His Marriage Bonus. Cathy Gillen Thacker

      “Even better,” Mitch said emphatically. “Should we decide to marry one day, we won’t be fighting over who gets to run it—I’ll automatically have the honor. Plus a marriage-driven merger would allow us to expand and strengthen both our businesses, while still keeping both firms private and ‘all-in-the-family’ so to speak. Financially, it would be good for both of them.”

      Lauren went very still. “What about passion?”

      Mitch had only been with Lauren a few minutes, and he was already fantasizing about what it would be like to make love with her. But sensing she wouldn’t want to hear that, he merely smiled. “I think every marriage should have some.”

      “Exactly,” Lauren replied with a mixture of satisfaction and relief. She looked at him in a way that seemed to imply on that score they weren’t compatible at all.

      He sized her up and then decided a level of truth was called for after all. “I am attracted to you, Lauren.” He’d also never been able to resist a challenge—and the thought of taking her to bed and discovering all the ways to give her pleasure was very intriguing, indeed.

      “Well, that’s too bad,” Lauren retorted with a haughty toss of her mane of golden-brown hair. “Because I am not in the least bit attracted to you!”

      Fibber, Mitch thought. “Want to bet?” Mitch asked, and then did what he had been wanting to do since she had first stormed into—and out of—her father’s office earlier in the afternoon. He took her in his arms, lowered his lips to hers and put her declaration of immunity to the test. She gasped as their mouths fused and he kissed her long and hard and deep. Until he felt the need pouring out of her, as surely as the desire and temper. Until she moaned softly and melted in his arms. His mouth tingling, his whole body aching with the yearning to make her his, Mitch reluctantly lifted his head.

      “Okay,” Lauren said breathlessly as he continued to hold her close, “maybe you are attractive.” She braced her arms between the two of them, doing her best to keep them from touching above the waist. “But that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to you, Mitch Deveraux.”

      Mitch smiled at the stubbornness of her complaint, and bent her backward from the waist, determined to make her face the truth, no matter what it took. “Kiss me again and then say that,” Mitch challenged playfully, kissing the nape of her neck, the curve of her ear, before taking the softness of her lips and molding them to his. He kissed her again and again, persuading, tempting, until her body trembled even as it strained to be closer to his and her arms moved up to wreath his neck. And once he felt the soft surrender of her body, tasted the sweetness of her mouth, there was no stopping with just one kiss. Never mind one intended merely to prove a point.

      Mitch’s heart pounded in his chest. The rest of his body went rigid with desire. Knowing the only way to be close enough to her would be to take her to bed and make her his, he tugged her nearer yet. He hadn’t wanted a woman as much as he wanted Lauren, since…well, maybe never. He couldn’t even say why, exactly. He just knew there was something special about her. Something special about this. And she knew it, too, Mitch thought. He could tell by the way she was kissing him back. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the way he wanted her—on an ill-thought-out whim. Reluctantly, he drew back. Waited for her reaction. Which turned out to be every bit as predictable—self-protecting—as he thought it would be.

      “I’m still not attracted to you,” she repeated.

      Oh, but it was going to be fun tearing down her barriers and making her face the truth about the chemistry between them. Mitch grinned. Feeling happier, more optimistic and content—than he had in a long time, Mitch looked deep into her eyes and ran his hands from her shoulders to her wrists.

      Linking his fingertips intimately with hers, he asked softly, “Then why are you trembling?” Why were their entire bodies still reverberating with excitement and desire?

      Lauren tore her eyes away from his and stared at the open collar of his shirt. “Because this whole idea of the two of us being together…because of a proposition put forward by my father—upsets me, that’s why.”

      Mitch knew the idea of dating—maybe even marrying—a woman he barely knew should have been disturbing to him, too. But now that he’d spent a little time with Lauren, it wasn’t. Not at all. “How come?” he asked.

      “Because we’re talking about the possibility of us one day getting married as calmly and logically as if it was a business deal, and it’s not!” Lauren said emotionally, pushing him away.

      “Maybe it should be,” Mitch murmured back, and found he was beginning to agree with Payton Heyward more and more. The only mystery was why he’d never noticed Lauren Heyward before and sought her out on his own.

      Lauren took a deep, bolstering breath. She let her hands fall to her sides as she looked into his eyes and squared off with him. “I want children, Mitch.”

      “I want them, too,” Mitch said sincerely. So there was no problem there. If the kisses they had just shared were any indication, there wouldn’t be a problem in the bedroom. The problem would be staying out of the bedroom.

      Lauren pressed her right hand to her chest. “I want a marriage from the heart.”

      So had Mitch—once. But he had learned the hard way not to look for a passionate love affair to give him happiness. He clamped his lips together. “Infatuation fades.”

      Lauren narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what happened with you and Jeannette Wycliffe?”

      Mitch sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Suffice it to say, we were two people who definitely never should have married.”

      “But you did get married.”

      Mitch nodded, reflecting soberly on what a gargantuan mistake that had been. “Because we let our hormones dictate our actions. When I marry again, it will be because I’ve thought it out thoroughly and rationally, and know it’s a sound alliance that will infinitely benefit us both.” That we’ll be good together both in and out of bed.

      Lauren rolled her eyes and looked at him askance. “It doesn’t get any more romantic than that.”

      “I’m not looking for the romantic—I’m looking for the practical. And you should be, too,” Mitch advised stoically. The way he saw it, a temporary liaison between them would be very advantageous. Should they prove compatible, in the bedroom and out, an eventual marriage would be even more beneficial to them both. But even if they didn’t get along all that well or share the same goals and ideals, there wasn’t much risk or cost to either of them in dating each other exclusively for a period of one week. He’d had business deals he’d worked months to achieve that had paid him far less in actual dividends than this merger would. And he wanted—needed—this merger. Both the Heyward and Deveraux shipping companies did.

      “In fact,” Mitch continued sincerely, “I think you should be grateful to your father for setting this up.” He knew he was.

      At that, Lauren just shook her head at Mitch and muttered something about him being about as romantic as a tree.

      “What time are we supposed to do this again?” she asked with thinly veiled impatience.

      “From 6:00 p.m. until midnight, every night, starting tonight,” Mitch replied over the staccato tapping of her foot against the wood floor.

      “Fine.” Lauren sighed, doing nothing to mask her lack of enthusiasm for the evening ahead. She planted her hands on her hips. “Where do you want to meet?”

      “I’ll pick you up at your place.” Mitch plucked his suit coat off the banister and headed for the door. “And you probably want to dress nicely,” he added.

      “Why?” Lauren regarded him warily.

      “We’re having dinner with my parents.”

      AND LAUREN HAD THOUGHT her day, already as eventful as all get-out, couldn’t possibly get any worse. She held