Chapter Nine
“I realize this is bad timing, but I have a business trip to New York that I can’t postpone,” Lucius announced one morning over Sunday breakfast.
To his relief, Angie nodded, not revealing any hint of concern that she’d be left in charge of Mikey and the home front. She poured herself a cup of tea and took a seat beside him. “The Tobias project, I assume?”
“It’s reached a crucial point and I need to meet with the investors before moving forward with it.”
She took a sip of tea and sighed in unconscious pleasure. He noticed she always did that with her first sip, made that soft, semimoan that caused him to clench his muscles in helpless want. No doubt it had something to do with the ecstatic expression that slid across her face when she drank. He recognized it as a pale reflection of how she looked when he made love to her, the resemblance just close enough to tempt him to sweep her into his arms and closet them in his bedroom for the next several hours. Maybe he’d get used to his reaction to her, to the relentless desire that filled him whenever he looked at her. Maybe he wouldn’t respond to that sigh each and every morning for the rest of his life. Maybe. Though somehow he doubted it.
It had been two weeks since they’d become engaged. Two incredible weeks during which, with a fast assist from the Pretorius Program, he’d put a new PA in place, freeing Angie to slip seamlessly into her new responsibilities. Granted, the new PA wasn’t Angie, but the motherly woman would do.
When it came to his home life, he couldn’t quite get over how well he and Angie fit together, blended, and he’d realized a few days earlier that he no longer thought of their engagement as a position he’d hired her to fill. He couldn’t say when the transition had occurred. Like everything else about Angie’s advent into his life, it had been equally seamless. He simply recognized that life was different. Better.
He could even fool himself into believing their engagement had come about the way normal engagements did—with two people falling in love and deciding to link their lives through marriage. And though he wouldn’t go so far as to claim they’d fallen in love, they’d certainly fallen in lust. Even more important, they enjoyed each other’s company. Respected one another. There was such an amazing naturalness to their interactions, a comfortable fit to how their lives had blended. And yet they could exchange a single glance and have passion explode instantaneously between them.
He removed Mikey’s breakfast dishes and dumped them in the sink before grabbing one of the neatly folded washcloths on the counter. “I also wanted to warn you that, according to my sources, the Ridgeways still plan to file for custody.” He dampened the washcloth and returned to the table to apply it to Mikey’s hands and face, ignoring the baby’s squirming protests at his mistreatment. “I want our wedding to take place before that happens so no one can accuse us of marrying as a countermeasure.”
“You have sources who have inside information regarding the Ridgeways and their lawyer?” At his bland stare, she nodded. “Okay, I guess you do. Why are they delaying?”
“They’ve arranged for a cardiac specialist to give Benjamin a full workup.”
“So you won’t have grounds to argue any possible health issues impeding their ability to raise Mikey,” she surmised.
“Shrewd as always,” he said with an approving nod. “That’s precisely their plan.”
“Okay.” She lifted her shoulder in a casual shrug. “How do you want to handle the wedding?”
The level of relief Lucius experienced at her immediate understanding and willingness to fall in with his plan, caught him off guard. He’d anticipated her arguing the need to marry quite so soon, had his arguments lined up like little ducklings following the mama duck. Or in this case, the papa. He’d been determined to bend her to his will with logic and reason, and if that didn’t work, with emotion. He’d even been prepared to commit the ultimate sacrifice and take her to bed and wring an agreement from her once he had her naked and helpless and vulnerable to his influence. Of course, considering those moments of ecstasy left him equally naked and helpless and vulnerable to her influence, put him at a small disadvantage. Not that it mattered.
Bottom line, he wanted Angie tied to him in every possible way, wrapped up in inescapable bonds, though he didn’t want to look too closely at whether it was strictly for Mikey’s sake or if there were another, more personal reason for the sudden rush.
“I’d prefer a small, private ceremony,” he said. “Tasteful, with a few close friends and family invited.” A sudden thought struck him. “You’ve never mentioned your parents. Will they attend?”
She shook her head. “My father walked out on my mother when I was Mikey’s age. Mom died in a car accident shortly before I started working for you.” Her smile held a heartbreaking stoicism. “There’s just me.”
“I’m so sorry, Angie.”
“That’s okay.”
But it wasn’t. He could see it wasn’t. One more abandonment. One more relationship that had slipped away, never to be recovered. Could they be any more alike?
“I do have a couple of friends I’d like to include if that’s acceptable,” she continued. “Trinity, in particular. She’s my best friend.”
“Of course. Anyone you want. How about a sunset ceremony followed by a small dinner reception? Would that appeal?”
“Very much.” Her smile was radiant. “Will you be inviting the Ridgeways?”
“Definitely, though I doubt they’ll attend. I’m thinking engraved invitations, the Dorchester Chapel for the service, followed by a private dinner for our guests at Milano’s on the Sound. Joe has a room for events like these above the main dining room.”
“I’ll get on that right away.”
She immediately fell into PA mode, opening a kitchen drawer and rummaging around for a pen and notepad. Lucius took them from her and tossed them aside. Then he drew her into his arms. “You’re not my PA anymore.”
She settled into the embrace, releasing her breath in a laughing sigh. “That’s a good thing since I don’t believe our antics last night fall under the heading of proper office decorum.”
“Not in any office I’ve been in charge of.” He kissed her, tasting the tea that flavored her lips. “Nor any office I haven’t been in charge of.”
She settled into his embrace, her trim curves growing more familiar by the day, even as they grew more tempting. “I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. So, when are you thinking we should marry? I can’t send out engraved invitations without a date.”
“Good point.” He frowned in concentration. “Let me call Joe regarding the dinner and make the arrangements with Dorchester Chapel. I think they’ll both be willing to accommodate me.”
She stroked her fingers along the jutting curve of his jaw, causing his blood to heat. How did she manage that with just a single touch? “They’ll be accommodating because it’s you?”
He laughed, the sound ironic. “No, more because of my bank account. It does come in handy at times like this. Once I have that set up, do whatever it takes short of offering sexual favors to get those invitations printed and out as quickly as possible.”
She tempted him with a laughing pout. “And here I was looking forward to offering sexual favors.”
He chuckled. “You can offer them to me, instead. Or maybe I should offer them to you out of sheer gratitude.”
“I have to admit, I like a grateful man,” she teased. “Once the venue’s set, I’ll take care of the rest of the details.”
“Thank you, Angie.” He couldn’t help himself. He took her mouth in a slow, thorough kiss. He vaguely heard Mikey squeal in approval, banging his hands against his high chair tray as though in applause. “I agree, munchkin. That definitely deserved a round of applause.”
As always, it took Angie a few seconds to surface and her open passion and lack of artifice never failed to humble him. She moistened her lips as though still tasting him. “You leave tomorrow, right? Monday? How long did you say you were going to be gone?”
“Five days. I’ll see if I can’t cut it to four. Three. Maybe I can rearrange my schedule and get back here in three.”
“I’ll see what I can get accomplished in the meantime.” She lowered her head to his chest and held on as though it hurt to let go. “Why don’t you leave me the key and directions to your Lake Washington house. I’ll swing by and start working on some preliminary ideas on that front.”
“Do you think you’ll have enough time?”
Angie looked up at him and what he read in those soft, aquamarine eyes sent a shaft of desire spearing through him. “I need to stay busy while you’re gone, Lucius. Maybe if I fill every minute I won’t miss you quite as much.”
He cupped her face and feathered another kiss across her mouth. “Liar.”
And she was a liar, Angie readily conceded the instant he left. Guilt threatened to overwhelm her at the way she’d set herself up as the “perfect” woman for Lucius. She would have been tempted to tell him the truth except for two vital facts. First, though she might not be “perfect”—who was?—she didn’t have a single doubt that she suited him right down to the bones, just as he suited her. They fit together in every possible regard, from the way they related to one another, to emotional needs, to sexual compatibility. She’d never anticipated they’d bond so well, so fast. But they had and she refused to feel guilt over one small lie if it forced Lucius to see what had been right under his nose all along.
Second, Mikey needed a mother, someone who would love him as much as she would her own child, love him in a way the Ridgeways would never offer due to what they perceived as the “stain” on his bloodline. Though she hadn’t anticipated falling head over heels for a six-month-old, she had. And if it had taken one small lie to bring the three of them together as a family unit, well… She could live with the guilt. Besides, what did it matter how she and Lucius married, if the end result not only met their expectations, but exceeded them? Wasn’t that the actual intent and purpose of the Pretorius Program?
She presented those same arguments over dinner at Trinity’s apartment later that night. “Yeah, it sounds all nice and logical,” her friend allowed. “But I have a feeling Devlin won’t take your view of things. All he’s going to see is a big, fat lie and hang you with it. You know he has trust issues. This isn’t going to help him get over them.”
Trinity pinpointed the one detail that continued to gnaw at Angie. “I keep hoping the ends justify the means,” she muttered.
“A popular defense, but historically, it’s one that tends to get people hanged.” Trinity swept up their dinner plates and carted them into the kitchen. “I made cobbler. You want?”
“Did you make hard sauce to go with it?”
“Of course.”
“Then I want.”
Trinity laughed. “Just like my granny used to make with one small exception.” She set a small dish of cobbler in front of Angie. “In addition to the butter and sugar, there’s also a tablespoon of whiskey.”
Angie stabbed a finger at her friend. “You’re evil. I never noticed that about you before, but it’s true.”
“More like an evil genius. Since I don’t hear you rejecting the offer, even with my small addition, I’ll get the hard sauce.”
Angie tucked Mikey more firmly in the crook of her arm and offered him another bite of the cooked carrots she’d brought for his dinner. He scrunched up his face and shoved the spoon away. “Got it. No more carrots. Dessert time, right? Give me a minute and I’ll get your applesauce.”
He didn’t wait. Instead, he made a grab at her cobbler. Before she could whip it aside, he snatched up a small helping and shoved it into his mouth, crowing in approval at the flavor.
“The kid’s got good taste,” Trinity observed, setting a small bowl of hard sauce on the table.
Angie nipped her dessert plate clear of Mikey’s reach. “The kid isn’t allowed cobbler. He’s too little. And make sure you keep that hard sauce on your side of the table. If the Ridgeways ever found out he ate something containing alcohol they’d slap Lucius with a lawsuit so fast they’d hear the sonic boom in the Antarctic.”
Trinity obediently shifted the bowl. “So, when’s the wedding and do I get to help pick out the dress?”
“This is Monday… The date’s been set for a week from Friday.”
“Nine days!” Trinity stared, nonplussed. “How are you supposed to pull everything together in nine days?”
“Apparently, Lucius has solved that problem by throwing money at it.” Angie helped herself to a bite of cobbler. “One call and the invitations that couldn’t possibly be ready for two weeks were available the same day. They go into the mail first thing tomorrow morning. The flowers have been ordered. Joe Milano is taking care of the cake. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish in a single day when money is no object.”
“What about a tux?”
Angie made a face. “Lucius must own a half-dozen tuxes, so that won’t be a problem.”
“Which leaves your wedding dress.”
“Which is a problem,” Angie acknowledged with a sigh.
“Not for long.” Trinity dropped a generous dollop of hard sauce on her cobbler and dug in. “The day after tomorrow you, me and Mikey will hit the stores and we won’t give up until we find the perfect gown. I’d drag you out shopping the first thing tomorrow—”
“But Mikey has his six-month checkup on Tuesday.” Angie sighed. “Why don’t you torture me instead of taking me shopping? It would be less painful.”
Trinity shook her head, her expression turning serious. “You only have one first marriage, Ange. If you’re lucky, only one marriage, period. You want it to be a day you’ll remember for the rest of your life.” She polished off the last of her cobbler and waved the purple-stained fork in Angie’s direction. “And that means the perfect wedding dress.”
Trinity was right, of course, and Angie couldn’t explain her reluctance when it came to buying a gown. Maybe it went back to the feeling she’d cheated when it came to her marriage to Lucius. That because she’d asked Jett to alter the Pretorius Program, she’d manipulated him into marrying her. After putting an unusually cranky Mikey to bed for the night, she faced the unpalatable truth.
She wanted Lucius to marry her because he loved her, not for expedience.
Angie stood at the foot of the mile-wide bed—a cold and empty bed without Lucius—and struggled not to cry. She’d made this bed. Time to lie in it. Based on their interactions to date, chances were excellent that it would be a good bed and a good marriage. She just needed to give them both time to develop their relationship a little more. To finish the process she didn’t doubt they’d already started…and fall in love. Stripping off her clothes, she crawled beneath the covers. She missed Lucius. Missed him unbearably. Tugging his pillow into her arms, she buried her face in it. A faint trace of his scent clung to the fabric. Crisp and distinctly male with the merest hint of forest cedar.
She’d just started to drift off into a lovely dream that involved Lucius and a wedding in the clouds, when the phone on the bedside table rang. She rolled over to snatch it up before the sound woke Mikey. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” Lucius asked, his voice dark and rich, though she could hear the exhaustion running through his words.
“It’s okay. I was just drifting off.” She checked the clock, made the swift calculation between West Coast time and East and frowned. “What are you doing still up? It’s nearly three in the morning.”
“Just going over some last minute reports before turning in. I’ve been trying to sew everything up early, though it’s not looking too encouraging.”
Disappointment flooded through her and she struggled to keep the sound of it from filtering through her voice. “When will you be back?”
“Closer to the end of the week. Thursday, if I’m lucky, but I’m not sure if I can make it.”
She plumped the pillows behind her and relaxed against them. “Where are you?” she asked.
His soft, knowing chuckle had her toes curling and sent shivers racing down her spine. “In bed. You?”
“The same.”
“Ah… Give me a second to get an image.” He released a sigh she’d only heard when they were both naked and he first slipped inside her. “Yes, there it is. What are you wearing?”
“Your pillow.”
He groaned. “You’re killing me.”
“It smells like you, not that that’s much help,” she confessed. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, sweetheart. It won’t be much longer, I promise.”
Silence settled between them, while the want grew thick. “Lucius…” she whispered.
“Me, too.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, if we don’t change the subject, I’m not going to get any sleep tonight. You…you remember Mikey has a checkup tomorrow?”
She strove to divorce herself emotionally, but it was far too late for that. Longing clung to her like Lucius’s scent to his pillow. “Nine o’clock,” she confirmed. “It’s on the calendar.”
“I wanted to be there for it. I almost postponed it a week, but it would have given the Ridgeways more ammunition to use against me.”
“I’ll take notes during the appointment. Fortunately, I’m really good at it.”
“I appreciate it. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do know.” A plaintive cry came through the baby monitor beside the phone. “I think Mikey misses you, too.”
“I hear him. Anything wrong?”
“He’s just a little fussy tonight. Maybe he’s cutting another tooth. Or maybe he knows I’m talking to you and wants his fair share of your attention.”
“I know you have to go. Give me a quick update before you do. How are the wedding plans proceeding?”
“Good. Great, in fact. I think we have everything covered except for my dress. Trinity and I will be shopping for that on Wednesday.” She released a sleepy laugh. “Technically, I guess that’s tomorrow since it’s now Tuesday morning.”
“Get something beautiful. Money’s no object.”
“Lucius—”
He sighed. “Just do it, Angie. It’s only money.”
“Okay.” There was so much more she wanted to say to him. So much she didn’t dare. At least, not yet. “Mikey says I have to go now. Call me tomorrow?”
“I’ll try.” He hesitated, the words they both longed to speak hovering between them, hanging in the airwaves across the three thousand miles separating them. “Give our boy a hug from his… Aw, hell, from me. Good night, sweetheart.”
“Good night, Lucius.”
He couldn’t say it, Angie realized. He still couldn’t say the words he longed to . Give our boy a hug from his daddy. That’s what he’d meant, what was in his heart. She could only hope that he’d soon be able to say them aloud putting words to the emotions he still denied.
She crossed to Mikey’s bedroom and lifted him out of the crib. “Daddy says good-night, little guy. Is that why you’re fussing? Because he wasn’t here to tell you in person?”
Flipping on the overhead light, she carried him to the changing table. He blinked through his tears, his crying jag leaving his face red and blotchy. Or she assumed it was from the crying jag until she unsnapped his sleeper and saw that his face wasn’t the only part of him all red and blotchy. Panicky fear swept through her. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
Scooping him up, she made a beeline for the kitchen and the doctor’s emergency number listed on the sheet taped to the refrigerator. She punched in the number, filled with relief when her call received an immediate answer, even though it was an answering service. The operator reassured her in a calm, soothing manner, promising the doctor would phone back within a minute or two. Sure enough, she’d no sooner hung up than the phone rang again.
“This is Dr. Graceland. Describe the symptoms,” the pediatrician requested briskly. He listened, then asked, “Is Mikey having difficulty breathing?”
“No, not that I’ve noticed.”
“Do you have a liquid antihistamine on hand, preferably dye-free?”
Holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder, she hurried to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, found an unopened box and scanned the information. “Yes. Yes, I have it and it says it’s dye-free.”
After verifying age and weight, the doctor said, “Give the baby one quarter teaspoon. Wait half an hour and call me if there’s no improvement. In the meantime, try a cool bath in case it’s a reaction to something he’s come into contact with physically, like pet hair or a new detergent. And make a list of everything he’s eaten the past twenty-four hours.”
“There’s nothing he hasn’t tried before,” she started to say. Then remembered Mikey’s grab for her cobbler. “Wait. He managed to get a handful of my cobbler at dinner.”
“That’s a possibility, particularly if it contained egg, dairy, nuts or wheat. Even more likely if one of his parents exhibited a similar allergy. Do you know of any allergies that run in the family?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “Both his parents are deceased.”
“Yes, of course. I remember now. Give him the antihistamine and if his symptoms don’t improve, call me back and I’ll meet you at the hospital. If they do improve, come into the office at eight and I’ll bump you to the front of the line.”
“Thank you, Dr. Graceland.”
The next half hour felt like forever. A dozen different times she reached for the phone to call Lucius, each time resisting the urge. There wasn’t anything he could do to help except worry. And he had enough to worry about without this. Besides, she could see an almost immediate improvement as soon as she administered the medication. It would have been a different story if she’d needed to rush the baby to the hospital.
It wasn’t until she’d finished bathing and redressing Mikey that another thought occurred, one that shocked her to the core. This time she did snatch up the phone.
“Wha—?”
“Trinity, it’s Angie.”
“Wha—?”
“Look, I’m sorry it’s so late, but it’s important. Tell me what was in the cobbler we ate tonight.”
Trinity groaned. “Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea what time I have to get up in the morning to go to work? You woke me because you couldn’t wait a few more hours to get my recipe for cobbler?”
“No, I woke you because Mikey may have had an allergic reaction to your cobbler. What was in it?”
“Oh, hell.” Her friend suddenly sounded more alert. “Okay, okay. Ingredients for cobbler. Um, sugar, blueberries, raspberries—”
“Currants? Did you use currants?”
Trinity gave a quick laugh of surprise. “As a matter of fact…”
“Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.”
“Wait, what—”
“I’ll explain later. Go back to sleep.”
Angie hung up without waiting for a response. Currants. If that turned out to be the cause of the allergic reaction, and the allergy ran in the family… Was it possible? Could Lucius actually be Mikey’s father? She fought to think it through logically, to try and figure out her next step. If the two were father and son, how did she prove it? Another DNA test, obviously. But that would involve informing Lucius of her suspicions. She hated getting his hopes up only to have them dashed if she was wrong.
So, how did she work around that minor detail? Whenever faced with a new situation she didn’t understand, she gathered facts. Researched. That was easy enough. She carried the baby to the computer and booted it up, then ran a fast search on DNA testing. To her relief, Mikey nodded off in her arms, the hives fading with each minute that ticked by.
“Well, look at that,” she murmured. “I had no idea it was so easy. Or that you could do a home paternity test. Best of all, I can get the results by the time Lucius returns on Friday.”
The website provided a long list of items from which they could extract DNA, examples of which she could find around the apartment without involving Lucius directly. She just had to pick one, send it in and wait for the results. And if the test results confirmed he fathered Mikey? She leaned back in the chair and cuddled the baby close. It would mean that Lisa had somehow falsified the results of Mikey’s paternity test. Another thought struck. If she was right, Lucius wouldn’t need her any longer because the Ridgeways would no longer have a viable claim on Mikey.
“Damn,” she whispered. “What do I do now?”
There wasn’t really any question about what she’d do. She’d let Lucius off the marital hook by ending their engagement gracefully and without complaint. Tears filled her eyes. Maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t want to be let off the hook. Maybe he’d demand she stick to the agreement they’d made because he… She buried her head against Mikey’s curls. Because he what? Because he wanted to be married to her? Because he loved her?
Foolish, foolish girl. Lucius had been up-front about what he wanted from the beginning. He’d offered marriage in order to ensure he retained guardianship of Mikey. Sure, he enjoyed the fringe benefits of their relationship. The companionship. The sex. A wife to take care of all the little wifely duties. But not once had he said anything about love. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to tell her he didn’t think himself capable of that particular emotion. Was it his fault that she’d fallen head over heels for him?
She swept the back of her hand across her damp cheeks. Enough. She didn’t even know if Lucius was Mikey’s father. Once she’d settled that issue, she’d worry about the next step. In the meantime, she’d keep a close watch on Mikey in case he suffered a relapse from the allergen he’d come into contact with. And on Wednesday she’d choose a wedding gown, even knowing she may never wear it. She sighed.
Better make it returnable.
He didn’t think Friday would ever arrive or that his meetings would ever come to an end. He boarded his private jet by noon, delighted he’d soon surprise Angie with an early arrival. He’d made a startling discovery during his five days in New York, one he’d tried for weeks to deny, but no longer could.
He’d fallen utterly, hopelessly, completely in love. And it wasn’t with just one person, but two. His feelings for Mikey had been steadily growing, bit by bit, over the past three months until he had no choice but to concede that he flat-out loved the baby, had even come to regard Mikey as his own son. But his feelings for Angie hadn’t crept up on him. They’d hit him with all the power and fury of a Cat 5 hurricane, flinging him into the midst of an inescapable storm of emotion.
He’d discovered something else during his trip to New York. He didn’t just want Angie for the sake of his son—and Mikey was as much his son as Geoff had been his brother, Lucius now admitted. No, he wanted her in his life…for himself. A permanent part of that life. And the minute he saw her again, he intended to tell her so.
The only remaining question was… Could he convince Angie to change her mind, too? Could he convince her to give their marriage a chance, a real chance? To accept the ring on her finger as a sincere promise of intent, and the wedding they’d organized as the start of a true marriage.
His cell phone rang while they were waiting for permission for takeoff and he checked the caller ID. Pretorius St. John. Flipping open the phone, Lucius greeted the programmer. “How’s it going, Pretorius?”
“To be honest? Not good.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help?”
“It’s not how you can help me. It’s how I can help you.” Pretorius sighed. “Listen, there’s something you need to know about your ‘perfect’ wife-to-be. Unfortunately, it involves my former assistant, Jett.”