The Husband Contract

When she leaned back, though, the sofa suddenly hissed and writhed beneath her. She leaped to her feet, startled beyond speech. A very large reddish-brown cat—so like the color of the sofa that she hadn’t even seen it—was huffily rearranging himself, angry at the disruption but too lazy to get out of the way.

Clay laughed and, reaching over, dumped the fat, furry feline unceremoniously onto the floor. “Get lost, Fudge. You’re in the way.”

“Damn cat,” the parrot complained from his perch. “Useless beast.”

Melanie stared from Copernicus to the cat, then turned her bewildered gaze to Clay. She finally found her voice. “Is that yours?”

Clay shook his head, patting the now-empty spot, encouraging her to take her seat again. “Good Lord, no. That lazy feline belonged to your uncle.”

“Joshua had a cat?” Melanie tried to picture it. For years, she and Nick had begged their uncle for a pet, but he’d always refused. Too much hair, too much trouble. And now—this? “My uncle hated cats. He never had a cat in his life.”

“I gave this one to him a year ago,” Clay said mildly.

“Fudge shared tuna sandwiches with him, ate them right off his plate.” He eyed her speculatively. “You’ve been gone a long time, you know. A lot can change in eight years.”

“Obviously.” She sank onto the sofa, a little dizzy suddenly, slightly disoriented. She felt like the blindfolded player in that old children’s game, twirled first this way and that until she had no idea which way she was facing.

It had been a mistake to come here. She should have waited until Monday, when she could have met Clay in his office. This place had too many memories, too much emotional residue. Right now, her thoughts were so off balanced that she wondered if she could even find the words to state her case.

“I think I’d better just come straight to the point,” she said, her voice hardly as steady as it should be. “Nick is at a ball game with a friend, but they’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” he said, settling comfortably against the sofa.

“I’m listening.”

“Okay,” she echoed. Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.

“As you may have guessed, I want to talk to you about Joshua’s will. I…well, I wanted you to know that, in spite of what my uncle may have told you about me, I really am not a crazy teenager anymore. I’m twenty-four. I work. I live a perfectly sensible, even frugal…”

She hesitated. His gaze was curious, polite, but somehow unnerving. This was going to be much harder than she had anticipated. And perhaps, though these were the words she’d practiced in front of the mirror, she was going at it all wrong. Even she could hear that she still sounded angry, defensive.

She started over. “I want my inheritance, Clay. I believe I deserve it, and I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to convince you of that. Anything you need—credit reports, bank accounts, work references—I’m prepared to make it all available to you.”

He raised his brows. “This is a fairly dramatic turnaround, isn’t it? May I ask what happened to change your mind so completely?”

She flushed. “I’ve already admitted I overreacted. I’ve given this a lot of thought since that afternoon. In fact, I’ve thought of almost nothing else. I’ve realized that I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear from an inspection of my finances or my lifestyle.” She tried to smile. “You just reminded me that a lot can change in eight years. You’re right. Perhaps my uncle changed—I don’t know. But I do know that I changed, a lot. In fact, if you’ll give me a fair chance, you’ll discover that I’m a very different person from the headstrong girl my uncle remembered.”

That much was certainly true, she thought, aware of how bitter the words tasted in her mouth. The old Melanie could never have spoken such conciliatory sentences, not for a hundred million dollars. Even now, if it wasn’t for Nick, she might happily have suggested that Mr. Clay Logan take the damn Romeo Ruby and—

“I’d like nothing better than to discover just that,” he said. She had to admit he handled his victory well—his smile wasn’t the least big smug. “I believe Joshua wanted you to have his estate if you were ready to handle it. It would please me to be able to turn it over to you.” He leaned forward. “I’ll have my secretary send you a list of everything I’ll need first thing Monday morning. We can get started right away.”

But she didn’t stand. She couldn’t allow him to dismiss her—not yet. Her needs were more urgent than she had let on.

“How long do you think it will take?” she asked, trying to sound calm, unharried. “I mean, for you to complete your…evaluation and make a decision?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. It depends on what I find. As you know, the will stipulates that you have twelve months in which to prove that you should inherit. I can’t imagine that it could possibly take that long.” He tilted his head, studying her face. “Why—is there some urgency?”

“Yes,” she said uncomfortably, plucking at the buttons that quilted the leather of the sofa. “You see, I really need to move—to get out of the house I’m in.”

“Are you behind in your payments?”

She colored again. “No, no, of course not. I don’t get ‘behind’ in my payments. It’s just that I need to get into a better neighborhood—a safer neighborhood. I’ll sell my house, of course, but I’m afraid that will take too long. We need to move very soon.”

Uh-oh. She was babbling, not outlining the measured logic of a sensible young woman. This wasn’t how it had sounded in front of the mirror. But then, the mirror hadn’t given her that skeptical look.

“Right now? What’s the rush?”

“It’s Nick,” she said miserably. Clay’s eyes changed. Of course it was Nick, his disappointed gaze said. But she refused to let herself get defensive. “It’s just that I’m afraid he’s falling in with a bad crowd.”

Clay leaned back, raising one brow. “If you think you can find a neighborhood that’s immune to ‘bad crowds’, I’m afraid you’re searching for an Eden that doesn’t exist.”

Suddenly Melanie felt something warm and furry against her calf. Fudge apparently wanted to make friends. She dropped her hand onto his silky fur and softly scratched. At least it allowed her to avoid Clay’s too-perceptive eyes.

“I know, but…well, Nick’s given up his old friends from school. Our circumstances are rather limited, as you may already know, so he just doesn’t feel like one of them anymore. It’s destroyed his self-esteem.”

“What has? Not being rich? The boy can’t respect himself just because he no longer lives at Cartouche Court? Didn’t he know that, when he left your uncle’s custody, he left the goodies behind, too? The status address, weekly allowance, the credit lines at all the best stores…”

She flushed. “You make it sound like the worst kind of snobbery.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t.” She heard herself getting angry, but she couldn’t help it. “You don’t understand. You don’t realize how tough a private boys’ school can be. The students are—well, it’s ruthless if you can’t keep up.”

“On the contrary,” he said, “I know exactly what it’s like.” Clay gave her another of those wry smiles. “I went to a private school, too. Four long years as a scholarship student. It’s no fun, but it’s survivable.”

She stared at him, finding the concept strangely jarring. She tried to picture Clay Logan at fourteen or fifteen. Even harder, she tried to picture him ever feeling at a disadvantage. Was it possible that this man had ever been racked with insecurity, rejected by the rich boys, forced to seek companionship with near delinquents?

No. It was not possible—he had too much inner strength. Granted, she didn’t know him very well, but his personal pride was evident in the way he carried himself. The perfect square of his shoulders, the firm set of his angular jaw, the nononsense expression in his intelligent eyes, were all the proof she needed. If Clay Logan had been shunned because he possessed more brains than bank account, he would simply have pitied his critics and comfortably spent the four years alone.

So how could she admit to him that Nick wasn’t made of such stern stuff? That Nick’s ego was fragile, his self-image built on all the wrong things. Did she dare say she blamed her uncle for that, too?

“I’m sure Nick’s hurting,” Clay went on. “And I’m sorry for it. But leaving Joshua was Nick’s own idea. He didn’t like the restrictions Joshua placed on him—and he hoped you would be a more lenient guardian. It’s really no surprise, is it, that there was a price to pay for his freedom? There usually is.”

“Yes, but the price is too high!” She pressed her fingertips together tightly, holding her emotion in with every muscle.

“He’s taken up with some new kids, kids from our neighborhood. These boys are much tougher than he is. He…” She hoped she wouldn’t fall apart, thinking of how Nick had looked at the police station, so young, so frightened. “He follows their lead. This week, they were caught spray-painting city hall.”

Clay’s brows pulled together in distaste. “Then the problem is in Nick, Melanie. Not in your address.”

Frustration pressed like a fist on her chest. “I understand what you’re saying. He should be stronger, I know. But I have to deal with Nick as he is, not as he ought to be.”

His face was implacable, and suddenly she realized she was just plain tired of begging—it was so at odds with her natural temperament. She had done all she could. If Clay couldn’t feel any sympathy for Nick, then she would have to find another way.

She stood jerkily, feeling like a fool. She had abased herself for nothing. “I apologize for wasting your time,” she said coolly. “I had hoped that perhaps you could expedite this…this cute little trial my uncle cooked up. If you won’t, you won’t I don’t need to bore you with all the details of our personal problems.”

Clay rested his head on the heel of his hand, still relaxed in spite of her tension.

“You’re flying off the handle again,” he pointed out.