by Susan Crosby
No matter what Her love was supposed to be unconditional, just like—Damn it. Damn it all to hell and back. He was going to be alone again, with no one to kiss good night No one to take care of. They’d made a baby together. He was supposed to give all that up because he’d hurt her without meaning to? That was love, to give up so easily? He was glad he hadn’t told her he loved her. Glad. At least she couldn’t hold that over his head. He’d let down his guard once, had begun to believe he had truly found happiness. He wouldn’t be suckered into that again.
He fought back, his voice as cool as he could make it. “You signed the prenuptial agreement, which clearly states that if we have a child, there will be no divorce. I intend to hold you to every clause.”
Her face went white. “I can’t believe you would force me to keep to that stupid agreement I signed without reading.”
“I told you to read it.”
“I asked you if there was anything written in it that a lawyer of mine would object to! You only mentioned money, which you knew didn’t matter to me. You see! This is just another example of why we can’t stay married. And I’m sure it’s a legality I can circumvent. Maybe I can’t get a divorce, but I don’t have to move back home with you. I can stay with my family.”
Gray staggered back a step. Her family? He was her family. And the baby they made together. And all the ones yet to come. How could he tell her? What words would make the difference? Words of love? If he said them now, she would throw them back in his face.
He touched her hand. She jerked it away. That hurt more than anything. He’d finally discovered he could touch and not be rebuffed. Another lesson learned. “You’re mine,” he said, the words roaring out like thunder. “Mine.” He moved around the desk, pulled her into his arms and kissed her, knowing he was hurting her, not knowing any other way of showing her how he felt
God. What had he become? He had to leave, before he hurt her even more. “I’m sorry, Mollie.” He hoped he said it aloud.
He left the room, the house, the property. Walk, hurry, jog, run. Faster. Don’t let her see you like this. Don’t let her know how you feel. Out of breath, he slid into his car, revved the engine, peeled rubber down the brick driveway, the gates opening magically just as he reached them. He drove mindlessly, stupidly, worse than a drunk who didn’t know what he was doing, because he knew. He knew.
Mollie. Mollie. Her name spilled from his heart, from his throat. You said you loved me. You said.
He was going to kill someone if he kept driving. Maybe himself—
No. Not himself. He wasn’t a coward. Nothing was that bad. Nothing. He still had a child to think of. A wife to win back. Life to live.
He slowed down, finding himself at the spot overlooking the lake where they’d parked just last week and got caught necking. He stared at the water. Memories came and went.
Twenty-five years of grief spilled out of him. He fought giving in to it for as long as he could. Then he put his head against the steering wheel and, for the first time since he was eight, he cried.
She had a shoulder to cry on. Mollie let Stuart comfort, her as she cried, her heart broken. “How can I love a man like that?” she asked Stuart, who had come into the library seconds after Gray left. “If he has any emotions at all, they’re buned so deep he could never dig a path to them. And I still love him!”
“Remember what he’s been through, too, Mollie. His father’s suicide devastated—”
“What!” She shoved herself back. “Suicide? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?”
“Obviously I don’t. Tell me.”
He took her hand, then led her to the sofa. “Do you even know who his father was, honey?”
She shook her head. “He never speaks of him.”
“His name was Charlie Knight.”
“Knight? So, Knight Star Systems—”
“Charlie’s company. I won’t give you all the details now, but after I took over the company, Charlie committed suicide. Soon after, Gretchen left town, taking Gray with her. No one ever heard from her again. She seemed to just disappear. When Gray showed up here, he wasn’t using the name Knight. I didn’t put it together. None of us did. Even Mason, for all his digging, didn’t come up with that.”
Mollie stopped listening. Suicide. “I have to go see him,” she said, stopping his monologue of explanation. “I have to go right now. I don’t have a car. I need a car.” She stood, swayed.
Stuart grabbed her. “You’re not going anywhere other than to bed. There’ll be plenty of time in the morning to deal with this.”
“But I didn’t know about his father. It explains so much!”
“Nothing will change between now and the morning.”
“I wouldn’t listen to him! I have to listen—”
“Not tonight Think of the baby, Mollie. You need to rest first.”
Exhaustion made her dizzy. It was all too much for her. The pregnancy, being revealed to the Fortune family, the tension of meeting everyone, enduring Marie’s stoic acceptance of Mollie’s presence in the house. Then Gray’s vow that he would hold her to the prenuptial agreement And now, the way his father died.
After she climbed into bed, she stared at the telephone beside her. She wished she had her computer. They always talked so freely on e-mail. But even as the thought occurred to her, she found oblivion in sleep.
Mollie didn’t expect anyone to be up at 5:00 a.m., but she couldn’t stay in bed another second. She crept down the stairs and hunted until she found the kitchen, then came to a stop when she saw Mane standing at the counter pouring a cup of coffee.
“I’m sorry,” Mollie mumbled, retreating.
“Don’t go, Mollie.” She held up the pot “Would you like some?”
“No, thank you. Some crackers, though,” she said hesitantly.
“Morning sickness?”
“It just started a few days ago. Crackers help.”
“Have a seat. I’ll get you some.”
Mollie watched her move to a cupboard and lift down a box. She put a few on a plate, then set them in front of Mollie. “Thanks.”
“Anything else?”
“This is fine.” She took a bite.
“You’ve had a rough time.”
Tears sprang to Mollie’s eyes. Her throat closed. She nodded.
“Marriage is never simple. Someone should tell us during the ceremony that it’s one big roller-coaster ride. Whatever our expectations are, they get shattered with surprising frequency, at least early on. Eventually things settle down. Then just when you think you’ve gotten onto the merry-go-round instead, you’re in line for the roller coaster again.”
Was she trying to say she had accepted her? Mollie wondered. Or that Mollie was a scary amusement park ride?
The kitchen door opened. Stuart came in. His gaze moved from Mollie to Marie, who attempted a smile.
“Everything okay in here?” he asked.
“Come sit down, please, Stuart,” Marie said. “I need to talk to both of you.”
Mollie’s stomach got queasier. She bit into another cracker.
“I asked Stuart to sleep in another room last night. It was the first time we had slept apart under the same roof. Stuart thinks it was because I was having trouble dealing with learning about you, Mollie.”
Mollie shifted her gaze to Stuart, noted the frown on his face, then focused on Marie again.
“The truth is,” Marie said, “I was dealing with my own guilt. You see, I’ve known about you all along.”
Stuart’s face darkened as Marie looked at him squarely.
“Did you really think I was going to give you up? I loved you. We had sons to consider, too. They were young. Thirteen and eight. I didn’t want them to be without a father. So I waited you out, hoping you would come back, but needing to know what I was fighting.”
“You knew I had a daughter and you didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t positive. I knew you’d had an affa
ir. I knew she was pregnant soon after. The timing was right. I didn’t want to believe it, so I didn’t.” She looked at Mollie, who didn’t know how she felt about anything anymore. “I’ve been waiting for you to claim him. I watched you at Mac and Kelly’s wedding. Your eyes kept drifting to Stuart and Jack and Garrett. There was such hunger there. I knew then that I’d been right all along. I also knew that you knew Stuart was your father. I waited for you to tell him, but you kept it to yourself. I admired that. I also despised you for it, for the fresh guilt it planted in me. You made an enormously mature decision.”
“I was honoring my mother’s wishes. Oh! I’m sorry—”
“It’s all right. And you will always be welcome here. As Stuart said, you are innocent in all this.” She took Stuart’s hand. “We both have something to forgive. It may take you more time, because what I did was worse. I should’ve confronted you, so we could have dealt with it then. I hope eventually—”
Stuart drew her into his arms as a tear spilled down her cheek.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Mollie said.
Just then the door opened and Garrett walked in.
“Gray’s here, Mollie. He wants to talk to you.”
She pressed a hand to her stomach. “He’s up early.”
“He doesn’t look like he went to bed.”
Mollie didn’t want to feel sympathy for him. Or concern. Or love. But it was all beyond her control. She couldn’t shut off her emotions like he could.
“There’s a pretty little gazebo overlooking the lake,” Marie said. “Stuart and I have solved a lot of problems there.”
Be fearless. Gray’s words came back to her, at first in a whisper, then in a deep-throated shout that echoed on and on. He should’ve taken his own advice.
Her scent reached him first, then her voice.
“Hi.”
A simple hello. Music to his ears. He was afraid she wouldn’t talk to him at all.
Turning around, he watched her walk toward him, crumbling inside, longing to beg for forgiveness, knowing that wouldn’t be enough. He clenched his fists against the need to pull her intc his arms and never let her go.
“You look terrible,” she said, examining him.
“Should’ve seen me before I showered and shaved. ] would’ve scared off trick-or-treaters.”
“Did you sleep?”
“The bed was too big.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a manila envelope, then passed it to her.
She took it without comment, clutched it to her chest. “Let’s go for a walk.”
As they stepped out the front door he took off his jacket and laid it over her shoulders. She ducked her head, but pulled the garment tighter to her. He’d never seen her so quiet. It scared the hell out of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your father?” she asked at last.
He focused on the morning, on the gentle birdsong, on the crisp scent of wood smoke. Autumn at its glorious best. “It’s a poor excuse, but I didn’t know how to put it into words. I lived on his memory, was driven by it. If I gave it up, I would have given up a big part of my life.”
“I thought about you most of the night,” she said. “About how he died. About how much you lost. You must be so angry at him, to have kept it locked up inside like that.”
“I didn’t realize how angry until last night. He abandoned me. Took the coward’s way out. Then he left me to deal with the mess he left behind. I thought he loved me. That doesn’t equate to love.”
“Of course he loved you. But he didn’t have your strength. He didn’t know that life is too precious to throw it away because he’d made some mistakes. People can start over. They just need time and help.”
“I forgave him, Mollie. Last night, in the darkest hour of my life, I found a way to forgive him.”
Still she didn’t look at him. “That’s a big step for you.”
“It seems so small now, in comparison.”
“To what?”
“Losing you.”
They reached the gazebo and stepped inside but didn’t sit, standing instead, side by side, looking out at the lake.
“What’s in the envelope?” she asked.
“The prenuptial agreement”
“You’re going to hold me to it?” Her voice shook. “You want me to stay because of some piece of paper?”
“Look inside, Mollie. It’s torn in half. I invalidated it. You’ll stay only if you want to. I hope you want to.”
“I need a tissue,” she said suddenly, dropping the envelope to a bench, fumbling in his jacket pockets.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have—”
She held up the Popsicle stick. Finally she looked at him The sheen in her eyes made his throat convulse.
“Why did you keep this?” she asked.
“It was an impulse. Then it became a connection when I wasn’t with you.” He took it from her, touched it to his lips, then hers. “First kiss.”
“I found it in your nightstand,” she admitted. “It gave me hope.”
“Speaking of hope...” He dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out one of her birthday candles. “I reread them last night. I’m sorry if I intruded, but I thought you’d shared them all. I didn’t realize you hadn’t. This one caught me off guard.”
Mollie read the words from her twentieth birthday: “I wish a true and honest man would fall in love with me.”
“No red star,” he said, touching the paper, then running his finger across hers.
She shook her head, but she didn’t pull away.
“I want to grant you that wish. I can give you half already. I know I have to earn the other half.” Gray took a chance and held her hand. Her fingers clamped around his. Her face contorted, fighting new tears. “I love you, Mollie. I love you with all my heart. I’ll be that true and honest man, if you’ll give me a chance. I’ll undo everything I’ve done to Stuart’s company. I’ll fix anything, do anything, be anything, if you’ll just love me again and stay with me. I want to be a family with you.”
Tears spilled down her face. He brushed them away. “I don’t deserve you, but I’m begging you. Please don’t leave me. You told me once that you thought fate brought us together. I knew I’d maneuvered the meeting—and yet you had those pictures that you claimed had brought you out of mourning, even before we met.”
“Not a claim. The truth!”
“You handed me such an awesome responsibility, never to disappoint you. I didn’t live up to it Do you think you can evec forgive me? Will you let me try again? I’ll do anything for you.”
“Just love me,” she said, putting his hand on her abdomen. “Us.”
Joy spilled from him, trouncing his fears, banishing his pain. “My beautiful, beautiful Mollie. That’s the easy part,” he said, kissing her, claiming her forever. He’d caught the leprechaun, after all, and the treasure was priceless. Her scent drifted around him, but he didn’t have to wonder anymore what to call it. It had a name—heaven.
Fortune Family Tree
Want to find out what happens to Chloe and Mason?
Look for their love story in
THE UNDERCOVER GROOM
by Merline Lovelace, coming only to Silhouette Desire in June 1999.
And now, for a sneak preview of this exciting conclusion to
FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE BRIDES,
please turn the page.
1
This time, Chloe Fortune vowed she wouldn’t wimp out.
This time, she’d either sweep everything off Mason’s burledmahogany desk and make wild, uninhibited love to him on its polished surface or... She gulped. Or she’d hand him back the four-carat emerald-cut solitare he’d slipped on her ring finger last January.
Last January! She paused with her hand on the brass door latch, thinking of her unconventional engagement. She couldn’t quite believe that she and Mase had been engaged for almost nine months. Or that they’d shared only a few casual kisses in all that time.
Okay, so maybe their self-imposed restraint had been part of the ground rules she’d laid down when she proposed to Mase. After all, she was the one who’d come up with the phony engagement in the first place. At the time it had seemed like the perfect answer to her dilemma.
She’d known Mase Chandler off and on for most of her life, first as her older brother Mac’s best friend and then as her occasional escort. Their phony engagement had worked perfectly... at first She just wasn’t quite sure when or how the engagement had taken on a life of its own. And she couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she’d realized she wanted her fake engagement to be a real wedding.
She only knew she missed Mase when he was gone on one of his long, extended business trips. That the hand he planted in the small of her back to guide her to a table burned right through whatever she was wearing. That she ached to peel off his handtailored suit, unknot his tie, unbutton his shirt and plant hot, greedy kisses all over his naked chest.
All of which she fully intended to do today.
If she didn’t lose her nerve!
They couldn’t continue the deception any longer. Chloe either had to call the engagement off...or convince Mase to toss out the original ground rules and make wild, reckless love to her.
He wanted to. For all his deliberate restraint, Chloe sensed the desire he so carefully kept in check. She’d tried to hint that she was ready...more than ready!...for him to unleash it. This time, she vowed, she’d do more than just hint.
Dragging in a deep, steadying breath, Chloe pushed down the brass latch. The heavy oak door slid open noiselessly. She’d taken only a single step when the sound of a husky contralto floated across the luxurious office suite.
“Come on, Mase. You love what we do together. Surely you’re not going to give it up just because you’re engaged?”
Mase was leaning against the front edge of his desk. Beneath his neat black hair, his tanned face bore a smile that ripped at Chloe’s heart. His hands rested on the brunette’s waist, while hers played with his tie. The same silk tie that Chloe had envisioned slowly unknotting just seconds ago!
