An Offer He Can't Refuse (8 page)

He stopped at the light, reminding himself that he desired women with curvy hips and long legs. Nothing could explain his sudden attraction to a petite, small-chested woman who was obviously ill at ease with men.

But none of that mattered, he told himself for the hundredth time. This union between the two of them was temporary.

~~~

“I can’t get over the nerve of that man,” Madison said into the receiver.

“I don’t know…the whole night sounds dreamily romantic to me,” Jen said.

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you had been there.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Jen told her, “Jackson Lang is a regular Clark Gable. I wish I was the one marrying him. He was fighting over you, for Heaven’s sake. You should be thrilled. How many women can honestly say they’ve had two men fight over them?”

With the phone pressed to her ear, Madison slipped on her flats. “Jackson wasn’t fighting over me. He was defending himself. The man is rich. And he has a boyfriend, Jen. Marrying me isn’t the big sacrifice we first thought. He’s obviously marrying me to get the Bingham deal, and at the same time using the false marriage to cover up his sexual preference—exactly why he was being so mysterious about his reasons for agreeing to go through with this. So get the picture of Clark Gable right out of your head.”

“Okay,” Jen muttered, “Rock Hudson then.”

Madison groaned at Jen’s obsession with kings of Hollywood from the past.

“It sounds to me as if Jackson needs a wife as much as you need a husband. So, if you ask me, it’s all working out. But I worry about you, Madison. Ever since Steve messed with your head, you think all men see you as this sad little mouse. Take a good look in the mirror and wake up. No matter how mad you get at me for saying this, I’m glad you’re marrying him.”

“I do understand that Steve put me down to bring himself up,” Madison told her friend. “He called me a lot of horrible things, but I’m over all of that. I know who I am now. For the first time in my life, I feel good about myself.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t. I’m fine. But, do me a favor, Jen. Don’t forget who Jackson really is…and mostly, never forget that this is a temporary union.” The sound of a car pulling into the driveway caught Madison’s ear. “Gotta go. He’s here.”

“Okay,” Jen said hurriedly. “I’ll let you go, but on your way to the executor’s office don’t forget to ask Jackson about the wedding ceremony. You need to marry the guy quick or this is all for nothing.”

Madison said goodbye, grabbed her purse, glanced in the mirror, scolded herself for glancing in the mirror, and then finally ran out the door.

Jackson was leaning against his car, looking just as handsome in denim and a button-down shirt as he had looked in his tuxedo last night.

Maybe even better. Even with the shiner.

He hadn’t shaved, either, and the shadow of dark whiskers on his jaw only added to his appeal. He held open the passenger door for her and managed a cordial, “Hello.”

“Good morning,” she said, as if last night never happened, ridiculous considering it was hard to miss the black and blue eye. She looked away from his damaged eye, refusing to feel any sympathy for the man. If he wanted to invite her to a ball and ignore her all night…fine. What did she care? In three months they would never have to see each other again.

~~~

Jackson shut the car door and came around to the other side. Everything about Madison set his teeth on edge, starting with her ponytail. Once again she seemed to be trying hard to come across as perky and innocent and it bothered him. Logically, he knew he had a choice in the matter of whether or not to marry her. The truth was he was angry with himself for being sucked into Heather’s little plot to begin with. Heather had known from the start he would do anything she asked after Walter made him promise to take care of her.

Jackson slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He looked at Madison.

She looked at him and smiled.

An unexpected pang rose in his chest.

She had no idea what she did to him. Even those ridiculous black-rimmed eyeglasses failed to turn him off. She had the kind of cherubic face that doll-makers dreamed about.

A horrible thought struck him.

Why the hell was he feeling anything at all, let alone pangs and thoughts of cherubic doll faces? Women didn’t cause him pangs. By the time he merged onto the street every muscle he possessed was tense. The woman sitting next to him was bad news. The shiner he wore was a prime example. He’d never been in a fight in his life. But there he was last night, at the event of the year, a thirty-five-year-old man in a tuxedo, fighting for a woman he hardly knew. So what if there was bad blood between him and Bryce Archer? If Madison wasn’t an expert at looking guileless, he never would’ve felt the need to rescue her in the first place.

“Are you okay?” Madison asked.

“Fine, thanks.”

“Because if there’s something bothering you—”

Jackson hit the brakes a little too hard, swerved to the right, and came to a screeching stop at the side of the road. He looked her way, glaring at her, knowing he was angry at himself, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying what he was feeling. “What do you want from me? It’s not enough that I’m agreeing to marry you? You want me to live with you, follow your rules, and now I’m supposed to spill my guts, too?”

His fingers clamped hard around the steering wheel. “Do you want to change the rules, Madison?” His voice grew softer, but not any gentler as his gaze fell to her lips. He lifted a finger and traced the outline of her mouth. “Because if you do…”

She pushed his hand away from her face. “You didn’t have to agree to any of this. We both made choices. Take me home. We’ll forget the whole thing.”

“Not in this lifetime.” He pulled back onto the street. “I don’t back out of my commitments,” he explained feebly before concentrating on the road stretching ahead of them.

~~~

The man baffled her. One minute Jackson wore a look of casual indifference, and then in the next his expression hinted at something else altogether, something resembling desire.

Baffling or not, they needed to talk. “We’ll be arriving at Mr. Razzano’s office soon,” Madison said. “As the executor of the trust, he’ll want to ask you a lot of questions. From what I’ve gathered, Grandfather left Mr. Razzano a list of rules to follow if I were to get engaged. I have no idea what the man is going to ask, but if you don’t mind, I think we should get a few things straight before we arrive.”

“For example?”

“For instance, where does my sister live?” Madison questioned.

“You don’t have any sisters.”

“Just testing you,” she said with a smile. Her attempt to be civil was useless. Jackson stared straight ahead, his thoughts seeming miles away.

“What color are my eyes?” she asked next.

“Hazel.”

She frowned.

“They’re blue,” he ground out, as if the color made him angry.

Sheesh
. He was acting so strange. His profile was stern. No sign of humor whatsoever.

Without further prompting, he added, “You sleep with a window open every night. You graduated from high school twelve years ago. You adore children and wouldn’t mind having three or four of your own kids someday. You enjoy photography and singing, although you couldn’t hold a tune if your life depended on it.”

She raised a brow, impressed.

“You’ve held an assortment of jobs since college,” he continued. “Let’s see, you put your degree in tax accounting to work by becoming a waitress at Denny’s—”

“I needed the tips.”

“You were a hairstylist, a dog sitter, and now you’re an accountant for Castle and Klein.”

“A senior accountant. And I watched one dog.”

“Finally,” he said, “after dating some scrawny guy named Steve for too many years, you’ve sworn off men, but you’re willing to sacrifice yourself and marry me, all because you want to help some kids.”

There was a moment’s silence. She was at a loss of words. She pointed a finger at him. “Those things were not mentioned in my—how did you—”

“I have my ways.”

She shook that same finger at him. “Jen. You talked to Jen, didn’t you? She said I couldn’t hold a tune?”

His smug expression told her she was right.

“Well,” she said in a self-satisfied tone, “I know a few things about you, too, Mr. Lang.”

“If we’re going to convince Mr. Razzano that we’re in love, don’t you think we should be on a first name basis?”

She snorted. “Do you want to know what I know, or not?”

“Do I have a choice?”

She didn’t know diddly about him, but she wasn’t going to let him figure that out. “I did some additional research of my own, and guess what Mr.—I mean, Jackson? I know that you’re hiding something…something big, really big.”

She stared at him, waiting for a twitch of an eyebrow, any indication at all that would tell her she’d struck a nerve. Yeah, sure, she was nearsighted and needed new glasses, but she’d have to be blind not to see that those dark eyes of his were growing darker by the minute. “Ah-ha! You are hiding something,” she said. “But it doesn’t really matter. You want to know why?”

He turned up the music a notch.

“Because within ten minutes of meeting you, I knew all there was to know about you. You’re arrogant. You’re mulish, and worst of all, you’re just plain mean.”

She got a raised brow out of that declaration.

Let him chew on that for the rest of the day
.

~~~

Mr. Razzano, a tall, thin man with a bald, pointy head, sifted through another file.

Jackson glanced at his watch. The man had been rambling on for twenty minutes. As executor of the trust fund, it was Mr. Razzano’s responsibility to determine whether he and Madison were truly in love. After three months, if Mr. Razzano believed everybody was on the up and up, he could distribute the money accordingly. Which meant the man would be shadowing their every move until Heather gave Jackson the go ahead to pull out of the marriage for good.

“I’m going to direct my questions to Jackson first,” Mr. Razzano said, “and then to you, Ms. Brown. Let’s see—”

Madison leaned forward to take a peek at the papers littering his desk, prompting Mr. Razzano to slide the papers farther away. The office was small and stuffy. There was one window in the place and the blinds were closed tight, shutting out all natural light.

Twiddling his thumbs, Jackson tried not to think about all the work he had waiting for him at the office. He worked many weekends, too. It kept him busy, and besides, he enjoyed his work. Sheila had called him a workaholic more than once, but he wasn’t sure he agreed. Despite the long hours he spent at the office, he made time for exercise.

Jackson watched Madison finally give up trying to see Razzano’s papers. She sat back in her chair with a sigh. Jackson draped an arm around the back of her seat and let his fingers settle on her shoulder.

He felt her flinch.

Sliding his thumb back and forth, he felt her body stiffen. Suddenly he found himself enjoying the very meeting he’d dreaded for days.

“Where did you first meet?” Mr. Razzano asked after taking his time organizing his files.

“At a sushi bar on Fifth Street,” Jackson answered, wondering how that could be in any way relevant.

Madison’s anxiety was palpable. She gave Jackson a wide-eyed look, patted his leg and said, “No, honey, it was at CFC, where I volunteer.”

Mr. Razzano narrowed his eyes. “Please, Ms. Brown, let your fiancé answer the questions, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “But I think it’s important for you to know that our first meeting was more of a glimpse rather than a shake hands, how-do-you-do type of thing. That’s why he’s having a hard time remembering the exact moment we fell in love. I swear it was love at first sight. At least it was for me.”

“I only need to know where you met, not how,” Mr. Razzano said, beyond irritated.

With feigned innocence, she looked at Jackson, frustrating Mr. Razzano all the more when she added, “When I first laid eyes on Jackson, he was consoling a small boy who’d skinned his knee. My heart started doing this wild pitter-patter thing.” Madison put a hand to her chest. “It was as if the child was Jackson’s very own. Well, as you can imagine, my heart melted right then and there.”

Mr. Razzano looked to Jackson for help, but Jackson was actually enjoying the ridiculous act she was putting on so he merely shrugged, listening attentively as Madison described every detail of their first meeting. By the time she was done, even Jackson was convinced their very first meeting had happened just that way. He couldn’t help but smile at all the animated expressions and hand gestures she made as she told her story.

If Mr. Razzano had any hair on his head, he would’ve pulled it out. Instead he asked Jackson, “Have you ever been married before?”

Madison opened her mouth, causing Mr. Razzano to growl.

She clamped her mouth shut.

“No,” Jackson said. Madison smiled at him as if he were a child who’d just received one hundred percent on his first math test.

“Where do you plan to live after you’re married?”

Madison raised her hand. “We were going to live at my place but after—”

“Ms. Brown. If you can’t wait your turn, I’m going to have to ask you to step into the other room until I’m finished with Mr. Lang.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.” Madison made a zipping motion over her mouth. “I promise. Not another word.”

Jackson gave her a tight smile. She was nervous, and he even found himself feeling sorry for her. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “That’s what I love about her,” Jackson told Mr. Razzano. “When she gets nervous, she just can’t keep her cute little mouth shut for very long.”

She stiffened.

The door to Mr. Razzano’s office opened. A petite, gray-haired woman with a pencil tucked behind her ear stuck her head inside the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Helen Appleworth is here to pick up the papers you have for her.”