The Tycoon's Bought Fiancée (11 page)

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Authors: Sandra Marton

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But it was desire that would have brought her to his bed, had he asked. She'd moaned with need in his arms, returned his kisses with a passion he still remembered, and he hadn't bought those moments with coins dropped into a till. He could make her moan again, want him again, even now. All he had to do was reach out for her…
David cursed under his breath. He strode past her, took a couple of deep breaths, just enough to be sure he had himself under control again, then turned around.
“You wanted my legal advice, and here it is.” His eyes met hers. “Remember that old saw about shutting the barn door after the horse is gone?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, it's too late. You should have consulted a lawyer before you agreed to marry Willingham.”
“Avery was a lawyer,” she said softly. “He assured me that he'd take care of everything.”
“Yeah, well, he certainly did. He fixed it so the gravy train stopped the day he died.”
“I thought—I hoped my—my arrangement with my husband could be construed as a kind of contract,” Stephanie said softly.
“You mean, an oral contract?” David shook his head. “You'd need a disinterested witness, or at least a set of circumstances that would make a reasonable person think such a contract might have been possible. Your best hope would be to find a judge who'd take pity on you and agree that a man couldn't cut his wife off without a dime…but you've already traveled that route.”
She nodded, put her hands into the pockets of her jeans and looked down at the floor. For the very first time, there was the slump of defeat in her shoulders. Despite what he knew about her, David felt a twinge of sympathy.
“Do you think Mr. Russell would agree with your opinion?”
“Yes,” he said, because there was no point in lying.
“Well.” She swallowed, lifted her head, and looked him squarely in the eye. “Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Chambers.”
“You could contact another attorney, not the one who represented you before, ask if he'd take the case on.”
“No. You've made it very clear that it would be an impossible battle, and besides, no one around here would touch this.” She held out her hand. “Again, I thank you for your trouble—”
“I suppose,” David said, “I could get you a stay, so that you wouldn't have to vacate the house by today.”
She drew back her hand, tucked it into her pocket, and shook her head. “There's no sense in delaying the inevitable.”
“Do you have a place to go?”
“Of course,” she said instantly, the lie tripping from her tongue with amazing ease, but there wasn't a way in the world she was going to let anyone—David, especially—know how bad her situation was.
“And you have something stashed away to live on.” His smile was quick and unpleasant. “All that money, going into your account month after month… It must have piled up a tidy bit of interest by now.”
Lying the second time was even easier. “Certainly,” she said briskly. She brushed by him and made her way toward the hall. “Thank you for your time, and please thank Mr. Russell, too. Now, if you don't mind, I have a great deal to do—”
“I just keep wondering,” David said, “did you give your husband value for his money?”
She swung toward him, her face drained of color. “That's none of your business!”
“Actually, it is.”
What in the name of heaven are you doing, Chambers?
a voice inside him whispered in amazement, but he ignored it. The grim truth was, he'd passed the point of no return two weeks ago, on the plane to Washington.
“It's very much my business,” he said. “As your attorney—”
“One of us is crazy, Mr. Chambers. You've just gone out of your way to make it clear that you are
not
my attorney.”
“Semantics,” he said, mixing first-year law with anyyear gibberish. “I've given you legal counsel, haven't I?”
“You have, yes, but—”
“Then, I'd be negligent if I didn't ask if you'd kept your part of what you say may have been an oral contract.”
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said.” He didn't. He didn't even know what he was saying now. He only knew that he had to touch her again, that something was stretching and stirring deep within a hidden, primitive part of him. She looked so lost, so alone. “I need more information,” he said reasonably, as he walked toward her, stopping when they were inches apart. “About your relationship with Willingham.”
He looked down into Stephanie's puzzled, upturned face. At the dark eyes that could shine with an innocence he knew to be a sham, then cloud over with desire in a heartbeat. He reached out and ran the back of his hand along her cheek. She jerked away, like a skittish colt.
“Did he please you?” he said gruffly. “Aside from the money, I mean. Were you happy with him?”
“You've no right to ask me such—”
“Did you tremble when he touched you?”
He put his hand against the curve of her cheek, dropped it to her throat. His fingers were hot against her skin and she caught her breath, stiffening herself against his touch, trying to deny what it made her feel because it was impossible. She couldn't—she mustn't…
“You trembled when I touched you,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Just as you are now.”
“Stop,” she said, but her voice was a thready whisper. “David, stop.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted, as he'd known they would. He felt the rush of heat racing through his body, felt the tension spreading until his nerve endings seemed to hum. He said her name, drew her into his arms, thrust his hands into her hair and tangled his fingers in its sensuous weight.
“David,” she whispered, and her breath caught. “David?”
“Yes,” he said, drowning in what he saw in her eyes. “That's right. David. Only David…”
He kissed her. Or she kissed him. In the end, it didn't matter. The fusion was complete. Mouths, bodies… Where did she begin and he end? He didn't know, didn't care, didn't want to think about it because nothing else mattered but the feel of Stephanie, warm and willing, in his arms.
CHAPTER EIGHT
N
OTHING mattered, but being in David's arms.
Stephanie felt weightless, as she melted into him. All rational thought was gone.
The feel of him. The warmth of his body. The touch of his hot, hungry mouth on hers. She was spinning, spinning, like a planet around an incandescent sun.
She heard him whisper her name as he slid his hands up her body, cupped her face and held her willingly captive to his kiss. He said something against her mouth. She couldn't understand the words but she knew what he must be asking, and her answer was in the way she touched him and moved against him.
“Scarlett.” His voice was urgent as he cupped her bottom, lifted her into the heat and hardness of his arousal, urged her to feel the raw, masculine power she had unleashed.
The reality should have terrified her, as it had in the past. But what she felt was excitement. This was—David was—every half-forgotten dream of her girlhood. He was a million unfulfilled wishes, and more.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. He cupped her breast, pressed his mouth to her throat. “Say that it's me, Scarlett. Say—”
“Well, heavens to Betsy! Now, isn't this a charmin' sight?”
They sprang apart. Instinctively, David put Stephanie behind him as they turned toward the hall.
He saw a woman in the arched doorway. His lawyer's mind made a fast inventory. She was, perhaps, two decades older than Stephanie with a heavily made-up face, a mane of frizzy hair whose platinum color could only have come from a bottle, and eyes a shade of green that had to have started life on an optician's workbench. She was poured into a leopard-print cat suit that was at least a size too small. And a cat, David thought, was what she looked like, one that had just opened its mouth and swallowed a live canary.
Stephanie stepped out from behind him. “Clare?”
Avery Willingham's sister. David's eyes narrowed.
“In the flesh,” Clare said. Smiling, she strolled toward them, breasts jiggling under the clinging cat suit. “And who, pray tell, is your charmin' visitor?”
Stephanie moved forward, and the women met in the center of the room. Her mouth still bore the faint swelling that was the imprint of his kisses, her cheeks were still flushed, but somehow she'd managed to take on an aura of composure and command. Even to his jaundiced eye, it was a remarkable performance.
“What are you doing here, Clare?”
Clare smiled. “What am I doin' here? she asks. This is my house, missy. I don't need a reason to be in it.”
“It isn't yours, not until midnight.”
Clare shrugged. “A technicality.”
“Until then,” Stephanie said calmly, “please ring the doorbell if you wish to come in.”
“I did, missy.” Clare batted her heavily mascared lashes at David. “But there was no answer. 'Course, I understand the reason. You were…busy. You and Mister…”
“Chambers,” David said. “David Chambers.”
“A pleasure, Mr. Chambers. I'm awfully sorry if I interrupted anythin', but I had no idea Stephanie would be entertainin' a gentleman, this bein' such a busy weekend for her an' all.”
David put his hand lightly on Stephanie's shoulder. Her posture was rigid but she was trembling; he could feel it through his fingertips.
“What do you want, Clare?” she said.
“Why, just to make sure things are as they should be.” The blonde gave David a last slow smile, then began circling the room, brushing long, fuchsia-lacquered fingernails over the gilt cherubs and porcelain shepherdesses. “All of this is mine now, missy, these precious heirlooms that've been passed from one generation of Willin'hams to another. You just remember that.”
“How could I forget?”
“You're to take nothin', you understand that? Not a single thing.”
“You've nothing to worry about, Clare. I don't want any of this—this stuff. I intend to leave with nothing but the same suitcase I brought here.”
“Just you make sure there's nothin' in that suitcase but the junk you brought to this fine house, missy, you got that?”
Stephanie stepped out from under David's hand. She wasn't shaking anymore; he was sure of it.
“Your attorney already did an inventory,” she said.
“An' how do I know that would stop you from takin' my things?” Clare's eyes looked like bright green beads. “Trash like you is capable of anythin'.”
“Go home, Clare.” Stephanie's voice was low but firm. “You can do all the gloating you want, come midnight.”
“And that big bedroom closet of yours, the one my brother kept filled. All that stuff's mine now. You just be sure an'—”
“The clothing is Mrs. Willingham's.”
Both women looked at David. “I beg your pardon?” Clare said.
“I'm Mrs. Willingham's attorney, and I said the clothing belongs to her. It's her personal property.”
Clare laughed. “Still not givin' up, are you, missy? Well, you're too late, Mister Attorney. The case has been settled.”
“Whether it has or has not, Mrs. Willingham has certain rights. I've come here to make sure she is able to exercise them without interference.”
Clare tossed back her peroxide mane. “Really. An' here I could have sworn you and my beloved sister-in-law were…well, I won't use the word. I'm too much a lady.”
“Is that right?” David smiled lazily. “I'd have thought a lady would have known that breaking into a house was against the law.”
“Don't be ridiculous! Seven Oaks belongs to me.”
“Not until midnight.”
“I have a key!”
David's brows rose. “Did you give this woman a key, Mrs. Willingham?”
Stephanie stared at him in amazement. In all these months, this was the first time anyone had ever come to her defense. Even Amos Turner, whom she'd paid for his legal services, had never said a word on her behalf except in judge's chambers.
Stephanie swallowed dryly. “No,” she said. “No, I—”
“My client says she did not give you a key,” David said pleasantly, “and I can attest to the fact that you neither asked permission to enter nor received it. Where I come from, that makes you an intruder until the time the court order takes effect.”
Clare shot a baleful look at Stephanie. “You better tell this hotshot lawyer of yours that he's bein' stupid! Maybe he doesn't understand who I am!”
“He knows who you are,” Stephanie said calmly. “And I suspect he knows what you are, too.”
Clare's plump face took on a purplish tinge.
“I don't know what game you two think you're playin',” she snapped, “but it isn't goin' to change one little thing. I'm tellin' you right here an' now, Miss High an' Mighty, you'd best be out of here by tonight.”
“With pleasure.”
“I heard about that call you made to the judge—”
“There's no need to go into details,” Stephanie said quickly.
“Cryin' about needin' time to find a place to live and a job, moanin' about not havin' any money—”
“I said I don't want to discuss this now, Clare.”
“You came to Seven Oaks with nothin', and you're gonna leave with nothin'. You can sleep on the street, for all I care!”
“Is it true?” David said quietly, his eyes locked on Stephanie's.
“It's none of your affair.”
“Stephanie, answer me! Do you have money, and a place to live?”
“She has nothin',” Clare said with ill-concealed glee. “Nothin' a-tall!”
“Dammit,” David growled, “tell her she's wrong!”
Stephanie glared at him. “I can't, David. She's right. Now, are you satisfied?”
David's eyes narrowed. What in hell had she done with all the money Willingham had paid her? Not that it mattered to him. He'd come to her rescue a minute ago because it was the proper thing to do. No decent lawyer would stand by and let her give up property that was rightfully hers. But the rest of it, what happened to her after this… she was correct. It was none of his affair.
“Just you make sure there's nothin' of mine accidentally falls into your suitcase, when you leave my house.”
“I wouldn't take anything from this house, Clare. I don't want anything that belonged to the Willinghams. Haven't you got that straight yet?”
“What
you'd
best get straight, missy, is that I expect everythin' I deserve. You hear?”
Stephanie looked at Clare, at the pudgy, selfish face and the piggy eyes. She'd had years of looking at that face, of listening to that whining voice.
“I hear,” she said…and then, with a graceful movement of her hand that could almost have been accidental, she swept a tabletop's worth of ugly cupids and shepherdesses crashing to the floor.
No one moved. No one even breathed. Clare. Stephanie and David all looked down at the floor.
Stephanie was the first to raise her head.
“Oh, my,” she said sweetly, “just look at what I've done. I don't know how I could have been so clumsy.”
Clare, as puffed as a chicken ruffling its feathers, took a step forward. “Why, you—you—”
“Accidents will happen,” David said, trying not to laugh. He looked at Stephanie, whose eyes were bright with defiance, and he felt a strange lurch inside his chest. “Isn't that right, Mrs. Willingham?”
“That's a fact,” she said pleasantly.
“Accident?” Clare glared at them both. “That was no accident. She did it on purpose!”
“So sue her.” David's smile held all the warmth of an iceberg.
“What for, wise guy? Your precious client is broke, or have you forgotten that?”
A muscle knotted in David's cheek. “No,” he said quietly, “I haven't forgotten. Send the bills to me.”
“David,” Stephanie said, “this isn't necessary.”
“It surely is!” Clare snatched David's business card from his outstretched hand. “The cost of replacin' these things will be horrendous. They're—”
“Priceless heirlooms, passed from one generation of Willinghams to another.” David nodded, looked down and frowned as something caught his eye. He bent and scooped up the broken base of one of the cupids. “‘Made in Taiwan,'” he read, with a lift of his eyebrows. Smiling politely, he handed the bit of porcelain to a crimson-faced Clare. “As I said, Ms. Willingham, buy yourself some new ‘heirlooms' and send the bill to my firm.”
“David,” Stephanie hissed, “I told you, it isn't necessary. I can repay Clare for the figures.”
“When?” Clare demanded.
“Yes,” David said evenly. “When?”
“Well—well. I'll contact her, as soon as I'm settled.”
“As soon as you have a place to live,” he said, his voice hardening, “and some money to buy groceries, you mean.”
Stephanie flushed. “Where I live, and how, is no one's concern but mine.”
“It's the court's concern,” David said sharply, “or it should have been. Your lawyer must have been sitting on his brain when he argued this case.”
“Dammit, I don't want to discuss this! I made my living as a secretary before. I can do it again. I'll go to—to Atlanta. I'll get a job and I'll reimburse Clare down to the last penny.”
That was when it came to him. The idea was simple, obvious and logical, when he thought about it. It was an excellent, if temporary, solution to more than one problem—assuming he ignored the voice shouting,
Are you nuts?
inside his head.
“You're right,” he said. “You'll reimburse her.”
Stephanie nodded. He could tell, from the look on her face, that she'd been prepared for more argument.
“Well, I'm glad we agree.”
“I'll tell payroll to advance you your first month's pay, and you can send her a check.”
Her face went blank. “What?”
David's hand curled around her elbow, the pressure of his fingers firm. “It's not an unusual procedure,” he said, knowing that it was an impossible one. Russell, Russell, Hanley and Chambers offered many benefits to its employees, but acting as a bank was not one of them. “After all, now that we've found you a good job—”
“We have?”
“As my secretary.”

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