like I go through—”
“—women?” she inserted caustically.
“I was going to say shirts.” He sat back in his chair, his hand slowly turning his cell phone end over end. “Joe didn’t have to mention your mother. All I had to do was make an educated guess and watch your face.”
Which she could feel burning now. “Fine. Yes, my mother lost her job. Again. Story of our lives.” But only part of the story. “She’ll find another one.” She always did.
Another job. Another unattainable man to make a play for that always ended in a dramatic parting of employment when it didn’t work out. Another reason to go off the financial deep end and expect Deanna to “save” her.
“Your article is sent.” She pulled back her sleeve and looked at her watch. “And you’re supposed to be at the airport soon. Try not to grimace all through your father’s wedding tomorrow.” She turned on her heel. “It’ll ruin the family pictures.”
“I’ll give you the fifty grand.” His low voice followed her.
Her feet dragged in the carpet, coming to a stop. She didn’t look at him. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”
He was silent, but her nape prickled and she knew he’d left his desk and was walking up behind her. “You wouldn’t have if you weren’t upset about it.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. On one hand, it was unnerving to think that he knew her that well. On the other hand, was she really surprised? There was a reason why they worked well together and she was realistic enough to know that that wasn’t only because of her understanding of him. “I don’t want your money.”
“But do you need it?” He touched her arm, moving around until he was in front of her. “Hey.” He nudged her chin until she couldn’t avoid looking at him. His faint smile was crooked. And sympathetic. “I don’t want to get married. But I need to.”
She could feel a burning deep behind her eyes and because she couldn’t will it away, hoped to heaven that it would just stay where it was because she’d be darned if she’d cry in front of her boss. “Even if I … agreed … the money would just be a quick-fix for Gigi’s problem.”
“Which is what?”
She looked up at him and found her gaze trapped in his. “She has a shopping addiction.”
His brows twitched together. “What?”
At least he hadn’t laughed.
She sighed and moved the bat and her purse from the chair, sinking down onto it.
“A shopping addiction. And not the kind of thing people are often teasing women about, either. She doesn’t just like to go out shopping for shoes or … whatever.” She waved her hand. “When Gigi’s … between jobs—” which in Gigi-speak really meant between the men with whom she inevitably got unwisely involved “—she gets depressed. And when she gets depressed, she shops. Online or on the home shopping networks. It doesn’t matter which and it doesn’t matter what. She orders stuff that she neither needs nor can afford. And it doesn’t matter what I say or what I do, she won’t stop and she won’t get help.”
She pressed her palms together, staring at her bare fingers. “She’s behind on her mortgage again, she’s managed to open new credit cards that I didn’t even know she had and she figures that I ought to be able to solve it all for her.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’ve been paying things off for her since I got my first job when I was fifteen.” The year her father had left. The year that Gigi started blaming Deanna for her very existence. “As long as I continue bailing her out, she’s never going to get the help she needs.” Deanna had finally faced that truth because she had sought the counseling that her mother refused to believe she needed.
“At least you realize that.”
“Realizing it and being able to stick to it are two different things.” She swallowed the knot in her throat. “It’s not easy to say no to your own mother.”
“It’s not all that easy to say no to your father, either.” He crouched down in front of her, taking her hands in his. “We can help each other here, you know.”
His hands were warm and steady and nearly dwarfed hers. “It’s not a, uh, a good idea. Getting involved at the workplace never is.” She felt that threatening burn get even hotter. “That’s what my mother does, and it never leads to anything but disaster.” Certainly not the fairytale wedding Gigi kept hoping for.
“People have been marrying the boss for centuries. There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with that.”
“Right. When the two people are actually in love.” She realized her fingers had slid through his until they were twined together. She pulled her hands free and wrapped them over the arms of the chair. “And, like I said, throwing money on the situation doesn’t solve the ultimate problem.”
“Then we’ll get your mother into counseling. For as long as it takes. Even after our arrangement is ended.”
She pressed her fingers harder into the upholstery to keep them from trembling. “She’ll refuse. She always does.”
“We’ll make sure she doesn’t. We’ll find a way.”
“We?”
He covered her hands with his. “Yeah, we.”
Her heart was climbing in her chest. She felt lightheaded. She hadn’t had any support where her mother was concerned since her father walked out the door and never came back.
It had been just her.
Drew was watching her with that steady gaze and his voice, so quietly assured, was ringing in her head.
We.
The lure of that word alone seemed impossible to resist. “Okay,” she whispered and felt a shudder work down her spine.
His gaze sharpened. “You’ll marry me?”
She swallowed hard and had to clear her throat. “Yes.”
His smile was sudden and nearly blinding. “I’ve always said you are the perfect assistant!” He straightened and leaned over her, pressing a fast kiss to her forehead before turning away. “This is going to work out perfectly,” he was saying as he strode back into his office. “You’ll come with me to Red Rock. We’ll announce it there.”
Deanna could hear his raised voice. Could understand his words even.
But she couldn’t do much of anything but stare at her tidy desk across from her and feel the imprint of his lips as if they were still grazing her skin.
“Dee, how fast can you pack?”
She scrubbed her hands down her cheeks, attempting to drag her utterly rattled self back together. “C-couldn’t you just tell your dad about us? I’d feel like I’m intruding if I go with you to Texas.”
He
