He wasn’t sure if he’d been flirting, too. Savor every bite. The alcohol had still been running through his system, clearly messing up his head. Thank God Kate hadn’t replied after that last one. But she’d sent a dozen muffins this morning and he had gobbled three up with barely a drink of coffee. His experience with Kate’s food was almost sexual.
He couldn’t help it; it had always been like this since the beginning.
The first time she’d made chocolate-chip cookies on her own, Garrett had been fresh out of bed on a Sunday in his randy teen years. He’d been scouring the kitchen for breakfast and had shoved a warm cookie into his mouth, nodding when she’d asked if it was good. Then Kate had laughingly stepped up and brushed a crumb from the side of his mouth, and he’d almost swallowed the cookie whole.
Sometimes he waited until he was alone to eat her stuff. And he imagined he was licking her fingers when he wrapped his tongue around her sugary frostings. And when they had little
sprinkles, he pictured her freckles.
He really should look into therapy.
Suddenly he heard Landon sigh and slap his copy of the report shut, and he was jerked back to the present.
“So if your brother is still not aware of our plans,” he asked Cassandra, “why are you chickening out on selling?” The chair creaked as he leaned back, folding his arms over his chest.
Cassandra Clarks may have had the appearance of a blonde bombshell, but behind that “bimbo” facade, Garrett had learned, there was actually a brain. The woman was not only smart, but about as flexible on her terms as a damned wall.
Today she exuded casual confidence, slowly shaking her head as Landon explained his position.
“We’re supposed to keep buying the stock until we get over twenty percent,” Landon told her. “In a week, two at most, your brother’s company will be ours before he even realizes we’re in bed with him. No pun intended.”
“None taken,” Cassandra said, eyeing Landon judiciously as she finally stopped shaking her head and allowed him to continue.
“Once we secure your remaining thirty-two percent, it puts us in control, and it leaves you a very wealthy woman, Cassie.”
“That’s the problem. My brother will know I sold to you. He will destroy me and anything else I have,” she said, her entire countenance clouded with worry. “What I wanted to propose to Garrett on Saturday before he cut me short was a marriage of convenience. My brother has control of my stake in the company now, but if I marry, he won’t have control over financial decisions regarding my stake anymore. My husband can take over the shares and compensate me discreetly. It would be an easy arrangement, and over in six months, where we’ll both happily walk away with what we want. Me with my money, you with the stock.”
Garrett remained silent as he absorbed the proposal.
He met Cassandra’s gaze unflinchingly, the ambitious businessman in him wanting to say yes. But in his mind, he went back to waking up to Kate’s scent on the pillow, to the memory of somehow holding her in his arms.
He tugged at the collar of his shirt several times, aware that his frown was pinching into his face. “I’m afraid that’s not an option, Cassandra,” he said, signaling for his assistant to refill all their coffees.
Hell, he might even start drinking whiskey at this hour. Because marriage?
“Like Landon said, we’re willing to buy those shares up front. No need to get dramatic about it.”
“I’m afraid selling out front is not an option. My brother is... You don’t know him. Marriage is the only way I can free myself of his control. You take the shares, transfer the money to me, and then we walk six months later with irreconcilable differences. It’s a marriage in name only and we have nothing to lose. That’s the only way it’s happening: you marry me and by right take my thirty-two percent.”
Landon’s and Garrett’s eyes met across the conference table. Landon’s gray gaze almost looked silver in his concern.
“Look, Cassandra,” he started. “We’re almost at twenty percent already. We’ll buy your position outright at way above market price. At fifty-two percent, we’ll be in control and can get your brother out of there. He won’t have a say in the matter anymore.”
She shook her head, her eyes tearing up. “You don’t know him. He has a say in a lot of things in my life. I don’t get real financial independence until I marry—can’t you understand?”
She reached across the table and squeezed Garrett’s hand as if she were falling from a precipice and he’d been appointed the task of hauling her up.
“It’ll be a marriage in name only, but I can make it sweet for you. I can. I know I’m pretty. I think you’re an incredibly sexy man.”
His stomach turned, and he was amazed at how calmly he looked back at her. Several years ago, he’d probably have done it without thinking. He was a businessman, after all. She was an attractive woman offering something and he had nothing to lose. People got married and divorced for other reasons; why not for business?
He just didn’t have the energy for it right now. What he’d told Kate at his party had been the truth. All he wanted was for Kate to be home. He would dedicate every waking moment to making that happen. Life without Kate to him was...unimaginable.
He was selfish when it came to her.
He was stupid, unreasonable and stubborn when it came to her.
But Cassandra Clarks didn’t know this. She didn’t know that as he sat in this chair, and let her squeeze his hand, every cell in his body was burning with yearning for another woman. He’d burned for so many years, it was a miracle he hadn’t turned to ashes by now.