understand my problem?” Kate said, a questioning note to her voice.
Dylan nodded. “More or less. You have a little over a month to get married.”
“But I don’t have anyone I want to marry.”
All at once suspicion grew in his face. “Now, Kate, you aren’t thinking…dammit, you aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“But it’s the perfect solution.”
“For you, maybe. It’s a disaster for me.”
She didn’t have to manufacture tears, the implied insult was more than enough to make her cry. “That’s a terrible thing to say. A lot of men want to marry me.”
“Then marry one of them!”
“But they’d want a real marriage. I just need a husband for a year.” A tear dripped down her cheek.
“Now, Katydid, don’t start.”
A second tear joined the first. “We’re friends, and friends help each other.”
“Not that way. It’s out of the question.”
Out of the question in that tone of voice didn’t sound good, and she swallowed. She’d hoped so much that this would work. But she wasn’t going to give up, not yet.
“I’d just hate to lose Grandmamma’s house. There’s so much family history there, and all that…uh…hard-wood and parquet flooring.” Kate nearly gagged. If the house was completely renovated it might be a lovely home, but presently it was grim and depressing, a reflection of the austere woman who’d lived there for sixty-seven years.
“So bite the bullet and marry someone else.”
“But that would be the same as selling myself, just to get the house.” She tried to appear shocked. “How can you possibly suggest such a thing?” She actually was shocked, though women had been marrying men for money and position and property for much longer than she’d been around.
Dylan clenched his fingers. Truthfully, he wasn’t wild about the notion of Kate marrying one of the stuffed shirts who were always buzzing around her. He supposed it was because he was like a big brother to Katydid, and brothers never approved of their sister’s boyfriends. But there wasn’t any way he was going along with her nutty scheme.
Kate pulled a white handkerchief from her white purse and dabbed her eyes. “You want me to act like a prostitute, trading my body for gain. It wouldn’t be any different.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Dylan said, appalled.
“Yes, it is.” She lifted her chin. “Fine, if that’s what you want, I’ll decide which one of them I’m going to marry. You’ll get an invitation to the wedding.”
With a graceful twist of her body she rose from the couch and headed for the door.
She looked over her shoulder. “Maybe you can be best man,” she said as a parting shot. “I’m sure it’s an honor you deserve.”
The door closed behind her and Dylan groaned and thumped his head against his high-backed chair. She was working on his guilt and trying to make him feel responsible for a situation he had no part in creating.
Still, in a way Katydid was right. It would be selling herself to get the house. She plainly wasn’t in love with any of those suitors she’d talked about, and they would expect far more from the marriage than she wanted to give.
Suddenly he couldn’t bear the thought of sweet little Katydid submitting to a man’s attentions simply because her grandmother had been a conniving witch. There had to be another way. The Douglases’ small social circle wasn’t populated with a single man worth a red cent in terms of character. And several of those guys weren’t very nice beneath their silk shirts and monogrammed money clips.
Dylan rushed to his feet and hurried through the outer office. He caught up with Kate on the street below just as she was getting into her disreputable car. Why she insisted on driving the beat-up old Volkswagen Beetle was beyond him. Granted, it was a classic, but the least she could do was have the thing properly restored. He supposed it was her way of rebelling.
“Kate, wait.”
She turned and the look on her face made him wince.
“What? More advice?” Her chin rose higher. “Believe me, I have all the advice I need from you.”
“Please, Katydid, we need to talk.”
“I think we’ve said everything. Of course, I won’t be bothering you anymore to buy fund-raising tickets. I don’t suppose that my husband, whoever he turns out to be, would like it anymore than he’d like you showing up to watch something on the VCR with us.”
Damn.
Dylan’s fingers itched with the illogical urge to throttle Kate’s theoretical husband. It would be a pain tying himself to a spoiled princess for a year, but on the other hand, he’d watched after Kate since they were children. Like the time he’d talked her down from the roof of her parents’ six-car garage after she’d convinced herself that she was really a fairy with invisible wings.
“Kate, there isn’t one man you’ve dated who you feel some affection for?”
Something flickered deep in her eyes—an emotion he’d never seen before—but it disappeared and he decided he must have been mistaken.
“There’s no one else.”
He let out a breath. “Maybe you could suggest the same arrangement to one of those guys, and they’d agree.”
“But you’re the only one I trust,” she said simply.
Oh, God.
He supposed it really was that simple. “Look, I’ll come over tonight, and we’ll talk about it some more. Talk, that’s all. I’m not making any promises.”
Kate hesitated, wanting to push, but she knew it would just make Dylan more unwilling, which was the last thing she wanted now that he seemed to be considering her proposal. “All right. I’ll order Chinese.”
“Nope, the last time you got calamari. Damn stuff was so rubbery my jaw ached for a week. I’ll bring pizza.”
She nodded and put her key in the lock. Asking a man to marry her was much harder than getting him to help her run away from home or go to another boring fundraiser. She’d like to believe that Dylan—who said he was allergic to marriage—was really crazy about her and didn’t know it. But Kate had learned not to fool herself. She just prayed that living together for a year would convince him that she was the love of his life.
If necessary, she’d resort to drastic measures. How hard could it be to seduce a man who’s bumping up against you day and night? But then, maybe she didn’t want to know. Dylan had always been depressingly resistant to her in that way.
“I’ll see you later,” she said.
“Yeah,
