Society Bride

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

Reginald inhaled deeply and took her hand in his, meeting her gaze levelly. “Look, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “Lyle has told me in no uncertain terms that he’ll make a deal with me that would insure I keep the company and receive all the funds necessary to bring it back into the black.”

Oh, she wasn’t going to like this. Renee could tell already. In spite of that, she said, “Go on.”

“Lyle has flat-out told me that if you’ll marry him, he’ll release his grip on Riley Communications, and instead of taking it away from me—from us—he’ll leave it in my hands and invest a substantial amount of money to turn things around. We’re talking millions of dollars, Renee, money that I simply do not have. To put it in mercenary terms, sweetheart, for the price of your hand in marriage, you and I get to keep Riley Communications. It’s that simple.”

“What?” she demanded. “Daddy, this is like something out of the Middle Ages.”

“Not necessarily,” he told her. But, deep down, he seemed no more convinced of that than she. “Marriages of convenience still take place in this day and age. Precisely for reasons like this—economics. It’s not so unusual.”

“But…” She sighed heavily. “Daddy, how can I possibly marry him? I hardly know him, let alone love him. And marriage…that’s for life.”

He hesitated as if struggling to phrase his next words. His gaze never faltered from hers as he told her, “Lyle Norton is a man who could have anything—anyone—he wants, Renee. But he’s also a busy man, one whose working schedule prohibits him from socializing much. He simply does not have many opportunities to meet women on other than a business level, and those he does meet don’t have the qualifications he requires in a wife.”

Before Renee had a chance to comment, her father hurried on. “And on those few occasions when he’s met you, he’s been very taken with you. He thinks you would be the perfect wife for him. Then again,” he continued with a halfhearted smile, “why wouldn’t he want the best, right?”

“But why does he think I’d be the perfect wife?” Renee asked, wondering why she was continuing this conversation when what her father had proposed was totally unthinkable. “He and I have engaged in maybe three conversations total.”

Her father smiled. “Lyle told me that your presence by his side would be the perfect complement to his life-style and his plans for the future. You’re beautiful, educated, socially prominent…”

“Thrifty, kind, obedient, trustworthy,” Renee muttered under her breath. In other words, she thought dryly, to Lyle Norton, she would be an accessory right up there with a solid gold money clip. “I think Mr. Norton might do better with a golden retriever,” she added softly.

“What?” her father asked.

“Nothing.”

“He does seem to be genuinely taken with you, Renee,” Reginald continued, “even if the two of you aren’t well acquainted. And even I, on the receiving end of his—” he hesitated, then evidently decided to call a spade a spade “—his ruthless, blindly ambitious business practices…will concede that he’s what might be considered quite a catch. Any other girl in Minneapolis would probably be shopping for a wedding gown right now.”

Renee smiled sadly. “Nice try, Daddy. But I still think this whole thing is crazy.”

He nodded resolutely. “Look, I can’t force you to marry him,” her father said. “But with the way things stand right now, honey, we’re going to lose everything. Everything. Not just the company, but the house, the cars, your mother’s jewelry…”

“Mama’s jewelry?” she echoed. “But—”

But Mama’s jewelry wasn’t even worth that much, Renee thought. Except for its sentimental value, which, to her at least, made it priceless.

“I’ve made a mess of things, sweetheart,” Reginald admitted. “While you were away at college, I took some chances, made some bad investments.” He shrugged sadly. “I’ve compromised everything I tried to build up for you and future generations of Rileys. It’ll be gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. All those years of hard work and sacrifice for nothing. And, frankly, I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose it.”

Something cold and sharp twisted deep inside Renee to see her father like this. He’d always stood so proud and tall, had always had so many plans for the future. He’d started off with nothing, driven to escape the poverty he’d grown up in, he’d dedicated his entire life to building Riley Communications into a rousing, enormous success.

What had made his feat doubly impressive was that he’d done it as a single father after Renee’s mother died when she was two. Reginald had devoted every moment that wasn’t given to the company to making sure his daughter’s life was as happy and full as it could possibly be. And when he couldn’t spend time on her, he spent money, indulging her every whim, spoiling and pampering her, more, really, than was necessary.

But he did so because he loved her. Because he wanted to be certain she never experienced the pain and hunger he’d known as a boy. And because of the time they’d spent together and the highs and lows they’d shared, the two of them had forged a stronger father-daughter bond than most families claimed.

Her father would do anything for her, Renee knew. And he had made so many sacrifices over the years to insure her happiness. So how come she was balking at doing something that might repay him for all the things he’d done for her?

Really, Lyle Norton wasn’t that bad, she had to admit. Everybody else in Minneapolis thought he was just about the best thing to come along since Belgian chocolate. He had come out of nowhere five years ago to become the talk—and the toast—of the local business community. Phrases like “boy wonder” and “golden boy” were frequently tossed about to describe him, and he was always the centerpiece of every event he attended.

He seemed like a nice enough guy. And he was handsome. And charming. And articulate. Polite, too. All in all, Lyle Norton was pretty much perfect. In fact, when she got right down to it, she had to concede that Lyle Norton was so utterly lacking in flaws, so absolutely perfect that…

Well, there were times when he gave Renee the creeps. He was, in her opinion, at least—she might as well just say it—plastic and smarmy and ingratiating. Worse than all those things, though, he seemed to have no sense of humor at all. The only time she’d seen the man smile was when he heard about a rise in the stock market or the failure of a business he wanted for his own. Nothing else in life seemed to bring Lyle Norton pleasure.

Except, evidently, the prospect of marrying Reginald Riley’s only daughter.

“I hate to ask you to even consider this, Renee,” her father said, jarring her from her musing. “But you’re our only chance to hang on to the company, to hang on to the very life-style that we have. If you don’t marry him, we’ll lose everything.”

When she said nothing, he added, “At least consider it, sweetheart. Thinking you don’t know Lyle well enough is something that’s easily rectified. Just make it a long engagement. Take your time getting to know him. You might discover that you really like him. You could even fall in love with him—you never know. And he’d be a good provider. You’d never lack for anything.”

No, she’d certainly never lack for anything, Renee thought. Except maybe for love. Except maybe for that heady, dizzying sensation that turns a person upside down and inside out, never knowing for sure if it’s day or night, and frankly never caring.

Oh, but, hey, other than that…

Not that Renee had ever experienced such a sensation. To be honest, she wasn’t convinced such an emotion even existed. Although she was only twenty-three, she’d never come close to falling in love. In fact, the whole starry-eyed, hot-summer-night romance thing eluded her. Her friends who had succumbed to what they called love had generally wound up making fools of themselves at best or suffering the depths of despair at worst. So it could be that lacking love in a relationship might wind up being a good thing in the long run.

And it wasn’t that she disliked Mr. Norton. On the contrary, in spite of his smarminess and ingratiating tactics, she had no choice but to admire him for becoming the massive success he was at such an early age. At twenty-six, he was only three years older than she, yet he’d accomplished infinitely more than she had. In fact, he’d made his first million when he was twenty-three. Renee didn’t even have a job. And in a few short years, Lyle had gone on to build a corporate empire that wouldn’t be easily toppled. Renee, if she was lucky, might be doing something by the time she was twenty-six that wasn’t immersing frozen French fries into a deep-fat pit.

Of course, she knew she shouldn’t sell herself short. She had, after all, just earned her MA in liberal arts. And along with her BA in humanities, that was going to make her perfectly suited to—to…

Well, now that Renee thought about it, there wasn’t a whole lot she would be suited to. Except, perhaps—thanks to all those years of etiquette schooling—being a first-rate hostess and a fine conversationalist. Which, now that she thought more about it, might be exactly the kind of training she needed to be a corporate wife to someone like, oh, say…Lyle Norton.

So what if he didn’t wreak havoc with her heart? The least Renee could do was try to get to know him better and consider the man’s proposal.

Hey, as her father just said, he was quite a catch, a man who would take good care of Renee—financially, at least. She supposed, to her father, that was the most important thing. Always the businessman—that was her dad. As much as she knew he loved her, he would be just as concerned about making sure she was provided for economically as cared for emotionally.

Then again, maybe there was something to be said for that, too….

Renee sighed fitfully as she ran her hand through her hair again. It had been a long day, and her maid of honor duties had left her feeling too tired to argue. So she glanced down, caressing the delicate red blooms of her bouquet instead of meeting her father’s gaze. And quietly, reluctantly, she said, “Okay, Daddy. I’ll consider everything you’ve said. I’ll think about marrying Lyle Norton.”

And she would, too, she promised herself as her father kissed her on the cheek and made his way into the crowd of celebratory guests at her friend Kelly Sinclair’s wedding. She’d think about it very seriously. But not here. Not where Kelly had just marked the beginning of a union with her new husband, Mac Fortune, and the baby they were expecting next month. Not where there was so much warmth and promise of good things to come.

Renee glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows in the conference room of the Fortune Corporation, a conference room that had been transformed for the ceremony, thanks to a miracle-worker wedding planner. A red velvet carpet eclipsed the floor, satin ribbons hung from the sides of the conference chairs, and at the front of the room, the dais was nearly obscured by pots and sprays of flowers—delicate baby’s breath, red, red roses and sweet-smelling gardenias. The lighting was soft and buttery, the music muted and joyful.

And outside, as if cued to do so, snow fell in a flurry of fat, furious flakes, turning the night sky into a magical sight. Something about the dreamy dance of white satin snow against the black velvet backdrop made Renee smile. Snow buffed all the hard edges from everything, softened whatever it touched, made beautiful what might otherwise be an ugly scene. Snow was quiet. Peaceful. Soothing. Sneaking outside to watch the snow fall, she thought, might help to clear her head.

The wedding party was small—no more than thirty people—so she figured she could slip out unobserved. Kelly and Mac, the newlyweds, were still mingling, and because it was New Year’s Eve, no one seemed anxious to get home.

Renee saw her father engaged in what appeared to be a very intense conversation with Stuart Fortune, and she knew it would be a while before he felt like leaving. So, confident that she could steal away without being missed, she eased out the conference room door.

For a long time, she simply sat in Kelly’s office gazing out the window at the snow. She thought about how she and Kelly had become fast friends in Girl Scouts so many years ago, about Lyle Norton and about her father’s hard work. She even tried to recall snippets of memories about her mother. But mostly, Renee thought about love. About whether or not it really existed, about the different forms it might take. And she wondered…

Well, she wondered about a lot of things.

And she began to grow restless.

She’d been in the Fortune Building often enough with Kelly that she knew her way around fairly well. At the end of the corridor outside was a small terrace that offered a spectacular view of the Minneapolis skyline. She and Kelly had met there to share lunch on a number of occasions, along with a handful of other employees who brown-bagged it. It was the perfect place to which to retreat while pondering the dilemma her father had posed.

So she donned the ivory cashmere coat she’d left in Kelly’s office earlier. There was nothing she could do about her shoes, but the high-heeled pumps would keep her feet warm enough for the little time she would be alone outside.