Will sat at his desk in his office and leaned back in his chair. Tired and irritable after a difficult night, he’d given up on trying to sleep and had come into the office early. A lack of sleep was one thing. Something he was used to on occasion and something that he usually took in stride. The cause of last night’s lack of sleep was quite another.
Margaret Cole had gotten to him.
Somehow she’d inveigled her way under his thick skin and settled like a burr. Now that he’d had her, he wanted more of her. He’d never felt a need such as that which now consumed him. He tried to rationalize it—to put it down to the exceptionally long period of time he’d waited from their first meeting back in February, to actually being able to be with her. Anticipation had a way of sweetening things, of increasing the expectations and pleasures to be discovered.
Yet, now that he’d been intimate with Margaret, rather than be assuaged, the anticipation had only built to greater heights.
Their intense physical connection had come as quite a surprise to him. A welcome one, nonetheless. There was no denying they lit up the sheets together. Margaret was an unexpectedly passionate and generous lover. Her lush feminine curves drove him crazy—whether she was clothed, or not.
Completely without guile or artifice, she’d simply been herself. That was a refreshing breath of air in a life that had become increasingly superficial in recent years. Or at least that was how he’d aimed to keep his relationships to the fairer sex. Light and commitment-free.
Which brought him to the question—could anyone really be that giving without an ulterior motive? His dealings with people in recent years would suggest not. Not even his father was above a bit of manipulation to get what he wanted. So where did that leave Will with Margaret?
He’d coerced her into their arrangement, a fact that hadn’t bothered him in the least when he’d done it. But now, he wanted her to be with him because she wanted to be there. Not out of any misplaced loyalty to her younger sibling. Was she the kind of woman who would go so far as to sleep with a man to keep her brother out of jail? He’d told her she had to be convincing in her role as his fiancée. Did that extend to convincing him, too? If so, she was a damn good actress.
Any other man would probably tell him to simply accept his good fortune. Not only did he have someone prepared to act as his fiancée—without the usual pressure to make the situation genuine, to soothe his parents’ ruffled feathers—at the same time she was willingly warming his sheets.
He was getting exactly what he wanted—more, even—and yet he still wasn’t satisfied. Deep inside of him guilt festered over having forced Margaret’s hand in this. Would she have come to him without the coercion of protecting Jason? He’d never know.
It was beginning to give him a headache. No matter which way he looked at things, he kept coming back to the same point. She was fiercely loyal. A quality he held in the highest respect. Yet he’d used that loyalty against her and that knowledge left a bitter taste in his mouth.
William sighed deeply and shook his head. He knew, deep down, that he wasn’t man enough to willingly let Margaret go. Now that he’d had a taste of her, there was no way he’d be so stupid as to give all that up. And, he reconciled himself, it wasn’t as if she was getting nothing from their liaison. She carried herself with a newfound confidence since her makeover. He’d given her that. He’d allowed her to discover the real woman she was capable of being.
But no matter how much he tried to convince himself that the end justified the means, his attempts lay shallow on his conscience.
His cell phone chirped discreetly in his pocket and he reached for it, sliding it open without checking the caller ID—a fact he regretted the minute he heard his mother’s voice on the other end.
“William? Would you care to explain how you came to be engaged and yet you neglected to tell your family of this event?”
“Mum, great to hear from you. How’s Dad doing, and you, of course?”
“Don’t think you can hedge with me, young man.”
“I haven’t been a young man for some years now.” William smiled at his mother’s tone. No matter how old he was, she still spoke to him as if he’d just come in from the garden with muddied clothes and all manner of scrapes and bumps on his body. “And my engagement is still new to me, by the way. I haven’t had a chance to share the news with you before now. How did you hear about it, anyway?”
His mother mentioned the name of one of the tabloids she perused over her morning coffee each day. The news painted a grim smile on his face. So, the reporter who’d caught them coming out of the theater on Friday evening had followed them to the restaurant and seen Will give Margaret her ring. His story had obviously sold to a syndicated outlet. The news would be nationwide by now. It was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? And yet, there was a side of him that wished he could have kept it quiet just a little longer. Spared Margaret some of the notoriety that would be associated with their “engagement.”
“Wow, that didn’t take long.”
“No matter how long it took, William, your father and I are disappointed you didn’t see fit to include us in your news. I would have thought that given the circumstances we would have been the first to know.”
Olivia Tanner’s displeasure radiated through the phone lines from her New York brownstone, making William feel as if he was about eight years old all over again. Except her underlying threat now was far, far more powerful than any threat of withdrawal of privileges when he was a child.
“If the rug hadn’t been pulled out from under me by the tabloid, you would have been receiving my call in the next few hours,” he said smoothly. “Would it help any if I bring Margaret home to meet you and Dad at the end of this week?”
“This week? You can come that soon? Of course we’d love to meet her.”
The sudden change in his mother’s tone of voice should have made him laugh out loud, but he knew that her concern came from her deep-seated love for all her children.
“Sure, I have some business that’s come up in New Jersey and I need to make the trip anyway. There’s no reason why Margaret can’t accompany me. Why don’t you organize one of your famous dinners for Saturday night and invite the whole family over?”
“I hope everyone will be free at such short notice,” she mused out loud. “Never mind, I’ll make sure it happens. Pre-dinner drinks at seven, then.”
“Sounds good to me,” Will agreed.
“Will you be staying in your apartment or would you like me to make up the guest room at home?”
Will’s lips curled in a sardonic smile. Oh, he’d give his mother points for trying but she wasn’t going to get her claws into Margaret that easily.
“I thought we’d stay in a hotel this time around. It’s only a short visit. Hardly worth putting anyone out over it.”
Despite the fact the concierge of his apartment building would happily see to stocking his refrigerator for a quick weekend visit home, Will didn’t like the idea of taking Margaret there to stay. He’d had other women there and, for some reason, the very thought of associating Margaret with those others sat uncomfortably with him.
“So what’s she like, this Margaret? I have to say I’m surprised at the speed with which you two have become engaged. I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”
Will chose his words carefully. “She’s not like anyone I’ve ever dated before, that’s for certain.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Those other girls were very shallow, Will. It was clear to both your father and me that you had no intention of settling down with any one of them. What drew you to this girl?”
“I couldn’t help myself.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I know it sounds clichéd, but I saw her across a crowded room and I just…”
Will’s voice trailed off as he recalled what it had been like to see Margaret for the very first time. Even with her upper face masked, she’d caught his eye with her poise and the hints of beauty he saw beneath the costume she�
�d worn. It hit him again, square in the solar plexus—that sense of shock and yearning. The need to take, to possess. That need hadn’t lessened. If anything, it had only grown stronger.
His mother’s voice had softened considerably when she spoke again. “I can’t wait to meet her, Will. She looks lovely in the picture in the paper.”
“You’ll like her even more in person.”
“Well, you should let me go so I can start organizing things for Saturday. You haven’t left me much time.”
“Mum,” he warned. “Just family for Saturday night. I don’t want you to scare her off.”
“Oh, of course I won’t do any such thing. How could you even suggest it?”
He heard the humor behind Olivia Tanner’s words and felt his lips tug into an answering smile.
“Gee, I really don’t know. Maybe past experience?”
“Really, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now look at the time, I must go. Take care, Will. I love you, son.”
“Love you, too, Mum. See you Saturday.”
He disconnected the call with a wistful smile on his face. They really only wanted the best for him, he knew that. But it was endlessly frustrating to be continually treated like an infant. And therein lay the crux of most of his conflict with his parents. Being their youngest child, he supposed they’d found it harder to let go of him than his older brothers. A fact which had only made him rebel harder and push more firmly to be independent from a very young age. Even when his father had been offered a position with one of New York’s leading financial institutions, and the family had transferred to the United States from their home in New Zealand, Will had insisted on remaining behind to finish his degree in accounting and finance at the University of Auckland.
As much as he loved his family, that time alone, without their well-meaning interference, had been a Godsend for him. And it had helped him make decisions about himself and the kind of future he wanted—one not unduly influenced by his parents’ dreams for him or his older brothers’ accomplishments. Decisions that had led him to work for Rafe Cameron and had ultimately led him here.
He was happy with his life, satisfied with where he’d worked his way. The work here in Vista del Mar, checking into the financial complexities of Rafe’s latest acquisition, was the kind of challenge he loved to get his teeth into. And as for Margaret Cole, well, she was an enjoyable segue into the next stage of his life. A transitional relationship that was bringing him surprising delight and would ultimately bring him exactly what he wanted from his father.
“We’re going to New York?” Margaret asked, surprise pitching her voice high.
“Yes, is that a problem?”
“To meet your family?” She paled and plunked herself down hard in the seat opposite Will’s desk.
“It was always in the cards that they’d want to meet you when our relationship went into the public domain.”
Margaret swallowed against the lump of fear in her throat. It was one thing pretending their engagement was real to her work colleagues, friends and Jason, but quite another to do so in front of his parents.
“But they know you. Surely they’ll see right through us. What if I mess up?”
“Not if you keep on doing the stellar job you’ve been doing.”
Will rose from his chair and walked around his desk. He bent and tipped Margaret’s face up to his, giving her a short hard kiss that sent her scrambled senses totally haywire.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Just be you.”
Just be you, he said. But the person Will Tanner knew was not the person she’d been for so very long. The fight with Jason last night had been proof of that.
“Margaret?”
She blinked and realized he’d been talking to her. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“You can do this, you know. All you have to do is smile, be friendly and convince my parents you love me.”
Margaret’s stomach clenched into a painfully tight knot of tension. Convince his parents she loved him? After last night’s torturous admission to herself that she was totally and utterly in love with him she’d hoped that she could somehow keep that monumental truth to herself. It would go at least some way toward protecting her when he walked away and returned to his life in New York and she was left here to pick up the pieces of her own.
Pretending she loved him would be the least of her worries this weekend. Of a far more pressing concern was what she’d do if he realized the truth of her emotional state.
Firming her resolve, Margaret gave a short nod.
“Of course I can do this. After all, you’re paying me well to do the job you hired me to do. You can count on me.”
The words were like ashes in her mouth but they gave her strength at the same time.
“They’re not ogres, you know, my parents,” Will said with a wry look on his face. “There’s no need to be frightened. I will be with you.”
“I know. It just kind of threw me. We’ve been so busy here that I hadn’t stopped to think about meeting your family, especially with them all the way in New York.”
“The opportunity presented itself. I thought it better to make the most of it. Have you been to New York before?”
“Never. Seriously, I haven’t been anywhere farther than Anaheim when I was a kid to visit Disneyland.”
Fleetingly, Margaret thought of the map she’d destroyed in her bedroom last night. New York had been one of her markers. One of the first she’d carefully placed when travel had been one of her big dreams. Well, if she had nothing else after all this, she’d at least have this journey to look back on.
“We’ll have to make it worthwhile for you, then,” Will said decisively. “I’ll show you around.”
“I’d like that,” she said with a smile, making a solid decision to grasp every minute of the unexpected bonus of the trip to New York.
The next couple of days at work went quickly for Margaret. Will spent a great deal of time in meetings with Rafe Cameron—meetings that extended into the evenings, leaving her to her own devices. She was puzzled when those meetings didn’t generate a great deal of work coming back her way. She would have thought that she’d be hard at work typing up summaries, projections and reports as a result, but maybe this was a temporary lull. She took advantage of the respite to ensure all her work was completely up-to-date so she could head away knowing she was coming back to a clear desk.
As he had with their foray into San Diego, Will had taken care of all their arrangements for the visit to New York. He’d suggested they leave early on Friday morning. With the time differences between the West and East coasts they’d be arriving at JFK in the late afternoon. Time, hopefully, to see a little of the city before sunset.
Will picked her up from her home before sunrise and Margaret felt an air of excitement as she wheeled her case out and locked the front door behind her. She would be traveling on a plane for the first time in her life and, despite the obscenely early hour, she felt as energized as a sugar addict locked in a candy shop.
“Got everything you need?” Will asked as he met her at the door and took her case from her.
“I think so,” she said.
“There’s something you’ve forgotten.”
“No, I think I have everything,” Margaret said, mentally running through her list of things she’d packed.
“This,” Will said succinctly as he bent to kiss her.
As ever, Margaret’s entire body rushed to aching, pulsing life. He tasted of a pleasant combination of mint and fresh coffee and she kissed him back with all the fervor and abandon she’d been holding back since their weekend in San Diego. She’d missed seeing him, being with him in every sense of the word, and their all too brief times together in the office had only sharpened her hunger for him—for this.
Will broke free with a groan and rested his forehead against hers. His breathing was uneven, his heart pounding in his chest beneath the flat of her hand.
“I think I should
have requested the company jet for this trip. At least then we might have had a little privacy on the flight,” he said, his breathing now slowly returning to normal.
“I missed you this week,” she answered simply.
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he said and gave her another quick kiss before lifting her bag and carrying it to the waiting car in the driveway.
The driver alighted from the car as they approached and stowed her case in the trunk while Will held the door open for her. She slid into her seat and he moved in alongside her. In the climate-controlled interior of the car she welcomed the warmth of his body against hers but she held her posture straight and erect. As much as she wished she could snuggle into his side, she wasn’t sure enough of her position with him to do so. Even after last weekend, while they’d conquered some of the physical distance between them in their make-believe relationship, she still didn’t feel comfortable breaching the invisible boundaries he had erected between them.
Traffic had yet to build up on the freeway and the trip to the San Diego airport went smoothly, as did check-in. Margaret’s eyes widened in surprise as they were greeted by name by the cabin crew and shown to their seats in first class. Will ushered her into the window seat before stowing his briefcase in the overhead compartment.
As he settled into his seat beside her, she turned to look at him.
“First class?” she hissed under her breath.
“Why not?” he replied smoothly. “It’s your first flight, isn’t it? May as well be memorable.”
Margaret shook her head in wonder as she looked again at the man who’d given her so much in such a short period of time. He would never understand how much this meant to her. For him, traveling this way was commonplace. But for her, it was something she’d never have achieved in her wildest dreams. She sat back and gazed out the side window, a sudden glaze of tears hazing her vision.
What would he be like with the woman he loved? she wondered. He’d give her the world on a gilded platter. Whoever she was, she would be the luckiest woman on the planet. How Margaret wished it could be her.
Bought: His Temporary Fiancée Page 9