agree with you there.” Mitch opened a window, letting much-needed fresh air into the stuffy room, while Lauren knelt down to inspect the massive brick fireplace. “The historic section of Charleston is one of the most beautiful and memorable residential areas I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been in some of the finest homes up and down the East Coast. You didn’t grow up here, though.” Seeing she was about done, Mitch offered Lauren a hand up.
“No.” Lauren smoothed her trim coral skirt over her hips. “My father wanted to live in the country. So we lived out at the family estate in Summerville, where he still resides on weekends.”
Mitch knew the place—some forty-five minutes away. Payton Heyward’s estate was a magnificent property, renowned for its beauty and historical significance. “But you have a double here in the city.”
Lauren led the way down the hall to a series of small rooms that had once functioned as servants’ quarters. “You’ve been doing your homework.” She studied him with a mixture of suspicion and respect.
Mitch shrugged, turned and stepped back against the wall to let her pass in the very narrow hall. “You received a Carolopolis Award for the revitalization of that home when you were done with it. Everyone knew about it.” The historic town home, which was exactly two rooms across, upstairs and down, had been photographed and featured in the Charleston newspaper.
“What’s so special about this house,” Mitch continued, as Lauren smiled and led the way up the back staircase, “except for its size?”
Lauren slanted him a glance over her shoulder, her soft golden-brown hair brushing lightly against her pretty face. “It bothers me, the way it’s been neglected. The family could have cared less about it,” she continued as Mitch reached the second floor and began following her through a series of bedrooms, baths and sitting rooms, all seeming in equally bad condition. “They opened it to the public sporadically to raise enough money to keep on paying the taxes, but they didn’t bother to take care of it in the process.” Lauren paused to consider the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the massive upstairs library. “There’s water damage all over the place, from leaks in both the plumbing and the roof. The floors, as you can see, need to be repaired and refinished. The kitchen is completely inadequate. And the whole house probably needs to be rewired from top to bottom.”
“And yet,” Mitch said as they headed on down the hall to the music slash ballroom, “you’re willing to take it on.”
Lauren turned to him with a smile as she walked through the spacious party room. “I could make several million selling it when I am finished.”
Mitch had the feeling if she ever finished fixing it up and restoring it to its former glory, she would have so much invested in it, she wouldn’t want to sell it. “Or you could turn it into a museum,” he said.
“Or a bed-and-breakfast.” Lauren opened the lid and fingered the chipped ivory keys on a badly neglected baby grand piano.
“Are you thinking about that?” Mitch grinned as her noodling picked up speed and the familiar melody line of “Heart and Soul” filled the room.
He took over the bass and joined her in an impromptu duet of his childhood favorite. “I can’t really see myself as an innkeeper,” she admitted, making a face, as they continued to play on the hideously out-of-tune instrument. “I don’t particularly like cleaning up after people. Tidying up after strangers is even worse. But you’re right, I could make it a museum.”
Mitch studied her as the song wound down to an end and they stepped away from the piano. “But you don’t want to do that, either.”
Lauren shrugged as she went to the window covered with moth-eaten velvet drapes. “A home this lovely deserves to be lived in. It’s been roped off for far too long as it is.”
She had a point there, Mitch knew. Still… “It’s too large a place to live in alone,” he said.
She gave him a look that let him know she had no intention of living the rest of her life alone. “I’ll get married someday,” she promised softly. She paused, a defiant gleam coming into her lovely dark brown eyes. “But I won’t do it because my father has auctioned me off in exchange for some business merger.”
Mitch leaned against the wall, facing her. “You’ll marry for love.”
Lauren lifted her slender shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “That’s the only reason to marry.” She paused, looking deep into his eyes. “But I can see you don’t agree with me on that.”
Mitch thought about what “love” had put him through. Feeling abruptly restless, he moved away from the wall, walked across the room. Hands braced on the frame on either side of him, he looked out into the spacious hallway, appreciating all over again how big and majestic this mansion really was, before turning back to face Lauren. “I think maybe your father is right,” he said with all due seriousness. “Maybe we’d all be better off if we approached marriage and relationships with the clear-headed approach we use on business deals.”
Lauren rolled her eyes as she breezed past him and continued down the hall, to the sweeping semicircular mahogany staircase that dominated the center of the house. “You really want to date me, don’t you?” she mused.
Mitch caught up with her on the stairs. He wrapped his hand lightly on the railing as they made their descent. “I really want the merger that will make Deveraux-Heyward shipping the most powerful firm on the entire eastern seaboard. And,” he concluded as he reached the main level once again and turned to face her, “if spending time with you for one week is what guarantees that, so be it.”
Silence fell between them as Lauren plucked her blazer off the railing and tugged it back on.
“We can do this, Lauren,” Mitch insisted as he sat down on the fourth stair-step up. He clasped his hands between his spread knees. “It’s really not that much to ask.”
“Says you,” Lauren retorted back as she paced to the front door and back. She leveled an accusing fingertip at Mitch. “You haven’t had my father trying to control your life in every way possible for the past twenty-eight years.”
Mitch shrugged, and still feeling overly warm, folded the cuffs back on his shirtsleeves, nearly to his elbows. “From what I could tell, your father seems to love you very much.”
Still pacing, Lauren threw her hands up in exasperation. “He does, which of course makes all his behind-the-scenes string-pulling on my behalf all that much worse.” She paused, propped the back of one hand on her hip and looked straight at Mitch. “It’s like he doesn’t believe in me to be able to make the right decisions on my own.”
“I’ll be the first to admit that’s unfair,” Mitch commiserated quietly. “But you shouldn’t let your pique with him about that keep you from owning this place and lavishing on it the tender loving care you know that it deserves and needs.”
Abruptly, Lauren broke into a sweet-as-sugar, and just as impudent, grin. “Oh, you’re good, Deveraux,” she said. “Real good.”
Mitch couldn’t help it—he grinned back as he straightened. He drew nearer, finding himself still a good six inches taller than she was, despite the two-inch heels on her shoes. He looked down at Lauren, a little taken aback by the undercurrents of chemistry between them. “Does that mean I’m persuading you?”
“It means,” Lauren
