flushed. All right. So that was pretty unlikely, given Drew’s opinion about marriage. And if he weren’t practically allergic to the very idea of it, he’d have had ample opportunity to find a wife among the scores of women he’d dated. Just because she’d considered the majority of them to be shallow twits didn’t mean that he had to think of them the same way.
He got up and rounded his desk and her nerves reached a screaming pitch when he dropped his arm over her shoulder.
The warmth of him seared her right through the lightweight wool of her suit and she felt like she might scream right out loud to match those nerves, note for note.
“You always play fair, Deanna,” he coaxed smoothly. “Think about all the people who’re going to be affected by this.”
“Don’t try to schmooze me, Drew Fortune. I’m immune, remember?”
If only.
She shrugged out from beneath his easy, buddy-to-buddy arm, putting some much-needed space between them. “I’ve seen you in action too many times before.”
“Fair enough.” He exhaled and sat on the edge of his desk. “I need you, Deanna. Trust me. We can make this work.”
His words sounded so sincere that he could have been trying to persuade her to marry him for real. Forever.
Her throat felt infuriatingly tight. “For a year,” she reminded.
He gave a brief nod in acknowledgment. “Don’t make it sound so horrible. Since the dawn of time, people have been making marriages of convenience.”
She almost laughed. “Somehow I never thought that term would ever pass your lips.”
He grimaced. “True enough. But my point is that plenty of people have married for reasons that had nothing to do with love.”
“Well, pardon me, but I never figured that I would be one of them!”
“I never figured I’d be forced to barter for the company that I’ve earned the right to run with a marriage license, either. S … tuff happens.”
How well she knew that.
She had only to think about her mother if she wanted proof.
He flipped off his hat and tossed it unerringly onto the iron-armed coat stand that he’d once told her had been a gift from his mother and watched her. “I don’t expect you to get nothing out of this, either,” he said seriously.
Which made her all the more nervous.
She had defenses against Drew the Schmoozer and Drew the Charmer. She could trade insincere banter with him until the cows came home.
But when he dropped the tactics? When he was just Drew Fortune, straight talking and perfectly sincere?
That’s when she knew she was wading in waters much too deep for her peace of mind.
“I told you. There’s nothing I want,” she insisted.
He stood again and closed the distance between them. It took all of her willpower not to nervously back away. And when he reached out an arm toward her, she positively froze.
But all he did was reach into her pocket and withdraw her cell phone that had been buzzing almost constantly since she’d stuck it there. He held it up so that she could see the display.
Gigi, it read.
“Not even to send your mother on a vacation of her own?”
She grabbed the phone, and this time, she did power it off. Her mother could call the office line all she wanted. At the moment, Deanna considered that a lesser problem than Drew. “It would take more than a vacation to solve the matter of Gigi.”
“What would it take?”
She huffed and threw out her hands. “About fifty grand.” Which might as well be fifty million because it was just as unattainable. And the admission was just proof that his so-called proposal had sent her sense of discretion right into orbit and no matter what it looked like to him, she took a step backward. Then another. “So, I still need an answer about your article,” she reminded, feeling almost desperate to get them back on track. Work track.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “If it’s ready to send, then send it,” he said after a moment.
Surprise had her feeling uneasy.
She nodded anyway, taking him at face value and returned to her desk. Within minutes she’d sent the article off into the magical cosmos of electronic mail as well as to the newspaper editor who was printing it.
Her work done, she shut down the computer, pulled her purse out of the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet and locked up her desk.
Drew hadn’t come out of his office. She could see him sitting in his chair again, but he’d swiveled it around so that he was facing the windows.
She told herself that she didn’t want to be a part of his charade, but she also couldn’t just walk out of the office as if nothing at all had happened. He’d been a good and fair—if sometimes challenging—boss to her. To everyone who worked in the San Diego office, for that matter.
Which was exactly the reason why they’d all been willing to give up even a portion of their holiday evening when he’d asked.
She sighed and dropped her purse next to the baseball bat on the chair he’d beat before going back into his office. She could see him reflected in the dark windows. “What are you going to do?”
He looked at the window as if it were a mirror, meeting her gaze there. “What are you going to do?” He turned in his chair until he was facing her again, and he set his own cell phone down on the center of his leather desk blotter. “Your mother lost her job again.”
She looked from his phone to his face. Horror warred with anger. “What’d you do? Call her?”
“I called Joe Winston. Remember, he’s the HR head over at Blake & Philips?”
Her mouth went dry. Blake & Philips was the law firm her mother had worked for … until a few months ago when she’d been fired. And the only reason that Drew knew that Gigi had worked there was because he was the one who’d told Deanna a year ago that his college buddy, Joe, was looking for legal secretaries and he knew that her mother—between jobs, again—had been worried about losing her house if she didn’t find work soon.
More like Deanna was worried about her mother losing her house, because she’d been the one trying to pay Gigi’s mortgage as well as her own rent.
“That was none of your business,” she said stiffly.
“We’re supposed to be golfing next week,” he went on. “He thinks I called to tell him our tee time.”
Embarrassment burned inside her. “And you just happened to mention my mother’s name?”
“I didn’t bring her up at all.”
“Right. How else would you know?”
