‘Did you hear me? Take me home. Now.’
She turned and rushed from the restaurant, the tears blinding her as she made her way past the fountain and the flowers and out to the car park. The bastard! She had a perfectly comfortable life, she had everything she needed and wanted…
Grant’s hands closed on her shoulders and he spun her towards him. ‘It hurts to face the truth, doesn’t it?’
‘Damn you,’ she whispered, ‘damn you to hell, Grant MacLean. You’ve no right——’
‘No right to suggest something that will give both of us happiness without the pain neither of us wants?’
She scrubbed furiously at her damp eyes. ‘Who do you think you are?’
‘I know who I am, Hannah! I’m a man who’s looked at life and found he’s riding on a fast train bound for nowhere, the same as you.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said furiously. ‘And you’ve found this magic, simple solution——’
‘It is simple.’
‘It isn’t. What you’re suggesting is—is——’
‘Logical. Practical. Sensible.’
‘You left out “embarrassing”. Or haven’t you considered what people would think of such an arrangement?’
Grant’s brows rose. ‘I don’t give a damn what people think.’
‘I do. We live in different worlds, Grant. Maybe you can make your own rules, but I…’
‘Are you thinking about your family?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I don’t have a family. My parents died a few years ago.’
‘Well, then?’
‘Well, there’s—there’s the office. Your partners.’
He smiled. ‘I’m far too valuable for them to say anything about how I lead my life. As long as it’s nothing illegal or scandalous, they’ll tolerate whatever I do and say nothing.’
‘And what about your family?’
‘There’s only Marilyn.’ His smile broadened. ‘And she’d be so happy to hear I’ve decided to settle down that she wouldn’t ask any questions if I announced my engagement to—to Magda Karolyi.’
Hannah laughed despite herself. ‘That’s some recommendation.’ Her smile faded. ‘And then there’s Sally, and the girls at work, and——’
‘Then we don’t have to tell anyone anything.’
‘No. It wouldn’t work.’
Grant smiled. ‘You’re underestimating us. We can make the world see us as just another man and woman who took a good look at each other one day and decided they liked what they saw.’
‘That’s easy to say, but——’
‘Watch,’ he whispered, and before she could take a breath he drew her into his arms and parted her lips with his, his tongue slipping along the soft inside of her mouth. His mouth was warm, his kiss gentle, but suddenly she felt heat building deep within her, spreading through her blood and into her limbs. A tremor went through her. Grant made a soft sound in his throat and gathered her to him. It seemed a long, long time before he clasped her shoulders and put her from him.
They stood staring at each other, Hannah as shaken by the sudden, unreadable darkness in Grant’s eyes as by the power of his kiss. But then he smiled and the darkness dissolved, and she knew that what she’d seen in his eyes had been satisfaction.
‘We could fool the world if we had to,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t we?’
Their eyes met again. She could have it all—a home and security and a baby to love, with no man owning her heart who could break it.
Grant clasped her shoulders. ‘Dammit,’ he said in a fierce whisper, ‘say yes.’
It was insane. It was impossible.
His hands framed her face, and her heart almost stopped beating. Was he going to kiss her again? She couldn’t let that happen.
‘Hannah? Will you at least think about it?’
Anything, she thought desperately, anything to make him stop looking at her that way, to make him let go of her.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘all right, I will. I——’
A smile swept across his face. ‘I knew you’d see it my way,’ he said triumphantly.
She stared at him in horror. ‘Grant, no! I only said——’
He drew her into his arms. ‘I promise you, Hannah, you’ll never regret this decision.
By the time he’d finished kissing her, she was beyond thinking anything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE rain had picked up, and the fog that had earlier curled so picturesquely over the Golden Gate Bridge was now a treacherous, blinding hazard. Hannah could see taut concentration in Grant’s every movement as he nursed the car forward.
Surely this was no time to try and tell him that he’d misunderstood what she’d said at the restaurant. She would wait until they reached her flat, and then she’d ask him in after he’d taken her to her door, make some tea, force him to listen.
But, for the very first time, Grant didn’t take her to her door. He pulled to the kerb, sprang out of the car, and came around to her side.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t see you up,’ he said briskly as he helped her from the car. ‘I have some errands to run, and I promised Marilyn I’d stop by for a while. You understand.’
She stared at him. ‘But we have to talk!’
‘We will. At the office, I promise.’ He frowned. ‘Unless you’d prefer not to go upstairs alone… ?’
Hannah laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. I always——’
‘Good.’ Grant dropped a light kiss on her upturned face. ‘I’ll see you, then.’
She watched open-mouthed as he hopped into his car and drove off into the fog, and then she turned slowly and made her way indoors. All right, then. She’d phone him.
But her calls went unanswered. Grant’s brisk, recorded voice kept telling her she’d reached his number and saying, ‘Kindly leave your name, number, and a brief message.’
How could you leave a message saying you would not go through with a mockery of a marriage nor agree to bear a child according to a contra
ct? At midnight, she gave up and went to bed. They would settle matters in the office, she thought, and fell into a troubled sleep.
On Monday morning she went to work earlier than usual, but Grant was already there, waiting for her. She had wondered how to tell him he’d made a mistake. How would he react? Would he be angry? Would he try and insist they’d reached agreement?
Grant didn’t give her any time to find out.
‘You’re fired,’ he said, without preamble, almost the very moment she slipped off her coat.
Hannah stared at him. ‘I’m what?’ she said. The coat slid through her fingers and fell, unnoticed, to the floor.
He smiled a little. ‘Perhaps I should say that you’ve just given notice. As of this moment, you are my fiancée, not my legal assistant.’
‘But—but I’m not——’
‘We have a lot to do,’ he said. ‘And not a hell of a lot of time to do it in.’
‘Grant.’ She drew a breath. ‘Listen to me. You can’t just fire me. I need my job.’
‘Don’t be silly. You do not “need” your job.’ He took her coat from where she’d dropped it and slipped it around her shoulders. ‘Keep that on,’ he said. ‘We’re going out.’
She looked after him in bewilderment as he walked to his office.
‘Of course I need my job,’ she said, following after him. ‘I have expenses to meet.’
Grant opened his calendar, glanced at it, then closed it and put it down.
‘What expenses?’
‘What do you mean, what expenses?’ she said with a unsteady smile. ‘Rent on my apartment. Groceries. Utilities. Clothing. A dozen other things.’
He looked at her and smiled. ‘You won’t be paying rent,’ he said reasonably. ‘You’ll be living with me.’
‘That’s what I want to talk to you about,’ Hannah said quickly. ‘About what I said when we were leaving the restaurant—what you thought I said, I mean.’
‘My partners all said to tell you they’re very happy for us both, by the way.’
She stared at him. ‘You—you told them?’
‘Of course. Marilyn’s happy, too.’ He grinned. ‘More than happy, actually. She’s ecstatic.’
‘Marilyn knows, too?’ Hannah asked in a shaky whisper.