to go to get his revenge against the man who had destroyed the grief-stricken and vulnerable woman who had given Angelo his life.
Marriage would be a much more effective tool in removing the possibility of reconciliation between Randall and Tara than mere seduction.
“How seriously do you take the commitment of marriage?” Her words told him her thoughts had been going along the same course as his own.
“It’s the ultimate commitment between a man and a woman.”
“Do you consider divorce an easy out if things get difficult?”
“No.”
She stopped and looked up at him, her brown eyes questioning. “What do you really think about marriage?”
“I want a companion.”
“There’s more to life than bed.” Their thoughts had been traveling along very similar paths.
“I said a companion, not a bed warmer. I like talking business with you. It’s stimulating.”
She grinned, a naughty gleam in her dark eyes. “I’ve never had my opinions described that way before.”
“They’re that, too,” he said, easily sliding into the game. “You’re the first woman to turn me on while talking about the merits of on-site employee day care.”
She laughed, the sound warm and inviting. “What else?”
“Children. I want a family. I’ve built an empire I have no desire to leave it to some hospital who will build a wing with my name on it.” As he said the words, he realized how true they were.
Why not Tara as the mother to his children?
He certainly had no illusion about falling madly in love and living happily ever after with some dream woman. And he’d be destroying his enemy in the process.
She nodded, looking thoughtful. “So you see marriage as pretty much permanent.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes. The worst part about growing up was the upheaval every time one of Mom’s boyfriends left. I won’t put my children through it. I want a marriage that is going to last.”
“Ditto.”
She smiled at that, but didn’t say anything else and they walked along the shoreline for several minutes, the call of seagulls and the surf the only sounds around them.
Then she stopped abruptly and leaned down to pick up a red bucket some child must have left behind. She looked at it as if the bright plastic somehow held the answers of the universe.
She turned and tugged his hand. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“I want to build a sand castle.” She led him to the spot where the sand was still wet but no longer brushed by waves from the outgoing tide.
Stunned, he just stared at her when she plopped down to her knees and started scooping damp sand into the bucket.
She peeked up at him, her eyes wide behind her sunglasses. “Are you going to help?”
“Why?”
“Why help or why build?”
“Why build?”
She shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to build one and I never have.”
“Never?”
“I grew up in the Midwest. I didn’t even see the ocean until I started taking modeling jobs that required travel. I moved to Portland for Primo Tech, but I’ve spent most of my life living in land-bound states.”
If someone had told him that seducing a former model included building a sand castle, he would have dismissed the idea as nonsense.
“Come on,” she cajoled, “don’t be a spoil sport. If you can build companies, you can build one small sand castle.”
It didn’t turn out that small. She wanted turrets and a moat, as well as a courtyard and a castle that any royal family would be proud to live in.
It took them two hours to complete. When they were done, she sat back on her haunches and surveyed their handiwork with satisfaction. “Very nice.”
“It looks formidable.”
“Like a princess could live protected behind its walls all the days of her life.” A strange expression shot through her brown eyes. “But it’s only sand. Just like most fantasies in life, it looks great, but it won’t survive the incoming tide.”
“Not all dreams disappear when tested by reality.”
“Most of mine have.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was going to grow up and be a supermodel.”
“You were very successful.”
“But no Cindy Crawford.”
“Why would you want to be anyone else?”
She laughed at that. “It’s a girl thing.”
“What other dreams got washed away on an outbound tide?”
She sighed and then sat back on her already sand covered bottom, her gaze fixed on the castle. “When I was a little girl, I dreamed of having a family. By the time Darren came along, I no longer trusted the dream.” She fiddled with one of the sticks they’d discarded as too crooked to stand atop the turrets as a flagpole. “I’d moved out before I accepted he wasn’t going to.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No. He stayed with Mom, but then I made the mistake of dreaming of my own future with a man I loved. It took almost two years, but eventually I realized that whole Prince Charming fantasy was just that. It was no more real than this.” She pointed to the molded turrets and empty moat.
“What exactly are you saying?” Did she want to avoid marriage altogether?
Now that he’d decided it would be the best form of revenge and that marrying her wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, he would not accept a refusal.
She looked at him then, her dark gaze intense. “I’m not looking for love and a perfect happily ever after anymore.”
“And yet you are hesitant to marry me. Why?”
“I need to know that what we have is more than a sand castle on the beach.”
“How many years was Darren your stepfather before you moved out?”
“Six.”
“You spent six years wondering if he was real…you could spend just
