Man,” Chase helpfully supplied the publication’s name, in case she’d forgotten.
“—does nothing but teach guys how to get what they want from women!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Chase demanded. Clueless for as long as he could remember about what women really wanted or needed in this life, he had started his magazine as a way of collecting data from other men, about what worked and what didn’t with the women in their lives. As far as Chase was concerned, he was providing a public service, making both men and women a little happier, while doing his part to tamp down the battle of the sexes and reduce the number of unhappy relationships overall.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that.” Bridgett planted her hands on her hips. “It makes guys think that women are ‘a problem to be handled’ and that there is something fundamentally wrong with marriage.”
“There is something fundamentally wrong with marriage,” Chase shot back flatly, not about to sugarcoat his opinion on the subject on her account. “Or hadn’t you noticed the soaring divorce rate in this country?”
Bridgett released a long slow breath. She looked as if she was fighting for patience. “Lately the divorce rate has actually been going down. No thanks to you!”
Chase brought his brows together in consternation. “You don’t know that,” he argued back. He was tired of taking the blame for things that were way beyond his control. “Maybe I’m the one to credit for that.” He knew for a fact, from reader mail, that there were a lot of guys who had really appreciated his series on how to get their women not to just tolerate, but love the sports they followed. The same went for his series on cooking in, instead of eating out.
Bridgett rolled her eyes. She stared at him, making no effort to hide her exasperation. “And how do you figure that?” she asked drolly.
“Because,” Chase said, thinking how much he had always enjoyed a spirited argument with Bridgett and how much he had missed having them with her since she’d been away, “I also run articles that convince guys not to get married when they’re not ready.”
Bridgett’s eyes turned even stormier. And worse, looked hurt. “Exactly.”
Too late Chase realized he had hit a real sore point with Bridgett. The fact that her own parents had never married, even when Theresa Owens had gotten pregnant. “I’m sorry,” he said swiftly, seriously. “I know your, uh—”
“Illegitimacy?” she provided when he seemed unable to blurt it out.
“—is a real sticking point with you,” Chase continued, with some difficulty. It was, he knew, probably the biggest hurt of her childhood, though she rarely talked about it.
Bridgett waved him off, already done talking about it, and ready to move on. “I just think you’re doing a disservice to men with that whole marriage-isn’t-really-all-that-necessary attitude you and your magazine perpetuate.”
“Yeah, well, I think I’m helping my readers,” Chase said stubbornly. He was making them see that marriage was a serious step. And if they weren’t serious about a lifetime commitment, or the women they were chasing weren’t serious about the same, marriage was not the path to take. He certainly didn’t want them to end up a public laughingstock, the way he had, when his bride had ditched him just days before they were to marry.
“Whatever.” Bridgett tugged the sleeves of her elegant silk-and-cotton cardigan down to cover her wrists. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Like hell it didn’t, Chase thought, studying the wealth of emotion on her face.
“I’m late, anyway,” Bridgett continued.
“For what?” Chase asked curiously. And that was when he saw it. The big fat emerald ring.
Chapter Three
Bridgett thought she was past the third degree when it came to Chase and her beaux. Apparently not. He still felt—wrongly so—that he had the right to comment on the men she chose to date. Not to mention the gifts they might have or have not chosen to give her.
“What,” Chase demanded, his handsome features sharpening in disapproval as he looked down at the emerald ring glittering on the ring finger of her right hand, “is that?”
Bridgett had an idea what he was going to say. She didn’t want to hear it. Deliberately misunderstanding where he was trying to go with this, she lifted her shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “I can’t buy myself a ring?”
Chase’s sexy slate-blue eyes narrowed even more. He took a step closer and said, very low, “I know you, Bridgett. You invest in real estate, growth stocks, a car that will go a couple hundred thousand miles before it quits. You don’t spend thousands of your hard-earned cash on baubles. Someone gave you that very pricey emerald-and-platinum ring.”
Someone he apparently already didn’t like, even though he had yet to find out who it was. “So what if it was a gift?” Bridgett shot back just as contentiously. Expensive as the ring was, she knew that to a man like Martin, it was just like penny change. Martin never did anything in a small or inconsequential way. When they dined out, it was at the very best restaurants. They drank the rarest, most expensive wines. He didn’t just send her roses. He gave her vases of the most exquisite orchids or lilies. Once, he’d flown her to Europe for the weekend, simply because he wanted her to see Paris in the springtime. Initially, of course, she’d tried to discourage such lavish gifts. Now she knew that was just the way Martin and everyone else in his family lived.
Chase braced a hand on the wall just beside her head. “I want to know who gave you that ring.”
Bridgett refused to let him intimidate her with his I’m-in-charge-here body language. Honestly, she didn’t know how Chase did it! She had been back in Charleston less than twenty-four hours and already Chase—the bad boy of the Deveraux clan—was already under her skin. Big time.
She angled her chin at him defiantly “I don’t have to answer you.”
“Darn it, Bridgett. You know how much I care about you.”
Cared, Bridgett thought, but didn’t love. Would never love. At least not in the way she had once wanted desperately for Chase to love her. Now she knew better, of course. Chase might have once considered her his very best buddy and partner in mischief, but when it had come to dating, he had always chosen others. At first she had thought—wrongly—it was just because he was romancing women from his own social class. That theory had been blown out of the water when he became engaged to Maggie Callaway, who was from the same working class background as Bridgett. Then she had known that social status was not the reason Chase didn’t pursue her. He simply wasn’t attracted to her. Not in that way. So she had put any lingering hope of a romance between them aside and kept her distance from Chase as much as possible. She had known then what she had to remind herself of now. Chase protected her and watched out for her in a familial sort of way. There was nothing the least bit romantic in his feelings toward her—and never would be.
Silence fell between them. “Your mother didn’t tell me you were engaged,” Chase said finally when she didn’t respond to him.
“That’s because I’m not yet,” Bridgett explained with a great deal more patience than she felt.
He dropped his arm, stepped back until he was
