already noticed how many people who should have come to offer their sympathies had stayed away instead. She didn’t think that fact had occurred to Abigail yet, but she knew that when it did, the realization would be devastating. Even the poverty they faced would be easier for Abigail to deal with than the humiliation of losing the only way of life she’d ever known.
“Do you think I haven’t tried to figure out a way?” she said wearily. “I can’t simply conjure up enough money to bail us out.”
“But I can.”
She stared up at him. “Why would you want to?”
He looked across the room, over her head, and said calmly, “I don’t suppose you’ll find this flattering.”
He’d been dead right on that count, of course—for what he’d told her then hadn’t been complimentary in the least. He’d made it plain that it was not Morganna he was attracted to, but her social standing. With an Ashworth at his side, he’d be at the highest rank of Lakemont’s society, and he would have achieved the final detail of the goal he’d set for himself as an impoverished kid years before—his own business, a few million in the bank, a position of respect in the community, a wife other men would envy him. Morganna was the ultimate piece in the puzzle he’d set himself to complete.
“So,” she’d said, when the orange glow of her fury had finally dissipated enough that she could trust herself to speak without screaming at him, “it’s not really a marriage you’re proposing, it’s a straight-out trade. Your money for my name.”
“That’s the deal.”
“Usually, you know, it’s older guys who have divorced their first wives who are looking for a trophy to display.”
“Sorry to violate the rules, but I was too busy fifteen years ago to find someone unsuitable to marry, just so I could discard her now in order to acquire you. You don’t appear to have any time to lose, Miss Ashworth. Are you interested or not?”
Morganna raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “Let me make this perfectly clear. For myself, I wouldn’t consider this proposition for an instant. It’s an insult and I’d live in a cardboard box and eat cat food for the rest of my life before I’d make a deal like that.”
“But you have your mother to consider.”
“Exactly. So convince me that what you’re offering her is worth the price you’re asking.”
Sloan had convinced her. And he’d kept his word. The day Morganna married him, he’d taken over the responsibility for Burke Ashworth’s debts, down to the last penny. And at the wedding breakfast, he’d handed Abigail a cashier’s check—he’d told her it was the face value of her husband’s life insurance policy—which would be adequate to keep her in comfort for the rest of her days.
Remember that moment, Morganna told herself. No sacrifice was too great a price to pay for the relief that had gleamed in her mother’s eyes at that instant.
And no sacrifice was too great to preserve Abigail’s peace of mind, even if it meant that Morganna had to spend every instant of the four weeks playing the part of a loving wife. Heaven knew she had perfected that role with her friends during the last six months—but performing for her mother would be a whole lot trickier.
It might be a challenge, Sloan had said, for her to pretend to be deliriously happy. Well, he’d hit that one on the nose.
Deliriously happy. By the time the month was over, Morganna thought morosely, she’d be lucky if she wasn’t simply delirious.
CHAPTER TWO
SLOAN dropped an ice cube into a glass and added a generous splash of liquor. “Here you go, Joel. Scotch on the rock—singular—just the way you like it.” As he strolled toward the fireplace to hand over the drink, a log burned in two with a crack, and a shower of sparks surged up the chimney and flared against the fire screen. “Dinner will be in just a few minutes, but in the meantime you can bring me up to speed on what’s been going on at Sticks & Stones while I’ve been away.”
The controller didn’t seem to hear. Though he took the glass, Joel continued to stare at the portrait in oils that hung above the drawing-room mantel. Following his gaze, Sloan contemplated the modernistic portrayal of Morganna—a much younger Morganna, hardly out of her teens—wearing a formal white satin gown, topped with a wine-colored velvet robe and an elaborate, glittery crown, which seemed much too heavy for her slender frame.
Reel in your tongue, Joel, he wanted to say. “That was painted the year she was Queen of the Carousel Ball.”
Joel seemed to pull himself back from a distance. “Is that the big dance where all the year’s debutantes are introduced?”
“And paraded around like merchandise,” Sloan agreed.
“It’s a beautiful picture.”
Sloan looked at the portrait again. He found it fascinating that Joel liked it. Sloan had never been fond of the painting, himself, but he hadn’t ever taken the time to figure out why. Was it the artist’s style that turned him off? Generally he liked his art a little more realistic-looking. Or was it the too-fancy costume, which in his opinion made Morganna look like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes? Or was it perhaps the fact that the painting was from a time before he’d met her, a time when Morganna’s world had been so far separated from his that there was no point of intersection?
Not that it mattered, of course; the painting was ancient history now. He hardly even noticed it anymore, except when someone like Joel commented. He turned his back to the portrait and leaned against the mantel, enjoying the warmth of the fire. “How have things been going at the factory while I’ve been away?”
Joel sipped his drink and settled into a chair beside the fire. “Well, there are several matters you need to know about. I got my hands on an advance copy of Furnishing Unlimited’s next catalog.”
Sloan’s eyebrows raised. It was difficult even to get hold of a solid rumor about a head-to-head competitor’s new products, but to have full information even a few days in advance of the formal announcements, set out in the competitor’s own literature, was truly a coup. “How did you manage to pull off that one?”
Joel reached into his briefcase, propped against the chair leg, and handed over a slick magazine-size booklet. His voice was prim. “I really can’t talk about my source.”
Which no doubt meant, Sloan thought, that some woman on Furnishing Unlimited’s payroll had slipped it to him. Obviously it wouldn’t do to underestimate Joel; apparently a guy could be a ladies’ man even with a calculator clipped to his belt and a pocket protector full of pens and pencils. “I wouldn’t dream of asking for the details,” he said dryly.
“They’ve developed a couple of new lines I thought you should see. I marked the pages for you.”
Sloan flipped open the booklet, pausing at places where Joel had placed a sticky note, to look at Furnishing Unlimited’s new line of modernistic office furniture. “This looks a bit like our current designs.”
“That’s what I thought. They haven’t exactly done anything shady in adapting what Sticks & Stones did last year. But I believed you should know what they were up
