His Marriage Bonus. Cathy Gillen Thacker

just…she’s been this way since she returned from New York,” Mitch explained. Things would be going along smoothly, and then his mother would suddenly look his father in the eye and end up walking out of the room, visibly distressed. They all assumed it had something to do with her being fired, that she was just feeling very tense and emotional in the wake of her public humiliation.

      “I think we should take Grace at her word,” Tom said, going over to open the bottle of wine that Lauren had brought as a gift. “And accept that she had another invitation she forgot about and intends to honor.”

      If you say so, Mitch thought. But he wasn’t buying it. Not for a red-hot minute.

      DINNER WAS SERVED shortly thereafter. Mitch urged Lauren to talk about her career in acquiring and renovating historic properties for resale, which she did happily. He also asked her a few questions about her experiences with the family shipping business, and learned, along with his father, that Lauren never set foot in the executive offices if she could help it, and she usually could.

      When Lauren excused herself to run out to the kitchen to get Theresa’s recipe for hummingbird cake, Mitch looked at Tom. “See? She’s not exactly Mata Hari.”

      “How do you know?” Tom retorted grimly, looking as if he was all too willing to place Lauren in the ranks of the notorious World War I spy. “Just because she acts innocent in the ways of the business doesn’t mean you aren’t the one being set up here.”

      Like the real Mata Hari, Lauren was sexy and beautiful, maybe even a tad mysterious. But Mitch couldn’t see Lauren seducing him for information. “What do you mean?” Mitch demanded.

      “Payton Heyward has never been interested in taking his company beyond the Heyward family.”

      Mitch regarded his father pragmatically and pointed out the obvious motivation, “Until now, Payton Heyward was probably hoping Lauren would marry and produce a child so Payton and Lauren would not be the last of the blood-line. But since that hasn’t happened, Payton’s decided to take matters into his own hands, and secure her financial future, and the Heyward family legacy in the shipping industry, in another way. Through a merger with us.” As far as Mitch was concerned, businesswise Payton’s actions made perfect sense. Personally, it was risky. If the situation backfired in any way, or Lauren learned of the dowry Payton had secretly offered on her behalf, Lauren might not ever forgive her father. Or Mitch. And therein lay the real risk.

      Tom’s jaw hardened. He looked not the least bit appeased. “Look, call me suspicious if you will, but I’ve been around this business for a very long time. If Payton Heyward is suddenly wanting to merge with us, if he is really even wanting to consider it, then there’s a damn good reason.”

      Mitch looked at his father warily. “You think they’re in trouble, financially, and he’s looking to bail out through us?” Mitch asked uneasily, realizing his father might have a point. Payton Heyward had recently bought those extra container ships. And as yet the scuttlebutt was the ships weren’t fully booked. That had to be putting a strain on the Heyward-company finances.

      Tom shrugged, abruptly looking as unsure as Mitch felt about the situation. “I don’t know what’s going on there. I’m not sure I want to know,” Tom replied unhappily, sighing before leaning forward urgently once again. “And by the way, what I’ve told you about climbing into bed with the competition goes both ways. Don’t be pumping Lauren for information, either. It would be unethical.”

      “I’m more principled than that,” Mitch said, beginning to get angry now. He loved his father with all his heart. But he loathed the way Tom kept treating him when it came to the family business, like a student who still needed schooling, lots of it. Tom didn’t treat his other children that way. But then his other children weren’t involved in the family business.

      “I’m going to go out for a while,” Tom said, getting up from the dining-room table abruptly. “I need to clear my head.”

      Mitch nodded and watched his father go.

      “WHERE’S YOUR FATHER?” Lauren asked when she returned several minutes later, handwritten recipe in hand.

      “He went out for a while,” Mitch said.

      “Meaning we’re on our own for the rest of the evening,” Lauren supposed, looking no happier about that than Mitch felt.

      “It would appear so.” Mitch glanced at his watch, saw nearly two hours had passed. Only four hours and two and a half minutes to go.

      “So now what?” Lauren said, suddenly beginning to look as restless as Mitch felt.

      Mitch shrugged and got up from the table. “I don’t know. We’ll figure out some way to kill the rest of the evening.” Without getting extraordinarily close.

      “Such as…?” Lauren slipped the recipe into her handbag, then waited for Mitch to fill in the blanks.

      “I don’t know.” Mitch shrugged again. All the things Mitch would normally want to do with a woman on a first date were pretty much out, given the unusual circumstances of their pairing. Too late, he realized he should have treated this date like a business deal and come up with more of an agenda ahead of time. “We could go to one of the clubs and listen to music, or, uh, maybe go to a very long movie,” Mitch suggested. Walking on the beach was out, as was anything else even quasiromantic until he’d had a little time to decide whether he could persuade Lauren to forget about her rules.

      “Anything, just so long as we’re not alone,” Lauren qualified, narrowing her eyes at him.

      “Right,” Mitch replied.

      Lauren inclined her head at Mitch and grinned. Abruptly looking like the mischievous playgirl he knew she wasn’t, she sauntered closer and teasingly tugged at the knot of his tie. “Ah, Mitch.” She batted her eyelashes at him coquettishly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were afraid to be alone with me.”

      She could be Mata Hari for all you know.

      Mitch shifted his weight uncomfortably as Lauren came closer yet and wreathed both her arms around his neck. She stood on tiptoe, pressed her slender curves close to him. Then looked deep into his eyes and whispered in a soft teasing voice that sent the blood rushing like a riptide to the lower half of his body. “What’s the matter, Mitch? Afraid I might seduce you into doing something against your will?”