Manhattan Merger. Rebecca Winters

with our wedding plans.”

      “She only asked me because you hinted it might be a good idea while mom and dad were away. I never told you this, but two years ago at that Fourth of July party on the yacht, Linda and I figured out Diane was in love with you when she told us to run along and leave you two alone.”

      After what Catherine had just told him, he realized his perceptive niece understood a lot more about his fiancée than he’d given her credit for.

      With so much on his mind at the time, Payne had been oblivious to Diane’s interest in him. If he hadn’t left his office that night… But all the what-ifs in the world weren’t going to change the situation that had shattered lives and dreams.

      After finding his laptop in the study he said, “Why don’t you ask Linda to come sailing with us tomorrow, Diane or no Diane.”

      “Really?” Catherine’s face broke into a sunny smile. “Thanks, Uncle Payne. You’re the greatest!” She stood up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I’ll invite her when we get together later.”

      “You do that. See you later.”

      “Okay. Come on, Lady.”

      Before he left the house to join Mac in the other limo for the short drive ride to Crag’s Head, he watched the dog follow her up the stairs. The Sterlings loved their animals. Payne was no exception, but after his bullmastiff Bruno had died, he’d decided not to get another dog.

      Since moving into his new home, he was gone too much. It wouldn’t be fair to keep a pet when he was away a lot of the time. They needed constant love and attention.

      When he joined Mac in the limo he confided, “A few days ago I told Diane I missed having a dog and planned to get her one for a wedding present so she wouldn’t be so lonely when I’m overseas. Apparently that’s the last thing she wants, even though I pointed out it could serve as a guard dog too.”

      “It’s not really surprising when you consider her mother’s allergy to them,” Mac murmured back. “Your fiancée didn’t grow up around animals.”

      Payne rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Diane claims she’s been in love with me for years, but since our engagement she’s begun to realize how little we have in common. I’m afraid I’m not the perfect man she thought I was.”

      Mac eyed him frankly. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but someone should have warned her about the old saying, ‘Be careful what you pray for. You might get it.’”

      “You’re scary, Mac.”

      “How so?”

      “You just took the words right out of my mouth. Last night she broke down and admitted she doesn’t like my home.” Mac grimaced. “Instead of a dog for a wedding present, could we build an English manor along the lines of her parents’ home?

      “I reminded her that as an only child she would inherit her family home one day, and could spend as much time as she wanted there after our marriage.”

      Mac didn’t say anything. Neither did Payne.

      After leaving his sister’s sprawling New England style home which was reminiscent of many homes in the Hamptons, he craved his eyrie at Crag’s Head.

      Money could buy a lot of things he would never want, and it had brought him more pain than he’d ever thought possible. But if he could be grateful for one thing, it had allowed him to turn his ideas for the old lighthouse standing on family property into a sanctuary of primitive beauty and isolation.

      Payne was an engineer, not an architect, but he’d known what he’d wanted the moment he’d glimpsed Le Corbusier’s Chapel of Notre Dame Du Haut at Ronchamps for the first time.

      Using a sculptural style rather than rectilinear, the famous French architect had created two curving walls of white-washed rough masonry that met beneath a dark roof.

      Incorporating those same elements with the lighthouse, Payne’s home stood like a piece of sculpture on the headland overlooking the Atlantic. The randomly punched out windows of the walls gave him all the privacy and all the view he could ever want.

      He liked being able to walk around while he studied where he would lay massive fiber-optic cables in a place as difficult as New York’s labyrinthine underground.

      The urban fiber networks were one of the least-developed pieces of Internet infrastructure throughout the world. Payne had always considered it a market of vast potential.

      Pleased to have been responsible for putting five million kilometers of glass thread in the ground already, he was now selling rights to individual strands of fiber outright. World carriers and corporations were coming to him every day asking for more.

      When he’d had the place built, he hadn’t yet met the woman he’d wanted to marry. If he’d given it any thought at all, he’d imagined that when the right one came along, she’d love it as much as he did.

      Last night he’d promised Diane he would add some interior features to the second floor to make it less austere and fortress-like.

      As for the lighthouse portion of his house, it had been transformed into an open workspace. It was here in his inner sanctum he used the thick rounded walls to spread out his huge maps of the tunneling beneath major American and European cities.

      Considering he was in negotiations for the rights-of-way to dig in fifty more markets by next year, there was no way of gauging where it would lead in future years. But it ensured he wouldn’t run out of problems to solve. That’s what he loved to do.

      That’s why he was taking Diane to Switzerland, even if he had to drag her there. And if working with those doctors didn’t produce a cure, he’d heard of another one who ran a clinic for injuries to the spine in Norway.

      If Payne had already figured out how to unearth dazzling riches lying in mud beneath the streets of New York, Paris and Rome, surely he could find a way for Diane to walk again!

      “Betty?” he called to Mrs. Myers. She and her husband lived in to look after his house and do light housekeeping. “I’m expecting Drew Wallace later tonight. When he gets here, let him in my study, will you please?”

      “Of course. Would you like something to eat before he arrives?”

      “How about a sandwich.”

      “Coming right up.”

      Taking advantage of the time, he sat back in his easy chair, adjusted the floor lamp light and began reading Manhattan Merger.

      The opening line grabbed him by the throat.

      Logan Townsend wasn’t in love with his fiancée.

      From that point on it was like walking through the minefield of his own psyche where his deepest thoughts and feelings were exposed at every unexpected turn. By the time he came to the last page and closed the book, his hands were literally shaking.

      He recalled something Catherine had said before he’d left for Crag’s Head.

      Diane got after me about reading romances. She said they’re a waste of time and don’t reflect real life.

      How wrong could Diane have been!

      If Payne could be thankful for one thing, it was that Catherine hadn’t read the story yet. It would bring her even more pain.

      Once more the painting on the cover leaped out at him, underscoring his shock that this book with his picture was in circulation.

      “Payne?”

      At the sound of Drew’s familiar voice, he levered himself from the chair. Only then did he realize he’d been too riveted to the well-written story to notice Betty had brought him a tray of food some time ago. Unfortunately his appetite had left him.

      “I’m glad you’re here.”

      “Good grief. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”