Loved Me Once (Love, Romance and Business) Page 14

  "If I had done anything definitive, you'd have dodged me." He kissed her hand.

  "Maybe, maybe not," she laughed. "I always thought you were cute."

  He nuzzled her neck, and began to talk it through.

  "Say I'd made my move as soon as I recognized you as the person I wanted to spend my life with – which was about five minutes after we met, by the way. Say you'd been in the right kind of mood to be receptive. Say we'd found the nearest bed and jumped into it. I've done that on impulse a few times, by the way. Have you?"

  "Once or twice," she admitted.

  "And what happened after that?" he asked her.

  She thought for a moment. "The sex was okay, maybe a bit of a letdown. The conversational component was minimal."

  "And did anything come of it? Did you keep seeing the guy?"

  "No, I guess I didn't," she conceded. "They were nice-enough men, but it wasn't as if we really knew each other."

  "My point," he said, stroking her nipple, making it harden. "I wasn't interested in a one-night fling, not with you. You were worth thinking about, spending time on."

  "I give you full points for your perseverance," she grinned, "but I almost feel like a military target."

  "Are you happy, with this?"

  It was, she saw, a serious question.

  "Of course, I am. I realize suddenly that this is exactly what I want. You're exactly what I want," she corrected herself.

  "Then don't question how it happened. Just accept it. I love you, and I want to be with you always. The only thing is I'm having a problem with this waiting a year business. Let's get married now. Let's elope as soon as the weather clears. I know a place where . . ."

  She twisted free and sat up in bed. "It's odd that you mention that. Well, not odd exactly, more coincidental. I got offered a job today that could change how I feel about when we marry. It would mean I could take care of Mother without burdening you."

  He slid up to lean against the bed's headboard. "Nothing to do with you is a burden to me," he said. "You don't need to take a job for that. But if it means you'll be ready to marry me, then fine, take a job."

  "Thank you for your permission," she said lightly. "Actually, I haven't made a definite decision. It's a very big job, and I'm still wondering if I have the chops to do it. But I'll admit it's tempting. It's a new foundation that's going to revolutionize education in north Georgia. I'd be designing communications programs for teachers who're going to serve as talent scouts and then directing their training. I'd also be communicating program goals to the parents of the students who are chosen to be part of the program, and I'd also be the liaison with area governments and businesses who'll benefit. If it works the way it's supposed to, it could change the lives of a lot of people forever. It's something totally new."

  "Sounds interesting," he told her, but his expression was neutral and his tone not as enthusiastic as she'd expected.

  "I've got the program binder in my case. Let me get it." She hopped up and, wearing nothing, brought the bag over to the bed, then pulled out the binder and handed it to him. "My job description is on the page with the clip on it."

  Miles found the page, read the description. "It sounds interesting," he repeated, "but it sounds like a big challenge. Are you sure you want to take it on?"

  "I think so," she told him, scooting back under the covers to nestle close to the warmth of his body. "I've never been part of anything like this. It would be nice to work outside the box for once. Everything else I've done has been so controlled, so restricted by rules and regulations and limits already laid down by someone else. Here, what's expected is that I come up with approaches that work to meet a goal that no one's attempted before. I'll admit it's flattering to be considered, and the money and benefits are great. Tom says . . . "

  "Tom? You mean Merriman Scott? He's behind this?"

  "It's his new foundation. He's working on it full time now that he's no longer in the software business."

  Miles let the thick binder drop to the bed, where its pages fell heavily together.

  "So when did this big offer get made?" he wanted to know, sitting up and twisting around to face her.

  "He came to the seminar room at the lunch break to return something, and he was telling me about what he's doing now, and one thing led to another."

  "I'll bet it did," Miles said. "Don't you see what's going on here?"

  "I got offered the job of my life," she said defiantly, "taking part in something that's totally worthwhile. What's your problem?"

  "The guy is after you."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Scott is after you," Miles repeated. "He's trying to get at you in the only way he thinks he can, through your work."

  "That is just silly," she protested. "Why would you even say a thing like that?"

  "I saw how he looked at you yesterday. I'm telling you that the guy still has the hots for you."

  She laughed. "You think this fifty-three-year-old man, this extremely wealthy, powerful, attractive man rearranged his whole life to chase me to ground here in the middle of nowhere and put on this big act just to get back into my life? It's flattering, but it's ludicrous. He's had years to get in touch and hasn't."

  Miles thought about it for a moment. "No, he probably came to see you for exactly the reason the Halbrooks guy told you. To clean up some business with an old girl friend. I'll grant that. But once he reencountered you, I think it got to be more than that. It just strikes me as strange that someone you haven't seen in years suddenly offers you a key position in what's evidently going to be the next act in his life. Admit it – it's an obvious case of striking while the iron is hot."

  "Okay, tell me this," she said, suddenly cool, sitting up and pulling the covers around her shoulders, "since you have it all figured out, how is this nefarious scheme going to work?"

  "He'll involve you deeply in his project – which I'll admit sounds pretty cool," Miles said. "Then he'll start involving you in his life. You'll become part of a group that he does things with. Sooner or later the group will get smaller and it'll just be you and him, doing things. And a guy like Scott can provide some spectacular things to do. There's the island in the Solomons, the Painted Lady in San Francisco, the horse ranch in northern California, the town house in London, the chateau in France . . . "

  "How do you know so much about him?" she demanded.

  "Half an hour on the Internet," Miles said. "Sure, I looked him up. Anybody would whose girl turned up with an old boy friend who happens to be a billionaire who made People Magazine's sexiest men list."

  "He what?" Maggie was surprised. "He did? You looked that up? This is really weird, Miles. We can get married now because of this job. I thought you'd be happy."

  "You don't need this job, or any job, for us to be married now," he said angrily. "I've told you already that I can handle any issue in your life if you'll let me. I don't see why you have this compulsion to prove you can do it on your own."

  "It's not a compulsion, it's common sense." She took a deep breath, trying to find the right words. "Think about it, Miles. We start out with a lot of strikes against us at best. You're a catch by any standard. You could have any girl you want, the kind of girl who'd love to marry you and have a family with you. I'm older than you are, and it's likely that a family isn't in the works."

  "I've told you that doesn't matter," he said stubbornly.

  "Trust me, it'll matter to your mother," Maggie told him. "But I'll give you that one. Say no one cares about the family thing, there's still the money part of it. Your family owns a successful company. I've just been let go from a so-so job. You're obviously wealthy. I'm in debt to the extent that the bank will give me credit. And the money thing is only going to get worse. I have a mother who needs constant care, which is expensive. Where she lives, where her doctor says she should continue to live, is a constant financial drain. I'm not even sure how I can pay bills once the income from my job at WHT is gone. If I marry you now, with
none of that resolved, can't you see that you're getting a terrible bargain?"

  "I don't think so," he said obstinately.

  "I'll bet your mother would," she told him. "I think to your mother — if she knew the full truth — I'd have to look like a predator, taking advantage of her son for my own gain."

  "You think I'm a mama's boy?" he asked angrily. "Is that what this is all about?"

  "No," she said tiredly, "but I think you are very fond of your mother and respect her opinion, which is great. You should. So I'm determined that your mother respect me as someone who honestly loves you and isn't using you. I want to be able to marry you without her — or anyone else who matters — thinking I did it out of convenience."

  "I don't care what anyone else thinks," he said stubbornly, "including my mother, who has been told about you, incidentally, at least everything I know."

  "I appreciate that," she told him. "And I love it, but there's something else. I've always looked after myself. Maybe I didn't do it in the best possible way all the time, but I did it. One by one, my girl friends got married. Some of them seemed to be honestly in love, but some of them — especially as time passed and their options got fewer — seemed to use marriage as a copout. Didn't get the promotion? Marry the first guy who comes along and show them you don't need the job. Hit unexpected financial troubles? Marry the first rich guy who comes along and never have to worry about money again. Realize you don't have a date for New Year's Eve? Get married and never have to think about that again. Realize the clock is ticking? Get married and have those kids with whomever." She looked at him helplessly and shrugged. "I just can't do it like that. It's got to be for the right reasons, and it's got to be for keeps. I don't want to start out with all these disadvantages hanging over us."

  She wriggled over to where he sat, propped against the headboard, and hugged him, their bare chests pressed tightly together. He rolled both of them over so that she lay flat on her back and he was leaning on an elbow looking down at her.

  "You are so beautiful and so damned infuriating." He spoke almost angrily, but at least the cold suspicion was gone from his face. He leaned closer. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

  "Are you sure about that?" she whispered, running her fingers across his chest.

  He groaned and pulled her to him. It was, she thought, interesting how every discussion ended up with them intertwined. Interesting and totally acceptable.

  Afterwards, dressed, they were sitting at the little table before the big window, drinking tea and watching the last of the light disappear from the lake and the mountain ridge beyond. Miles had added a new log to the fire, and it flickered companionably. It was, Maggie thought, about the only thing that seemed companionable in the room.

  They hadn't said much in the last few minutes, but the silence wasn't particularly comfortable. Maggie had an idea that she hadn't heard the last of Miles' objections to her taking the job with TTI, but she was blindsided by what he said next.

  "I respect what you said about coming to me with a clean slate," he conceded. "I don't pretend to understand it completely, but I respect it. You want to resolve some things first. Okay, well and good. My problem is with the TTI thing. You can't take that job. I can't let you. It's not what you think it is."

  "You can't let me? What gives you the right to let me do or not do anything? I love you, but this authority-figure act is not making it."

  "The guy is just setting you up," Miles said patiently.

  "He has been nothing but professional," Maggie protested. "You should have been there. He is obsessed with this TTI project. I'm just someone who turned up who might be useful, just a tool he can trust, the kind of professional he works with all the time."

  "I'm not saying he isn't obsessed with his pet project. I just think he's using it as an excuse to get close to you again," Miles insisted. "And to do that, he's going to treat you like a total professional at first, because he knows that's the only way you'll accept him, given your history."

  "Give it a rest, Miles," Maggie protested. "He's not a school kid with a crush. He's rich and powerful. He's attractive. He could have anyone in the world he wants, personally or professionally."

  "Exactly," Miles said quietly. "You said yourself you weren't sure you had the chops for the job. Has it occurred to you that maybe he doesn't care whether you do or not because that isn't the point, that maybe he just wants to make sure you're around because it's the personal component that suddenly matters to him?"

  "Or maybe he just thinks I'm good enough," Maggie said angrily, knowing that she was beginning to get flushed. "How do you know what he's doing?"

  "Because it's what I would do to get close to you," Miles said quietly. "It's what I did do. I know now that you're damned good at what you do. But, at the start, you were just this incredible female I knew I had to get to know. That's why to begin with I was totally businesslike, all questions and observations about the business, all propriety — it was a nonthreatening way to be around you."

  "You stalked me," she laughed, but there was little humor in how she felt. "Why?"

  "Because I could," he said calmly. "Your company wanted to do business with mine, and I used that. I made sure that Bill Holmes understood that I considered you the point person."

  "It was that cold-blooded? Bill pimped me out?" Maggie didn't know whether to laugh or explode.

  "Grow up, Maggie,' Miles said wearily. "It's business. It happens every day. Most effective rainmakers are good-looking and charming, and there's a reason for that. Anyway, it's irrelevant in this situation because I knew from the beginning that what I felt about you was serious. You weren't just a one-night stand. Even if you had been, however, the approach would have been the same — of shorter duration, maybe, but the same."

  "You think that Tom, who could have anyone he wants, is going to all this trouble to have a one-night stand with me? You're nuts."

  "No," he said thoughtfully. "Not a one-night stand. I give him credit for more than that. He's at a critical point in his life. He's just sold a business he built up from nothing. Now he's begun this youth-oriented project. I think it's made him think about being young himself. I'll bet he'd like to revisit his youth, and I think he'd like to do it with you. Why not? If I were in his shoes, I would."

  "I promise. I will be very watchful," she grinned. "The big bad wolf won't find me alone at the door. And we can get married right away."

  Miles shook his head. "That won't work for me. I feel very strongly about this, Maggie. If you take this TTI job with Scott, I think that does it for me."

  "You're kidding, right?" she asked him incredulously. "How can you even say anything like that, much less mean it?"

  He frowned. "It's just so obvious what he's up to. I can't understand why you'd take the job if you aren't at least somewhat interested in giving him a chance to reactivate the old flame. It's bad enough knowing that — based on what I've observed while I've been 'stalking' you, as you say — every guy who gets to know you seems to want to drag you off to his cave because you've got that princess-in-a-tower thing going. Still, I can understand that, and I can compete with that. It's here and now, and I've got a good track record with here and now. I'm not sure I can compete with the old boy friend who made good. I don't see why I should have to."

  Maggie was flabbergasted. "So you're giving me an ultimatum. Either I give up the idea of the TTI job, or we're done? Even though I'm willing to marry you now?"

  "That pretty much sums it up," Miles said, watching her steadily. "I've spent almost two years of my life getting to this point with you, Maggie. Married or not, I don't want to hand you over to Scott, knowing full well what's coming."

  "Then I'm done," Maggie said. "You are not only paranoid and possessive, but you're damned presumptuous and I don't like it. How do I know you won't pull this with everything I try to do that you don't think of first?" She tugged at the solitaire. "Here, give this back to your mother."

  Miles shr
ugged. "Whatever works for you, but I'll tell you this. You're making a mistake, Maggie. One of these days, he'll show his hand, and you'll discover I'm right."

  "I guess this means you won't be coming to New York this weekend," she said drily as, case in hand, she walked out the door.

  Out With The Old

  It was the Monday before Christmas, and Maggie was back in the city. It had been three days since she had told Tom Scott that she'd take the TTI job and faxed her resignation, effective immediately, to Bill Holmes and two days since they'd returned to New York, not by helicopter but in a small fleet of black limos that crawled back in fog and continuing snow. Maggie rode in the first with Jameson Halbrooks, who spent the drive time telling her more about TTI. Several staffers, including Susan Broad, rode in the second; and Tom rode in the third with his assistant, Alysha Harding, the competent-looking woman who'd been on the phone nonstop the first time that Maggie went to the Lake View Executive Lodge. A security detail rode in each – Raoul Manuelo with Maggie and Halbrooks, a Jack Holt clone in the vehicle with the staffers, and Holt himself with Tom and his assistant.

  The more that Halbrooks told Maggie about TTI, the more impressed she became – and also the more doubtful. "It's a wonderful idea. It could mean an incalculable boon to those areas in north Georgia and to the young people in the participating schools," she told him. "At the same time, you are up against one of the most bureaucratically entrenched institutions in the country and you're choosing to fight the battle in one of the most change-resistant areas of the country."

  "I know what you say is true," Halbrooks said. "But I must say that the reception so far as been everything we'd hoped."

  "But no one's actually had to do anything yet, have they?" Maggie asked. "I mean the school systems, the teachers, the parents, the kids? That's when the foot dragging will begin. I don't mean to sound negative, but I've served on a couple of educational action committees with the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, and it seemed to me that the more that people expressed enthusiasm for change, the less likely it was to happen. Nobody likes change; most educators fight it tooth and nail."