Billionaire Bachelors: Stone

“Draw up the papers, Mother.” His voice was clipped. “I’ll find a wife.”

“Which is why it’s conditional.”

That got his attention. “Conditional? What—you want final approval?” Another thought occurred to him. “Or you’re giving me some time limit by which I have to tie the knot?”

Eliza shook her head. “The last thing I want you to do is rush into marriage. I’d rather you wait until you find the right woman. But at least now I know you’ll be thinking about it. The condition is that once you marry, the marriage has to last for one year—with both of you living under the same roof—before the company becomes yours.”

One year… His agile mind immediately saw the fine print. He would find a bride, all right. And the minute the ink was dry on the contract with his mother, there would be a quiet annulment. A twinge of guilt pricked at his conscience but he shrugged it off. He didn’t owe his mother anything. And it would serve her right for thinking she could manipulate his life this way.

He smiled, trying to mask his newfound satisfaction. “All right, Mother. You’ve got a deal. I find a bride, you give me your dearest possession.”

Eliza stood, her motions jerky. “I know I haven’t been much of a mother to you, Stone, but I do care. That’s why I want you to start looking for a wife. Being single might seem appealing for a while, but it gets awfully lonely.”

He shrugged negligently, letting the words hit him and bounce off. No way was he going to let her start tugging at his heartstrings after all this time. She was the one who had chosen to leave. “Whatever.”

Eliza started for the door. “At least give it some thought.” She sighed. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’m actually looking forward to having some free time.”

“I never thought you’d say it, either.” And he hadn’t. His mother lived and breathed the company that had come to her on her father’s death when she was barely twenty-five. She’d loved it far more than she had Stone or his father, as his dad had pointed out.

Smythe Corp. He’d resigned himself to waiting for years to inherit his mother’s corporation. But he’d never stopped dreaming. Now he would be able to implement the plans he’d considered for years. He’d merge Smythe Corp. with Lachlan Enterprises, the company that had been his father’s until his death eight years ago.

As his mother took her leave, he moved into his office, still thinking about finding the right woman to agree to what sounded like an insane idea. A temporary wife. Why not? Marriage, as far as he could tell, was a temporary institution anyway. One he had never planned to enter. But if marriage was what it took, then marriage was what his mother would get.

While he turned the problem over in his head, he thumbed through the day’s mail. His hand slowed as he came to a plain brown envelope. In the envelope was the report he received quarterly, giving him updates on his ward, Faith Harrell.

Faith. She’d been a gawky twelve-year-old the first time he’d seen her. He’d been fresh out of college, and they both were reeling from the death of their two fathers in a boating accident a month earlier. He’d been absolutely stunned, he recalled, when Faith’s mother had begged him to become her guardian.

A guardian…him? It sounded like something out of the last century. But he hadn’t been able to refuse. Mrs. Harrell had multiple sclerosis. She feared the disease’s advance. And worse, she’d been a quietly well-to-do socialite for her entire married life, pursuing genteel volunteer work and keeping her home a charming, comfortable refuge for her husband. She knew nothing of finances and the world of business. They’d been married for a long, long time before they’d had Faith and their world had revolved around her. His father would have wanted him to make sure Randall Harrell’s family was taken care of.

And so Faith became his ward. He’d taken care of her, and of her mother, in a far more tangible way when he’d discovered the dismal state of Randall’s investments. The man had been on the brink of ruin. Faith and her mother were practically penniless. And so Stone had quietly directed all their bills to him throughout the following years. He’d seen no reason to distress the fragile widow with her situation, and even less to burden a young girl with it. It was what his father would have done, and it certainly wasn’t as if it imposed a financial strain on his own immense resources.

Faith. Her name conjured up an image of a slender schoolgirl in a neat uniform though he knew she hadn’t worn uniforms since leaving her boarding school. It had been more than a year since he’d seen her. She’d become a lovely young thing as she’d grown up and she probably was even prettier now. She would be finishing her junior year at college in a few months. And though he hadn’t seen her in person recently, he looked forward to reading the update on her from the lawyer who had overseen the monetary disbursements to Faith and her mother.

He slit the envelope absently as he returned to the problem of where to find a temporary wife.

Five minutes later, he was rubbing the back of his neck in frustration as he spoke to the man who provided the updates on Faith Harrell. “What do you mean, she withdrew from school two weeks ago?”

One

A huge, hard hand clamped firmly about her wrist as Faith Harrell turned from the Carolina Herrerra display she was creating in the women’s department of Saks Fifth Avenue.

“What in hell are you doing?” a deep, masculine voice growled.

Startled, Faith looked up. A long way up, into the furious face of Stone Lachlan. Her heart leaped, then began to tap-dance in her chest as pleasure rose so swiftly it nearly choked her. She hadn’t seen Stone since he’d taken her out for lunch one day last year—he was the last person she had imagined meeting today! Her pulse had begun to race at the sound of his growling tones and she hoped he didn’t feel it beneath his strong fingers.

“Hello,” she said, smiling. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

He merely stared at her, one dark eyebrow rising. “I’m waiting for an explanation.”

Stone was nearly ten years her senior. His father and hers had been best friends and she’d grown up visiting with Stone and his father occasionally, chasing the big boy who gave her piggyback rides and helped her dance by letting her stand on his feet. He’d been merely a pleasant, distant-relation sort of person until their fathers had died together in a squall off Martha’s Vineyard eight years ago. Since then, Stone had been her guardian, making sure her mother’s multiple sclerosis wasn’t worsened by any sort of stress. Technically she supposed she still was his ward, despite the fact that she’d be twenty-one in November, just eight months away. And despite the additional fact that she was penniless and didn’t need a guardian anyway.

Stone. Her stomach fluttered with nervous delight and she silently admonished herself to settle down and behave like an adult. She’d been terribly infatuated with him by the time she was a young teenager.

He’d teased her, told her jokes and tossed her in the air. And she’d been smitten with the fierce pain of unrequited love. Though she’d told herself it was just a crush and she’d outgrown him, her body’s involuntary reactions to his nearness now called her a liar. Ridiculous, she told herself sternly. You haven’t seen the man in months. You barely know him.

But Stone had kept tabs on her since their fathers’ deaths, though his busy schedule apparently hadn’t permitted him to visit often. He’d remembered her at Christmas and on her birthday, and she’d occasionally gotten postcards from wherever he happened to be in the world, quick pleasantries scrawled in a strong masculine hand. It hadn’t been much, she supposed, but to a young girl at a quiet boarding school, it had been enough.

And she knew from comments he’d made in his infrequent letters that he had checked on her progress at boarding school and at college, which she’d attended for two and a half years.

Until she’d learned the truth.

The truth. Her pleasure in his appearance faded.

“I work here,” she said quietly, gathering her dignity around her. She should be furious with Stone for what he’d done, but she couldn’t stop herself from drinking in the sight of his large, dark-haired form, so enormous and out of place among the delicate, feminine clothing displays.

“You quit school,” he said, his strong, tanned features dark with displeasure.

“I temporarily stopped taking classes,” she corrected. “I hope to return part-time eventually.” Then she remembered her shock and humiliation on the day she’d learned that Stone had paid for her education and every other single thing in her life since her father’s death. “And in any case, I couldn’t have stayed. I needed a job.”

Stone went still, his fingers relaxing on her wrist although he didn’t release her, and she sensed his sudden wariness. “Why do you say that?”

She shook the index finger of her free hand at him. “You know very well why, so don’t pretend innocence.” She surveyed him for a moment, unable to prevent the wry smile that tugged at her lips. “You’d never pull it off.”

He didn’t smile back. “Have lunch with me. I want to talk to you.”

She thought for a moment. “About what?”

“Things,” he said repressively. His blue eyes were dark and stormy and he took a moment to look at their surroundings. “You can’t keep this up.”

She smiled at his ill temper. “Of course I can. I’m not a millionaire, it helps to pay the rent.” Then she remembered the money. “Actually, I want to talk to you, too.”

“Good. Let’s go.” Stone started to tow her toward the escalator, but Faith stiffened her legs and resisted.

“Stone! I’m working. I can’t just leave.” She waved a hand toward the rear of the department. “Let me check with my supervisor and see what time I can take my lunch break.”

He still held her wrist and she wondered if he could feel her pulse scramble beneath his fingers. He searched her face for a long moment before he nodded once, short and sharp. “All right. Hurry.”

Faith turned and walked to the back of the store at a ladylike pace. She refused to let Stone see how much his presence unsettled her. Memories ran through her head in a steady stream.

When he’d come to visit a few months after the funeral to help her mother tell her what they had decided, he’d been grieving, but even set in unsmiling severe lines, his face had been handsome. She’d been drawn even more than ever to his steady strength and charismatic presence. He talked about the friendship their fathers had shared since their days as fraternity brothers in college but she’d known even before he started to talk that he’d feel responsible for her. He was just that kind of man.

He intended to continue to send her to a nearby private school in Massachusetts, he told her, and to make sure that her mother’s care was uninterrupted and her days free of worry. And though she hadn’t known it at the time, Stone had taken over the burden of those debts. At the time of his death, her father had been nearly insolvent.

“Faith!” One of the other saleswomen whispered at her as she rushed by. “Who is that gorgeous, gorgeous man standing over there? I saw you talking to him.”

Faith threaded her way through the salespeople gathering in the aisle. “A family friend,” she replied. Then she saw Doro, her manager. “What time will I have my break today?”

Doro’s eyes were alive with the same avid curiosity dancing in the other womens’ faces. “Does he want you to have lunch with him?”