So now what, Courtney thought, hating this helpless feeling dancing through her. Now what did she do?
Restless, she paced about her bedroom, moving around in large concentric circles.
Just like her life right now, she thought, frustrated.
Mandy had had a party to go to. She had driven off in her red Mercedes just a few minutes ago after trying unsuccessfully to talk her into coming along.
But Courtney wasn’t in the mood for parties. After trying to ignore reality for so long, it had finally sunk in, announcing itself with sharp claws that stung as they scratched along her consciousness.
If she didn’t abide by her father’s ironclad wishes, Courtney was going to have to give up a life she’d come to take for granted. And by doing so, become something other than who she was.
Kicking aside a pair of shoes in her path, she stopped at the edge of the long, honey-colored bureau. A rectangular mirror, as long as the oversized bureau, hung directly behind it, bounced her image back at her. She looked worried.
She was worried.
There was a single, silver-framed photograph standing on her bureau. She drew the frame to her. Her eyes blurred a little as they washed over her father’s picture. He’d been a silver-haired, strikingly handsome man with kind eyes and a mouth that was perpetually curved in a warm smile, even to the very end.
Eleven years and she still missed him. Missed the sound of his voice, his booming laugh that filled up all the corners of the house.
Lovingly, she ran her fingers along the frame, then feathered them lightly down the image trapped beneath the glass.
What was going to happen now?
“I don’t know how to be anyone else but me, Daddy. You’re not around anymore to bully me and tell me to do the right thing.” She sighed, setting the frame down again. “Although I do try.” She pressed her lips together. “But it’s hard, without you around.”
Not that the woman she had become could be thought of as a failure in any sense of the word. Following in her father’s footsteps, she had chaired several local charities and the national one he had founded, giving far more of herself than anyone suspected.
That didn’t, however, qualify her for any sort of gainful employment. She was well aware of that. If she became forced to supplement her income with some sort of a career, she had absolutely no idea what she was qualified to do.
She ran a tentative fingertip along the edge of the frame. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t many openings in the want ads for formerly well-to-do heiresses.”
Want ads. She thought of what Mandy had laughingly suggested—advertising for a husband. She was beginning to think that would be the only way she’d find the kind of man who would fit her father’s requirements, especially in the time she had left.
But any man who did fit her father’s idea of a good, solid man would have to be trained if he was to fit into her way of life.
Certainly that lamebrained, muscle-bound laborer would have had to have been instructed—probably on how to do everything but walk. That, she recalled, momentarily letting her mind drift, he did very well. Sleek, economized movements, like a cat. No, like a panther.
A panther with a tool belt.
Had her father really expected her to marry someone like that? And be happy? How could she? She and someone like that man had nothing in common outside of both being human and living in Southern California.
And to think, she had all but thrown herself at him. Well, not herself, she amended, but her wallet. Still, he had deliberately insulted her by not “catching.”
Maybe, in some perverse way, he’d thought he was too good for her. College graduate, ha! If he was a college graduate, then she was Mother Teresa. He’d probably said that just to annoy her.
And he’d succeeded.
Thank goodness he hadn’t taken her up on her hasty offer. Then she’d really be stuck.
Instead of what she was now.
Stuck.
Courtney flounced down on her king-sized bed, feeling absolutely hopeless. She hadn’t felt remotely close to this sort of helplessness since her father had died. Then she’d felt that way because she couldn’t alter what had happened, couldn’t barter with God for five more minutes with the one person she loved more than anyone. Helplessness had all but destroyed her then.
Now it just confused her.
So now what? Courtney wondered again.
A stubborn resolve not to be defeated rose above the layers of despair, fighting its way to the surface. Determined, Courtney pulled the telephone from her nightstand.
Courtney was going to make Parsons listen to reason. The right man didn’t just pop up like bread from a toaster slot. If he did, all marriages would be fairy tales. Instead of what they were. None of the marriages she knew had lasted more than a few years.
Even royalty didn’t seem to have the knack anymore. How was she expected to find the right man in less than a month?
Never mind that she’d had the past eleven years to get down to business. Now that she was looking at the matter seriously, she realized she needed more time to give it her best shot. Surely, Parsons would understand that.
Parsons, as it turned out, had a heart made out of stone. Granite.
Just like that Gage’s muscles. Gabriel’s, she corrected herself.
Gabriel.
Like the archangel. Only there wasn’t anything angelic about the man. Except, maybe for his face…
She was letting her mind stray, she upbraided herself. And right now, she couldn’t afford that. Having connected to Parsons’s office, she’d made her plea and was being railroaded. As Parsons droned on in a monotone, she opened her mouth to launch another eloquent argument. Just then the annoying beep of a call trying to get through sounded. She ignored it.
Courtney rocked forward, holding on to the receiver with both hands. “Mr. Parsons, I will not be bullied. I—”
The infernal beeping came again. That was the third time someone had called and hung up, only to try again in less than five minutes. Obviously, ignoring the annoying noise wasn’t going to make whoever was calling go away.
“Hold on, will you?” she asked impatiently. “There’s someone on the other line and they obviously don’t know when to take no for an answer.”
“Seems to be a great deal of that going ar—”
Courtney hit the hold button. It gave her heart a slight boost to cut Parsons off before he could finish.
“Yes?” she snapped.
Hang up. Now, while you still have the chance. John’s emotions warred with his fatalistic sense of what had to be. “Ms. Tamberlaine?”
The deep voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Courtney couldn’t place it. “Yes, who is this?”
An idiot. He was going to regret this, John thought. But there was no other way out for him. For them. He wasn’t doing this for himself, but for Katie. And for Katie, he’d walk through fire.
“This is John Gabriel, Ms. Tamberlaine.” He had to push the rest of the words out. “Is there somewhere we can meet to talk about that offer you made earlier today?”
Pleasure, rimmed with the oddest sting of disappointment, ribboned through her. Somehow, she’d actually believed him when he’d said that he couldn’t be bought. She’d believed that he was different.
Deep down she should have realized that once you scratched the surface, people were all alike. They just had different price tags. How many times had she been taught that lesson? There was no reason to feel like a child who’d come down on Christmas morning to discover that Santa Claus was really just a myth.
“Hold on a minute,” she said crisply. “I have to get rid of another call.”
Yes, John thought, he was going to really regret this. But Katie meant far more to him than his pride and was worth anything he had to endure.
And something told him that he had just opened himself up to endure a great deal.
Chapter Four
It shouldn’t be this w
ay.
Courtney searched the rarely used well-stocked bar that her father had flown in from Japan more than twenty years ago. Where the hell was the bottle of tonic? She felt as if she were walking in slow motion through someone else’s dream. It certainly wasn’t her dream.
She glanced back at the good-looking man sitting on her pristine white, oversize sofa. His presence almost dwarfed it. It wasn’t so much that he was such a big man as that he somehow seemed larger than life. Larger than her life.
But even though he was gorgeous in a raw, earthy sort of way that cut clear down to the bone, that didn’t change anything. Didn’t change what she was feeling about this discussion they were about to have.
Emotions collided within her like so many marbles being tossed around in an upended box. She felt sad, angry, rebellious. And trapped.
This certainly wasn’t the way she’d once envisioned feeling about her groom-to-be. Or about her weddingto-be. She should be euphoric, overjoyed, giddy. And head over heels in love, or at least some reasonable facsimile thereof.
Not pragmatic.
But that was the word that best described her feelings as she faced the ceremony that lay ahead of her. Pragmatic.
Courtney placed a chunky multifaceted glass on the ornate bar. This was probably the way a princess might have felt two hundred years ago when her father gave her hand in marriage to some ogre of a black prince just to extend the borders of the realm, or to ensure peace. Not quite human, a pawn to some higher purpose.
Nothing so lofty was going on now, of course, she thought, finally finding the elusive tonic amid the cluster of barely touched bottles of alcohol. It had been right in front of her all along.
Muttering, she poured the clear liquid over the ice and. gin already in the glass.
This is all your fault, Daddy. If you’d have let me go about this in my own way, I would have found a good man. Eventually. If one is to be found. And if I didn’t, well, I would have enjoyed the hunt. But not this. This is negotiating across a bargaining table. This is business. Marriage isn’t supposed to be business.
Courtney stared moodily at the back of Gabriel’s head as she returned with the drink he’d requested once she had prodded him. He turned just then and she dropped her eyes before she thought better of it. When she raised them again and met his gaze, her own was defiant.
“Your gin and tonic.”
Courtney handed him his drink and sat down across from him. Subconsciously, she was using the distance to mark an invisible line between them. This wasn’t going to be a friendly discussion and they both knew it.
“Thanks.” But rather than take a sip, he held the glass in both hands.
Mandy’s poodle, Cuddles, hopped onto the love seat beside her, yapped and then jumped off to explore the room again. The dog was a bundle of nerves tonight.
That made two of them.
What was it about this man that made her feel so awkward, so clumsy? Was it because she felt he was sitting in judgment of her, looking into her soul with those deep, liquid green eyes of his? Hell, she didn’t care what he thought. What anyone thought. She’d thumbed her nose at other people’s opinions all her life.
And she’d thumb her nose at his. Once the bargain was sealed.
Why wasn’t he saying something? Was he going to stare at her like that all evening? He was the one who had called her this afternoon, not the other way around.
Tucking her legs beneath her, she shifted on the love seat. “So where is Katie?”
She was all legs, he thought. His eyes drifted slowly along the long, sleek lines as she moved her legs under her. Her shorts rode up and she tugged on the hem to get them back into place. The white shorts could hardly be called decent.
But then, neither could she. Not with the offer she had made him.
He needed the offer, but that didn’t mean he didn’t resent her for making it. Or himself for taking it Things shouldn’t be done this way. Even when he had married Diane, there was the illusion of a happy life ahead of them. Here, there was nothing.
Just business.
That made it simpler. And more complicated.
“Home.” He cradled the glass between his hands, looking down at the shimmering liquid. “With a sitter.” He raised his eyes to Courtney’s face. “I didn’t think she should be listening to this.”
Why? Don’t you want her to see Daddy sell out?
The thought flashed across her mind and she almost said the words out loud. She caught herself just in time. Courtney knew she was at cross-purposes with herself, but she couldn’t help feeling just a shade bitter about all this.
She felt no triumph at having been right all along. She’d said everyone could be bought, and they could. Gabriel was no different, with his aloof bearing and his shoulders out to here. He was just like all the others. The amount she’d quoted to him had apparently just taken longer for him to process. Now that it had finally sunk in, he was here, ready to sign on the dotted line.
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t suppose she should.” Suddenly needing something to hold on to, Courtney picked up one of the azure-fringed suede throw pillows she had scattered along both pieces of furniture and hugged it to her. “Four is very young to lose your illusions.”
Something in Courtney’s voice caught his attention, arousing his curiosity. “How old were you when you lost yours?”
She shrugged, toying with the edge of the pillow. “I don’t remember. It was a gradual thing, not like finding out there was no Santa Claus.” Her father had said that she was born old. And jaded. Maybe she had been. And the men she’d met had only helped her along the rest of the way. “No crash of thunder.” Her eyes shifted to his face. “As a matter of fact, you might say that it’s still an ongoing process.”
There was an accusing look in her eyes. But that was ridiculous. He hadn’t done anything to her. It was himself he had hurt He’d sold out his principles. But none of that had anything to do with her.
Just him.
And Katie.
Courtney studied Gabriel’s face as he sat there in silence. He was relating to her, or at least commiserating. She could see it. “How old were you?”
John shrugged, surprised that she would want to know anything personal about him.
“I can’t remember, either.” He paused, thinking. “I don’t think I ever had any.”
An image of Diane rose in his mind and he remembered how good it had felt in the beginning. To finally love someone. To finally have things feel as if they were coming together.
But then they had only fallen apart again.
“Well, maybe for a while,” he allowed, “but then I grew up.”
A sad smile she didn’t seem fully conscious of played on her lips. It wasn’t the sarcastic one he’d seen before. In a way, it almost made her seem soft, he thought. More than soft, vulnerable. Probably just a ploy.
Suddenly feeling as if he needed it, John look a long sip of his drink. His eyes watered instantly and it was all he could do to keep from coughing and spitting it out. His throat felt raw. The drink was almost pure gin. He couldn’t help wondering if she’d done that on purpose.
Taking a deep breath to regain his composure, he set the glass down on the massive coffee table that separated them.
Courtney seemed oblivious to his dilemma. “Yes, I guess that’s the word for it. Growing up.”
“That’s two words,” he said mildly, pointing out the obvious.
“Whatever.” She didn’t like being corrected. Courtney turned her eyes up to his. “Well, no point in dwelling on things that can’t be. We need to be moving on with things that have to be, right?” She didn’t wait for a response. “I take it you’ve come to discuss the fine points of this…” She paused, searching for a euphemism she could live with. “Um, ‘merger.’” As good as any, she supposed. “Am I right?”
He didn’t answer immediately. They were talking about it, but he just couldn’t believe he was actually considering this “mar
riage of convenience” she had proposed. If he had any sense left, he’d get up and run, not walk, to the front door and put this—and her—behind him as fast as humanly possible.
But then he thought of what the doctor had said when he’d called today after Katie had fallen asleep. According to the results of the latest battery of tests the hospital had performed, Katie needed the operation to repair the hole in her heart sooner than he’d anticipated.
And a lot sooner than his bank account had anticipated.
There was already a second mortgage on the house thanks to the result of paying off the last surgery. There was no way in God’s green earth he could get another loan.
The only other alternative he had left to him was to turn to Diane’s parents and hope that some miracle had occurred to turn them into human beings instead of the bloodless hypocrites they were.
He’d rather crawl on his belly through the desert than ask Howard and Elizabeth Divers for anything. They had made it quite clear what they thought of him. They regarded Katie not as their granddaughter but as his child. He’d made the mistake of approaching them with condolences at Diane’s funeral. He had gotten verbal abuse in return. They had nothing but their hate to sustain them in the autumn of their years. So be it.
It was better to turn to a stranger, even if it meant striking up a deal with the devil.
In a way, he supposed, he was earning the money. Picking up the drink again, he took another sip. It went down smoother this time, now that he knew what to expect. He wondered if the same would be true of Courtney. “You said two hundred thousand dollars.”
He certainly didn’t waste any time. Well, what did she expect? She already knew that Gabriel didn’t have the finesse of some of the charming roués she’d known in her time. The ones who had silver tongues and made the mistake of thinking she was simple enough to be talked out of her money.
They’d learned. And so would he if he had any thoughts of getting more.
The smile on her lips was steely. “Ah, the finest point of all in your estimation, I’d Wager.” Her eyes narrowed. Was he going to try to get her to agree to more? “Before we go any further, I want you to know that my offer is nonnegotiable.”
Wanted: Husband, Will Train Page 5
