His Marriage Bonus

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Silence fell between them as Lauren plucked her blazer off the railing and tugged it back on.

  “We can do this, Lauren,” Mitch insisted as he sat down on the fourth stair-step up. He clasped his hands between his spread knees. “It’s really not that much to ask.”

  “Says you,” Lauren retorted back as she paced to the front door and back. She leveled an accusing fingertip at Mitch. “You haven’t had my father trying to control your life in every way possible for the past twenty-eight years.”

  Mitch shrugged, and still feeling overly warm, folded the cuffs back on his shirtsleeves, nearly to his elbows. “From what I could tell, your father seems to love you very much.”

  Still pacing, Lauren threw her hands up in exasperation. “He does, which of course makes all his behind-the-scenes string-pulling on my behalf all that much worse.” She paused, propped the back of one hand on her hip and looked straight at Mitch. “It’s like he doesn’t believe in me to be able to make the right decisions on my own.”

  “I’ll be the first to admit that’s unfair,” Mitch commiserated quietly. “But you shouldn’t let your pique with him about that keep you from owning this place and lavishing on it the tender loving care you know that it deserves and needs.”

  Abruptly, Lauren broke into a sweet-as-sugar, and just as impudent, grin. “Oh, you’re good, Deveraux,” she said. “Real good.”

  Mitch couldn’t help it—he grinned back as he straightened. He drew nearer, finding himself still a good six inches taller than she was, despite the two-inch heels on her shoes. He looked down at Lauren, a little taken aback by the undercurrents of chemistry between them. “Does that mean I’m persuading you?”

  “It means,” Lauren delineated bluntly, with a take-no-prisoners look, “that I want to own 10 Gathering Street as much as you want the Deveraux-Heyward merger. So okay,” she conceded on a reluctant sigh. “I’ll date you every evening for one week. But I’ll do so only on my terms.”

  “And those are?” Mitch braced himself for the demands to follow.

  “It’s strictly platonic.” Lauren firmly ticked off her demands. “No kissing. No hand-holding. No fringe benefits of any kind.”

  Given the way she was looking at him—as though she just dared him to try anything the least bit romantic—it was all Mitch could do not to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless, then and there. “How about opening the door for you?” Finding his own pulse racing in what could only be anticipation, Mitch stalked her in deliberately predatory fashion.

  Lauren stepped back, a slight look of alarm on her face. “No.” She folded her arms in front of her tightly.

  “You don’t want me to pull up your chair,” Mitch noted, pretending he couldn’t imagine why not.

  Lauren regarded him skeptically. “No.”

  “What about coats?” he asked lazily. “Should I help you on with your coat?”

  Lauren flushed, the same soft hue as her blazer. “It’s too warm for coats,” she stated, digging in where she stood even more. “Besides, should I want to take one off, I can manage it on my own. And one more thing. I know my father and what he’s banking on here, but you should know outright that no matter what else he offers me, our dating will not lead to marriage.”

  Even as he struggled over his own guilt over the secret dowry her father had already offered him, Mitch felt compelled to take on the role of devil’s advocate. “Why are you so opposed to the idea of that?”

  “I don’t know.” Lauren shrugged. “Maybe because it would be arranged?”

  “Not if we decided on our own to wed,” Mitch said.

  Lauren stared at Mitch in mortification. “And why would we do that?”

  “Because it makes sense,” Mitch explained. “At least in a strictly business way.” Able to see Lauren wasn’t the least bit convinced, he explained, “The first tenet of business is to keep an open mind when trying to achieve your goals. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a short-term need or a long-term one. When a good idea is presented to you, you should make the most of it. Especially if it helps you meet your objective.”

  Lauren looked down her nose at him as she said dryly, “Let me guess. You think an arranged marriage is a good idea?”

  Mitch paused, uncertain how much to reveal. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Lauren, and he had a feeling that if she found out about the secret dowry he had been offered, she would be very hurt. “To tell you the truth,” Mitch said eventually, “I’ve never really considered an arranged marriage before—” But now that he was thinking about it—with Lauren Heyward as his potential bride—an arrangement like that could work. Given the right circumstances and attitudes, of course.

  “I haven’t thought about it either,” Lauren interrupted unhappily, “and with good reason—it’s an outdated concept.”

  “But now that your father has brought it up I can see he’s got a strong case for such a liaison,” Mitch persisted. One that seemed a little more intriguing with every second he spent with Lauren Heyward. Seeing she was going to need a little more persuasion, he leaned closer and said softly, “Think about it. We have similar backgrounds. We both understand the shipping business because we grew up with it.”

  “But only one of us is actually interested in the shipping business.”

  “Even better,” Mitch said emphatically. “Should we decide to marry one day, we won’t be fighting over who gets to run it—I’ll automatically have the honor. Plus a marriage-driven merger would allow us to expand and strengthen both our businesses, while still keeping both firms private and ‘all-in-the-family’ so to speak. Financially, it would be good for both of them.”

  Lauren went very still. “What about passion?”

  Mitch had only been with Lauren a few minutes, and he was already fantasizing about what it would be like to make love with her. But sensing she wouldn’t want to hear that, he merely smiled. “I think every marriage should have some.”

  “Exactly,” Lauren replied with a mixture of satisfaction and relief. She looked at him in a way that seemed to imply on that score they weren’t compatible at all.

  He sized her up and then decided a level of truth was called for after all. “I am attracted to you, Lauren.” He’d also never been able to resist a challenge—and the thought of taking her to bed and discovering all the ways to give her pleasure was very intriguing, indeed.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Lauren retorted with a haughty toss of her mane of golden-brown hair. “Because I am not in the least bit attracted to you!”

  Fibber, Mitch thought. “Want to bet?” Mitch asked, and then did what he had been wanting to do since she had first stormed into—and out of—her father’s office earlier in the afternoon. He took her in his arms, lowered his lips to hers and put her declaration of immunity to the test. She gasped as their mouths fused and he kissed her long and hard and deep. Until he felt the need pouring out of her, as surely as the desire and temper. Until she moaned softly and melted in his arms. His mouth tingling, his whole body aching with the yearning to make her his, Mitch reluctantly lifted his head.

  “Okay,” Lauren said breathlessly as he continued to hold her close, “maybe you are attractive.” She braced her arms between the two of them, doing her best to keep them from touching above the waist. “But that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to you, Mitch Deveraux.”

  Mitch smiled at the stubbornness of her complaint, and bent her backward from the waist, determined to make her face the truth, no matter what it took. “Kiss me again and then say that,” Mitch challenged playfully, kissing the nape of her neck, the curve of her ear, before taking the softness of her lips and molding them to his. He kissed her again and again, persuading, tempting, until her body trembled even as it strained to be closer to his and her arms moved up to wreath his neck. And once he felt the soft surrender of her body, tasted the sweetness of her mouth, there was no stopping with just one kiss. Never mind one intended merely to prove a point.

  Mitch�
�s heart pounded in his chest. The rest of his body went rigid with desire. Knowing the only way to be close enough to her would be to take her to bed and make her his, he tugged her nearer yet. He hadn’t wanted a woman as much as he wanted Lauren, since…well, maybe never. He couldn’t even say why, exactly. He just knew there was something special about her. Something special about this. And she knew it, too, Mitch thought. He could tell by the way she was kissing him back. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the way he wanted her—on an ill-thought-out whim. Reluctantly, he drew back. Waited for her reaction. Which turned out to be every bit as predictable—self-protecting—as he thought it would be.

  “I’m still not attracted to you,” she repeated.

  Oh, but it was going to be fun tearing down her barriers and making her face the truth about the chemistry between them. Mitch grinned. Feeling happier, more optimistic and content—than he had in a long time, Mitch looked deep into her eyes and ran his hands from her shoulders to her wrists.

  Linking his fingertips intimately with hers, he asked softly, “Then why are you trembling?” Why were their entire bodies still reverberating with excitement and desire?

  Lauren tore her eyes away from his and stared at the open collar of his shirt. “Because this whole idea of the two of us being together…because of a proposition put forward by my father—upsets me, that’s why.”

  Mitch knew the idea of dating—maybe even marrying—a woman he barely knew should have been disturbing to him, too. But now that he’d spent a little time with Lauren, it wasn’t. Not at all. “How come?” he asked.

  “Because we’re talking about the possibility of us one day getting married as calmly and logically as if it was a business deal, and it’s not!” Lauren said emotionally, pushing him away.

  “Maybe it should be,” Mitch murmured back, and found he was beginning to agree with Payton Heyward more and more. The only mystery was why he’d never noticed Lauren Heyward before and sought her out on his own.

  Lauren took a deep, bolstering breath. She let her hands fall to her sides as she looked into his eyes and squared off with him. “I want children, Mitch.”

  “I want them, too,” Mitch said sincerely. So there was no problem there. If the kisses they had just shared were any indication, there wouldn’t be a problem in the bedroom. The problem would be staying out of the bedroom.

  Lauren pressed her right hand to her chest. “I want a marriage from the heart.”

  So had Mitch—once. But he had learned the hard way not to look for a passionate love affair to give him happiness. He clamped his lips together. “Infatuation fades.”

  Lauren narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what happened with you and Jeannette Wycliffe?”

  Mitch sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Suffice it to say, we were two people who definitely never should have married.”

  “But you did get married.”

  Mitch nodded, reflecting soberly on what a gargantuan mistake that had been. “Because we let our hormones dictate our actions. When I marry again, it will be because I’ve thought it out thoroughly and rationally, and know it’s a sound alliance that will infinitely benefit us both.” That we’ll be good together both in and out of bed.

  Lauren rolled her eyes and looked at him askance. “It doesn’t get any more romantic than that.”

  “I’m not looking for the romantic—I’m looking for the practical. And you should be, too,” Mitch advised stoically. The way he saw it, a temporary liaison between them would be very advantageous. Should they prove compatible, in the bedroom and out, an eventual marriage would be even more beneficial to them both. But even if they didn’t get along all that well or share the same goals and ideals, there wasn’t much risk or cost to either of them in dating each other exclusively for a period of one week. He’d had business deals he’d worked months to achieve that had paid him far less in actual dividends than this merger would. And he wanted—needed—this merger. Both the Heyward and Deveraux shipping companies did.

  “In fact,” Mitch continued sincerely, “I think you should be grateful to your father for setting this up.” He knew he was.

  At that, Lauren just shook her head at Mitch and muttered something about him being about as romantic as a tree.

  “What time are we supposed to do this again?” she asked with thinly veiled impatience.

  “From 6:00 p.m. until midnight, every night, starting tonight,” Mitch replied over the staccato tapping of her foot against the wood floor.

  “Fine.” Lauren sighed, doing nothing to mask her lack of enthusiasm for the evening ahead. She planted her hands on her hips. “Where do you want to meet?”

  “I’ll pick you up at your place.” Mitch plucked his suit coat off the banister and headed for the door. “And you probably want to dress nicely,” he added.

  “Why?” Lauren regarded him warily.

  “We’re having dinner with my parents.”

  AND LAUREN HAD THOUGHT her day, already as eventful as all get-out, couldn’t possibly get any worse. She held up a hand to stop Mitch’s flight and stepped into the open portal in front of him. “Whoa! Why bring them into this?”

  Mitch stood, his jacket slung over his shoulder. “Because I already had plans to see them. I can’t cancel. My mom has been having a rough time.”

  Lauren’s heart filled with empathy for Grace Deveraux. “I saw she had been fired from her job on Rise and Shine, America! How could they do that anyway? She was the best host they’ve ever had on that morning news show.”

  Mitch nodded. “We all thought so, too, but apparently the network brass wanted to go with someone who would bring in younger viewers.”

  “That’s crazy. You can’t teach experience.”

  “Exactly.” Mitch continued out onto the front porch.

  Silence fell between them as Lauren crossed the portal and shut the door behind her. “How is your mom?” she asked gently.

  Abruptly, Mitch’s blue eyes became troubled. “We’re not sure. She seems fine on the surface, but…she has to be hurting at the way she was dismissed from her job. Anyway, we’re taking turns sort of circling the wagons and making sure she has plenty of moral support. Tonight is my night, and my father is joining us.”

  That was interesting, considering Grace and Tom had been divorced for thirteen years. “Are the two of them thinking of getting back together?”

  Mitch shrugged.

  Even though he didn’t come right out and say so, Lauren could tell by the look on Mitch’s face that he wished they would.

  “They’ve both been dating other people since the divorce,” he said.

  “And now?”

  “No one special, on either side, from what I can tell. But I don’t know a lot about their personal lives.” Mitch regarded Lauren casually. “What about your dad? Is he seeing anyone?”

  “He hasn’t dated at all since my mom died eleven years ago. He says he already had the love of his life. Which makes it worse, you know,” Lauren related with a beleaguered sigh, “because the two of them had an arranged marriage. They didn’t know each other from Adam when the two of them got together.”

  “But they fell in love.”

  “Yes, they did. Although my mom and I always—always—came second to his business,” Lauren reflected with more bitterness than she would have liked.

  Mitch looked at Lauren sternly. “Just because he cares about his company doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you.”

  That just showed what little Mitch knew, Lauren thought. Her father never did anything that didn’t somehow positively impact his business. Hence, Payton’s trying to fix her up with the son of his fiercest business rival. Payton Heyward was always thinking ahead. Always trying to make more money. Or become more successful yet. And while Lauren applauded her dad’s ambition, she did not like the way he had—with Mitch’s help—tried to include her love life in Payton and Mitch’s plans for a merger between the Heyward-Deveraux shipping companies. But since this was the only wa
y she was going to get the mansion she had wanted to refurbish for most of her adult life, Lauren knew she had to either bow out or cooperate. And for the sake of this lovely old home, she was going to cooperate—for a week anyway.

  “So—” Lauren dug the toe of her shoe into the brick and mortar floor of the porch, then looked up at Mitch “—which one of us is going to tell my father we’re taking him up on his deal?”

  “I’ll call him, if you’d like,” Mitch said.

  Lauren nodded. Bad enough her father had won this round of machinations. She didn’t want to hear the victory in his voice when he realized it. Because although she had agreed to date Mitch Deveraux for one week—against her better judgment—there was absolutely no way she was marrying him, no matter how much her father wanted it, or how wonderfully Mitch kissed!

  Chapter Three

  “I thought you said you were bringing a date tonight,” Grace Deveraux said to Mitch as he walked into the family’s Charleston mansion several hours later.

  Mitch looked at his mother. Thanks to her career as a television newswoman, she had one of the most widely recognizable faces in the entire country. She couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized, which was why she was currently staying with Tom Deveraux in the home they had shared before their divorce, some thirteen years ago. It was the only way she could get any privacy in the wake of her very public firing.

  Not that his mother had let the catastrophe get her down—her short and fluffy blond hair was as youthfully and impeccably arranged as always, her blue eyes lively, her trim figure clothed in a stylish silk pantsuit.

  Mitch smiled, glad to see his mother looking so well. The idiots who had pronounced her “too old” to do her job might not know it yet, but Grace would land on her feet yet. And Mitch and the rest of the Deveraux clan would be there to applaud her when it happened.