by Nora Roberts
“Michael, that’s quite enough.” Pandora entered the room, her hair mussed and her clothes disheveled. “We have company.”
Panting, he dragged Biff to his feet. His wrist sang a bit, but he considered it a pleasure. Charles, looking dignified in his best suit, opened the library doors. “Dinner is served.”
Two hours later, Pandora and Michael shared a small feast in the library. “I never thought it would work,” Pandora said over a mouthful of ham. “It shouldn’t have.”
“The more predictable the moves, the more predictable the end.”
“Lieutenant Randall didn’t seem too pleased.”
“He wanted to do it his way.” Michael moved his shoulders. “Since he’d already discovered Biff had been visiting other members of the family and making calls to them, he was bound to find out something eventually.”
“The easy way.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Do you know how uncomfortable it is to play dead?”
“You were great.” He leaned over to kiss her. “A star.”
“The letter opener with the stage blood was a nice touch. Still, if they’d all stuck together…”
“We already knew someone was weakening because of the warning call. Turned out that Meg had had enough.”
“I’ve been thinking about investing in their gym.”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
“What do you think’s going to happen?”
“Oh, Carlson’ll get off more or less along with the rest of them, excluding Biff. I don’t think we have to worry about going to court over the will. As for our dear cousin—” Michael lifted a glass of champagne “—he’s going to be facing tougher charges than malicious mischief or burglary. I may never get my television back, but he isn’t going to be wearing any Brooks Brothers suits for a while. Only prison blues.”
“You gave him another black eye,” Pandora mused.
“Yeah.” With a grin, Michael drank the wine. “Now you and I only have to cruise through the next two weeks.”
“Then it’s over.”
“No.” He took her hand before she could rise. “Then it begins.” He slipped the glass from her other hand and pressed her back against the cushions. “How long?”
Pandora struggled to keep the tension from showing. “How long what?”
“Have you been in love with me?”
She jerked, then was frustrated when he held her back. “I’m not sitting here feeding your ego.”
“All right, we’ll start with me.” He leaned back companionably and boxed her in. “I think I fell in love with you when you came back from the Canary Islands and walked into the parlor. You had legs all the way to your waist and you looked down your nose at me. I’ve never been the same.”
“I’ve had enough games, Michael,” she said stiffly.
“So’ve I.” He traced a finger down her cheek. “You said you loved me, Pandora.”
“Under duress.”
“Then I’ll just have to keep you under duress because I’m not giving you up now. Why don’t we get married right here?”
She’d started to give him a hefty shove and stopped with her hands pressed against his chest. “What?”
“Right here in the library.” He glanced around, ignoring the overturned tables and broken china. “It’d be a nice touch.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s very simple. Here’s the plot. You love me, I love you.”
“That’s not simple,” she managed. “I’ve just been accessible. Once you get back to your blond dancers and busty starlets, you’ll—”
“What blond dancers? I can’t stand blond dancers.”
“Michael, this isn’t anything I can joke about.”
“Just wait. You buy a nice white dress, maybe a veil. A veil would suit you. We get a minister, lots of flowers and have a very traditional marriage ceremony. After that, we settle into the Folley, each pursuing our respective careers. In a year, two at the most, we give Charles and Sweeney a baby to fuss over. See?” He kissed her ear.
“People’s lives aren’t screenplays,” she began.
“I’m crazy about you, Pandora. Look at me.” He took her chin and held it so that their faces were close. “As an artist, you’re supposed to be able to see below the surface. That should be easy since you’ve always told me I’m shallow.”
“I was wrong.” She wanted to believe. Her heart already did. “Michael, if you’re playing games with me, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Games are over. I love you, it’s that simple.”
“Simple,” she murmured, surprised she could speak at all. “You want to get married?”
“Living together’s too easy.”
She was more surprised that she could laugh. “Easy?”
“That’s right.” He shifted her until she was lying flat on the sofa, his body pressed into hers. When his mouth came down, it wasn’t patient, wasn’t gentle, and everything he thought, everything he felt, communicated itself through that one contact. As she did rarely, as he asked rarely, she went limp and pliant. Her arms went around him. Perhaps it was easy after all.
“I love you, Michael.”
“We’re getting married.”
“It looks that way.”
His eyes were intense when he lifted his head. “I’m going to make life tough on you, Pandora. That’s just to pay you back for the fact that you’ll be the most exasperating wife on record. Do we understand each other?”
Her smile bloomed slowly. “I suppose we always have.”
Michael pressed a kiss to her forehead, to the tip of her nose, then to her lips. “He understood both of us.”
She followed his gaze to Jolley’s portrait. “Crazy old goat has us right where he wants us. I imagine he’s having a good laugh.” She rubbed her cheek against Michael’s. “I just wish he could be here to see us married.”
Michael lifted a brow. “Who says he won’t be?” He pulled her up and picked up both glasses. “To Maximillian Jolley McVie.”
“To Uncle Jolley.” Pandora clinked her glass to Michael’s. “To us.”
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IMPRINT: Mills & Boon
ISBN: 9781460800164
TITLE: A WILL AND A WAY
First Australian Publication 1986
Copyright © 1986 Nora Roberts
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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