Fortune's Proposal Read online

  She let out a faint laugh. Her fingers worked quickly over the keyboard as she made her corrections to his document. “You’re obviously dreading the trip to your father’s wedding. Maybe you shouldn’t be giving me advice on dealing with my parent.”

  He exhaled roughly and shoved off the desk again. “It’s not the wedding,” he muttered. “Not entirely.”

  Her fingers slowed fractionally and realizing it, she hastened her pace again. Letting Drew get under her sympathetic nerve was not a wise course of action.

  His father was getting married. Effectively replacing his mother. And Deanna had seen for herself, up close and personally, how deeply affected he’d been when she’d died.

  “Your brothers will be there,” she offered, trying to be helpful. He’d told her once that he had four of them, but only he and one other brother, Jeremy, didn’t live in Texas. “How long’s it been since you’ve seen them?”

  “We were all in Red Rock together a few years ago.”

  She didn’t have any siblings and so often had wished she had. She wouldn’t have felt so alone in the world. “Well, then, aren’t you looking forward to that?”

  He swung his bat like a golf club, but he looked anything but leisurely. “What the hell does it matter?”

  Irritation skittered along her nerves. “I guess it doesn’t,” she snapped back, “except that this whole project—” she waved her hand over the stacks of papers littering her desk “—that you insisted had to be done now, is obviously just a way for you to put off going to Texas. Were you hoping that we wouldn’t actually get it finished, so you could claim that you couldn’t get away at all?”

  Drew nearly did a double take at his assistant’s tart words. Her hazel eyes were practically snapping up at him and a blaze of color was burning in her lightly tanned cheeks.

  Usually, she was the soul of calm.

  And for some reason, the fact that she suddenly wasn’t was just one more thorn under his saddle.

  “Guess I didn’t realize how important your spa weekend with the girls was,” he countered.

  Her lips tightened. “You know, Drew, sometimes you are such a—” She broke off and shook her head so hard that her brownish-red hair bounced around her shoulders. She turned her softly pointed chin back to her computer monitor and began typing, her fingers pounding furiously over the keys.

  “A what?”

  “Nothing.” She was typing even faster, the keys clicking madly.

  “Just say it, Dee.” He blamed the urge to goad her even more on his father. William wasn’t satisfied with ruining his own life with his damn marriage plans, but now he wanted to ruin Drew’s, too. “Why hold back now?”

  She gave him a stern look that reminded him, strangely enough, of his mother. Probably because his mother was on Drew’s mind, because she clearly was not on William’s mind, he reasoned.

  “Why don’t you just go back into your office and let me finish without distraction?” she countered. She lifted her left hand to wave it in dismissal, and her right hand never stopped moving over the computer keyboard. “Decide what you want your new business cards to say when you replace your dad as the CEO now that he’s retiring. Maybe that will improve your mood.”

  “Maybe the fact that I’m not likely to be the new CEO will improve yours.”

  The clacking keys went abruptly silent.

  She stared up at him and the fiery green glint faded in her eyes, leaving confusion in their depths. “What?”

  He tightened his grip around the baseball bat.

  He wanted to throw the damn thing through one of the windows.

  “I’m not taking over as CEO.” The words tasted like acid-coated boulders.

  She looked bewildered. “But everyone knows you’re taking over for him.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess Dad didn’t read the memo.” His voice was short.

  “Drew—”

  He exhaled. “As far as I know, he’s not planning to close down this office. He just wants to close me down.”

  The high color faded from her cheeks and she looked pale. “But you do a remarkable job here.”

  “Not remarkable enough for him.”

  She shook her head a little, making her hair swing again. “Your father’s never seemed anything but proud of the work you’ve done here. For heaven’s sake, he even told me once when he was visiting the office how he thinks you’re a chip off the old block.”

  “And there’s the problem,” he said flatly. “Since he thinks he didn’t really get his act together and start up this place until he married my mother and settled down, he’s gone and decided that I have to do the same damn thing!”

  He swung the bat hard and it connected with the soft cushion of one of the upholstered chairs sitting outside the door to his office.

  The cushion dented, and Deanna let out a startled squeak.

  Neither was as satisfying as a broken window, and cursing his father, he tossed the bat onto the chair and stomped back into his office.

  Deanna followed him, her hands clenched around the lapels of her drab brown jacket that matched her knee-length drab brown skirt. “Your father thinks you should get married?”

  His head was pounding. He wanted a drink. He wanted a cigarette and he’d finally managed to quit the damn things six months earlier. He wanted to forget that the past year had ever happened and he particularly wanted to forget his father’s ultimatum.

  If only he could.

  He threw himself down onto the chair behind his desk and yanked off his hat. “He doesn’t just think it,” he said wearily. “He expects it. Or no CEO for Drew.”

  She slowly sank down onto one of the chairs facing his desk. She looked dazed, which was probably the only reason she wasn’t smoothing her skirt circumspectly around her pretty knees the way she usually did. “Are you sure you’re not—” she swallowed and moistened her lips “—well, overreacting? Maybe you misunderstood what he meant. Maybe you heard the word marriage and a wire in your brain went poof.”

  He gave a bark of laughter that was completely devoid of humor. “Oh, he was perfectly clear. My life lacks balance, he said.” He hunched forward, clenching his fists on top of his desk. “I’m too committed to the company, he said.”

  His fist hit the desk, sending a pen rolling off the side. “What the hell else should I be but committed? This company is everything to me and he damn well knows it. But now, dear old Dad has decided that unless my neck ends up in a marriage noose again, I’m suddenly not fit to run it after all.”

  Deanna’s eyes were wide. “Um…again?”

  He could practically feel the steam wanting to pour out of his pounding head. “And he’ll go find someone who isn’t even a Fortune to head things up instead.” Even more than the marriage nonsense that William had been threatening for much of the past year—ever since he’d gotten involved with Lily—telling Drew just that morning that he’d bring in someone else to run the company if Drew didn’t heed his words had been an even worse slam.

  Their telephone conversation—if the argument that had ensued could be called that—had disintegrated from there.

  Drew was still stinging from it.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll work for somebody else at what should be my own freaking company.”

  Her brows drew together, creating a little vertical line between them. “You’d just give it up, then?” She lifted her hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Walk away from everything you’ve worked for?”

  “It’s not like I have any women around I’d remotely consider marrying. Dad decided to marry Lily and look what happened. He’s lost his marbles.”

  “I—I’m stunned,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He scrubbed his hands down his face and leaned back in his chair again, watching his assistant through his narrowed eyes.

  But his mind was still replaying the argument with his father.

  Despite his wedding to Lily scheduled for the foll
owing day—a new year and a new life with his new wife—William had had the cojones to bring up Drew’s mother, Molly. To use her memory as a tool in his arsenal against Drew’s footloose lifestyle.

  That had been the ultimate slam.

  And he’d responded in kind. If William were so concerned about Molly, then what the hell was he doing getting married again?

  Drew pinched his nose and closed his eyes again. The angry words still circled in his head. “As if a marriage certificate has anything to do with success,” he muttered. “It’s insane.” He looked at Deanna.

  She was sitting straight as a poker in her chair. Instead of twisting the life out of her jacket, her hands were now twisted together in her lap. She still had that frown etched on her face and her eyes were dark with concern. “I, um, imagine for you, marriage certainly is a deal breaker.”

  And Drew had never failed to close a deal.

  He’d always had the singular ability to put the right pieces together, even when people—including his father—said it would be impossible.

  His brain suddenly shifted. Boulders rolled and he saw a glimmer of light. “This is a deal,” he murmured, wondering why he hadn’t seen it before.

  Maybe Deanna was right. He’d heard marriage, and the wiring in his brain had short-circuited.

  Her eyebrows had climbed up her smooth forehead. “Excuse me?”

  “A deal.” He sat forward. For the first time that day he felt a grin hit him. “And all I need is a signed marriage license to seal it.”

  The corners of her lips curved in response to his, but she was still watching him warily. “Usually that involves a marriage,” she pointed out. “Which you’ve already said you’re not interested in.”

  “I’m not,” he assured. “But a marriage license just comes with wedding. All I need for that is a wife.”

  She lifted her hands. “Exactly.”

  “I can hire a wife.”

  She blinked for a moment. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

  “Sometimes you need specialized people at the table to close a deal. I just need the right woman to agree to the terms.”

  “Which are what?”

  “Sign the paper, say ‘I do’ and then act like my wife for a short while—long enough for Dad to calm down, retire like he’s planned to do all along and name me as his replacement—then go on her way.”

  She snorted softly and shook her head. Her hair gleamed under the overhead light. “Do I need to remind you that the women you usually date—before they reach the three-month expiration, that is—will be looking for a whole lot more out of your deal than going on her way?”

  Because he usually marked his way out of his brief romantic entanglements with gifts of jewelry that Deanna arranged for him, she had a point.

  “I’d need someone convincing,” he mused. He drummed his fingers on the desk as his thoughts coalesced into the perfect solution.

  He looked his assistant square in the eyes.

  “Someone like you.”

  Chapter Two

  Like her?

  Alarm had Deanna shooting out of her chair. “Now I think you’ve lost your marbles.”

  But Drew was sitting there in his chair as calm now as he’d been agitated earlier, and she felt her stomach sink even lower when he picked up the hat he’d discarded earlier and put it on.

  Backward.

  The small scar near his hairline that showed because of it gave him a particularly rakish look.

  “It’s the perfect solution,” he reasoned. The faint dimple in his cheek appeared.

  She gaped. “You are mad.”

  He spread his hands, his palms upward. “Think it through, Dee. If a new CEO is named—someone from outside—what’s the likelihood that you and everyone else who’s worked here will get to stay? Bring in a new person at the top and changes are bound to trickle down. It’s the nature of the beast.”

  A fresh wave of panic began forming at the edges of her sanity. “You already said that a new CEO wouldn’t mean closing this office.”

  “Closing is one thing. Clearing the decks to bring in his—” he shrugged “—or her, I suppose—own people is not unusual, though. If I were going into a new place, I’d want some of my own people around me. Dad will officially be retired by then. Living permanently in Texas. He’s the one ready to bring in new blood. You think he hasn’t realized the ramifications to the people who’ve worked for him all along?”

  “I can’t believe that your father wouldn’t have some plan for that. I’ve met him. He’s a very caring person!”

  “He’s a man who has made it plain that he is starting his new life, no matter how it affects everyone else, including his own family,” Drew said flatly, and his dimple was nowhere in evidence.

  Her knees suddenly felt wobbly and she closed her hands over the back of the chair where she’d been sitting.

  She needed her job. Now, more than ever.

  And while she felt certain that she’d be able to find alternate work if she had to, she knew that she’d never be able to start out at the pay level that she’d risen to at Fortune Forecasting.

  She wasn’t getting rich by any means, but she made enough to keep her head above water…and until Gigi’s latest spending jag…hers, too.

  “Nobody would believe that you and I… That we…well, that we—”

  “—were in love?”

  She could practically see the calculating wheels turning in his mind when he picked up a pen and began drumming the end of it on his desk.

  “Why not?” he asked. “I think it’ll make perfect sense to anyone who bothers to think about it. My whole family knows that you’re the only female who has been in my life for longer than a twelve-week stretch.”

  “Sure. Because you pay me well and usually leave me alone to do my job!” She shook her head. “I’m not even your type.”

  He looked amused and the dimple was definitely back. “And what type would that be?”

  “Six feet tall, blonde and big-chested.”

  “Sounds like you’re describing the guy who runs the magazine stand down in the lobby.”

  She grimaced. “Hilarious. You know exactly the kind of woman I mean. The only kind you ever date more than twice.” She could count on one hand the number of women he’d seen who’d had more interest in him than the size of his bank account or what they could get out of being on Drew Fortune’s arm for a while.

  None of those women had ever made it past a second date with him; he’d made certain of that.

  His pen was still tapping. “I do know what you mean. And you’re right. You are not a gold digger,” he said smoothly. “Nobody could ever make the mistake of thinking that. You’ve worked by my side for four years now. You’re the soul of discretion, you’re calm and sensible. Hell, if we’re honest here, my father will probably think you’re too good for me.”

  He made her sound like a lap dog.

  She shook off the unwanted shard of pique as she shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m even standing here discussing this with you. It’s insane. And I have friends still waiting for me. So am I supposed to distribute your article or was that whole episode just an exercise on your part to exert your power one last time before you take to the road?”

  He ignored that. “One year of your time, Deanna, for a simple business deal. A marriage of convenience. Hands-strictly-off, right? So what’s that worth to you? A raise? A promotion? A new title?”

  “No! I don’t want any of those things! Not when it’s a simple business deal that involves getting married to you—however you want to describe it—and lying to your own father about the real reason for it!”

  “And you think what he’s demanding is all that reasonable?” he shot back.

  She pressed her lips together. Because, if everything that Drew said was true, then of course she didn’t think it was reasonable at all.

  Yes, Drew played hard.

  But he worked even harder.

  And s
he’d worked for him long enough to know that there was nothing he valued more than the company that his father had founded.

  She raked her hands through her hair and turned away from the chair to pace across the office. Her knees were still shaking, but that was nothing compared to the quivering going on inside her belly.

  Marry Drew Fortune?

  Her?

  Nerves skittered through her.

  She paced back. “How do I even know that you’re not exaggerating the situation?”

  He gave her a look. “For what purpose? To get myself a wife? Come on, Dee.”

  She flushed. All right. So that was pretty unlikely, given Drew’s opinion about marriage. And if he weren’t practically allergic to the very idea of it, he’d have had ample opportunity to find a wife among the scores of women he’d dated. Just because she’d considered the majority of them to be shallow twits didn’t mean that he had to think of them the same way.

  He got up and rounded his desk and her nerves reached a screaming pitch when he dropped his arm over her shoulder.

  The warmth of him seared her right through the lightweight wool of her suit and she felt like she might scream right out loud to match those nerves, note for note.

  “You always play fair, Deanna,” he coaxed smoothly. “Think about all the people who’re going to be affected by this.”

  “Don’t try to schmooze me, Drew Fortune. I’m immune, remember?”

  If only.

  She shrugged out from beneath his easy, buddy-to-buddy arm, putting some much-needed space between them. “I’ve seen you in action too many times before.”

  “Fair enough.” He exhaled and sat on the edge of his desk. “I need you, Deanna. Trust me. We can make this work.”

  His words sounded so sincere that he could have been trying to persuade her to marry him for real. Forever.

  Her throat felt infuriatingly tight. “For a year,” she reminded.

  He gave a brief nod in acknowledgment. “Don’t make it sound so horrible. Since the dawn of time, people have been making marriages of convenience.”

  She almost laughed. “Somehow I never thought that term would ever pass your lips.”