His Marriage Bonus. Cathy Gillen Thacker

cancel. My mom has been having a rough time.”

      Lauren’s heart filled with empathy for Grace Deveraux. “I saw she had been fired from her job on Rise and Shine, America! How could they do that anyway? She was the best host they’ve ever had on that morning news show.”

      Mitch nodded. “We all thought so, too, but apparently the network brass wanted to go with someone who would bring in younger viewers.”

      “That’s crazy. You can’t teach experience.”

      “Exactly.” Mitch continued out onto the front porch.

      Silence fell between them as Lauren crossed the portal and shut the door behind her. “How is your mom?” she asked gently.

      Abruptly, Mitch’s blue eyes became troubled. “We’re not sure. She seems fine on the surface, but…she has to be hurting at the way she was dismissed from her job. Anyway, we’re taking turns sort of circling the wagons and making sure she has plenty of moral support. Tonight is my night, and my father is joining us.”

      That was interesting, considering Grace and Tom had been divorced for thirteen years. “Are the two of them thinking of getting back together?”

      Mitch shrugged.

      Even though he didn’t come right out and say so, Lauren could tell by the look on Mitch’s face that he wished they would.

      “They’ve both been dating other people since the divorce,” he said.

      “And now?”

      “No one special, on either side, from what I can tell. But I don’t know a lot about their personal lives.” Mitch regarded Lauren casually. “What about your dad? Is he seeing anyone?”

      “He hasn’t dated at all since my mom died eleven years ago. He says he already had the love of his life. Which makes it worse, you know,” Lauren related with a beleaguered sigh, “because the two of them had an arranged marriage. They didn’t know each other from Adam when the two of them got together.”

      “But they fell in love.”

      “Yes, they did. Although my mom and I always—always—came second to his business,” Lauren reflected with more bitterness than she would have liked.

      Mitch looked at Lauren sternly. “Just because he cares about his company doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you.”

      That just showed what little Mitch knew, Lauren thought. Her father never did anything that didn’t somehow positively impact his business. Hence, Payton’s trying to fix her up with the son of his fiercest business rival. Payton Heyward was always thinking ahead. Always trying to make more money. Or become more successful yet. And while Lauren applauded her dad’s ambition, she did not like the way he had—with Mitch’s help—tried to include her love life in Payton and Mitch’s plans for a merger between the Heyward-Deveraux shipping companies. But since this was the only way she was going to get the mansion she had wanted to refurbish for most of her adult life, Lauren knew she had to either bow out or cooperate. And for the sake of this lovely old home, she was going to cooperate—for a week anyway.

      “So—” Lauren dug the toe of her shoe into the brick and mortar floor of the porch, then looked up at Mitch “—which one of us is going to tell my father we’re taking him up on his deal?”

      “I’ll call him, if you’d like,” Mitch said.

      Lauren nodded. Bad enough her father had won this round of machinations. She didn’t want to hear the victory in his voice when he realized it. Because although she had agreed to date Mitch Deveraux for one week—against her better judgment—there was absolutely no way she was marrying him, no matter how much her father wanted it, or how wonderfully Mitch kissed!

      Chapter Three

      “I thought you said you were bringing a date tonight,” Grace Deveraux said to Mitch as he walked into the family’s Charleston mansion several hours later.

      Mitch looked at his mother. Thanks to her career as a television newswoman, she had one of the most widely recognizable faces in the entire country. She couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized, which was why she was currently staying with Tom Deveraux in the home they had shared before their divorce, some thirteen years ago. It was the only way she could get any privacy in the wake of her very public firing.

      Not that his mother had let the catastrophe get her down—her short and fluffy blond hair was as youthfully and impeccably arranged as always, her blue eyes lively, her trim figure clothed in a stylish silk pantsuit.

      Mitch smiled, glad to see his mother looking so well. The idiots who had pronounced her “too old” to do her job might not know it yet, but Grace would land on her feet yet. And Mitch and the rest of the Deveraux clan would be there to applaud her when it happened.

      Mitch accepted a glass of wine from his dad. “Lauren called and said she was running a little behind schedule and would just meet me here.” Mitch hadn’t been pleased to get the message from his secretary. He had the feeling it was just one of many excuses Lauren would offer up over the coming week to avoid spending even one more second than she absolutely had to with him. But since he hadn’t known where Lauren was when she called, and she hadn’t been answering her cell phone, he’d had no choice but to do as she had asked, and arrive without her.

      “Lauren who?” his father asked as he sat down kitty-corner from Grace and Mitch.

      Mitch figured now was as good a time as any to lay the bomb on his parents. “Lauren Heyward.”

      Tom Deveraux frowned. Mitch wondered if it was his imagination or had the gray at his father’s temples recently become more pronounced?

      “You know the rule about climbing into bed with the competition,” Tom said.

      “Tom!” Grace chided, a flush coming into her pretty cheeks.

      “Mitch knows what I mean,” Tom said, raking a hand through his closely cropped dark brown hair. “I wasn’t speaking literally. Although now that we’ve brought it up, that better not be the case, either.” Tom leveled a warning look at Mitch, his brown eyes darkening all the more. “There’s nothing more potentially damaging than pillow talk, when it comes to industrial espionage.”

      The last thing Mitch wanted to be imagining was his head next to Lauren’s as they exchanged teasing quips and soft words of love and lust after making love. He didn’t want to think about her lying naked beneath him, either, her slender arms and long sexy legs wrapped around him. His relationship with her was too potentially beneficial to both of them to risk ruining with casual sex. If things went his way, he could make his mark with this deal with Payton Heyward, and Lauren would own the historical home of her dreams. And that was as far as Mitch was prepared to take it at this time, despite Payton Heyward’s very interesting offer. Or his own desire for Lauren.

      “Lauren doesn’t work for her father,” Mitch said, putting his own uneasiness about Payton Heyward’s unprecedented actions aside. “Furthermore, she has zero interest in his company.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Tom said gruffly. “She’s still an heiress to our biggest rival. And could inadvertently end up passing information to her father about what we’re doing at Deveraux Shipping Company.”

      Mitch had no intention of letting Lauren know anything she shouldn’t. He would also keep a very close eye on her. “The competition between Payton Heyward’s company and ours isn’t the biggest threat to our continued prosperity, Dad. The Web-based exchanges on the Internet are.”

      “Those companies are a fad.”

      Mitch knew a lot of top businessmen thought so, given all the dot-com firms that had already gone under. He didn’t agree. He felt it was one of the fastest growing markets and would continue to be for some time. “They also offer faster bookings at cheaper prices.” And that was a problem, Mitch thought.

      “Most big