Roses For Sophie

by Alyssa J. Montgomery

  ‘Why secretly?’

  Summoning up a firmer voice she focussed on her wine and told him, ‘My grandfather would never have approved, and it turned out that he would’ve been right. My fiancé was a fortune hunter who was more in love with the prospect of my inheritance than with me.’ Looking up she gave him a small, rueful smile. ‘With the fortune you’ve amassed, you must’ve met plenty of women whose primary goal is to snare a rich husband.’

  ‘No surprises there.’ His response was a calm agreement, but there was a hard, brief flash of something in his eyes that suggested there’d been something particularly unpleasant in his past as far as that area went.

  ‘So, you were engaged to a fortune hunter,’ he summed up, ‘then you married Jake Formosa, a man who had a fortune and didn’t need your money.’

  ‘Now I’m divorced.’ She shrugged as if her marriage to Jake had been inconsequential.

  He considered her, seeming to weigh up her attitude toward her divorce. ‘Definitely no plans to marry again?’

  ‘Make that a resounding no.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Once bitten, twice shy,’ she said.

  Silence between them stretched. ‘How do you feel about kids? Don’t you want to marry and have children one day?’

  ‘No.’ She spoke the word sharply and looked away from him, admonishing herself for the slight hitch to her voice that may have given away how desperately she wished she was one of the lucky ones destined for a marriage, family and a happily-ever-after ending.

  ‘You don’t like kids?’

  Oh, damn it! How on earth had the conversation turned so personal so quickly? How had this man managed to cut straight to the two most sensitive areas of her psyche? She didn’t have to answer him, and she was damned if she was going to reveal her reasons for not marrying to a virtual stranger.

  ‘You must like kids,’ he reasoned. ‘From the little I’ve heard of you, you work hard for a whole range of children’s charities.’

  ‘My goal is to run Carlisle Mining. I don’t have time for children of my own,’ she asserted.

  And I’m going to keep telling myself that so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on the one thing I’ve always wanted more than anything.

  He shook his head as she raised her wine glass once more to her mouth for more alcoholic fortification.

  ‘I can’t see it,’ he said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I don’t buy your Ice Princess image. I think you cloak yourself in that frost for self-protection.’

  He was too close to the mark. ‘You know nothing about me, Mr Jackson.’

  Although his expression told her he believed he could read her far better than she thought, he didn’t debate the point. Silence stretched a little as he drank some of his own wine.

  ‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘You say you’re too interested in your career to have a family, but why are you so anti-marriage?’

  ‘I didn’t say I was anti-marriage. I simply don’t believe I’ll ever meet someone who can offer me what I think would be essential for a good marriage to survive.’

  ‘What are those essentials?’

  ‘A good mix of love, respect, trust, friendship and passion.’ She hesitated, struck again by the ease with which he drew out her responses. It was really weird but she acknowledged that something in her wanted him to understand her. ‘I don’t want to make another mistake and end up in the divorce courts again, with my personal life as front page news.’

  ‘Unfortunately making headline news is part and parcel of being wealthy and influential,’ he reasoned with first-hand knowledge.

  ‘I’m also never going to lay my heart out again to be trampled on.’

  ‘Jake Formosa trampled on your heart?’

  ‘No!’ Nothing could have been further from the truth. ‘That’s certainly not what I meant.’ Now she was agitated. ‘If you must know, I was referring to my former fiancé.’

  ‘Why did your marriage to Formosa fail?’

  ‘No comment.’

  He picked up his wine glass but replaced it before he’d taken a sip. ‘Would you marry again if you didn’t expect love from a marriage?’

  ‘Are you for real? Who doesn’t expect love from a marriage?’

  ‘Hear me out.’ One hand moved up in a staying gesture. ‘What if you found someone you could respect and trust, who could be your friend and who you were deeply attracted to? Would you consider marriage then, Sophie — if love was the only element that was missing, but you could have all the rest?’

  She looked away from him, focussed on the plates of food in front of them that had been largely untouched, and thought about his words.

  Even to her own ears, her voice seemed to come from a long way off. ‘I’m not sure it’s possible to have all those elements without love. Surely it would be love binding the friendship and the passion together?’

  He looked at her thoughtfully as though he were digesting and analysing every word she said from several different angles.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ he disagreed at last. ‘After our brief acquaintance I believe I’ve judged your character well enough to know that you’re someone I could respect and trust, and I believe we converse easily enough and that we could also become friends. As for the passion, I think you feel too that it will be explosive between us. I believe we could have all that without love.’

  Her heart skipped a beat then thumped hard and fast against her ribcage. ‘You’re surely not considering marriage?’ Of course he wasn’t! She shook her head and gave a short laugh. ‘I’ve told you this weekend would only be so my grandfather thinks I’m in a relationship that’s going somewhere. I wouldn’t actually go through with marriage. Not even Grandfather would want me to jump into something that quickly.’

  He didn’t answer her but regarded her intently. ‘Tell me why you and Formosa divorced.’

  Automatically she stiffened. Schooling her features, she summoned up her Ice Princess hauteur at his intrusion into that very well guarded place in her private life. It was one thing telling him personal things about herself, but an entirely different thing to speak about Jake. ‘I don’t discuss my marriage or my divorce with anyone.’

  He reached for his wine glass again, but all the while held her with his intense blue gaze. ‘Not even with the man who’s going to be your husband?’

  Chapter 5

  Sophie’s head jolted back and her eyes widened with incredulity before she laughed. ‘You can’t seriously be suggesting marriage?’

  ‘I need a wife.’

  Her look of utter disbelief told him she thought he was insane.

  ‘Remember I said that my sister, Melissa, had arranged for someone to be here tonight to have dinner with me, and I thought you were that person?’

  ‘Your sister was setting you up with a prospective wife?’

  ‘I knew nothing about it until I was here. She phoned and told me what she’d done.’ His lips twisted. ‘She proposed I meet this woman and come to some arrangement for a temporary marriage.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘I started talking about contracts and terms and you thought I was that woman!’ She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. When she looked at him he was struck again by the deep emerald colour of her eyes. ‘Why do you need a wife?’

  He drank some wine then placed the glass back on the table. ‘My closest friend, Scott, and his wife, Kathleen, died recently in a car accident.’

  Sophie’s expression changed, her features softening in sympathy. ‘Scott and Kathleen Mannering?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘I’m so sorry. Although we weren’t close, we had met.’

  Steeling himself to continue, he tried to detach himself from the emotions of the situation and stick to the facts. ‘Years ago they’d asked me to be their daughter’s guardian.’

  ‘I met Charlotte at a party once. She was an absolute angel, the poor little thing.’ Concern clouded her features. ‘I lost my parents when I
was four. They died in an avalanche when they were skiing in the Swiss Alps. I barely remember them, but I’ll never forget the day I was told that they’d died. The knowledge that I’d never see them again was devastating. I don’t think it’s something a child ever gets over.’

  Logan badly wanted to hold her tight and kiss her. Instead he leant forward, raised a hand to her cheek and traced down the smoothness of it. ‘That must’ve been tough.’

  This woman was reaching him on so many levels and he was a little adrift in these unchartered waters. He lowered his hand from her face and his fingers tightened on the stem of his wine glass, needing to ground himself with something.

  She moved her head a little as if she were shaking the memories away. ‘It was a long time ago.’ She gestured toward him. ‘So, you’re going to look after Charlotte?’

  ‘My problem is that neither Scott nor Kathleen had updated their wills since Charlotte’s birth. I applied for custody and will be granted a hearing, but because I was living in Canada at the time of their deaths the court awarded temporary custody to Kathleen’s mother, Thea Winston. She’s not letting me anywhere near Charlotte.’ Feeling his anger rising, he willed himself to relax. ‘The woman wasn’t a fit mother to Kathleen, and I’m not going to allow her to screw up Charlotte’s life.’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t know any of this. All I’d heard was that Charlotte was living with her grandmother, and that nobody seemed to know anything about Kathleen’s mum.’ She fell silent as the head waiter approached.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, madam. I’m sorry to interrupt you. Are you finished with your meals?’

  Logan looked down at the meal he’d barely touched, then told the waiter, ‘Yes. Do you want to order something else, Sophie?’

  ‘I’m really not hungry.’

  While the waiter cleared their plates away and made their conversation impossible to continue, Logan imagined Sophie in Charlotte’s position. He saw that as an adult, she was still emotional about the loss of her parents. It underlined his need to do all he could for Charlotte.

  ‘Your grandfather looked after you?’ he asked when the waiter had left.

  ‘Yes.’ A flash of grief flitted across her features. ‘It was a confusing time. I was already staying with my grandfather because he always looked after me when Mum and Dad jetted off somewhere together.’

  ‘You’re lucky you had him.’

  ‘We’ve had our moments but I know that as domineering as he can be, he loves me completely.’

  ‘I want Charlotte to know that love.’ Would Sophie help him achieve that for Charlotte? ‘You spoke about women wanting to snare a rich husband, and your first fiancé wanting your fortune, but Mrs Winston is trying to get her hands on Charlotte’s inheritance. If you knew Scott and Kathleen, then you’d know that Scott owned several boutique hotels around Australia, and Charlotte is worth a considerable fortune.’

  ‘If money’s her grandmother’s motivation, have you tried to settle this out of court?’

  ‘Yep, to the tune of five million dollars. The woman’s not stupid. She knows Charlotte’s inherited a lot more than that.’

  ‘Five million’s a lot to turn down.’ Sophie shook her head in disbelief. ‘You’re sure money’s her sole motivation?’

  ‘Charlotte hardly knew her grandmother before the accident. The woman never took the slightest interest in her. From things Kathleen said, the only time Thea ever contacted her was when she wanted Kathleen to bail her out with money when her electricity was about to be cut off, or her rates needed paying. Kathleen was a means to an end for her mother, nothing more.’ Logan thought back to the funeral. Back to the woman’s obvious crocodile tears. Just the sight of Kathleen’s mother churned his gut. In some ways the woman reminded him of his own mother — a woman whose sole goal was wealth.

  ‘Perhaps she regrets that and now Kathleen’s gone, she’s trying to forge a bond with her granddaughter?’

  ‘I don’t believe it for a second. I’m sure money’s her motivation.’ One finger tapped against the table. ‘But, as my sister has pointed out, even if I paid Thea off, the court still has to approve of me as guardian.’

  ‘So you need a wife to convince the court that you can provide a stable home life for little Charlotte?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He could see she was deep in thought as she looked at him. Was she seriously considering his plight?

  ‘You don’t really need a wife. You need a mother for Charlotte,’ she said at last.

  His lips twisted but he couldn’t deny it. ‘You’re right. If it wasn’t for Charlotte, I would never consider marriage. But you know Charlotte. You must know a little of what she’s going through right now.’

  ‘I don’t know her that well, but I can imagine.’ She picked up her wine glass, inhaled the bouquet and drank.

  ‘For Charlotte’s sake, will you be my wife?’

  Sophie coughed hard, choking on her wine. Placing the glass back on the table, her lips twisted. ‘You’re really serious?’

  ‘Totally.’

  A few moments passed and she took another sip of her wine before admitting, ‘There’s something I haven’t told you.’

  Sophie Hamilton was certainly intriguing. He was interested in what she was about to say, as she didn’t look particularly comfortable.

  ‘My grandfather gave Felix and I six months each to take over the reins of Carlisle Mining. I went first and Felix has almost finished his term. Grandfather’s about to make a decision as to who will take over permanently.’

  ‘You said you want to run the corporation.’

  ‘Yes. I know I’m the better person for it.’ Her lips thinned. ‘I can’t stand the thought of Felix having it. He’s not trustworthy, and I don’t think he has the best interests of the company at heart. He especially has no time for our employees or the environment. His management style infuriates me and…’ She stopped. ‘Sorry. I tend to go into a tirade whenever it comes to Felix.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I took an instant dislike to him earlier. From what I’ve heard, he’s had a lot of trouble with the unions.’

  ‘Yes. And he’s gone against my advice and made bad decisions, which have led to us being summoned to appear before the Land and Environment Court. Grandfather realises I’m the better person for the job, but he’s also spoken of how lonely he was when my grandmother died.’ Her fingers began pleating a linen napkin. ‘He says if I become the Managing Director before I am in a committed relationship, he doesn’t believe I’ll ever marry, and he thinks it’s important I have someone in my life to share all the ups and downs.’

  Logan nodded. ‘That’s why he’s so keen to see you married.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It seems to me that marriage could work for both of us.’ He leant back in his chair, looking entirely satisfied with the situation.

  Her fingers moved on the stem of the wine glass, twisting it round and round on the tablecloth. ‘This is all completely hypothetical, but let’s say I agreed, how long would you expect the marriage to last?’

  ‘I’d need it to last until I knew for certain I had custody, but for you to also gain from the arrangement we could agree to stay together until you’re appointed into the top position at Carlisle.’

  She gave him a hard look. ‘Haven’t you realised that it would be rough on Charlotte thinking we were a couple then having us split?’

  ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m thinking on the run here, but surely if Rigby is ill, he’ll want to settle the MD position as quickly as possible and we won’t need to stay married for too long?’

  Her lips firmed, but she didn’t respond immediately and his heart lifted as he thought she might be seriously considering his proposition.

  ‘You’re talking about marrying before the court case. What happens if you don’t win?’

  ‘From my point of view we could divorce straight away,’ he said easily. ‘However, this has to be a win-win, so if you needed for us to stay married for longer
in order to secure your position in the company, then I’d go along with that.’

  A waiter dropped some crockery a few tables away, causing a momentary distraction.

  Sophie regarded Logan and shook her head. ‘I must be mad even contemplating this. Marriage is a huge step and I’m seriously not prepared to go there again, especially as a business deal.’ She raised one finger in a gesture of concession. ‘But I might be prepared to consider a temporary engagement for the purpose of putting my grandfather’s mind at ease and helping you gain custody of Charlotte.’

  ‘A temporary engagement isn’t enough for me, because the court could believe it was a set-up. Marriage would be viewed as more permanent.’

  ‘Marriage is supposed to be permanent.’ She held out her hands, palms up and shrugged. ‘That’s the problem, because even though you’re proposing a temporary arrangement, we’d still have to face all the media speculation when it came to filing for a divorce. Questions would be raised and frankly, I don’t think I could cope with that level of interest again in my personal life.’

  ‘Our marriage and divorce would raise no more interest than our engagement.’

  A strangled sound of frustration emerged from her mouth. ‘To even be talking about this is nuts.’ He heard the refusal in her voice. ‘We don’t know each other so we certainly don’t want to tie ourselves together through marriage.’

  He sat straighter. ‘But we’ve already come to know so much about each other in such a short time. I’ll bet some of the things you’ve told me tonight, you haven’t told anybody else. Haven’t we both opened up to each other about the most serious personal issues we’re facing right now because we’ve already figured out at a very instinctive level that we can trust each other?’

  She frowned at that statement, but didn’t voice a denial before she objected, ‘We don’t love each other.’

  ‘In my experience, love doesn’t hold a marriage together. You’re divorced. I’d say that speaks for itself.’

  Sophie held out her hands in a gesture of pure exasperation. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’