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that was completely devoid of humor. “Oh, he was perfectly clear. My life lacks balance, he said.” He hunched forward, clenching his fists on top of his desk. “I’m too committed to the company, he said.”
His fist hit the desk, sending a pen rolling off the side. “What the hell else should I be but committed? This company is everything to me and he damn well knows it. But now, dear old Dad has decided that unless my neck ends up in a marriage noose again, I’m suddenly not fit to run it after all.”
Deanna’s eyes were wide. “Um … again?”
He could practically feel the steam wanting to pour out of his pounding head. “And he’ll go find someone who isn’t even a Fortune to head things up instead.” Even more than the marriage nonsense that William had been threatening for much of the past year—ever since he’d gotten involved with Lily—telling Drew just that morning that he’d bring in someone else to run the company if Drew didn’t heed his words had been an even worse slam.
Their telephone conversation—if the argument that had ensued could be called that—had disintegrated from there.
Drew was still stinging from it.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll work for somebody else at what should be my own freaking company.”
Her brows drew together, creating a little vertical line between them. “You’d just give it up, then?” She lifted her hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Walk away from everything you’ve worked for?”
“It’s not like I have any women around I’d remotely consider marrying. Dad decided to marry Lily and look what happened. He’s lost his marbles.”
“I—I’m stunned,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know what to say.”
He scrubbed his hands down his face and leaned back in his chair again, watching his assistant through his narrowed eyes.
But his mind was still replaying the argument with his father.
Despite his wedding to Lily scheduled for the following day—a new year and a new life with his new wife—William had had the cojones to bring up Drew’s mother, Molly. To use her memory as a tool in his arsenal against Drew’s footloose lifestyle.
That had been the ultimate slam.
And he’d responded in kind. If William were so concerned about Molly, then what the hell was he doing getting married again?
Drew pinched his nose and closed his eyes again. The angry words still circled in his head. “As if a marriage certificate has anything to do with success,” he muttered. “It’s insane.” He looked at Deanna.
She was sitting straight as a poker in her chair. Instead of twisting the life out of her jacket, her hands were now twisted together in her lap. She still had that frown etched on her face and her eyes were dark with concern. “I, um, imagine for you, marriage certainly is a deal breaker.”
And Drew had never failed to close a deal.
He’d always had the singular ability to put the right pieces together, even when people—including his father—said it would be impossible.
His brain suddenly shifted. Boulders rolled and he saw a glimmer of light. “This is a deal,” he murmured, wondering why he hadn’t seen it before.
Maybe Deanna was right. He’d heard marriage, and the wiring in his brain had short-circuited.
Her eyebrows had climbed up her smooth forehead. “Excuse me?”
“A deal.” He sat forward. For the first time that day he felt a grin hit him. “And all I need is a signed marriage license to seal it.”
The corners of her lips curved in response to his, but she was still watching him warily. “Usually that involves a marriage,” she pointed out. “Which you’ve already said you’re not interested in.”
“I’m not,” he assured. “But a marriage license just comes with wedding. All I need for that is a wife.”
She lifted her hands. “Exactly.”
“I can hire a wife.”
She blinked for a moment. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“Sometimes you need specialized people at the table to close a deal. I just need the right woman to agree to the terms.”
“Which are what?”
“Sign the paper, say ‘I do’ and then act like my wife for a short while—long enough for Dad to calm down, retire like he’s planned to do all along and name me as his replacement—then go on her way.”
She snorted softly and shook her head. Her hair gleamed under the overhead light. “Do I need to remind you that the women you usually date—before they reach the three-month expiration, that is—will be looking for a whole lot more out of your deal than going on her way?”
Because he usually marked his way out of his brief romantic entanglements with gifts of jewelry that Deanna arranged for him, she had a point.
“I’d need someone convincing,” he mused. He drummed his fingers on the desk as his thoughts coalesced into the perfect solution.
He looked his assistant square in the eyes.
“Someone like you.”
Chapter Two
Like her?
Alarm had Deanna shooting out of her chair. “Now I think you’ve lost your marbles.”
But Drew was sitting there in his chair as calm now as he’d been agitated earlier, and she felt her stomach sink even lower when he picked up the hat he’d discarded earlier and put it on.
Backward.
The small scar near his hairline that showed because of it gave him a particularly rakish look.
“It’s the perfect solution,” he reasoned. The faint dimple in his cheek appeared.
She gaped. “You are mad.”
He spread his hands, his palms upward. “Think it through, Dee. If a new CEO is named—someone from outside—what’s the likelihood that you and everyone else who’s worked here will get to stay? Bring in a new person at the top and changes are bound to trickle down. It’s the nature of the beast.”
A fresh wave of panic began forming at the edges of her sanity. “You already said that a new CEO wouldn’t mean closing this office.”
“Closing is one thing. Clearing the decks to bring in his—” he shrugged “—or her, I suppose—own people is not unusual, though. If I were going into a new place, I’d want some of my own people around me. Dad will officially be retired by then. Living permanently in Texas. He’s the one ready to bring in new blood. You think he hasn’t realized the ramifications to the people who’ve worked for him all along?”
“I can’t believe that your father wouldn’t have some plan for that. I’ve met him. He’s a very caring person!”
“He’s a man who has made it plain that he is starting his new life, no matter how it affects everyone else, including his own family,” Drew said flatly, and his dimple was nowhere in evidence.
Her knees suddenly felt wobbly and she closed her hands over the back of the chair where she’d been sitting.
She needed her job. Now, more than ever.
And while she felt certain that she’d be able to find alternate work if she had to, she knew that she’d never be able to start out at the pay level that she’d risen to at Fortune Forecasting.
She wasn’t getting rich by any means, but she made enough to keep her head above water … and until Gigi’s latest spending jag