name is Adrianna Morrigan. Until I came to work here, I’d never worked a day in my life. After my father’s death, my stepfather,” she paused. “Bothered me.”
Chase’s gut twisted in hate for the man he already didn’t like. He might kill Drew Steinberg before the day ended.
“I went to Roger, hoping he’d play knight in shining armor only to be disappointed by his lack of response. He was so caught up in trying to figure out a way to save Morrigan’s that what I said barely even registered. I told him I wouldn’t marry him, and made the decision I was going to stop Drew myself. I knew Westons played a crucial role in whatever Drew had planned, so I came to Boston.” Adrienne winced. “I convinced Sheila to arrange those horrid interviewees and myself. I knew I could do the job and you desperately needed an immune assistant.
Only problem, I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you, Chase. But I didn’t stand a chance under constant exposure to you.”
She twisted the ring on her finger as she told him about her father’s will and the trust he’d set up. “So you see, I have to convince the board to appoint me to fill my father’s shoes, marry, or allow Drew to take over my father’s company. I won’t ever allow that to happen.”
Chase swallowed the bitter fact that everything she’d told him during her interview had been a lie. He’d meant to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless after the other two men had left the room. He should be angry. He should feel different about her. He didn’t feel anything but sheer joy at her comment about falling in love with him. “Anything else you need to tell me, Adrienne? Any more secrets?”