Читать книгу Her Bachelor Challenge - Cathy Gillen Thacker - Страница 12

Bridgett thought she was past the third degree when it came to Chase and her beaux. Apparently not. He still felt—wrongly so—that he had the right to comment on the men she chose to date. Not to mention the gifts they might have or have not chosen to give her.

“What,” Chase demanded, his handsome features sharpening in disapproval as he looked down at the emerald ring glittering on the ring finger of her right hand, “is that?”

Bridgett had an idea what he was going to say. She didn’t want to hear it. Deliberately misunderstanding where he was trying to go with this, she lifted her shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “I can’t buy myself a ring?”

Chase’s sexy slate-blue eyes narrowed even more. He took a step closer and said, very low, “I know you, Bridgett. You invest in real estate, growth stocks, a car that will go a couple hundred thousand miles before it quits. You don’t spend thousands of your hard-earned cash on baubles. Someone gave you that very pricey emerald-and-platinum ring.”

Someone he apparently already didn’t like, even though he had yet to find out who it was. “So what if it was a gift?” Bridgett shot back just as contentiously. Expensive as the ring was, she knew that to a man like Martin, it was just like penny change. Martin never did anything in a small or inconsequential way. When they dined out, it was at the very best restaurants. They drank the rarest, most expensive wines. He didn’t just send her roses. He gave her vases of the most exquisite orchids or lilies. Once, he’d flown her to Europe for the weekend, simply because he wanted her to see Paris in the springtime. Initially, of course, she’d tried to discourage such lavish gifts. Now she knew that was just the way Martin and everyone else in his family lived.

Chase braced a hand on the wall just beside her head. “I want to know who gave you that ring.”

Bridgett refused to let him intimidate her with his I’m-in-charge-here body language. Honestly, she didn’t know how Chase did it! She had been back in Charleston less than twenty-four hours and already Chase—the bad boy of the Deveraux clan—was already under her skin. Big time.

She angled her chin at him defiantly “I don’t have to answer you.”

“Darn it, Bridgett. You know how much I care about you.”

Cared, Bridgett thought, but didn’t love. Would never love. At least not in the way she had once wanted desperately for Chase to love her. Now she knew better, of course. Chase might have once considered her his very best buddy and partner in mischief, but when it had come to dating, he had always chosen others. At first she had thought—wrongly—it was just because he was romancing women from his own social class. That theory had been blown out of the water when he became engaged to Maggie Callaway, who was from the same working class background as Bridgett. Then she had known that social status was not the reason Chase didn’t pursue her. He simply wasn’t attracted to her. Not in that way. So she had put any lingering hope of a romance between them aside and kept her distance from Chase as much as possible. She had known then what she had to remind herself of now. Chase protected her and watched out for her in a familial sort of way. There was nothing the least bit romantic in his feelings toward her—and never would be.

Silence fell between them. “Your mother didn’t tell me you were engaged,” Chase said finally when she didn’t respond to him.

“That’s because I’m not yet,” Bridgett explained with a great deal more patience than she felt.

He dropped his arm, stepped back until he was once again leaning against the opposite wall of the first-floor powder room, his six-foot-two-inch frame dwarfing her own five-foot-seven one a little less. “But you’re close,” Chase asserted unhappily, still studying her face.

“I think we’re definitely headed that way. Yes.”

Abruptly Chase looked as if he had received a sucker punch to the gut. Again Bridgett warned herself not to take his reaction personally. Chase was probably just suffering the pangs any “brother” would have about seeing his “sister” married off.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Chase asked finally in a rusty-sounding voice.

Bridgett tried not to notice how handsome Chase looked in the soft lighting of the room. After all, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to his stunning good looks. She had grown up looking into those long-lashed, slate-blue eyes of his and knew full well they were the color of the ocean on a stormy day. She had committed to heart the rugged planes of his face, the square jaw, the high cheekbones and wickedly sexy smile. Okay, maybe his shoulders did look a little broader and stronger, his abdomen a little flatter, since the last time she had seen him. Maybe he was a little more tan and rough around the edges. But the ensemble of pleated khaki shorts, loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt and sneakers was the same. Chase wanted people to see him as a slacker when she knew full well he was anything but. Deep down he was as ambitious and determined to succeed in business as she was, if not more so.

“The guy?” Chase prodded again when Bridgett failed to answer his query. “The ring giver does have a name, doesn’t he?”

Bridgett flushed. “Martin Morganstern.”

Chase shook his head and looked all the more disappointed and distressed. “Not the art-gallery guy over on King Street,” he said, groaning.

“One and the same,” Bridgett confirmed, unable to help the haughty edge that came into her voice. “And you needn’t speak of him with such derision.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “Man, Bridgett! That guy is old enough to be your father!”

Bridgett forced a droll smile as she allowed, “Only if I were sired when he was thirteen.”

“Which makes him…?”

Bridgett pushed aside her own lingering uneasiness that there was something just not right about her and Martin, despite the fact that on paper, anyway, when it came to all the relevant facts, they looked very good as a couple. “He’s forty-five.”

“To your thirty-two.” Chase blew out a gusty breath and slammed his hands on his hips. “The guy’s too old for you. Way too old.”

Bridgett shrugged. She didn’t know why, exactly, but Chase was making her want to punch him. “You’re welcome to your opinion,” she told him icily. “Fortunately,” she said as she tried to step past him once again, “I don’t have to abide by it.”

Chase smiled as if he had an ace up his sleeve and once again stepped to block her way. “What does your mother think about that ring?” he asked smugly.

Another alarm bell went off in Bridgett’s head. Ignoring the probing nature of Chase’s gaze, she said stiffly, “She hasn’t noticed it yet.” She’d been too busy in the kitchen.

Chase immediately had an “Aha!” look on his face.

Bridgett grimaced all the more. “I was about to show her when you and Gabe started brawling.”

Chase smirked. “Likely story.”

Not for the first time in her life, Bridgett wished Chase didn’t know her so well. “I’ll do it later,” she said.

Chase ran a hand along the light stubble on his jaw and continued to regard her smugly. “I think you’re stalling.”

Bridgett squared her shoulders as if for battle. “I am not.”

Chase lifted his dark brow in silent dissension. “Your mom won’t approve of you accepting such a lavish gift from him,” he predicted matter-of-factly.

Unfortunately Bridgett was pretty sure Chase was right about that, since to date Theresa hadn’t approved of much of anything Martin had done.

“In fact,” Chase predicted, leaning even closer, “I bet she doesn’t like you dating Martin any more than I do, does she?”

“Fortunately for me,” Bridgett parried, ignoring the warmth emanating from Chase’s tall strong body, “it’s not up to my mother whom I should or should not spend time with.”

Chase’s brows drew together like twin thunder-clouds. “You should listen to her, Bridgett. Your mother has always had a lot of sense.”

“In most matters.” Bridgett felt her hackles go up as she delineated precisely, “Not this.”

“You need to give that ring back, Bridgett.”

“Really.” Taking exception to the tone of his voice, Bridgett folded her arms beneath her breasts contentiously and glared at him. “And why would that be?”

Because that ring is the kind of gift a man gives to announce a woman is his. And his alone. And I just can’t see you with a smooth talker like Morganstern, Chase thought. Aware she was waiting for an answer and fuming while she did so, Chase did his best to conjure up an answer. “Because you’re too young to get that serious about someone,” he said finally.

“I’m thirty-two,” Bridgett shot back, temper sparking her beautiful brown eyes. “If I want to have a family of my own—”

“You’ve got plenty of time for that.”

Again she looked down her nose at him, as if he just didn’t get it. “I’m ready to get married and settle down now,” she explained as if to a moron.

Chase frowned, and unable to help himself, blurted out in frustration, “At least find someone who can make you happy while you do it!”

Bridgett propped her hands on her hips. “What makes you think Martin won’t make me happy?”

Because I just know, Chase thought, uneasiness sifting through him. Aware how lame that would sound, he remained silent.

Bridgett stared at him as if she had never seen him before and had no clue who he was. “Like I said, I’ve got to go.” She ducked around behind him and exited the powder room without another word.

CHASE WAS DISAPPOINTED he hadn’t been able to make Bridgett see what a mistake she was making even dating Mr. Wrong. But that didn’t mean he was giving up. He figured it would take time—and persistence—to make Bridgett see the error of her ways. But he figured she’d be grateful to him in the end. He didn’t want her suffering the way he had when he’d been betrothed to the wrong person.

In the meantime he needed to check on his mother. He found Grace upstairs in the guest room where she always stayed. She had changed out of her travel clothes and into a slim apple-green dress that only seemed to emphasize her recent weight loss. The strain lines on her face seemed all the more pronounced in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. “Are you going to be okay?” He didn’t know why, but she seemed more vulnerable now than when she had first arrived and told them she’d been fired. He wasn’t used to his take-charge, kick-butt mother being weak.

“Of course I’ll be all right,” Grace said in the firm parental voice she had used on him and his siblings. She looked at him sternly. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“Can’t help it.” Chase sauntered into the bedroom and shut the door behind him, so they could talk privately. “In the first place, I’m the oldest son.”

“Which does not make you responsible for me.”

Maybe that would’ve been true had there been someone else—like a husband around all the time—to protect her. But there wasn’t. “Even so, in your place, I’d be reeling,” Chase told her frankly.

Grace opened the first of several suitcases with a beleaguered sigh. “I’ve suffered setbacks before, Chase.”

Chase knew she had. First and foremost among them had been her legal separation from his father, a year after she had moved to New York City to work on Rise and Shine, America! Another year after that, there’d been the finalization of the divorce. None of which Chase understood to this day. Oh, he knew marriages didn’t last anymore. And maybe they never should have lasted for decades even in years past, when that was the norm. Most of the married couples he knew did not seem all that happy once the wedding rings were on their fingers, the shackles around their ankles.

“Plus, I work in television,” Grace continued, as she took out a stack of clothes and put them neatly in a dresser drawer. “Being hired and fired is all part of the routine business cycle.”

“It still must hurt,” Chase persisted, taking a seat on the ivory chaise in the corner.

Just as the divorce had hurt. Not that Grace and Tom had ever let their kids see them quarrel. It had been their strict policy not to let their four children be privy to anything going on in their marriage, especially anything bad. The idea, of course, had been to protect Chase and his siblings from any unpleasantness. And so all their kids had thought everything was fine when it was not, and had ended up feeling baffled and distressed when Grace and Tom—for no reason any of their children could fathom—suddenly stopped speaking to each other and began living separate lives. Chase had often wondered what the breaking point had been. Had one of them been unfaithful or done something equally unforgivable? And if so, why? Was the love between a man and a woman something that could just end without warning or reason? Frustratingly these weren’t the kinds of questions his parents fielded. All he knew for certain was, after they’d split, the anger and bitterness between Grace and Tom had been fierce and unrelenting. And that tension had gotten worse, before it had ever gotten better. These days, of course, the two were able to be cordial to each other—at least on the surface. But deep down, Chase still felt there were problems that remained unresolved to this day. Divorce or no divorce.

“I admit my pride is wounded,” Grace said in a way that reminded Chase that this was the first time his mother had been fired from a job. Previously whenever Grace had left a television show, it was to take a better position at another show.

Grace took out several pairs of shoes and carried them to the shelf in the closet. “It hurts having the failure of the show blamed on me and my cohost. But that’s just the way it is in the business.” Grace returned to her suitcase for her toiletry bag. “Whoever is out in front takes the credit or the blame, and in this case it was blame that needed to be apportioned out to appease the sponsors.”

Restless, Chase got up to help. “Something better will come along. Before you know it, you’ll be back in New York on another network,” he assured his mother as he unzipped the first of her two garment bags.

Grace smiled ruefully as she lifted out the clothes already on hangers and carried them to the closet. “I’m not sure I want to work in early-morning television again. Getting up at three-thirty every morning did not do much for my social life. I was going to bed for the night when everyone I knew was just getting off work for the day.”

“Then something that airs later in the day,” Chase persisted, pushing away the disturbing thought of his mother wanting to keep company with any men besides his father. It had been bad enough occasionally coming face-to-face with his father when he was squiring other, usually much younger, women around. Now he’d probably be seeing his mother going out on dates, too. “An afternoon talk show, maybe,” Chase suggested.

Grace made a face as she set out her hairbrushes and combs on the old-fashioned vanity. “Right now that sounds like even more of a grind. No. What I want to do right now is spend more time with you and your brothers and sister, Chase. I’ve missed that.”

Chase warmed at the idea of being able to see and talk to his mother whenever he wanted again and still live and work in the city he had grown up in and come to love like no other. “We’ve missed you, too, Mom.” More than she would ever know. It was their dirty little secret, but without Grace around, the Deveraux did not seem like much of a family. Not the way they once had been, anyway.

Grace enveloped Chase in a warm hug. “And besides, I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook.”

“I THOUGHT YOU’D BE happy for me,” Bridgett told her mother emotionally. She had just shown her the emerald ring Martin had given her after picking her up at the airport and taking her to dinner the evening before. “I thought you wanted me to be happy.” And frankly she was hurt that her mother wasn’t more enthusiastic about the serious turn her relationship with Martin was about to take.

“I do want you to be happy,” Theresa explained gently. “Which is why I want you to spend time with someone whose background is similar to yours.”

“Not to mention,” a deep male voice said from the doorway, “someone your own age.”

Theresa beamed at Chase the way she always did whenever he entered a room. “See, he agrees with me,” Theresa said as Chase kissed her cheek.

“Chase just doesn’t want to see anyone get serious,” Bridgett said, more irritated than ever to have Chase putting his two cents in about her personal life. She stopped folding napkins for her mother long enough to glare at Chase. “Chase does not believe in monogamy, never mind marriage.”

Chase plucked a carrot from the salad Theresa was making. He shrugged his broad shoulders without apology as he turned back to Bridgett. “I certainly don’t believe you should yoke yourself to some hoity-toity art dealer.”

“Hoity-toity?” Bridgett echoed in amazement, unable to believe Chase had actually used such a term.

“Haughty, arrogant, condescending.” Chase pulled up a stool and joined them at the butcher block, where they were preparing dinner.

“I know what it means,” Bridgett countered irritably, wishing Chase would just go away. She put the last of the fan-shaped napkins into a basket for her mother. “I write for a living, too, you know.”

“Martin’s old money, darling,” Theresa warned. “Very old money. And you know what they always say…”

“The rich are different,” Bridgett repeated wearily. She had heard that old saw from her mother a thousand times.

“Not all of us.” Chase helped himself to a tomato wedge. “Some of us old money fellas are down to earth. Just not ol’ Martin Morganstern of the Morganstern Gallery of Charleston. Martin is as blue-blooded and luxury-loving as they come.”

Bridgett found herself defending her soon-to-be fiancé hotly. “He’s very nice.”

Chase raised a dissenting brow as he added salt to the tomato wedge.

Theresa sighed as she continued to whip up a vinegar-and-oil dressing. “All men are nice when they’re trying to…to…”

“Get into my bed?” Bridgett guessed, saying what her mother seemed unable to articulate.

Theresa flushed with embarrassment but did not back down as she poured dressing on the salad and tossed it. “You’re the daughter of a domestic servant, Bridgett. You may want to forget that. But ten to one, in the end, Martin Morganstern and his very old and very proper family won’t.”

REALIZING IF SHE DIDN’T get a move on, she was going to be late, Bridgett said goodbye to her mother and headed out the back door. To her dismay, Chase followed her. “Your mom is right,” he said as he shadowed Bridgett out to her Mercedes. “What you have is new money. To a guy like Martin Morganstern, there’s one heck of a difference. To a guy like me, well, cash is cash.”

Bridgett unlocked her car and tossed her purse inside. “Thank you ever so much for enlightening me.” Hot air poured out of the sedan’s interior through the open door.

“I don’t care if you have any money or not,” Chase continued while Bridgett waited for her car to cool down before she got in. “I am and will always be your friend, regardless of your financial circumstances.” Chase folded his arms on the top of the door and continued to regard her with a cheeky seriousness that really got under her skin. “Can you really say the same about Martin Morganstern?”

Realizing she would be too hot with her cardigan on, Bridgett slipped it off, and tossed it on the seat beside her purse. She ignored the way Chase’s gaze slid over her bare arms and shoulders. “You’ve been listening to my mother for too long!”

Chase grabbed her wrist before she could slide in, his fingers warm on her skin. “Your mother is just trying to keep you from getting hurt,” he said seriously.

“And what’s your excuse for butting into my life?” Bridgett turned away from the stormy gray-blue of his eyes and put up a hand to stop any further diatribes. “Don’t answer. I really don’t want to know.”

Afraid she would lose it if they said anything else to each other on the subject, she started her car and drove off.

MARTIN WAS WAITING for Bridgett in the Barbados Room in the Mills House Hotel. He was wearing a sage-green suit with a tie and white shirt. His black hair was neatly brushed away from his handsome face, his gray eyes alert and interested. As always, he looked thrilled to see her approaching him. Just being with Martin made her feel calm inside, not all fired up and agitated the way she was when she was with Chase Deveraux.

As she neared, he stood and helped her with her chair. “I ordered you a glass of wine.”

Bridgett smiled gratefully, appreciating his gentlemanly manners. “Thank you.”

“What’s wrong?” Martin studied her silently. His glance fell to her right hand, before returning to her eyes. “Don’t tell me. Your mother thinks you shouldn’t have accepted the ring I gave you.”

Bridgett didn’t have the heart to tell Martin how upset her mother had been about the gift and what it might mean when he had been so excited about giving it to her. So she said only, “My mother’s very old-fashioned when it comes to a lot of things.”

Martin frowned. “You should have let me come with you when you went to see her today.”

That would have only made things worse, Bridgett thought, because there was no telling what her plain-spoken mother would have said to upset a quiet cultured man like Martin. “It’ll be fine,” Bridgett insisted, glancing at the menu.

Martin studied her. “I hope so. I really want your mother to like me. That’s rather hard to manage when she never spends any time with me.”

Bridgett swallowed. She had tried to get her mother to have an open mind about her relationship with Martin—to no avail. Her mother thought people should get married only if they were wildly in love and of similar backgrounds. She and Martin flunked that litmus test. Their backgrounds were as different as night and day, and as for their feelings for each other, well, those were more of a tranquil nature. Steady and reliable. Without the ups and downs of passion. What no one seemed to understand, Bridgett thought, was that this was what she wanted. A relationship that was as safe and dependable as municipal bonds. She didn’t want to be worried about being abandoned by the man she loved, the way her own mother had. Nor did she want to worry about getting divorced, the way Tom and Grace had. It was so much better, she thought, to enter into a lifelong relationship with someone with a cool head and a sensible attitude.

Martin continued to watch Bridgett, waiting.

“My mother is going to need a little time,” Bridgett said finally, thinking that a guaranteed low-yield investment was better than the ups and downs of a high-risk annuity any day.

“I have been patient, darling,” Martin said gently, covering her hand with his.

Bridgett swallowed and tried not to think how heavy and almost uncomfortable the emerald-and-platinum ring felt on her right hand. She looked into Martin’s eyes. “I know you have,” she said softly.

“I waited for you throughout the long months of your book tour.”

And he had never complained about her absence, Bridgett thought in her soon-to-be fiancé’s defense. Not once.

“But my patience,” Martin continued, “is almost gone.”

HOURS LATER, Bridgett’s mind was still reeling with all Martin had demanded of her as he walked her to the front door of her newly acquired “single house” in the historic district of Charleston. Like all town homes of the early 1800s, the single-pile redbrick Georgian had been turned sideways on the narrow city lot. A two-story piazza, or covered porch, had been built along the length of the building to provide outdoor living space for each floor, as well as shade on the windowed facade. On the first floor the street-front room was her office, where she worked on her books and advised clients on financial matters. The single room behind it was an eat-in kitchen. On the second floor, she had a combination master bedroom and bath at the front of the house and at the rear a cozy sitting room, where she relaxed, read, watched television and entertained. It was small but perfect, and as soon as Bridgett had purchased it, she had known she had really made it. No longer was she merely the daughter of the housekeeper of a well-heeled Charleston family. Now she was one of the elite that kept the city humming.

“You’ll call me in the morning to let me know what you’ve decided?” Martin said as he ever so tenderly increased his grip on her hand.

Bridgett nodded as she looked into his eyes. “Absolutely.”

“Sleep well, my precious.” Martin brushed his lips across her temple. He turned and headed down the sidewalk to the car at the curb. Bridgett waited, enjoying the splendor of the cool spring evening, until he’d driven away before she turned to let herself inside. And that was when she saw him, relaxing in the shadows, of her first-floor piazza.