The Invitation (Montgomery/Taggert 19)
She jerked out of his arms. “You need a puppy!”
He didn’t let her get away from him. “I need someone who can see reality. I need someone who won’t allow me to wallow in self-pity for years, blind to everything else in life. I imagine that with you if I feel melancholy you’ll kick me and tell me to stop moping and give me some work to do. I can’t see you allowing someone the
luxury of wallowing in his own grief.”
“You make me sound like an overseer on a plantation.”
Chuckling, he drew her closer to him, rubbing his body against hers. “What can I say to convince you that I love you and want to marry you?”
Cale pulled away from him, holding him at arm’s length. “Look, I know you think this is all very romantic. We had a quickie…well, okay, maybe more than a quickie, in a hayloft, and you began to think it was the basis for a lifetime together. But you can’t marry me. I’m not…wife material.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, but she could tell by his tone that he was teasing her.
“I’m a business, that’s what’s wrong with me. I am big business.” She took a deep breath and delivered the coup de grâce, the thrust that was guaranteed to turn any man off. “Last year I earned one-point-four million dollars, and I’ll probably earn more this year.”
Kane didn’t lose his smile, but nuzzled her ear. “That’s all right, sweetheart. A person can live on that.”
She pushed away from him. “Are you listening to me, cowboy? I’m not your ordinary little housewife. I’m not the little wife who’s there waiting for you when you come home at night. I get so absorbed in my stories that I can’t remember to eat, much less remember that I’m supposed to fix hubby a martini and have it waiting for him. Or do you just drink beer? And what do you mean, you live in New York?”
“I mean that I’m not what you think I am. I’m no more a cowboy than you are a circus performer. I deal with the stock market; I deal with real money, not that pittance you earn.”
She stared up at him, her mouth slightly open, her eyes blinking rapidly.
“Go on,” he said, “tell me the worst there is to know about you. No matter what you say, no matter what you’ve done, I love you. I want you to marry me. I’ll buy a floor of this building, and the kids and I’ll live there with their nanny so you can have this place just for your writing and to get away from us. Whatever you want, you can have.”
She thought of lots of reasons why she shouldn’t marry him, such as the fact that she hated him. Yeah, like she hated writing books, she hated him. Since she’d walked away from him she hadn’t been able to think of anything but him. Every waking, every dreaming moment she thought of him and his children.
“I hate you,” she whispered as she collapsed into his strong arms. “I really do hate you.”
“Yeah, I know,” he whispered. “And I don’t blame you. But if you give me the rest of your life, maybe I can change your mind about me.”
She couldn’t speak because the lump in her throat was choking her. When she heard the doorbell, she pulled away from him, trying to sniff back tears. “I have to…to…”
“That’ll be the boys. They want to show you their new books and—”
“Jamie and Todd are here?” The next second she was running into the apartment and throwing open the door. After only a second’s hesitation the boys leaped on her and the three of them went rolling onto the foyer floor. In the next minute Kane had joined them and the three males began tickling Cale.
“Answer me,” Kane said. “Answer me now!”
“Yes,” Cale said, laughing. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
With one push, Kane removed his sons from Cale and pulled her into his arms. “I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you the minute I saw you.”
“Neither do I,” she whispered against his lips. “Neither do I.”
Book III
A Perfect
Arrangement
Chapter One
1882
Mr. Hunter, I would like to ask you to marry me.”
Cole couldn’t say a word; it was one of the few times in his life when he was actually speechless. There’d been many times when he’d chosen not to speak, but at those times a few thousand words had been racing around in his head and he’d simply refused to let them out. Not now, though.