by Joan Hohl
“I love him,” Lynn screamed at her mother.
“Although it breaks my heart to admit it, Lynn,” Marge said sadly, “I truly think you are incapable of loving anyone but yourself.”
“What do you know about anything?” Lynn screamed.
“I know you’ve treated Jonas unfairly,” Marge retorted. “Whether this is his baby or not.”
“Unfair!” Lynn exclaimed shrilly. “He’s getting what he wants!”
Jonas had heard enough. Brushing past Marge, he left the house. He did not go to work that day. Hands jammed into his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the bitter cold wind, he walked the streets for hours. By the time he returned to the house whatever it was he’d felt for Lynn—love, physical attraction, fascination with her lovely face—it was all gone. He did not hate her. He just didn’t feel anything for her at all. Entering the house through the back door, Jonas found Marge waiting for him.
“Jonas, about the baby,” Marge began timidly.
“I’ll raise it,” Jonas interrupted. “Whether it’s mine or not.” The smile that curved his mouth brought tears to Marge’s eyes. “I know what it’s like to be a bastard.”
Though he slept beside her every night, Jonas never again touched his wife in a personal way. Made cautious by the new, unyielding set to his features, Lynn did not question him.
Jonas turned eighteen three days before his graduation from high school. Two weeks later Lynn was delivered of a baby girl. With his first look at her, Jonas knew the child was his. Marge knew it also.
“Oh, Jonas,” she whispered in awe. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Poor thing looks just like me,” Jonas murmured, emotion clogging his throat. Gazing in mute adoration at the tiny life he’d created, Jonas vowed that never would she want for anything. Not as long as he lived, and even after, if he could arrange it.
Seven weeks after Mary Beth’s birth, and one week after her christening, Lynn ran away with the man she claimed to love.
Jonas came home from work to find Stosh and Marge waiting for him in the living room. The baby clasped protectively in her arms, Marge sat rocking back and forth, tears chasing each other down her cheeks.
In silence, Jonas read the note Lynn had left for him.
Jonas,
Please try to understand. I’m too young to be tied to a man who hates me and a baby I don’t want. I want to see something of the world. I want to have some fun. And I want to be with Leon.
Lynn
“This Leon,” Jonas said when he’d finished reading. “Is he the one with the looks and money and reputation?”
“Yes,” Marge sobbed.
“Okay,” he sighed then, straightening his shoulders. “I’ll leave as soon as I can find a place to stay and someone to keep Mary Beth.”
“Leave?” Marge and Stosh repeated blankly. “Keep Mary Beth?”
“Yes, I don’t expect—” Jonas began, only to be silenced by his in-laws, both speaking at once.
“Where would you go?”
“What about college?”
“I’ll have to forget college,” Jonas said flatly.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.” Marge snorted. “And you will not take my granddaughter out of this house.” Clutching the baby even closer to her body, Marge jumped to her feet. “Now you listen to me, Jonas Thorne. You are going to stay right here. Both of you. And you are going to Lehigh as planned. You’ve worked too hard to have your future snatched away now. Do you understand me?”
Jonas glanced at Stosh as if seeking guidance. Stosh, holding up his hands, avowed, “I’m not going to argue with her. You better do as she says, son.”
In September Jonas went to Bethlehem and Lehigh University. In mid-December Stosh suffered a series of massive strokes. Two days after Christmas, Stosh died in his sleep.
Once again Jonas declared his intention of leaving school. And once again Marge refused to let him.
“When you go back to school in January, I want you to look around for an apartment for the three of us,” she told him calmly. Before Jonas could protest, she went on, “I’m going to put the house and business up for sale. With Stosh gone there is nothing to keep me in Tamaqua.”
Even though Lynn’s name was not mentioned, Jonas knew Marge was thinking of her. They had heard nothing at all from his wife. It was not even possible to inform her of her father’s death.
Settling Stosh’s estate took longer than expected and it was June before the move to Bethlehem was made. The apartment Jonas had rented was far from elegant, but it was large and located in a quiet neighborhood. And the rental was within the budget Jonas had worked out.
With the college grant he’d obtained and the money he earned from his new job at Bethlehem Steel, Jonas figured they could squeak through his school years. Ignoring every one of Marge’s pleas, Jonas remained adamant in his refusal to take the money she offered him, claiming she was doing more than her share by taking care of Mary Beth.
For Jonas, life consisted of study and work. He saw very little of his daughter, and was, at intervals, amazed at the rate of her growth. After his fiasco with Lynn, he stayed away from women altogether, remaining celibate by choice.
They heard from Lynn for the first time shortly after Mary Beth’s third birthday. Luckily, Jonas was at work when she called. As though history was repeating itself, Jonas came home from work to find Marge in tears. Understandably, he jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“Is something the matter with Mary Beth?” he asked at once.
“No, she’s fine,” Marge sniffed.
“Then what’s wrong?” Weak with relief, Jonas drew Marge into his arms. “Why are you crying?”
“Lynn called from California today, Jonas.” Feeling him stiffen, she rushed on. “She wants you to divorce her so she can get married again.”
“She can go to hell,” Jonas snapped. “If she wants a divorce, let her get it.”
“On what grounds?”
“That’s her worry, not mine.”
“Do you still love her, Jonas?”
“I never did love her.” Suddenly realizing that he was speaking to Lynn’s mother, Jonas sighed. “I’m sorry, Marge, but—”
“Don’t apologize, Jonas, I understand.” Brushing at her tears, Marge moved out of his encircling arms. “I told her what time you’d be home. She’ll be calling back soon.”
“How did she know where we were?”
“She called my lawyer.” Eyeing him nervously, Marge said, carefully, “I think you should tell her you’ll get the divorce.”
“What!” Jonas couldn’t believe his ears. “Why should I?”
“For Mary Beth.”
Jonas shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand, Marge. What has Mary Beth got to do with it?”
“Jonas, think,” Marge urged. “If you file for divorce you can charge Lynn with desertion and claim sole custody of Mary Beth. If the divorce is granted on those grounds, Lynn would probably have a fight on her hands if she ever tried to take Mary Beth away from you.”
“She’d have a fight on her hands in any case,” Jonas vowed.
“Do it, Jonas,” Marge advised earnestly. “Let her marry this producer or director, or whatever he is.”
“Producer or director?” Jonas sneered. “What happened to Leon?”
“I don’t know—” she shrugged tiredly “—and I don’t care. All I’m concerned about is Mary Beth’s future. Do it, Jonas.”
Marge’s pleading tone set off warning signals in Jonas’s head. Studying her carefully, he asked, “Did she threaten to take Mary Beth away if I don’t jump through the hoop?”
Marge didn’t have to answer, her stricken eyes gave her away.
“Damn,” Jonas snarled. “If she were here I’d break her neck.”
“Jonas, please,” Marge cried. “When she calls back tell her you’ll do it. I couldn’t stand it if she came and took the baby away.”
“She’d have to go thro
ugh me to reach her,” Jonas said grimly, then, his tone gentling, he soothed, “Calm down, Marge. No one’s going to take our baby, I promise.”
Blinking back fresh tears, Marge looked up at him hopefully. “You’ll do it?”
“Marge,” Jonas groaned. “I don’t have the money, you know that.”
“I do,” she replied quickly.
“No.”
“Jonas, you can think of it as a loan. I don’t need it. I do need Mary Beth.” Marge’s voice had dropped to a pleading whisper. “Please, Jonas.”
And so, the divorce paid for with borrowed money, Jonas became a free man again at the advanced age of twenty-one.
After graduation the following year, Jonas did not have to go out and walk the streets looking for work. Finishing very near the top of his class, he found himself much sought after by prospective employers.
He considered each and every offer very carefully and then, to the confused surprise of Marge and the few friends he’d made, he accepted an offer from a relatively small company. But there was a very definite method to Jonas’s seeming madness. After a careful evaluation, he had reached the conclusion that though the firm was solvent, it was stagnating. All it needed, he decided, was someone with innovative ideas and enough energy and guts to make them work. Jonas had ideas, energy and guts in abundance.
The owner of the company was a fifty-six-year-old childless widower with an ulcer eating away at his insides. He was smart enough to realize his company needed to gear up if it was not to sink slowly into oblivion. He was also smart enough to be aware of his own limitations. The field of electronics was booming, and he no longer had the strength to keep up. When he interviewed Jonas, he had known this was the man he wanted. But not for even one euphoric second had he thought he had a chance of getting him.
By the end of Jonas’s first year with the company it was well on the road to expansion and recovery, and Jonas was treated like a much-loved son. By the end of his second year, the owner made him a full partner. And when the owner retired five years later, he was a millionaire with a completely cured ulcer. At the time of his retirement, the company’s name was changed to J.T. Electronics. Its former owner didn’t mind—Thorne was his sole heir anyway.
By the time Jonas went striding by his thirty-second birthday—which he would not have remembered had not Marge and Mary Beth insisted on celebrating—he was well on his way to being a very successful, very rich man. Yet his on-going love affair with electronics continued.
His self-imposed celibacy had naturally ended long since. There had been a succession of several different women in his life. From the first, though, he was extremely selective. While still in college he had vowed that he would never again be trapped by a scheming female.
Not long after he took control of the company, Lynn reappeared on the scene, fresh from Mexico and her third divorce.
She was even more lovely than she’d been at eighteen. And it very quickly became apparent to anyone who observed her that she was looking for another husband and hoped to make it Jonas.
Lynn made all the right moves. She thoroughly fascinated her very impressionable teenage daughter. She reestablished a tenuous relationship with her mother. She completely charmed Jonas’s small circle of friends. And she flirted with her former husband in a way that had other men aching to be in his shoes.
Jonas had not reached the position he was in by being stupid. He was very well aware of her game plan. He just couldn’t decide if he wanted simply to ignore her or to throttle her. In the end he decided to pay her off and ship her out. She finally left, still pouting, for a small villa in the south of France—for which Jonas had paid a very healthy sum of money.
The money didn’t bother him. What did was having to agree to allow their daughter to visit her periodically. Seeing Mary Beth off the first time she visited Lynn was one of the hardest things Jonas had ever done in his life. But at least he had his work. For Marge, there was nothing but an empty house until her granddaughter came home again.
The last time Mary Beth had gone away it was not to visit her mother but to attend a finishing school in Switzerland for a year.
* * *
And now the year was six weeks’ shy of being up. She was coming home! What had happened, Jonas wondered, to her plans to spend a few weeks with Lynn sailing around the Aegean?
A buzz from the intercom prevented further speculation. Still lost in his thoughts, Jonas flipped the switch and growled, “What is it?”
Valerie’s brief, but telling, hesitation brought him fully alert.
“There’s a long distance call for you from Paris. A Mr. Barres,” Valerie said stiffly.
“Put it through.”
As he reached for the receiver, Jonas asked himself how he expected to evoke a positive response in her if he snarled and snapped at her all the time.
You were right the first time, he thought wryly. You are an arrogant fool!
Chapter 7
After putting the Paris call through, Valerie sat glaring at the intercom. She would have to be insane to even consider Jonas Thorne’s preposterous proposal. She could count on one hand the times she’d witnessed any sort of softening in him. Of course, there was that heart-wrenching smile of his.
The mere memory of that smile shortened Valerie’s breath. Disgusted by her involuntary response to him, she swiveled around to face her typewriter. He probably practices that damned smile in front of his mirror, she thought nastily.
She resumed typing where she’d left off when the Paris call came, working furiously for a few minutes before coming to an abrupt stop.
Paris. Etienne.
She couldn’t marry Jonas Thorne! She couldn’t marry anyone. Until those back-to-back thoughts hit her, Valerie had not wanted to admit to herself that she was seriously considering his preposterous proposal!
But how could she! How could she give any kind of consideration to it? Jonas Thorne was hard, and he was cold. He was almost impossible to work with. What would he be like to live with? Oh, no, she couldn’t, could she?
Trying to view the situation objectively, she imagined herself in the role of his wife. What would it be like, being Mrs. Jonas Thorne? A derisive smile curled her lip. I’d probably see less of him than I do now. Now, there’s a thought!
“Valerie.”
Valerie jumped at the sound of her name coming from the intercom.
“Yes, sir?” For some obscure reason she jumped again when Jonas chuckled softly.
“You sound a little—uh—nervous,” Jonas soothed. “Why don’t you go home—Val?”
The pause he’d made before whispering her shortened name had been deliberate, Valerie knew.
“Can I leave my problems here if I do—” she paused in retaliation, “sir?”
“You think you have problems?” His tone went a notch lower. “Come into my office, I’ll give you problems.”
Was he serious? Did he want her in there to work—or…? Valerie shook her head; no not that, not in the office.
“Should I bring my pad?” she asked coolly.
“Is it big enough for two?”
Her cool melted. Damn him. He was being deliberately provocative. Teasing her the way he had teased Loretta and the others that night at the Drop Inn. Well, not in exactly the same way. Biting her lip, Valerie stared at the intercom suspiciously. Nothing. He was letting the silent seconds work on her composure.
“Valerie.”
Valerie blinked in confusion. Never could she have imagined him capable of achieving that—that almost caressing tone.
“Are you going to come in here?” he asked very, very softly.
“Mr. Thorne—I—I—”
“Either you come in here, or I’ll come out there,” he warned. “What’s it going to be?”
“All right,” Valerie sighed. “I’ll come in.”
“I thought you might,” Jonas drawled.
Fighting the urge to run out of the office and into the elevator, Valerie slo
wly stood up, straightening her waistband and smoothing down her skirt automatically. Eyeing the closed door to his office warily, she drew a deep breath, walked over to it and stepped inside.
“Tell me you’re afraid of me,” Jonas chided disbelievingly as she approached his desk with obvious reluctance.
“I’m afraid of you,” Valerie obliged.
His smile, that smile, flashed like sunlight through a passing storm cloud. “Like hell you are,” he grinned.
She couldn’t help it. She grinned back.
“I like that.” His glance indicated her grin. “Oh, yes, I do like that. I was beginning to wonder if you knew how to smile.”
In marked contrast to his manner earlier that morning, he now appeared completely relaxed. Hardly able to believe her eyes or ears, Valerie decided to find out if his mood was real or assumed.
Lowering her eyes, she perched on the chair beside his desk. Then, raising her lids slowly she gazed directly into his eyes and laughed softly. “Oh, yes. I know how to smile. When there is someone to smile at.”
“Watch it, Jonas,” he warned himself aloud. “The woman’s out to trap you.” A slow smile, surprisingly sensuous, curved his lips, changing their usual harsh line into an exciting invitation.
Good heavens! Valerie thought wonderingly. They were all right. All those women who had said he was very, very sexy; they were right! In an effort to hide her reaction from him, Valerie again lowered her eyes.
“I think—” her lashes swept up. “I think it would be unwise for a woman to try to trap you, Mr. Thorne.”
“Mr. Thorne,” Jonas repeated musingly without denying her assertion. “A few hours ago I managed to articulate a proposal of marriage.” His tone, though easy, held a definite warning. “Do you think you could possibly say the name Jonas?”
“I—” Valerie hesitated, unsure of herself now. “You are my employer,” she protested lamely.
“Under the circumstances that argument could hardly be described as valid.” He paused briefly, his eyes alert for her reactions. “I no longer wish to be your employer. I want to be your husband.”
Valerie felt as though a wide band was being drawn tightly around her chest, slowly squeezing all the air from her body. She had to reply to him, say something. But what? Jonas broke the silence.
