Money Man's Fiancée Negotiation

by Michelle Celmer

  “And I’m just supposed to trust you? Just take your word for it when I know it’s impossible?”

  “Yes. You should. Because you know I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, and it felt as though a chunk of her heart broke away.

  “Why did you even bring me back here? If you thought I cheated on you, if you hated me that much, why not just leave me in the hospital? Were you plotting revenge or something?”

  His jaw clenched and he looked away.

  She was just being surly, but she’d hit the nail right on the head. “Oh, my God.” She rose from the couch. “You were, weren’t you? You wanted to get back at me.”

  He turned to her, eyes black with anger. “After all I did for you, you betrayed me. I’ve taken care of you for three years, and you repay me by screwing around. You’re damn right I wanted revenge.” He shook his head in disgust. “You want to know the really pathetic thing? I forgave you. I thought you had changed. I was going to ask you to marry me tonight, for real this time. But here you are, still lying to me. Why won’t you just admit what you did? Own up to it.”

  Own up to something she didn’t do?

  The really sad thing was that she suspected, somewhere deep down, he believed her. He knew she was telling the truth. He just didn’t want to hear it. When the chips were down, and things got a little tough, it was easier to push her away than take a chance.

  “Is this the way it is with you?” she asked. “You find something really good, but when you get too close, you throw it away? Is that what you did to your wife? Did you ignore her for so long that you drove her away?”

  He didn’t respond, but she could see that she’d hit a nerve.

  “I love you, Ash. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, but I just can’t fight for you anymore.”

  “No one asked you to.”

  And that pretty much said it all. “Give me an hour to pack my things. And I would appreciate if I could use the car for a couple of weeks, until I can find another one.”

  “Keep it,” he said.

  Like a parting gift? she wondered. Or the booby prize.

  She rose from the couch and walked to her room to pack, her legs still wobbly from the adrenaline rush, her knees sore.

  But they didn’t even come close to the pain in her heart.

  Ash sat at a booth in the Rosa Lounge, sipping his scotch, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t miserable, wasn’t a complete idiot, and not doing a very good job of it.

  Mel had been gone three days and he could barely stand it. And now that he finally realized what an idiot he’d been, he wasn’t sure how to fix it.

  He knew he had to be pretty desperate at this point to arrange this meeting, but there were some things that Mel had said that really stuck in his craw, and he had to know, once and for all, if she was right.

  He checked his watch again and looked over at the door just in time to see her come in. Her hair was shorter than before, but otherwise she didn’t look all that different. She scanned the room and he rose from his seat, waving her over. When she saw him, she smiled, which was a good sign. When he’d called her and asked to meet she’d sounded a little wary.

  As she walked to the booth he saw that she still looked really good, and, wow, really pregnant.

  “Linda,” he said as she approached. “Good to see you.”

  “Hello, Ash.” His ex-wife leaned in and air kissed his cheek. “You look great.”

  “You, too,” he said. “Please sit down.”

  He waited until she slid into the opposite side of the booth, then he sat, too.

  The waitress appeared to take her drink order, and when she was gone Ash gestured to Linda’s swollen middle. “You’re pregnant. I had no idea.”

  She placed a hand on her stomach and smiled. “Six weeks to go.”

  “Congratulations. You’re still with…” He struggled to conjure up a name.

  “Craig,” she supplied for him. “We just celebrated our second wedding anniversary last month.”

  “That’s great. You look very happy.”

  “I am,” she said with a smile. “Everything is going great. I don’t know if you remember, but Craig owned a gym in our old neighborhood. I talked him into expanding and we just opened our fourteenth fitness center.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “How about you? What have you been up to?”

  “I’m still at Maddox.”

  She waited, as if she expected more, and when there wasn’t she asked, “Anyone…special in your life?”

  “For a while,” he said, wanting to add, until I royally screwed up. “It’s complicated.”

  She waited for him to elaborate. And though he hadn’t planned to, the words just kind of came out.

  “We just split up,” he heard himself tell her. “A few days ago, in fact.”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you asking to meet me is directly related somehow.”

  His ex was no dummy.

  “I need to ask you something,” he told her, rubbing his hands together, wondering if maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. “And it’s probably going to sound…well, a little weird after all this time.”

  “Okay.” She folded her hands in front of her and leaned forward slightly, giving him her undivided attention.

  “I need to know why you did it. Why you cheated on me.”

  He thought she might be offended or defensive, but she looked more surprised than upset. “Wow, okay. I didn’t see that one coming.”

  “I’m not trying to play the blame game, I swear. I just really need to know.”

  “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  No, but he’d come this far and there was no going back now. “I’m sure. I need to know.”

  “Let’s face it, Ash, by the time you caught me with Craig, our marriage had been over for a long time. It was only a matter of time before I left. You just didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to take responsibility. You wanted to make me out to be the monster.”

  “I guess I still believed we were happy.”

  “Happy? We were nonexistent. You were never around, and even when you were you were a ghost. You just didn’t want to see it.”

  She was right. They had drifted apart. He didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to take the blame.

  “I know it was wrong to cheat on you, and I’ll always be truly sorry for that. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I was so lonely, Ash. The truth is, when you caught us, and you were so angry, I was stunned. I honestly didn’t think you cared anymore. I felt as though I could have packed my bags and left, and you wouldn’t have noticed until you ran out of clean underwear.”

  All of this was beginning to sound eerily familiar.

  “So I drove you to it?”

  “Please don’t think that I’m placing all the blame on you. I could have tried harder, too. I could have insisted you take more time for me. I just assumed we were in a phase, that we had drifted, and eventually we would meet back up somewhere in the middle again. I guess by the time it got really bad, it didn’t seem worth saving. I just didn’t love you anymore.”

  “Wow,” he said. Drive the knife in deeper.

  “Ash, come on, you can’t honestly say you didn’t feel the same way.”

  She was right. His pride had taken a much bigger hit than his heart.

  “Is that what you wanted to know?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Yeah. I appreciate your honesty.”

  She cringed suddenly and pushed down on the top of her belly. “Little bugger is up under my ribs again. I think he’s going to be a soccer player.”

  “He?”

  “Yeah. We still haven’t settled on a name. I’m partial to Thomas, and Craig likes Jack.”

  “I always thought you didn’t want kids.”

  “It’s not so much that I didn’t want them, but it never seemed like the right time. And it was a touchy subject for you,
since you thought you couldn’t.”

  “Thought I couldn’t?”

  She frowned, as though she realized she’d said something she shouldn’t have. “Linda?”

  She looked down at her hands. “I probably should have told you before.”

  Why did Ash get the feeling he wasn’t going to like this? “Told me what?”

  “It was in college. We had been together maybe six months. I found out I was pregnant. And before you ask, yes, it was yours.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “Believe me, you can. And you did. But we were both going for degrees, and we hadn’t even started talking about marriage at that point. Not to mention that we had student loans up the yin yang. I knew it was really lousy timing. So I did what I believed was the best thing for both of us and had an abortion.”

  Ash’s head was spinning so violently he nearly fell out of the booth. “But all those years we didn’t use protection?”

  “You didn’t, but I did. I had an IUD. So there wouldn’t be any more accidents.”

  He could hardly believe he was hearing this. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought I was protecting you. Believe me when I say I felt guilty enough for the both of us. And even if I had wanted to keep the baby, I knew you wouldn’t. I didn’t want to burden you with that.”

  That seemed to be a common theme when it came to him and women.

  So Mel had been telling him the truth. She had been through hell and lived to talk about it, she had lost a baby, his baby, and he had more or less accused her of being a tramp.

  He could have been a father. And he would have, if he hadn’t been so selfish and blind. Not to mention stupid.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I am such an idiot.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not talking about us any longer?”

  He looked over at her. “Do you think some people are destined to keep repeating their mistakes?”

  “Some people maybe. If they don’t learn from them.”

  “And if they learn too late?”

  She reached across the table and laid her hand over his, and just like that, all the unresolved conflict, all the bitterness he’d shouldered for the past three years seemed to vanish. “Do you love her?” she asked.

  “Probably too much for my own good.”

  “Does she love you?”

  “She did three days ago.”

  She grinned and gave his hand a squeeze. “So what the heck are you doing still sitting here with me?”

  Damn, the woman was good at disappearing. He had no clue where she was staying and she refused to answer her phone. But this time Ash didn’t wait nearly as long to call the P.I. and ask him to find her again. But when Ash gave him the make and year of her car, the P.I. asked, “Does the car have GPS?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “Then you don’t really need me. You can track her every move on any computer. Or even your phone if it has Internet. I can help you set it up.”

  “That would be great,” Ash told him. It was about time something went right. And thank God this time she hadn’t gone very far. Within hours he was pulling into the lot of a grocery store a few miles away from the condo.

  The idea of a confrontation inside the store seemed like a bad idea, so he parked, got out of his car and made himself comfortable on her hood. There was no way she would be leaving without at least talking to him.

  She came out of the store maybe ten minutes later and his heart lifted at the sight of her, then it lodged in his throat when he thought of all the explaining he had to do. And the confessing.

  She had one bag in her arms and she was rooting around in her purse for something, so she didn’t see him right away.

  She looked adorable with her hair up in a ponytail, wearing jeans, tennis shoes and a pullover sweatshirt. He was finding it hard to imagine what he considered so appealing in the way she looked before the accident. This just seemed to be a better fit.

  She was almost to the car when she finally looked up and noticed him there. Her steps slowed and her eyes narrowed. He could see that she was wondering how he’d found her, especially when she had been dodging his calls.

  “GPS,” he said. “I tracked you on my phone.”

  “You realize that stalking is a criminal offense in California?”

  “I don’t think it can be considered stalking when I technically own the car.”

  She tossed the keys at him so forcefully that if he hadn’t caught them he might have lost an eye. “Take it,” she said and walked past him in the direction of the street.

  He jumped down off the hood to follow her. “Come on, Mel. I just want to talk to you.”

  “But I don’t want to listen. I’m still too mad at you.”

  Mad was good as far as he was concerned. Since he deserved it. She could get over being mad at him a lot easier than, say, hating his guts. Not that he didn’t deserve that, too.

  She was walking so fast he had to jog to catch up to her. “I’ve been an ass.”

  She snorted. “You say that like it’s something I don’t already know.”

  “But do you know how sorry I am?”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t believe you about the baby. I just didn’t want it to be true.”

  She stopped so abruptly he nearly tripped over his own feet. “Are you actually saying that you didn’t want it to be yours?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “You really are an ass,” she said, and turned to leave, but he grabbed her arm.

  “Would you please listen for a minute? I could live with the idea that you’d had an affair, that you had made a mistake, especially when I was the one who drove you away in the first place. But knowing that the baby was mine, and I was responsible…” Emotion welled up in his throat and he had to pause to get a hold of himself. “If I had treated you right, showed you that I loved you, you never would have felt like you had to run away. All the terrible things you went through never would have happened. Everything, all of it, is my fault.”

  She was quiet for what seemed like a very long time, and he watched her intently, in case she decided to throw something else at him. God only knew what she had in the bag.

  “It’s no one’s,” she finally said. “We both acted stupid.”

  “Maybe, but I think I was way more stupid than you. And I am so sorry, Mel. I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think you could find it in your heart to give me one more chance? I swear I’ll get it right this time.” He took her free hand, relieved that she didn’t pull away. “You know that I love you, right?” She nodded.

  “And you love me, too?”

  She sighed deeply. “Of course I do.”

  “And you’re going to give me another chance?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Like I have a choice. I get the distinct feeling that you’ll just keep stalking me until I say yes.”

  He grinned, thinking that she was probably right. “In that case, you could hug me now.”

  She cracked a smile and walked into his arms, and he wrapped them around her. Even with the grocery bag crushed between them, it was darned near perfect. She was perfect.

  “You know, deep down I didn’t really think it was over,” she said. “I figured you would come around. And of course I would be forced to take you back. Again.”

  “But only after I groveled for a while?”

  She grinned. “Of course.”

  He leaned down to kiss her, when a box sitting at the very top of the grocery bag caught his eye. There’s no way that was what he thought it was….

  He pulled it out and read the label, then looked down at Mel. “A pregnancy test? What is this for?”

  She was grinning up at him. “What do you think?”

  He shook his head in amazement. “Again?”

  “I don’t know for sure yet. I’m only four or five days late. But my breasts are so tender I can barely touch them a
nd that was a dead giveaway last time.”

  “I don’t get it. I’m supposed to be sterile from the radiation.”

  “You might want to get that checked, because for a guy who is supposed to be sterile, you seem to have no problem knocking me up.”

  He laughed. “This is nuts. You realize that even if there are a few guys left in there, the odds of us going three years unprotected, then you getting pregnant not once but twice, is astronomical.”

  She shrugged. “I guess that just means it was meant to be. Our own little miracle.”

  He took the bag from her and set it on the ground so he could hug her properly. He didn’t even care that people were driving by looking at them as if they were nuts.

  As far as he was concerned, the real miracle was that he had let her go twice, and here she was back in his arms. And she could be damned sure he would never let her go again.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Michelle Celmer for her contribution to the KINGS OF THE BOARDROOM miniseries.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5207-7

  MONEY MAN’S FIANCÉE NEGOTIATION

  Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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