“Whatever you do, don’t fall in love with him until he falls in love with you,” Donna said.
Kate frowned. “What do you mean don’t fall for him? I thought I already had.”
“You fell into lust, infatuation. Both of those are temporary. Real love is terminal,” Donna said cheerfully. “My mother always told me never to marry anyone who didn’t love me more than I loved him. So if you decide to marry him, you just need to make him fall in love with you. Or make sure you don’t fall in love with him.”
“Great,” Kate said wryly. “Do any of these pearls of wisdom come with a magic wand?”
Three
“M ichael, if you don’t stop talking about the financial arrangements pertaining to this marriage, I’m going to throw up.”
Michael blinked. “Okay,” he said, setting his papers on the end table beside her sofa.
His unswerving focus on her never failed to unnerve her. She would have to find a way to get over that if she was actually going to go through with this. She’d been unable to sleep thinking about it. It seemed so terribly wrong not to marry for love, but in the stillness of the middle of the night when it was just her heartbeat and her baby’s, Kate asked herself if she’d be able to live with herself if she didn’t try. Looking at Michael, she prayed she was making the right choice. “I have other concerns.”
“Such as?”
“Where we will live, how we will relate to each other, the wedding,” she said, thinking that those barely scratched the surface.
“That’s easy,” he said, waving his hand. “You can choose a house where you’d like us to live. We’ll relate to each other the way we always have. And we can get blood tests and be married by a justice of the peace within three days.”
Kate bit back a sigh. She agreed with one out of three. They had nowhere to go but up. “I don’t mind finding a house for us, but I’d like to know some of your likes and dislikes. I don’t think we will be able to relate to each other the way we always have.”
“Why?”
“Because you are no longer my boss.”
“That means I’ll negotiate instead of giving orders.”
“Okay. I need you to do something that has nothing to do with stocks and trust funds.”
“Name it,” he said with such strength and assurance that her heart flipped over.
“I want you to discuss our wedding arrangements with my mother. But I still don’t want you to tell her I’m pregnant.”
“When?”
“Later,” she said, her stomach dipping at the thought. “One thing at a time. Will you talk with my parents?”
“Done,” he said. “Your parents seemed like very nice, reasonable people. I negotiate with cannibals all the time. This should be cake.”
That night, Michael pulled into Kate’s driveway beside an unfamiliar car, a vintage Corvette at that. Curious, he climbed the steps of her porch and rang the doorbell. She answered the door wearing an uneasy expression. “Trent Cavoli is here,” she whispered.
Michael immediately recognized the name of the man who’d tried, unsuccessfully, to seduce much of CG Enterprises’ talent to Cavoli’s company. “What is he doing here?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He stops by every couple of months to offer me a job or ask me out for dinner.”
“Did you go?”
She gave him a dark glare. “I’m sure he wants CG secrets. I can’t imagine him being truly interested in me. He’s just as hung up on business as you are.”
He felt the slightest sting from her words as she turned away from him. She might be partly right in her assessment, but Michael knew Trent had a reputation with the ladies. If he’d known Trent was sniffing around Kate, he would have…. Michael told himself his territorial feelings were related to the company. Stepping inside, he glanced at Trent’s smoothly polished appearance and wondered if the man appealed to Kate at all.
Trent’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Michael. “Michael Hawkins, I never expected to see you here.” Trent extended his hand. “You look a little hassled. How’s business?”
“Great,” Michael said, barely touching the man’s hand. “Kate tells me you’ve visited her more than once.”
Trent smiled. “You can’t blame me. She’s a smart, beautiful woman. I’d be glad to have her as an employee or a dinner companion. Word is she’s no longer working for you, so I thought I’d take my chances.”
Michael felt the surprising, yet overwhelming urge to knock a few bleached teeth from Trent’s smile. He moved next to Kate. “You’re out of luck again. Kate’s not available. She’s not my assistant anymore because she’s going to be my wife.”
Trent’s eyebrows flew upward. “Damn. I was sure she was your most underrated natural resource. Congratulations and best wishes,” he said and gave a little salute.
“Thank you,” Kate said politely, as if she sensed Michael’s hostility.
Trent walked toward the door and glanced back at Kate. “If anything changes, give me a call.”
Kate closed the door behind him and Michael scowled. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me he was making offers?”
Kate shrugged. “It was more a minor nuisance than anything else.”
“If he ever comes around you again—”
She waved her hand in a dismissing gesture. “He won’t. Think about it. A baby would really cramp his style.” She gave him a long glance that almost made him feel as if she could see his entire hellish day written on his brain. “Rough day?”
With her big blue eyes and pink cheeks and lips, she looked so innocent. But Michael knew the truth. Kate had sent him into the lion’s den. “I talked to your parents.”
Her eyes rounded. “Oh. How’d it go?” she asked in a tone entirely too casual.
He followed her around the couch. “How do you think it went?”
She bit the inside of her lip. “I can only imagine.”
He put his hands on either side of her, trapping her and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I want her on my negotiations team for my next merger.”
Kate laughed breathlessly. “Piece of cake?”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“You seemed so confident. So when’s the wedding? Next year?”
“Two weeks,” he corrected and watched her eyes widen in surprise. He lifted his hand to touch her jaw. “She wanted six months. You weren’t using this as a ploy to procrastinate about marrying me, were you?”
Kate wiggled slightly beneath his hands and glanced away. “Not really,” she said.
“Good,” he said, nuzzling her cheek. “My feelings would be terribly hurt,” he told her in a mocking voice.
She shot him a look of disbelief. “Yeah, right,” she said. “As if feelings would affect you at all once you’ve decided to do something.”
“I’m glad you understand that about me,” he said. “Because you could put ten of your mother in a room with me by myself and it still wouldn’t stop me from marrying you.” He brushed his lips over hers in a lingering kiss. Damn if he didn’t feel like he’d earned it. “So if this wasn’t a procrastination ploy, what was it? A test?”
Kate seemed to have trouble removing her gaze from his mouth. “Uh, no.” She forced her gaze to his chin. “It wasn’t really a test.”
“Then what was it? Really?”
“I just thought you should know part of what you’re getting into,” she said, her eyelashes forming a sexy shield over her eyes and reminding Michael of all the times he’d wanted to lay her down and take her.
“Did you honestly think she would scare me off?” he growled.
“No.” She looked up at him. “I know there isn’t much that scares you.”
The almost hidden come-hither look in her eyes grabbed at his gut, combining with his frustration over the negotiations with her mother and running into a competitor he detested. Drinking in her scent, he slid his fingers through her silky hair and took her mouth with his. She tasted sweet and forbidden, and kissing her only made him want more of her. Sucking at her bottom lip, he consumed her mouth the way he planned to consume her body.
He skimmed his hands down her sides and pulled the hem of her skirt up her legs. Cupping her bottom, he rolled his h*ps against her.
“What are we doing?” she asked against his mouth.
“Making love,” he told her. “Every time I think about how good it was between us that night…” He slid his hands beneath her silk panties and swallowed her gasp with his mouth.
Kate pulled her mouth away, turning her cheek to him. “I—uh—” Her cheeks blooming with color, she seemed to struggle for breath. “This feels kind of fast to me.”
“This isn’t the first time.”
“I know, but—” She broke off and raked a hand through her hair. “That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before I knew about your anti-love policy.” She sighed. “You won’t understand this.”
“Try me.”
She stepped to the side, putting a little distance between them. “Too many hairpin turns. First, I’m your assistant, then we’re lovers for a night, then I’m your assistant again, then I’m pregnant, and I’m not your assistant, then you want to marry me.” She met his gaze. “I need to catch my breath. It all feels a little unreal to me.”
Michael looked at her and saw the conflicting emotions spilling from her. She was a complex creature. Knowing her as a woman, he thought, would be far different than having her as his assistant. She was a seductive mystery to him. The urge to possess her raged through him, but he reined it in. “Okay,” he said, and told himself things would be different in two weeks. She would be his wife.