His Marriage Bonus

Mitch looked at his father. “What was that about?” Clearly, his mother was annoyed with his father. Grace hadn’t even looked at Tom as she had made her excuses.

“I don’t know,” Tom said in a too-vague way that made Mitch think his father most certainly did.

“I hope it wasn’t something I said.” Lauren pressed a hand to her chest. She looked stricken.

“Of course not,” Tom and Mitch reassured in unison.

“Mom just…she’s been this way since she returned from New York,” Mitch explained. Things would be going along smoothly, and then his mother would suddenly look his father in the eye and end up walking out of the room, visibly distressed. They all assumed it had something to do with her being fired, that she was just feeling very tense and emotional in the wake of her public humiliation.

“I think we should take Grace at her word,” Tom said, going over to open the bottle of wine that Lauren had brought as a gift. “And accept that she had another invitation she forgot about and intends to honor.”

If you say so, Mitch thought. But he wasn’t buying it. Not for a red-hot minute.

DINNER WAS SERVED shortly thereafter. Mitch urged Lauren to talk about her career in acquiring and renovating historic properties for resale, which she did happily. He also asked her a few questions about her experiences with the family shipping business, and learned, along with his father, that Lauren never set foot in the executive offices if she could help it, and she usually could.

When Lauren excused herself to run out to the kitchen to get Theresa’s recipe for hummingbird cake, Mitch looked at Tom. “See? She’s not exactly Mata Hari.”

“How do you know?” Tom retorted grimly, looking as if he was all too willing to place Lauren in the ranks of the notorious World War I spy. “Just because she acts innocent in the ways of the business doesn’t mean you aren’t the one being set up here.”

Like the real Mata Hari, Lauren was sexy and beautiful, maybe even a tad mysterious. But Mitch couldn’t see Lauren seducing him for information. “What do you mean?” Mitch demanded.

“Payton Heyward has never been interested in taking his company beyond the Heyward family.”

Mitch regarded his father pragmatically and pointed out the obvious motivation, “Until now, Payton Heyward was probably hoping Lauren would marry and produce a child so Payton and Lauren would not be the last of the blood-line. But since that hasn’t happened, Payton’s decided to take matters into his own hands, and secure her financial future, and the Heyward family legacy in the shipping industry, in another way. Through a merger with us.” As far as Mitch was concerned, businesswise Payton’s actions made perfect sense. Personally, it was risky. If the situation backfired in any way, or Lauren learned of the dowry Payton had secretly offered on her behalf, Lauren might not ever forgive her father. Or Mitch. And therein lay the real risk.

Tom’s jaw hardened. He looked not the least bit appeased. “Look, call me suspicious if you will, but I’ve been around this business for a very long time. If Payton Heyward is suddenly wanting to merge with us, if he is really even wanting to consider it, then there’s a damn good reason.”

Mitch looked at his father warily. “You think they’re in trouble, financially, and he’s looking to bail out through us?” Mitch asked uneasily, realizing his father might have a point. Payton Heyward had recently bought those extra container ships. And as yet the scuttlebutt was the ships weren’t fully booked. That had to be putting a strain on the Heyward-company finances.

Tom shrugged, abruptly looking as unsure as Mitch felt about the situation. “I don’t know what’s going on there. I’m not sure I want to know,” Tom replied unhappily, sighing before leaning forward urgently once again. “And by the way, what I’ve told you about climbing into bed with the competition goes both ways. Don’t be pumping Lauren for information, either. It would be unethical.”

“I’m more principled than that,” Mitch said, beginning to get angry now. He loved his father with all his heart. But he loathed the way Tom kept treating him when it came to the family business, like a student who still needed schooling, lots of it. Tom didn’t treat his other children that way. But then his other children weren’t involved in the family business.

“I’m going to go out for a while,” Tom said, getting up from the dining-room table abruptly. “I need to clear my head.”

Mitch nodded and watched his father go.

“WHERE’S YOUR FATHER?” Lauren asked when she returned several minutes later, handwritten recipe in hand.

“He went out for a while,” Mitch said.

“Meaning we’re on our own for the rest of the evening,” Lauren supposed, looking no happier about that than Mitch felt.

“It would appear so.” Mitch glanced at his watch, saw nearly two hours had passed. Only four hours and two and a half minutes to go.

“So now what?” Lauren said, suddenly beginning to look as restless as Mitch felt.

Mitch shrugged and got up from the table. “I don’t know. We’ll figure out some way to kill the rest of the evening.” Without getting extraordinarily close.

“Such as…?” Lauren slipped the recipe into her handbag, then waited for Mitch to fill in the blanks.

“I don’t know.” Mitch shrugged again. All the things Mitch would normally want to do with a woman on a first date were pretty much out, given the unusual circumstances of their pairing. Too late, he realized he should have treated this date like a business deal and come up with more of an agenda ahead of time. “We could go to one of the clubs and listen to music, or, uh, maybe go to a very long movie,” Mitch suggested. Walking on the beach was out, as was anything else even quasiromantic until he’d had a little time to decide whether he could persuade Lauren to forget about her rules.

“Anything, just so long as we’re not alone,” Lauren qualified, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Right,” Mitch replied.

Lauren inclined her head at Mitch and grinned. Abruptly looking like the mischievous playgirl he knew she wasn’t, she sauntered closer and teasingly tugged at the knot of his tie. “Ah, Mitch.” She batted her eyelashes at him coquettishly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were afraid to be alone with me.”

She could be Mata Hari for all you know.

Mitch shifted his weight uncomfortably as Lauren came closer yet and wreathed both her arms around his neck. She stood on tiptoe, pressed her slender curves close to him. Then looked deep into his eyes and whispered in a soft teasing voice that sent the blood rushing like a riptide to the lower half of his body. “What’s the matter, Mitch? Afraid I might seduce you into doing something against your will?”

Chapter Four

“Don’t we both wish that were the case,” Mitch said, tightening his arms around Lauren’s waist, holding her closer yet, so their bodies were all but intertwined. “But not a chance,” he murmured, looking deep into her eyes. “Because I never do anything I don’t want to do.”

Gazing into his eyes, listening to the conviction in his low voice, Lauren could believe him.

The phone rang. Mitch leaned back just enough to be able to reach into the breast pocket of his suit coat and extract his cell phone. He checked the caller ID screen, pushed the button. Frowning, he held the phone to his ear. “Yeah, Jack, what’s up? …I don’t know. Well, if he’s not answering…yeah… I’ll be right there.” Mitch ended the connection and slid his cell phone back into his suit jacket. He released Lauren with a beleaguered sigh, the sexual electricity of moments before forgotten. “We’ve got to go. There’s trouble at the docks.”

Lauren picked up her handbag from the floor next to the sofa. “What kind of trouble?” she asked, sincerely interested.

Mitch looked at her with sudden wariness. “Problem with a shipment,” he said vaguely, after a moment, looking strangely loath to confide anything in her at all. “The company attorney, Jack Granger, can’t find my father—he’s not picking up his cell phone—so I’ve got to handle the situation.”

Lauren wondered if that was all Mitch was upset about. Somehow, it seemed like more than just that worrying him. “Does this happen a lot?” she asked casually as they walked outside to his car, wanting somehow to help him feel better about whatever was going on, even if it was just by talking about it.

Mitch tensed as they reached the passenger side. “Lately, more than I’d like to admit,” he said, making no move to open the car door for her. “What about what happened just now?” Mitch backed her up against the side of the Lexus and caged her there with his arms, one hand planted on either side of her. “Does that happen often?” All too aware of the sudden pounding of her heart, Lauren leaned back against the metal, putting as much distance as she could—which wasn’t much—between herself and his strong, hard body. Flushing self-consciously despite herself, she asked, “Does what happen often?”

Mitch favored Lauren with a challenging half smile she found even more disturbing than the way he was holding her captive. “Do you tease men about seducing them?” he queried in a low, inherently seductive tone.

Lauren’s neck and shoulders drew taut as a bow, even as she defiantly lifted her chin. “I’m not a flirt, if that’s what you’re asking,” she stated plainly.

Mitch shifted so his feet were braced slightly apart, his knees nudging hers. “You were doing a pretty good job of it,” he observed, giving her a narrow-eyed glance.

To both our surprise, Lauren thought, aware she had never before teased a man in such a wanton manner. She couldn’t even say why she had done it exactly. She’d just felt Mitch pulling away from her in a way he hadn’t earlier in the day. And she’d wanted to goad him back into the reckless good cheer and impulsive sexuality that had so marked their encounter earlier in the day. She had wanted this week of dating to be something she didn’t have to think about or consider. She had wanted it to mean nothing more than a reckless, meaningless fling that was forgotten almost as soon as it happened. And the only way she had known how to accomplish that was to keep the chemistry flowing between them—to the point it overrode all common sense and customary judgment. Too late, she saw what a mistake that had been. She wasn’t an impulsive person, and neither was Mitch. “Just giving you a hard time,” she said lightly.

Mitch quirked an eyebrow and looked down before returning his probing gaze to hers. “You did that, all right.”

Lauren’s jaw dropped in shock. She was flooded with embarrassment. “Mitch!”

Ignoring her censure, he cupped her face in his hands and rubbed his thumb across her lower lip in a way that had her heating with desire from head to toe. Looking at her, Mitch warned softly and seriously, “Don’t play with fire, Lauren. Not unless you want to get burned.”

LAUREN WAS SILENT during the drive to the docks. As much as she loathed the scolding way he had done it, Mitch had been right to warn her away from any disingenuous behavior. She had been prodding him unnecessarily, in a way she had instinctively known he wouldn’t appreciate. She wasn’t sure why. Except that, deep down, she was angry he had seemed, on some level, to be holding her at arm’s length this evening, after coming on to her so strongly that afternoon. And also angry that he hadn’t told her father what he could do with his proposition from the get-go, but instead had helped talk her into it! Not that she’d been a hard sell, Lauren admitted ruefully to herself. She had wanted to turn that mansion into the beautiful showplace it should be for so long. To be able to do that and call it her own home, too, well, it would be a dream come true. She was still going to have to figure out how to sell enough property to be able to pay for the renovations, of course, because there was no way she was marrying Mitch to get the money to do that. But she figured she would solve that problem over time.

Meantime, all she had to do was keep Mitch at arm’s length during their dates for the rest of the week. Given the way they had just ticked each other off without really even trying, she was pretty sure she could do that. She just had to keep him wanting the same thing. Given the vaguely irked look on his face, that too seemed like a done deal.

Jack Granger was waiting for them in his office when they arrived at the Deveraux Shipping Company. The company attorney looked ruggedly handsome in a button-down white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt.