Читать книгу A Groom for Maggie - Elizabeth Harbison - Страница 9

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ll do it,” Maggie said. “It seems best for everyone involved, as you said.” Her eyes were brighter than usual and her face had grown paler. She looked like a porcelain doll, except that there was nothing fragile about her. She was willowy but solidly built. She was beautifully built, as a matter of fact. “But I think we have to have an understanding about this.”

“We’ll have a formal agreement, of course.” It was a lesson he’d learned from bitter experience. “A prenuptial agreement that addresses both of our concerns. What are your yours?”

“Several things.” She drew a breath. “As you know I had an entire hour to think about this. I made some notes.” She took a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. “First, finances. Will I continue to get a weekly check or did you have something else in mind?”

“I could establish an account in your name and arrange for automatic deposits according to your spending.”

She sucked air in through her teeth. “I’d rather take care of my own economics.”

“Fine.” He hesitated, then wrote something down on a piece of paper. “I can’t very well keep my wife on salary but I can call it a monthly stipend for your personal use. Direct deposit would be more subtle.” He slid the paper to her.

Maggie looked at the paper. “But that’s considerably more than I’m earning now,” she said. “If my duties aren’t going to change, I don’t think it’s appropriate for my salary to change.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you arguing against a raise?”

Her look hardened slightly. “I have no intention of taking advantage of you. All I want is what’s fair.”

He tapped his pen against the pad. “This is a somewhat more constant occupation. Don’t forget you’ll be my wife as well as Kate’s supervisor.”

She lowered her chin. “That sounds ominous. What does being your wife entail that warrants so much more money? Besides scaring off gold diggers?”

He shrugged. “Regular wifely duty type things. Nothing much.”

She frowned for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Oh, no.” She stood up and shook her head. “No, no.”

“What?”

“Is this about sex?”

He lowered his brows and tried to keep from laughing. “Who mentioned sex?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You increased my salary because I will also have to perform wifely duties. Do you mean you expect me to sleep with you?”

“Did I say ‘perform’?” He pushed away the thought of her shapely legs wrapped around him. “I don’t think I said ‘perform.’”

She threw her hands up. “I don’t know what you said, but it certainly sounded like an improper proposition to me.”

He looked at her calmly. “Maggie, are you prepared to take money for such…services?”

Her face flushed red. “Certainly not!”

“Then why do you assume I’m prepared to pay for them?”

She eyed him for a moment, then her mouth quirked into a smile. “Okay, you have a good point. I leapt to a conclusion. How about if you tell me what you meant by ‘wifely duty’ and I’ll reserve judgment. For a moment.”

He studied his Mont Blanc fountain pen. “When news gets out that I’m married there will be business functions now and then that you’ll be invited to attend with me. Now, I can probably get you out of most of them, but I can’t guarantee you’ll never have to come along.”

“Business functions?”

He nodded and put the pen down.

“Of course.” She met his eyes. “I don’t have any problem with that.”

“Good.” He tapped his fingers on the armrests of his chair, amazed that the conversation was really happening. It wasn’t difficult for him to consider marriage as a business proposition—after all, there were a million legal ways to protect himself. But it was another thing to think of Maggie as his wife and remember that it was strictly business…with only a fraction of the usual marital benefits.

She sat down again and crossed her long legs. Inside, Alex groaned. “So when you talked about my role as your wife and said this was a legal marriage, you meant…?”

“Legal means legal…in the eyes of the state,” Alex said, glancing at her long slender legs. He returned his gaze to her eyes, but not without a momentary pause at her exquisite lips. “You will keep your own room.”

She raised her chin and looked at him for a moment before nodding. “Okay. So we’re agreed. No…marital interaction.”

He didn’t mean to hesitate but suddenly he had to swallow. “Of course not. No sex. Not with one another at any rate.”

She looked up sharply. “Do you have someone in mind?” Her words were unexpectedly crisp.

“Do you?” he countered.

“I’m not sure that’s a question you should be asking me.”

“Why not?”

She shifted in her chair. “Because I’m not sure it’s any of your business.”

“You asked me.”

“Well, yes, but…but I’m not the one who brought it up in the first place.”

There was no one else in her life. That was a relief. If Maggie had been interested in someone, it would really have muddied things up. Where Kate was concerned, that was. “Okay, we’ll make a deal. We’ll have a no-questions-asked policy.” Now he felt safe proposing this. “Discretion is the only requirement.”

“Another deal,” Maggie mused. She reached up and pulled her long golden hair back from her face.

Alex watched and swallowed hard. Every once in awhile he’d seen her do that and each time it struck him how much she looked like Grace Kelly. Funny, when he was young, he’d seen Rear Window and developed a tremendous crush on Grace Kelly. He’d forgotten that until just now.

“Do you agree?” he asked, after a silence that he knew had gone on too long.

“Yes.” Her chest rose with a deep breath and the buttons of her blouse strained slightly. “So how do you want to do it?”

His heart skipped a beat. “Do…?”

“The marriage,” she answered quickly. “The actual ceremony or what have you.”

“Ah, well.” He straightened in his chair and shuffled some papers on his desk. “I suppose we’ll go to the courthouse.”

“The courthouse. Fine.” Maggie swallowed. “When?”

He tapped his fingertips on the desk, then steepled his fingers in front of his face. For some reason he didn’t want to appear too anxious. “I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you on that.”

Some expression flitted across her features, but too quickly for Alex to identify it. She heaved a sigh and regarded him for a moment. There was such a look of intelligence in her eyes. Alex found it disconcerting. As if she could see right through him.

“Fine,” she said, breaking his thoughts. “But I don’t suppose we should wait too long.” She nodded toward the paper listing her visa expiration.

“No,” he agreed. “I just have to make a few calls and then I’ll have my secretary make the arrangements.” He added, “You do realize that an immigration review board will want to set up a time to interview us.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“To make sure our marriage is real. This is an eleventh hour move, after all.”

“How are they going to confirm that?”

“It’s my understanding that they’ll ask us a series of questions about each other and our life together. We’ll have to spend some time together preparing.”

“Should I be worried?”

“I don’t think so. It’s like any other test. We’ll just make sure we’re prepared.” He hesitated. “Do you have any other points to clear up?” He nodded toward the paper she’d brought along.

She glanced at it. “How do we handle…the end? In three years.”

“At the end of three years, I propose to give you a lump sum, again for your personal use. I imagine that you’ll use it to establish yourself as single again.” He pulled the pad over, wrote, then passed the paper to her.

She took it and gasped. “Are you sure you wrote this correctly?” She held it up for him to see.

He didn’t bother to look. “It’s not enough?” He poised his pen. “I’ll only go up another ten thousand.”

“Another ten thousand?” She shook her head. “It looks like you’ll be eager to be rid of me.”

He couldn’t imagine it. “I only want to be fair. That’s the way I do all my business.”

“Then it’s no wonder you’re so successful.” There was a hard edge to her voice. “But this—” she looked at the paper “—isn’t necessary. Not for me.”

Alex looked at her sharply, hating the clutch in his gut. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“Do you care whether I do or not?”

He couldn’t care. But how could he explain that to her? “It’s not imperative.”

She eyed him in silence, then asked, “What if one of us wants to get out of the marriage early?”

He went cold. “Is that a possibility?” he asked in a tone more sharp than he’d intended.

She met his eyes. “I don’t know, is it? What if you fall in love and want to marry someone else?”

He grimaced. “That’s not going to happen. For me. And if we make this deal and you want to marry someone else, you’re going to have to wait until the end of this term. Kate must be settled in a new situation before you leave.”

“Naturally.”

“Furthermore, you must agree to stay in touch with her afterward. I know it’s a big commitment, but otherwise, there’s no deal.” He watched Maggie’s eyes. “Can you agree to that?”

“Of course.” She straightened her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s even on my list.” She held it out halfheartedly.

“Good. Then I’ll have my lawyer draw up a contract and bring it to you for a signature.”

“A contract?” She looked astonished. “Don’t you trust me?”

Trust. That wasn’t a word he wanted to discuss with a woman. “It’s just good business,” he hedged. “It helps everyone remember their objectives.”

She nodded stiffly. “Very well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to Kate.”

“Right.” He watched her turn to go, then had another thought. “Maggie?”

She turned around. “Yes?”

Their eyes locked for just a moment. “Since you’re going up to Kate,” Alex said slowly, “maybe you ought to tell her about our plans now.”

A moment passed. “You want me to tell her?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“You want me to tell her alone?”

He shrugged. “That’s what I hired you for.”

“You can’t mean that.”

Lord, he’d set her off again. He didn’t have time to wade through her inventory of synonyms for I-don’tapprove-of-what-you’re-doing. “Let’s cut to the chase, here. Do you have a problem with telling her?”

Maggie crossed her arms in front of her and regarded him with a look of incredulity that made him extremely uncomfortable. “Surely you intend to tell her this news.”

So that was it. “You’re the one who is with her all the time.”

“You’re her father!” Maggie returned, seeming exasperated for having to point out something so obvious.

“I know that,” he answered, impatient over having to acknowledge something so obvious. He picked up a pen and tipped it back and forth between his fingers. “Am I to gather that you think I should speak with Kate myself?”

She bit down on her lower lip and nodded, with exaggerated patience.

“Okay, I’ll do it later.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

“You had something else to say?” Alex asked.

“On second thought, maybe we should do it together.”

He dropped the pen on the desk and it clattered onto the floor. The woman was amazing. “Maggie, have you always been this impossible or do I bring it out in you?”

She looked at him steadily, her green eyes dark and sharp. “Oh, I’ve always been this way,” she said, completely earnest. “It’s just me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“See you upstairs,” she said with a smile. She’d caught him, gained the upper hand, if only for a moment. What was worse, she knew it. He could tell.

“Wait.” He had to say something, anything, to regain control of this relationship.

Maggie looked at him expectantly.

“Please tell Kate I’d like to speak to her at—” he glanced at his watch “—three o’clock.” He eyed Maggie coolly. “I’ll expect you to be there as well.”

She nodded then turned and left, closing the heavy oak door behind her with a solid thud.

A tremor ran through his chest and he took a deep breath. He stared after her for a long time. Damn her attractiveness, he thought. She was integral to the next few years running smoothly. Yet attraction to her would cause too many problems.

He picked up a pencil and drew circles on the pad in front of him.

Physical attraction was one complication he was going to have to ignore. There were far more pressing complications that took precedence. Marlene Shaw, for example. His former mother-in-law was trying to take custody of Kate away from him. Knowing what he did of his exwife, Sandra’s, upbringing, and how she had turned out to be of less-than-sterling character, Alex was willing to protect Kate from that fate with whatever it took. Marlene was an ambitious, demanding woman who, like her daughter, wanted what she wanted at all costs. Unfortunately she had lived with Kate during the two years after the divorce. Now with Alex as a hardworking bachelor she had some leverage in the court’s eye.

Maggie could change all of that. With a wife at his side, a wife who was devoted to Kate, he would no longer have to worry about Marlene Shaw. She would have no more ammunition. And Kate would have the best of care.

Meanwhile, he also wouldn’t have to worry about other women pursuing him anymore, he thought without conceit. The undesirables would leave him alone if he was married. The others…well, there weren’t any others, so he didn’t have to worry about that, either.

There were a lot of practical advantages to his being married.

That was what he had to focus on, not his body’s attraction to Maggie.

The circles he drew became tighter and darker.

Maggie Weller—soon to be Harrison—was, as Alex’s late mother would have termed her, “a pistol.” She certainly outspunked any woman Alex had ever known. But the funny thing was, he liked that. He admired her for it.

And she was so highly principled. If Sandra had been half as principled as Maggie, half as honest, then maybe their marriage wouldn’t have been such a disaster.

Thank God Maggie wasn’t like Sandra.

Now if she could pass on any of that confidence, integrity, even self-righteousness, to Kate he would be grateful. He didn’t want Kate to suffer because of insecurities and he never wanted her to fear her father’s temper, the way he had. After all, Kate had to live with Alex, and Alex was his father’s son. If it was true that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, she might as well learn early not to need him, lest he should let her down.

He stopped scribbling on the paper.

And so he would have to remember not to need her, too, not to get too attached. For her sake;

The pencil snapped in his hand.

Half an hour later, Alex decided to phone his former mother-in-law and get it over with. He flipped through the Rolodex file on his desk until he came to the name he sought: Marlene Shaw. With one final deep breath for strength, he picked up the phone and dialed.

They made it through the pleasantries quickly, then Alex got directly to the point. “I’m getting married in a couple of weeks.”

There was a thick pause. “Is that right?” Marlene asked icily. “To whom?”

Alex could tell from the stiffness of her voice that she was already trying to determine whether this was going to help or hinder her custody case. “To Margaret Weller.”

“Margaret Weller,” the older woman repeated, “Margaret We—” There was an audible gasp. “Surely you’re not talking about the nanny!”

“The same.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I don’t think so.”

“She’s a servant!”

“That’s not exactly the way I think of things, Marlene. Kate couldn’t ask for a better stepmother.”

“But Kate…why, she needs family. There’s no substitute for blood, Alex. No one could be better for her than her own flesh and blood. Some outsider can’t give her that.”

He let a moment of silence linger after her outburst, then said mildly, “She has that. I’m her father, you remember.”

The derisive snort on the line was answer enough.

“And now she’s going to have a stepmother who loves her, too.” He waited a beat. “So I trust I won’t be hearing from you again about custody.”

“You do, do you? Well, think again. We don’t even know where that woman’s from, what her background is. She could be a criminal for all we know about her—”

Alex shifted his grip on the receiver. “My people screened her before I hired her. So drop it, Marlene. You know you don’t have a case, and I’d really rather not have to describe your schemes to my fiancée.”

“Isn’t that why you’re marrying her?” Marlene shot back. “To keep me from my grandchild?”

“Of course not,” he snapped, unable to quell a small tremor of guilt. “I’m marrying her because I want Kate to have a good family, a rational environment.”

“I see.” Marlene drew out the last word. “But you’re mistaken if you think this will help your case.”

“Your attempts to get custody don’t hold water,” he lied. “They never have. You have no grounds.”

“Have you forgotten that I lived with Sandra and Kate? I practically raised that child!”

Cold washed over Alex. “We both know that’s not true.”

“Oh, but it is.” Her voice echoed her daughter’s cruel sarcasm.

Alex swallowed. His lawyer had told him it was extremely unlikely she could win a custody battle, but recent headlines and news stories about custody hearings had made Alex nervous. Stranger things than a grandmother winning guardianship had happened. Besides, even his lawyer had acknowledged that Marlene’s having lived with Kate and Sandra had given her a tiny bit of leverage.

“I’ve got a call holding.” Alex’s mouth was dry. “I just wanted to let you know that I would be marrying again and that Kate will have a stepmother. One who will love her and take excellent care of her. I thought that would be important to you.”

“That girl is a foreigner, isn’t she?” Marlene snapped, as though Alex hadn’t spoken at all.

He let out a weary sigh. “She’s British.”

“How very convenient for her. Of course you know all she wants is to become an American. They all want to become Americans.”

He increased his grip on the phone. “I’m hanging up now. It was a pleasure talking with you, as always.”

His tone was unmistakably dismissive, but she still managed to add, “This isn’t over, Alex. Margaret Weller has got a few things to prove to me, I can tell you. I shall be calling the British Embassy and U.S. immigration authorities right away to have them look into the matter.”

He knew he shouldn’t ask but he couldn’t help it. “Matter?”

“The matter of this hasty wedding, of course.” Her voice was syrupy with malice. “I’d hate for Kate to be caught in the middle of an immigration scandal.”