about the value of a warning. Put yourself in for a raise, Joel.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”
Sloan continued to flip pages. “You said there were several things to bring to my attention.”
“We had to suspend a couple of workers this week. It seems they were running a business on the side, while they were on our time clock. The union steward was quite unhappy with the suspension action and is protesting it. And the men themselves, of course, were livid at being caught.”
In the hallway outside the drawing room, a flutter of blue silk caught Sloan’s eye. “I’ll call all of them in tomorrow morning and get it settled,” he said absently.
A moment later Abigail Ashworth appeared in the doorway. “Sloan, my dear,” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad to have a moment with you before Morganna comes down. I feel I should apologize for my bad timing, though, popping in on your first night at home.” Joel rose from his seat, and Abigail’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone.”
“You remember my controller, Joel Evans?” Sloan said, and she nodded. “A glass of wine, Abigail?”
“That would be lovely, dear. You know, it’s awfully good to be home—I could almost thank Robert for making my life so stressful that I couldn’t wait to get out of Phoenix. I’m sure Morganna has told you my silly reason for being here.” She looked expectantly up at him.
He was just opening his mouth to answer when, from the doorway, Morganna said hastily, “Actually, I haven’t had time, Mother.”
Sloan’s momentary irritation at her interruption—didn’t she think he could handle her mother?—gave way to a wicked impulsiveness. “First things first,” he murmured. “I’m sure you understand, Abigail, that there are certain…priorities…when a newly married couple is reunited after a time apart.”
He watched in fascination as Morganna’s face went pink. He was reasonably sure that the cause of her heightened color was pure fury at him for the suggestive comment, but it was equally apparent to Sloan that the onlookers had interpreted it differently. There was a naughty but appreciative gleam in Abigail’s eyes, while Joel shifted his feet and looked thoroughly embarrassed.
Sloan reached inside his jacket and pulled out a long, slender, black velvet box. “That reminds me, darling. Since I had other things on my mind earlier, I forgot to give you the anniversary gift I brought you from San Francisco.”
Morganna shook her head. “It’s not our anniversary.”
“Yes, it is. It’ll be six months next week since our wedding.” He held out a hand in summons, and watched her closely as she slowly crossed the room toward him. Though he was certain Joel and Abigail saw only a pretty hesitancy at claiming her gift, Sloan couldn’t miss the bone-deep reluctance with which she moved. She’d have been more eager, he thought, to approach the guillotine.
Her dark green dress was one he’d seen her wear at least a dozen times before, and he idly wondered which point she was trying to make tonight by wearing it instead of something new. Was she emphasizing her reluctance to shop for clothes because spending his money left her feeling even more in his debt? Or was she subtly pointing out that she didn’t think he was worth dressing up for?
In public, where her friends or his business associates might notice, she was always a fashion plate, elegantly garbed and groomed and seldom wearing the same dress twice. If he’d remembered to tell her earlier that Joel was coming for dinner, Morganna would no doubt have come downstairs looking as if she was off to the Carousel Ball immediately after dessert. Sloan had suspected on occasion that she was actually trying to look like a caricature of the leader of society he’d said he wanted her to be.
In private, however, things were different. Though to a casual onlooker she would always have appeared just as neat and well-turned-out, she was in fact far less elegant. She wore the same few dresses—all ones she had owned before their wedding—and she ignored the stock of jewelry with which he’d supplied her.
Probably, he thought, she would like him to believe that on the nights they dined alone she was in the habit of simply seizing the first thing she touched in her closet, without even noticing what it was. In fact, he thought it was more likely that she deliberately planned what she wore, and how often, in the hope of annoying him.
Not that her campaign of irritation would succeed. It didn’t matter to Sloan if she wanted to wear the same dinner dress for the next thirty years—especially if it was this particular dress, which hugged her figure with its deceptively demure shape and enticed despite an innocently high-cut neckline. He suspected if Morganna had any idea precisely how attractive he found that dress, she’d have donated it to the thrift shop long ago.
“That old thing again?” he murmured as she came within arm’s length. He took her hand and drew her closer, till his lips brushed across her cheek. “Your wardrobe is becoming incredibly boring, my dear.”
She said under her breath, “I’ll keep your objections in mind.”
“Meaning that you intend to go right on wearing the same old clothes. Perhaps I should mention the problem to your mother.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t push me.” He laid the velvet box across her palm and let a husky note creep into his voice. “Happy anniversary, darling.”
He saw the flash of irritation in her eyes, but obediently Morganna unsnapped the box and lifted the lid. Inside, on a bed of black satin, lay a river of fire—a bracelet of diamonds too numerous to count, perfectly matched and set into a braided chain of platinum that had made him think of her pale blond hair.
Irritation had given way to dismay, he saw as she raised her gaze to meet his. Her eyes were stormy blue-gray, and one crystal tear clung to her dark lashes. “Stop this,” she whispered. “Stop torturing me.”
He bent closer. “It’s a gift, Morganna.”
“It’s a ball and chain, and you know it.”
He lifted the bracelet from the box. “Would you rather put it on or explain to your mother why you don’t want to wear it?” He watched her swallow hard before she held out her hand. He fastened the bracelet, then raised her wrist so he could press his lips against the pulse point. Deliberately he pitched his voice just above a murmur—suggestively low, but just loud enough for the two onlookers to hear. “I’ll wait to get my real thank-you later, when we’re alone. Now, I think Selby is making signals about dinner. Shall we go in?”
The bracelet seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and every time Morganna raised her fork, the diamonds on her wrist caught the light from the chandelier and shattered it into knife points that hurt her eyes.
Six months, she thought. It would be six months next week since the wedding. Since the first and most ostentatious of the gifts.
She had been taken completely off guard at the wedding breakfast, when Sloan, after giving Abigail her check, had handed Morganna an envelope containing the deed to the Georgian-style mansion—a legal document detailing that the property now belonged jointly to Sloan Montgomery and Morganna Ashworth Montgomery. Husband and wife.
“Just a little wedding gift,” he’d said, and Abigail had exclaimed in delight at the idea that her daughter’s childhood home and the multitude
