The Antonides Marriage Deal

by Anne McAllister

  Wednesday evening he went to the local health club. Ordinarily he played basketball when he went. But there were no women on his basketball team. So instead he played racquetball with a French teacher called Clarice from Bordeaux.

  They played hard, and she looked pretty enticing sweaty, and he thought that was promising, so he invited her out for a meal after.

  She shook her head, batted her lashes, held out her hand and purred, “Let’s go to my place instead.”

  God knew what would have happened at Clarice’s place—and Elias did, too—if he had got there.

  But as they left the health club and were walking toward Clarice’s flat, his mother rang him on his cell phone. “I should take it,” he told Clarice. She could think it was business. And the truth was, if he didn’t take it, his mother would just call back at an even less opportune time.

  “Have you heard from Martha?” Helena demanded.

  “Nope. Not a word.” Which wasn’t exactly a disappointment. Elias heard from all his family far too often, as far as he was concerned.

  “She just broke up with Julian,” his mother went on, her voice rising. “She’s very upset.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Elias said wearily. He shot Clarice an apologetic glance. “She’s a big girl.” Besides, his own disastrous marriage didn’t qualify him to solve anybody’s relationship problems. “I’ve got to go.”

  But Helena wasn’t going to be easily dismissed. “You’ve got to talk to her, Elias. Calm her down. She listens to you.”

  Then she was the only one, Elias thought. “She’ll work it out, Ma. She’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t think so. You know Martha.”

  Yes, he did. He knew all the hysterical members of his family who thought the world revolved around them. “Ma, I have to go.”

  But it was too late. He could already see Clarice withdrawing. Whether it was the “Ma” that did it (what woman wanted to take a man home who spent the walk there listening to his mother?) or something else, Elias didn’t know. But by the time he managed to shut his mother up, Clarice was remembering she’d promised to play canasta with her elderly neighbor tonight.

  “She’s a real card shark. And lonely. I shouldn’t disappoint her,” Clarice was smiling and backing away.

  Elias could take a hint. “Some other time, then.”

  “Of course,” Clarice agreed.

  But not Thursday. Because all day Thursday Elias was at Tom Corbett’s factory with Paul and Tallie, making notes, talking to Corbett and his production manager, getting a hands-on feel for the place.

  While he asked question after question and Paul went over the books and charts, Tallie just wandered around, chatted with the employees, poked her nose in this and that and smiled.

  She’d brought along some sort of star-shaped cookies that smelled of cinnamon for Corbett and his minions, and the next thing Elias knew she was trading recipes with one of the shipping clerks.

  “She’s the president?” Corbett said doubtfully. He also seemed to be appreciating Tallie’s figure a little more than Elias thought was entirely necessary.

  “She is,” he said sharply.

  “Don’t know how you keep your mind on business,” Corbett said frankly. “Or your hands off her.”

  It was one of those totally politically incorrect things that no one these days was supposed to say. It was also unfortunately and annoyingly true.

  Tallie Savas was tempting the hell out of him.

  And every day it was getting worse.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE WASN’T there.

  Here it was, ten past ten Friday morning—ten past the time he and Paul and Dyson and Ms President of Antonides Marine were supposed to be having their meeting about the Corbett’s acquisition—and she hadn’t stuck her nose in the door!

  Hadn’t bothered to call, either.

  How responsible was that?

  Of course, Elias reminded himself, he shouldn’t be surprised. When his father had first sprung Tallie-Savas-is-our-new-president on him, he had been sure it wouldn’t last. He’d thought she’d treat it as a lark, a game rich girls played.

  The way she’d acted for the past three weeks, though, had made Elias wonder if he’d been wrong. During that time Tallie had given every indication of taking the job seriously.

  Still, she hadn’t asked Corbett any questions yesterday. She’d wandered off, poked around, hadn’t focused on any of the really important issues he and Corbett and Paul had discussed.

  She hadn’t said anything much on the way back in the car, either. And every time he’d slanted her a glance, she’d turned her gaze out the window. Bored, he supposed now.

  And this morning she simply hadn’t bothered to show up!

  As he had come in prepared to steel himself against whatever enticing baked delicacy she would bring, not to mention what skirt she would be wearing that would show off her lovely long legs, he felt unaccountably annoyed. The least she could have done was call.

  But she’d done nothing. There had been no whiff of cinnamon, no hint of cardamom or apple when he pushed open the door. There had been no cheery good-morning to Rosie, no request for a play-by-play on the latest of Paul’s wedding plans. Nothing.

  Because she didn’t appear.

  Everyone else did. Dyson, Paul, Rosie, Lucy and all the temp girls all stuck their heads into his office to ask where she was.

  “How would I know?” Elias replied irritably.

  “Haven’t you heard from her?”

  “Not a word.”

  He didn’t know where she was. He didn’t care where she was, he told himself firmly. He set down his pen, leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, the first he’d taken since his father had sprung the awful news on him, and felt lighter.

  Emptier.

  Emptier?

  Nonsense. He had just grown used to the continual buzz Tallie created in the office. It was a relief not to have her stirring things up. It would just take a little readjustment. That was all.

  The phone rang, and for once he hoped it was his father so he could tell the old man that the president of Antonides Marine hadn’t bothered to show up.

  But the gruff male voice that boomed in his ear said, “Savas here.”

  Elias straightened in his chair. “Yes, Mr. Savas,” he said crisply to Tallie’s father. “What can I do for you?”

  “Put my daughter on the phone.”

  Elias frowned. “I beg your pardon.”

  “I want to talk to Thalia.” Pause. “She’s not answering her cell phone because she knows it’s me.”

  Elias’s brows lifted. “Why?” he couldn’t help asking.

  “Because you’ve told her to, I would guess,” Socrates retorted.

  Because he had told he to? Elias’s mind boggled.

  “Blasted girl,” Socrates went on. “Won’t say a word.”

  A word about what? Elias wondered.

  Socrates told him. “Goes on and on about what doesn’t matter. This architect with dreadlocks and some girl with blue hair. But about the business—nothing! And you—” There was another abrupt pause. Then “What do you think of my daughter?”

  Um. Er. “She’s…very sharp.”

  “Of course she is sharp. She’s a Savas! Beautiful, too, don’t you think?”

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” Elias agreed with as much dispassionate indifference as he could manage. She was drop-dead gorgeous, but he wasn’t going to say that to her old man.

  “That’s what I tell her. So why does she want only to be a businessman? She is a woman! One hundred percent woman! A woman like my Thalia should be married, should have children. She will make a good wife and mother someday, yes?”

  Visions of Tallie Savas with little weedy, floppy-haired Martins flickered across Elias’s brain. He took a death grip on the receiver. “If she wants. Who knows?” he said casually.

  “I know!” Clearly Socrates had his mind made up.

  Elias felt a
momentary pang of sympathy for Tallie Savas. Her father was as bad as his mother.

  “And when she is married I will not be worrying about her, wondering where she is,” Socrates went on. “That will be her husband’s job. You tell her to call me.” It was an order, not a suggestion.

  “I’ll give her the message.”

  Elias could just imagine what Tallie would say to him delivering a message from her old man. In fact the thought made him smile and shove back his chair. He went out into the reception area, glad he had an excuse to find out where the hell she was.

  “Call Ms Savas,” he instructed Rosie. “Tell her she’s late.”

  While he stood there tapping his foot, Rosie rang Tallie’s home phone and her cell phone. Apparently she wasn’t answering his calls, either.

  “Do you suppose she’s sick?” Paul asked.

  “She’d be home in bed if she were sick, wouldn’t she?” Elias snapped. “I’m sure she’s just got better things to do.”

  “Like what?” Paul looked bewildered.

  “How the hell should I know? We’re not waiting.” Elias turned and stalked into the boardroom. “We had a meeting scheduled. She knew it. If she can’t be bothered, that’s her problem. Come on.”

  Obediently, but worriedly, Dyson and Paul followed.

  The meeting went as all pre-Tallie meetings had gone. One of them, in this case Dyson, acted as the disinterested bystander. He had done no research on Corbett’s. He had nothing to gain, nothing to lose. He was there to observe, to ask questions, to pull things together. Paul was there to discuss the financial issues, the market, the reasons for buying Corbett’s from his standpoint, and the reasons against. And Elias was there to run through what he had discovered from talking to Corbett, to lay out all the pros and cons from the broader scope of the company.

  They’d done it before—lots of times.

  It should have been second nature. It was, really, Elias assured himself. It was just that they’d got used to Tallie saying, “Yes, but what about kids?” Or, “Have you considered that women don’t always want to go out and sail around in boats in the freezing cold and get wet?”

  Stuff that, frankly, they hadn’t considered.

  There were odd, awkward pauses, now and then, that made it feel to Elias as if they were actually waiting for her input.

  And then the door cracked open.

  All three of them looked up.

  Something silver poked its way through the door. There was a thump and a bonk and a female mutter of annoyance. Suddenly Rosie was pushing the door wide-open and saying, “Here. For heaven’s sake, let me get that! What happened? What are you doing here?”

  “I work here!” It was Tallie’s voice, defiant and determined and—

  What the hell?

  They all stared, astonished, as Tallie, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches, thumped her way into the room. There was an instant’s total shock. Then all three men leaped to their feet.

  Dyson pulled out a chair for her. “Here. Sit.”

  Paul said, “Let me,” and eased her into it.

  Elias contented himself with looming over her, demanding, “What the hell happened to you?”

  She was a mess. She was tattered and disheveled, her face was flushed and there was a scrape on her cheek, her normally ruthlessly tamed hair was poking out from its pins, her legs were bare of pantyhose, both had skinned knees, and her lower left leg was in a bright-purple cast the ended just below the knee.

  Tallie smiled ruefully. “I got run over by a truck.”

  Elias gaped at her. “You what?”

  She laughed a little painfully and shifted carefully into the chair that Paul had helped her to. “Well, not really run over. Just knocked down, really. I was crossing the street and some guy was turning and—” she shrugged “—he didn’t seem to notice I was in the crosswalk.”

  “Good God!” Elias wasn’t sure if it was a prayer or a cry of exasperation. “Didn’t you notice him, for Christ’s sake? You could have been killed!”

  “Well, I wasn’t.” She gave him a bright smile that was way too ragged around the edges for Elias’s satisfaction. “Fortunately,” she added reflectively after a moment, “or not. I suppose it depends on your point of view. You probably wish he’d done a better job of it.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Elias snapped. He was furious now, though he wasn’t sure at whom. He snapped his pencil in half and stalked up and down the length of the room. “What the hell are you doing here? Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

  “Don’t yell.” Tallie winced. “And stop pacing. It gives me a headache.”

  He stopped and spun around. “Are you concussed? Did you hit your head? Your cheek is cut,” he noticed. Quickly he crouched down beside her to get a better look and discovered her big brown eyes just inches from his own. Abruptly he stood up. “Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

  It was all he could do to moderate his tone. He wanted to strangle someone. Preferably the guy with the truck.

  “Because,” Tallie said levelly, “they don’t keep people in hospitals these days. They patch them up and send them home. And—” she held up a hand and forestalled his next question before he could even get it out of his mouth “—there was no point in sitting home when I can sit here just as well. It’s only a broken ankle. And a few bumps and bruises.” She shifted in her chair and winced, then managed another smile. “No big deal.”

  Elias stared. So did Paul and Dyson.

  “You could have been killed, you idiot woman!” he yelled.

  “I realize that,” Tallie said quietly, and there was the slightest quaver in her voice. “But I wasn’t. So obviously I’ve been spared for a purpose—” she offered Elias a faint grin “—like making your life hell?”

  Elias snorted and raked a hand through his hair. He cracked his knuckles and picked up another pencil and began pacing again. How could she expect he’d just stand still? “I can deal with you,” he muttered. Or he would be able to if she’d stop doing such stupid things and go home and rest or file her nails or bake her damn cookies or—

  He snapped the pencil in half.

  “It’ll be okay. Really.” Now she sounded as if she was soothing him! “I’m all right. I’ve broken my ankle before. I’m an old hand at it actually. Done it three times now. The bad thing in this instance,” she said sadly, “is that my cinnamon rolls and bear claws all landed in the gutter.”

  “That’s the bad thing, is it?” Elias still wanted to throttle her. “No one needs your damned cinnamon rolls!”

  “I’ll bet they were good,” Dyson said with a grin.

  Tallie ignored Elias and smiled back at Dyson. “I’ll make some more,” she promised.

  “Excellent!”

  “That’ll be great!” Paul was beaming now, all eagerness, too.

  Didn’t the idiot notice the cuts on her hands? The cast on her leg? Elias ground his teeth. “She’s hurt. She isn’t going to be making cinnamon rolls!”

  “Well, I didn’t mean right away,” Paul said hastily. “I just meant, when she’s feeling better—”

  “When I’m feeling better, I’ll make more,” Tallie reiterated. Then she turned to Elias. “Don’t make faces.”

  He barred his teeth at her. “Why? Does that give you a headache, too?”

  “Actually, it does. Look, could we just go on with the meeting? I’m sorry I’m late. I was—”

  “Hit by a truck,” Elias snarled before she could say it again. “Have you called your father?”

  “Of course not!” Tallie looked as if the idea had never occurred to her.

  “He doesn’t know?”

  “No one knows. Well, except the staff at the emergency room, the EMTs and you guys. I didn’t take out an ad in the Times! Or call my folks. Frankly, my father is the last person I’d tell. He’d fuss.”

  “He already has. He rang this morning.”

  The little colour in her cheeks seemed to fade completely. Elias thought
she might faint. “He called here?”

  “Looking for you. Worrying about you. Said you were avoiding him.” It had been more satisfying when he’d thought she had been avoiding Socrates. But maybe she had, even before the truck incident. “Don’t call if you don’t want to,” Elias said. “I’ve dealt with him.”

  “You have?” She looked stricken.

  “Yes, so don’t worry about him. Come on,” he said. “You need to go home.”

  “I’m not going home. I came to work to attend this damn meeting, and I’m going to do it.”

  “Afraid I’ll do something you wouldn’t approve of?” he challenged her.

  She met his gaze. “Afraid you won’t think I’m holding up my end of the deal,” Tallie replied.

  Which was exactly what he had thought. Elias ground his teeth, then shrugged. “Fine. Be stupid.” He turned his gaze to Paul. “Keep going. If Ms Savas wants to be a pigheaded, obstinate idiot, that’s entirely her affair.”

  Paul didn’t seem to remember where he was. “Um, let’s see—” He fumbled with his notes, punched a couple of keys on his computer to see where he was in the presentation. “I’m not sure— I don’t—” He looked around helplessly.

  “The waterproof-clothing line,” Elias prompted.

  “Oh, er, right.” Paul found the spot in his notes and the right material on the screen. Squaring his shoulders and sparing one more worried glance at Tallie, he launched into his report once more.

  Elias didn’t listen.

  Stupid, stupid woman. What the hell did she think she was doing coming to work after she’d nearly been killed? He couldn’t take his eyes off her as Paul droned on. He knew he should be paying attention. It was important.

  But he couldn’t. He sat watching Tallie while Paul’s words flowed over him like water over a rock, but with less effect.

  Tallie, of course, sat straight in her chair, pen in hand, notebook on her lap, purple-casted leg and foot stuck out in front of her. Her gaze was fixed on Paul and she was listening intently. Probably hanging on his every word, Elias thought irritably. She even made notes.

  But now and then he saw her wince or grimace, then shift in her chair as if trying to find a comfortable spot. The only spot she was likely to be comfortable in was her bed. She had to be in pain. A sane woman would have left the hospital and gone straight home.