JACOB'S PROPOSAL

by Eileen Wilks

"I need that contract out by five today, but you already knew that."

  "It'll be ready. Even us grunts are allowed a lunch break."

  "Lunch, yes. Flirting, however, must be done on your own time." He turned to Claire. "I need you to go with me to a party tonight."

  Her eyebrows went up. "I beg your pardon?"

  "It's business," he said impatiently. "Murchison is determined to start the round of holiday parties early, and I need to be there. He's been making noises about pulling out of the Stellar deal."

  "Ouch." Murchison was the man whose money she'd been tracking all morning. The takeover might be in trouble if he pulled out. "Still, I don't see why you need me."

  "Because Sonia isn't here. I need an extra set of eyes and ears, preferably guided by an intelligent mind. The party will be cocktails followed by a late, buffet-style dinner. Do you have something to wear? Sonia was supposed to tell you to bring some dressy things."

  She had. But Claire did not want to play dress-up with this man. She especially didn't want to go to any party where she might run into people who had known her as Ken Lawrence's fiancée. "I have plans for tonight. If all you need is a second set of ears, take Cosmo."

  Cosmo shook his head sadly. "No, those folks wouldn't be comfortable with me. You go, Claire. It will be good for you." He stood and shook his finger at her. "But stay away from the refined sugar, hear? I'd better get to work before the boss man accuses me of flirting again."

  As soon as Cosmo left, she looked at Jacob, amused. "Your secretary is a tattooed ex-con. That's even better than an Igor."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. About tonight—"

  "Be ready at seven. Murchison's place is outside of town."

  "I told you, I have plans." In the past four days, she'd seen no sign that he was aware of her past. If she went to the Murchison party with him, she would have to let him know about Ken and the scandal. And she didn't want to.

  "A date you can't break?"

  "Yes. With my cat."

  He looked blank. "Your cat?"

  "She's been at the vet's – a little disagreement with the neighbor's dog. I'm supposed to pick her up tonight." She stood. "Sonia said I could bring Sheba with me. If that's a problem, I'll help you find someone else for the position."

  His eyebrows lifted. "You'd rather quit than be parted from your cat for a month?"

  "Absolutely." Claire wasn't bluffing. God only knew where she would go if she didn't stay here, but she had no intention of letting Sheba think she'd been abandoned. She wasn't sure she ought to stay here, anyway. In his house. Fighting the urge to reach up and test the texture of the skin drawn tight over his lean cheeks.

  His mouth kicked up at one corner. "Fine. We'll pick up your cat after the party. I hadn't planned on staying late."

  "I live in Garland. It's out of your way…" She frowned. "Why do you look so pleased?"

  "Some surprises are pleasant." His eyelids drifted lower, and a slow smile filled those pale eyes. It was as intimate in its way, that smile, as a kiss. "You do seem to be full of surprises, Claire McGuire."

  That was truer than he knew, she thought – if he wasn't aware of her past. Her stomach went tense, but she couldn't put it off any longer. "There's something you should know. About me."

  "You turn into a pumpkin at midnight."

  "No, I—"

  "You like to dance naked after a couple of drinks?"

  She shook her head impatiently. "Six years ago, I was involved with Ken Lawrence. Engaged to be married, actually."

  "How encouraging. I hadn't thought we'd reached that point yet."

  She stared at him, baffled. "What point?"

  "The point where we discuss any important past relationships, and, hopefully, our lack of sexually transmitted diseases. I'm clean."

  This playful, flirtatious Jacob baffled her more than any of the others. "You're crazy, you know."

  "My sense of humor may be somewhat warped, but I'm otherwise sane. You have a poor opinion of my business skills, though, if you thought I wouldn't know at least the basic facts about any of my employees. Even a temporary employee."

  "So you do know what happened six years ago."

  He nodded.

  And he didn't care? "There may be people at the party who remember me from those days. There will be people I've never met who have opinions about me. Opinions formed by headlines and gossip. That's going to spill over onto you."

  "My brothers and I have been the subjects of gossip, both in and out of print, all of our lives. My professional reputation will stand up to a little more of it. And personally, I don't give a damn."

  She believed him. He really didn't care about her past. Claire felt suddenly light, almost giddy. It took all of her willpower to keep from doing something stupid, like laughing out loud. Or kissing him – one quick, smacking kiss, right on his lips.

  But one quick kiss wouldn't be enough. Not with this man. "There is no 'personally' between us."

  "Isn't there?" He didn't smile. His expression didn't change at all. All he did was look at her for a moment too long as the silence stretched between them, thick and unsettled. Then he went back to his office.

  Leaving her with her mouth dry and her heart drumming out warnings – and something else. Something she preferred not to think about.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  Jacob told himself his heart wasn't pounding with anticipation when he stepped out of the shower. He was curious, that was all. He knew how appealing Claire was in her trim little jackets. What would she look like glittered up for evening?

  He reached for his shirt and wondered if she had chosen basic black, or something flashier. She would know how to dress for a society party. She must have attended plenty when she was living with Ken Lawrence.

  Thought of the other man made Jacob's gut tight and sick.

  Psychotic. Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Type, Jealous Type. That was the diagnosis of the prison psychiatrist – a diagnosis North shouldn't have been able to access, but the detective was admirably thorough.

  The mouthful of syllables in the diagnosis hadn't meant much to Jacob until he looked it up and saw what it meant – delusions, mood swings. A potential for violence that had become fact, because Lawrence's central delusion had been that Claire was unfaithful to him.

  From what Jacob could piece together, Ken Lawrence had probably been charming when in his manic phase – confident, clever, outgoing. Everything Jacob wasn't. That, he told himself as he zipped his dress slacks, would work to his advantage. Claire might have once fallen in love with a man who was Jacob's opposite, but she wouldn't want those traits in a lover – or a husband – now. Not after what Ken Lawrence had done.

  According to North's summary of the testimony at Lawrence's trial, Claire had escaped their apartment one night when Lawrence's insane jealousy turned violent. He had gone looking for her … with a gun. He'd shown up at the home of the man he was convinced was her lover – a man she'd talked to briefly at a party the night before. A man she scarcely knew. He'd put three bullets in the poor son of a bitch, miraculously not killing him. Then he'd kept looking for Claire.

  He'd found her at the apartment of her friend – a female homicide cop. Sergeant Jacqueline Muldrow had shot him before he could kill Claire.

  Ken Lawrence had been seriously ill, delusional. Knowing that should have eased the anger roiling in Jacob's gut. It didn't.

  The Lawrences hadn't listened when Claire had told them their son needed help. They hadn't wanted to believe he was damaged. Defective. It was a peculiar sort of love, Jacob thought, that allowed an only son to go to prison rather than admit he was mentally ill. The Lawrences had preferred to blame Claire for Ken's violence, and the result had been a prison term instead of the mental hospital where he belonged.

  According to the prison psychiatrist, Lawrence had been free of symptoms at the time of his release four months ago.

  The tight, hot
feeling spread from Jacob's gut to his chest. He wondered if Claire knew about the psychiatrist's evaluation, if it made her feel safe. Somehow he doubted it.

  Yet she wasn't afraid of men. It baffled him, but he hadn't seen a hint of fear in her around Cosmo, when she had every reason to be uneasy with a man with a prison record, one strong enough to break her in two. She wasn't afraid of Jacob, either. Wary, maybe, but her reaction seemed the instinctive feminine wariness of a woman who knew a man wanted her. Badly.

  Sonia had talked to Jacob about her work with Helping Hands. He knew from those conversations that there were problems, fears, common to women who had been abused. Claire seemed curiously lacking those fears. According to North, though, she hadn't dated any man more than once or twice in the last six years.

  So the fear was there, even if it didn't show, he thought as he started down the stairs. He would be careful with her. Gentle.

  She was a passionate woman, an emotional woman, and that's what she would have looked for in a man – before. Jacob couldn't offer her those qualities. He was too controlled; he understood reason, not emotion. But a woman who had been hurt by a man's lack of reason and control might be drawn to those qualities. She might even find them necessary.

  He wanted quite fiercely to be necessary to Claire.

  Jacob didn't bother to deny the anticipation that made his steps hurry toward the small salon where he'd asked her to meet him.

  She was waiting for him. And she'd chosen to wear black.

  Claire stood with her back to him, looking up at the four-foot-tall painting that dominated the room. She'd done something to her hair, turning the sleek bob into glossy waves that reminded him of a forties' movie star. Her dress was slim and silky, and left her back entirely bare. The fluid line of her spine posed a wordless question about texture and taste he badly wanted to answer.

  His mouth went dry. "Am I late?"

  "I was a little early." She turned, that crooked smile lighting her face. "I can tell which one is you." She gestured at the painting. "That serious young man standing beside the chair, looking so stiff and reluctant. How old were you when it was painted?"

  "Nine." Her dress was demure enough in front, high-necked and long-sleeved and sleek. But there was all that skin in back, so pale against the black silk.

  "The baby must be Michael, and that young fellow with the angelic smile would be Luke. Michael looks a great deal like your mother."

  "The woman in the painting is Lissa, Michael's mother. Not Luke's or mine."

  "Oh. I, ah, knew your father had been married more than once."

  "Seven times, to six women. When he died, he was two weeks away from joining bride number seven in holy matrimony. Randolph West didn't believe in casual affairs. He preferred to marry the women he slept with."

  "Seven times. To six women?" She sounded incredulous.

  People reacted to his father's matrimonial history in one of two ways – they either thought it wildly funny, or were appalled. He didn't know which he disliked more. "He married Luke's mother twice. Didn't you check me out before you came to work for me?"

  "I asked questions about your business reputation, not your parents' private lives."

  "You must have heard about his will."

  "Well – yes, of course I'd heard about it. The stock market dipped when the terms were made public."

  "What do you know about it?"

  She shrugged. "Your father's entire fortune went into a trust administered by his personal lawyer and an assortment of corporate presidents and CEOs. The trust will be dissolved when you and your brothers marry – if you ever do." She tilted her head to one side. "It must be annoying to have the business community pay as much attention to your social life as the gossip columns do."

  "Annoying is one word for it." He closed the distance between them. Her nearness hit him viscerally, a tightening in his gut and thighs. He wanted to answer the question posed by the slim arc of her spine. Could her skin possibly be as soft as it looked?

  Control, he reminded himself. That was what he intended to offer her. A slow seduction, not a wild grab at passion.

  "Did you know about your father's will?" she asked. "Had he always pressured you to marry?"

  His mouth twisted. "Oh, yes. We all knew. Randolph West believed in marriage. God knows he practiced his belief religiously, and, like a lot of fathers, he wanted to pass his beliefs on to his sons. Whether we liked it or not."

  "Yet none of you have married." She glanced once more at the painting. "Why isn't he in the picture?"

  "I don't remember. Probably he didn't have time for the sittings. When he wasn't getting married, he was working."

  "He must have been very unhappy."

  "That's an odd conclusion to reach about a man who ran everything and everyone to suit himself."

  "But he kept failing, over and over, at something that mattered to him. Regardless of the reasons, it must have been hard on him."

  He thought of Randolph West – big, bluff, cheerfully hedonistic, with the attention span of a two-year-old when it came to anything except business. The idea that his father might have been quietly nursing deep unhappiness over his failed marriages was absurd. And unsettling.

  He spoke crisply. "If you're ready, we should leave."

  "Of course." But she didn't move. "You do realize what people will assume when you bring me to this party?"

  He shrugged. "Some of them, anyway. The ones who prefer supposition to facts will think you're assisting me with more personal matters than corporate backgrounds."

  "That doesn't bother you?"

  "No. Apparently it bothers you."

  "I don't like having people think I earned my position with you on my back."

  "You should be used to that. Between the jealousy of women and the covetousness of men, I doubt that you've ever had a success that some people didn't ascribe to sex instead of intelligence and hard work."

  She slid him a cool look. "Am I supposed to thank you?"

  "It wasn't a compliment." To please himself, he took her arm. Her skin was as soft as it looked. And warm, deliciously so. He wanted to touch more of it. He ran his hand down her arm to her wrist, circling it loosely and rubbing his thumb over the pulse point.

  She pulled away. "You'll keep your hands to yourself. I don't want to feed everyone's fantasies at the party."

  "Of course." But he'd felt the telltale flutter of her pulse, and was satisfied. Whether she liked it or not, she reacted to him. "Do you have a wrap?"

  She did, a huge, soft cashmere shawl the same smoky-black as her stockings. She fastened it asymmetrically at one shoulder with a small gold pin. No jewels, he thought. No diamonds at her throat or ears, and no furs. She didn't want to be bought.

  Maybe she would let him buy her pretty, shiny stones once she trusted him. The idea appealed to him strongly. "I'll bring the car around to the front," he said. "Wait for me there."

  * * *

  Jacob's car came as a surprise to Claire. Not the make – the luxury and superb engineering of a Mercedes suited him. But the car whose plush leather upholstery she slid into was a convertible, not a sensible sedan. And it was older than she was. "I'd pictured you with a new car."

  "I've got one. I prefer this one. It has more personality." He shifted smoothly and started them moving. The engine had the quiet hum of power, and cool air poured from the vents. "Besides, you can't work on the new cars yourself. Everything's computerized."

  Her eyebrows lifted. "You do your own mechanic work?"

  "You didn't think I would enjoy getting my hands dirty, did you?"

  No, she hadn't. But maybe she should have known he would prefer an old car to a new one. Look at the house he lived in – turrets and stone. "What model is this?"

  "A 1957," he said, his voice heavy with that particularly masculine satisfaction that comes from owning the right toys. "I found it three years ago. Picked it up for a song. The owner didn't know what he had. The paint was ruined, the top
was torn and the engine needed a complete overhaul, but the interior—" he patted the dash affectionately "—was in great shape."

  There was something rather sweet about his pleasure in his car. For once, he wasn't subtle or hard to read. "Nothing like the glow we get from gloating over a real bargain, is there?"

  "I don't gloat. This is a 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300Sc Cabriolet A. Do you have any idea how rare they are?"

  "That, Jacob, is gloating. The same way I did the time I spotted a Dior original in a dress hanging on the sale rack at a consignment store. It had three buttons missing, the hem was coming down and there was a makeup stain on the neckline. I saw the potential, just like you did with your car. It cost twenty dollars." Remembered glee made her smile. "And it was a perfect fit."

  He chuckled. "I don't think replacing a couple of buttons is quite on a par with rebuilding an engine, but I concede your point. If I sounded half as smug as you did just now, I was definitely gloating."

  A surprisingly comfortable silence fell. Claire didn't look at him. She didn't have to. She was intensely aware of him, all those crisp, masculine angles dressed in linen and silk the color of dusk or ashes.

  Jacob liked silk. She'd noticed that. On another man, the material might have looked soft. On him, it hinted at a sensuality all the more intriguing for the contrast it made with his hard body and harder features.

  His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. That hint of a loosening of his formality, of barriers slightly relaxed, was ridiculously enticing. No, she wouldn't let herself look at him. But she did glance at his hand from time to time where it rested on the gearshift. It was a strong hand, long-fingered, the palm narrow and elegant. A hard, clever hand.

  She refused to let herself think about how that hand would feel on her skin.

  They were headed out of Dallas proper, toward one of the many planned communities that had sprouted up like weeds crowding a water source as the complex of city and suburbs spread ever outward. The traffic was heavy once they hit the Interstate, but Jacob was a good driver, cool and competent.

  No surprise there, Claire thought. He would be competent at most anything he undertook. She leaned back in the plush seat and enjoyed the ride and the long, slow slide of a summer evening on its way to night. Darkness eased in gradually at this time of year, damping the extravagant heat of the day one shade of gray at a time.