Marriage Terms

He swore under his breath and abandoned Sharon, practically sprinting for the exit.

“Amanda.” Halfway across the foyer, he caught her by the arm. “What are you doing?”

She turned a glare on him. “You’d better get back to the party, Daniel. You wouldn’t want people to gossip.”

“I don’t care if people gossip.” He’d just left Sharon fuming in the middle of the dance floor. The gossip was well under way.

“Yes, you do,” said Amanda.

“I was just trying to get rid of her.”

“By dancing with her?”

“You saw what happened.”

“Yeah. I saw exactly what happened.”

“So you know—”

“Did you or did you not just blow me off for the sake of appearances?”

“It wasn’t like that.” He didn’t care what people thought. He’d just wanted to get Sharon out of their hair.

“It was exactly like that. Not that I ever had any doubts.” She shook her head and started walking again.

“Amanda.” He matched his pace to hers.

“This was a mistake, Daniel.”

“What was a mistake?”

“You, me, us. Thinking we could have the best of both worlds.”

He blinked at her. “What best of both worlds?”

“Never mind.”

“No. Not never mind. You have a room. We have a room.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Right. We’re going to sneak upstairs together.

What if the senator sees you? What if your parents see you?”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

He took her arm and tried to turn her around. “Let’s go. You and me. Upstairs.

Right now.”

She shook him off. “Well, isn’t that just the most romantic invitation I’ve ever had.”

Daniel clenched his jaw.

A doorman pulled the glass door open.

“Good night, Daniel,” said Amanda, shaking off his arm.

Short of throwing her bodily over his shoulder, Daniel had no choice but to watch her walk away.

“Good morning.” Cullen strolled jauntily into Daniel’s office. “I hear you had a date with Mom on the weekend.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Daniel growled. He’d been trying to get Amanda on the phone for the past thirty-six hours.

“Aunt Karen told Scarlet, and Scarlet told Misty.”

“Word travels fast in this family.”

Cullen straddled a guest chair. “How’d it go?”

Daniel glared. He was pissed at Sharon and a little bit pissed at Amanda.

He’d done the right thing for them. He’d done the right thing for her. Sharon was poison, and they didn’t need her out gunning for them.

“What?” asked Cullen, studying Daniel’s expression. “I don’t need intimate details or anything. ‘Course if Mom’s giving them to Karen, I’m going to hear eventually, anyway.”

“Where are the weekly sales figures?”

Cullen drew back. “You want to talk business?”

“We’re in the office, aren’t we?”

“But—”

“And whatever happened with the Guy Lundin situation?” The time theft issue had been nagging in the back of Daniel’s mind for a week. Not that he wanted to adopt Amanda’s style of business management—far from it. He just wanted to understand what had happened, and how they could avoid it in the future.

“The time theft thing?” Cullen squinted. “Are you saying that me asking about Mom on company time is the same thing as a bogus sick claim?”

“Depends on how long you talk about her. Did we fire him?”

“I’m meeting with personnel this afternoon.”

“What’s your gut telling you?”

Cullen looked confused. “My gut?”

“Yeah. Your gut.”

Cullen paused. “You already have all the verifiable facts.”

He might have all the verifiable facts, but Daniel kept hearing Amanda’s voice inside his head asking him how well he knew his employees. “What about the nonverifiable ones?”

“They’re not relevant.”

“Are there any?”

“Guy Lundin claims he was taking his mother to the cancer clinic.”

“Did we check on that?”

Cullen sat down in one of the guest chairs. “There was no reason to check.”

“Why not?”

“There’s no provision for taking family members to medical appointments.”

“So what do people do?” Daniel had taken Amanda out for a drink on company time.

He’d ordered her flowers on company time. If she was sick, you can bet your ass he’d take her to the doctor on company time.

“About what?” asked Cullen.

“Family medical appointments. Emergencies. Crises.”

Cullen held up his hands. “I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe we should think about it. Do you think Guy’s mother is really sick?”

“He’s not habitual about sick leave. He only took one day last year. Two the year before.”

“Let’s drop it,” said Daniel, picking up his pen and flipping to a letter waiting for his signature.

“But my meeting—”

“Cancel the Personnel meeting. Give the guy a break.”

“What about the other employees?”

“What about them?”

“What happens next time somebody has a sick family member?”

“Good question.”

“Thank you.”

Daniel pushed the intercom. “Nancy?”

“Yes?”

“Do we have a copy of the employee manual?”

“Yes, we do. Shall I bring it in?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay.”

Cullen leaned forward in his chair. “What are you doing?”

“Answering your question.” Daniel waved him away. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You want to go over the sales report now?”

Daniel stood up and flexed his shoulders. “Nah. You take care of it. Let me know if there’s anything I need to worry about.”

Cullen stood with him. “You sure?”

“You’re a good sales manager. I ever mention that?”

“Dad?”

Daniel rounded the desk and clapped his son on the shoulder. “No. You’re a great sales manager.”

“You okay?”

“Not really.” He urged Cullen toward the door. “But I’m working on it.”

Cullen looked at him strangely, but allowed himself to be ushered into the reception area.

As Cullen left, Daniel stopped beside Nancy’s desk. “Can you do a little

research for me?”

She picked up a pad and pen. “Of course.”

“Find some comparable-size companies and see if anybody has family leave.”

“Family leave?”

“For sick kids and stuff.”

Nancy gazed at him.

“Time off. When your kids are sick, or your parents have medical appointments.”

“Is this about Guy Lundin?”

Daniel smiled. “I definitely hired you for your brain.”

“I’ll get right on it,” she said.

Daniel turned. Then he turned back. “How’s your family?”

She squinted at him, hesitating for a second. “They’re fine.”

“Your kids are…”

“Sarah’s nine and Adam’s seven.”

“Right. They like school?”

Nancy blinked. “Yes.”

Daniel nodded. “That’s good.” He tapped his knuckles on her desk before turning to walk back into his office.

Sarah and Adam. He’d have to make a note of that.

He eased down into his chair again and picked up his phone. He had Amanda’s office number memorized now, so he dialed it directly.

“Amanda Elliott’s office,” Julie answered.

“Hi, Julie. It’s Daniel.”

“I’m not supposed to put you through.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“You wanna bribe me?”

Daniel chuckled, liking Julie better and better all the time. “What’ll it take?”

“Some more of those gold foil chocolates Amanda brought in.”

“They’ll be on your desk in an hour.”

“Amanda can speak with you right away.” The line clicked and went silent.

“Amanda Elliott.”

“It’s me.”

Silence.

“I took your advice today.” He waited.

“What advice?”

Bingo. He’d have put money on that line working. “I’ve ordered a review of family leave provisions for the employee manual.”

“Ordered?”

“Okay. I asked my secretary to look into it. Her kids’ names are Sarah and Adam, by the way.”

“You had to find that out, didn’t you?”

“I think the important point here is that I did find that out.”

“Okay. I’ll give you credit for that.” There was a smile in her voice.

He jumped at the opening. “Go out with me again, Amanda.”

“Daniel—”

“Anywhere you want. Anything you want. You name it.”

“This is not going to work.”

Panic surged in the pit of his stomach. “You can’t know that. We don’t even know what we’re doing, where we’re going. If you don’t know what this is, how can you know that it won’t work?”

“You ever thought of becoming a litigator?”