Natalie Patrick - The Millionaire's Proposition

Of course! Becky brightened. If she spent her allotted money for a plain, small cup of coffee and lingered over it long enough, she could gather up someone’s unwanted paper for free. Not only could she get the want ads that way but she wouldn’t go through the day feeling like some job-hunting zombie.

Her heavy charm bracelet jangled and icy water droplets splashed on her wrist and leg. She yanked and pulled and finally got her miserable pink-and-blue floral umbrella shut. She looked at the sad old thing with one rib bowed out and another bent at a forty-degree angle so that even closed it seemed as if about to burst into a rendition of “I’m a little teapot.” As soon as she got a job, that umbrella was going to go and the first thing she was going to buy was a new one, she told herself. No, make that the second thing.

She pushed through the heavy glass doors of the mammoth building, heading for the inner entrance to the shop. The first thing she would buy was a new charm for her bracelet—to mark the passage into this new, mature phase of her life. She gave her bracelet a confident shake and forged ahead, throwing herself into a throng of gray suits and shuffling wing tips.

Ping.

“My charm!” She’d felt the small object bounce against her knee moments before it hit the floor. A quick check of her bracelet told her she’d lost one of the baby booties she so cherished. Replacing it at a time like this was not an option, she thought. She had to find it!

She scanned the floor. The bright silver should stand out against the black marble, shouldn’t it?

She raised her hand to bite her fingernail and unintentionally stabbed not one, but three passersby with the tip of her crooked umbrella.

“Sorry. So sorry. I’m sorry.” She tried to meet the eyes of each of those she’d gouged.

None of them returned her gaze. She hung her head, feeling two feet tall. Of course, she thought, if she were two feet tall, at least then she might spot her charm more readily. She’d lost her job last week, her contact last night and her baby bootie moments ago, but that didn’t mean she had to lose her sense of humor or her dignity.

“Oh, my!” She gasped as something metallic winked at her just a few inches from the elevator doors. Maybe she didn’t have to lose her bootie after all. Disregarding the flash of feet and press of bodies, she dove for the tiny trinket, determined not to let it get swept inside the opening elevator doors.

Her teeth jarred as her knees hit the floor. Her fingers ached in stretching so hard to reach. Almost. Almost...

Crunch.

“Ow!” She drew back her hand, her fingertips smarting. The charm had disappeared and the man who had clomped on her fingers with it inside the elevator.

Scrambling to her feet, she jerked her head up in time to see a tall, black-haired man in a tailored suit and white shirt that set off the dark undertones of his skin dig something small and silver out of the heel of his shoe.

“That’s my charm,” she called out.

The man looked up and directly into her eyes. Her heart stopped. This was not the kind of man she normally ran into in Woodbridge or even in her usual activities around Chicago. Those kinds of men, the best of the bunch, wore power ties. This man wore power itself, raw yet refined, barely contained the way his fitted suit could not entirely temper the primitive qualities of his lean, muscular body.

His lips, pale and hard, looked like they could kiss a girl senseless, and Becky had no doubt that life provided him ample opportunity to do just that. His straight nose and dark eyebrows set off his penetrating brown eyes, which, she imagined could practically spark to telegraph underlying anger or humor or even lust.

She gulped in the damp morning air carried in on overcoats and rain hats.

Had she ever seen such compelling features, Becky thought, even in his current mild state of bewilderment? Yes, she decided with one more look, she had—in late-night movies on her thirteen-inch borrowed TV. Cary Grant, she thought. A younger, in-the-flesh version of the world’s most romantic movie star had just crushed her fingers—and taken off with her baby-bootie charm. She blinked her eyes and came back to reality.

“Hey, you! You, in the expensive suit.” She pointed at him with her umbrella. “You can’t just grab my bootie and take off like that.”

Heads turned.

She thought she heard at least one indignant huff.

She wanted to pull her coat up over her head and quietly slink away.

At the back of the elevator, the man with the Cary Grant face didn’t even blink. He gave a droll smile, cocked his head above the push of people wedging into the small cubicle and shouted back, “It was an accident, miss. Rest assured, I wouldn’t have grabbed anything of yours on purpose.”

A strange little squeaking noise gurgled in the back of her throat. Wouldn’t have grabbed anything of yours... Why that smug jerk, she thought. Of course, if he was the jerk, why was she the one who felt like running away?

She took a step backward. A lock of her already droopy hair plopped cool and wet against her scorched cheek. Her glasses wobbled. The last possible passenger stepped into the waiting elevator. The gorgeous jerk and her precious memento were about to disappear.

“I won’t forget this, you know. I am not the kind of girl who lets some man—even a man like you—take her b—” She caught herself. This was obviously an important man; she needed to rise to the occasion with class and dignity. “I am not the kind of girl who lets a strange man take advantage of a situation, then just walk away without expecting some kind of accountability.”

“Good for you,” he told her with an almost imperceptible wink. “One rarely finds a girl willing to defend her...charms so vehemently these days.”

“Oh! You...” Words simply would not do. This situation called for action—drastic, immediate action. She thrust her deformed umbrella forward between the closing doors. Unfortunately, someone inside the elevator saw it coming and batted away the protruding umbrella tip. The momentum carried it in a slow upward swing until it popped open of its own accord in all its ragged glory. As the door slid shut between herself, her charm and her living vision of masculinity and sophistication, she could only stand there looking for all the world like a pathetic Mary Poppins just flown in through a mild hurricane.

“Have you ever thought of...getting married?”

Clark Winstead glanced up from the silver bauble in his hand to his longtime confidant and generously overpaid tax accountant. Even knowing his always high-strung, slightly neurotic old pal would not appreciate the wry humor, he had to deadpan, “Why, Baxter, are you proposing?”

“Ha-ha.” Baxter Davis shoved open the door marked The Winstead Corporation, International Headquarters and held it open for Clark. “But seriously, have you?”

“You know my stand on marriage.” Just saying the word made Clark tense. Knowing even his close friend could not appreciate the depth of his feeling on the subject, the weight of the pain his own parents’ miserable marriage had laid on his shoulders, he simply shrugged and gave a flippant reply. “It’s against my principles.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. You’re the product of divorced parents, the statistics don’t bear out the risk factor, yadda, yadda, yadda. Big yawn.” The door fell shut behind them. “But what about other advantages?”

Clark glanced around the bustling outer offices of his headquarters, his mind moving on to other things. “In this day and age, a man can avail himself of those advantages without the decided disadvantages of a marriage going sour.”

“I was thinking about children.”

The rounded toe of the small-scale baby bootie dug into the pad of Clark’s thumb. He’d love to have a child, a son to carry on the Winstead name or a daughter to hold his heart in her delicate hands. “Actually, Baxter, I’d like to have an heir, or even two, but the price of getting them—marriage—is simply not one I’m willing to pay.”

“As a wise old sage once said to me, ‘In this day and age, a man can avail himself of those advantages without the decided disadvantages of a marriage going sour.’”

“I’m not the sort to adopt and raise a child on my own, Baxter.” They moved swiftly through the maze of desks and computers and such. Clark could not ignore but neither did he acknowledge the quiet fervor that accompanied his arrival. “I’m too busy to do the job right, and why do anything, raise children above all, if you can’t give it your best?”

“You could hire someone.”

“To have my children?” The idea struck a spark in his muddled thoughts. He hired people for everything else that mattered to him—to run his businesses, tend to his homes. He even had a personal trainer to see that he kept his body in top shape, though he rarely needed the external motivation for that He hired the best and let them share in the reward as well as the responsibility. Could he simply take that concept one step further?

“I meant hire someone to raise the child.”

That, too. If he found the right woman to bear his child, wouldn’t it only follow that she would be the right one to raise it? Clear away the deadwood, get rid of everything that doesn’t contribute to growth—that was his business philosophy. Why not apply it to this more personal but every bit as significant decision? And it would be neat, too, cutting out the messiness and pain of divorce and simply skipping ahead to the inevitable last step of any marital relationship—joint custody. If he could find the right woman, it might work.

“Well, you’ve certainly given me something to think about, Baxter.” He paused outside the inner office occupied by his private secretary.

“Honestly, Clark. you’d consider lit?”

“Having a child?”

“No, marriage.”

“Marriage?” Clark gave a contemptuous snort. “Why should I?”

“For love, for companionship, and barring that, for tax purposes.” Baxter fixed his beady gaze on his friend as if watching a bug under a microscope. “Marriage and children both provide tax benefits, you know.”

Clark slid the trinket he’d been toying with into his pocket and brushed past his friend. “Haven’t you heard, Mr. Davis, CPA and so forth? The rich don’t pay taxes.”

“Oh. I know all about the rich, my friend. I’ve learned from watching you up close and I can tell you this—it’s been one fascinating study.”

“Has it now?” Clark chuckled to himself.

Entertaining as he found his friend’s long-winded observations about the misery of money and its effects on those who gamer too much of the stuff, he didn’t have time for it right now. Already this morning an unfortunate run-in had provided him with unfinished business and Clark hated unfinished business.

He held up his hand to silence Baxter’s forthcoming diatribe, then hit his secretary’s gleaming cherry desk with both palms flat, his arms braced. He narrowed his eyes to command her immediate focus.

“Miss Harriman, call the coffee shop downstairs right away and ask them if anyone there saw a young lady—” he straightened, making use of all his faculties to get an unerring description “—about this tall.” He slashed his hand at his own chin level. “With a great mop of curly hair sort of stuck up on one side of her head.”

Baxter scowled.

“A pair of lopsided glasses, carrying a badly bent umbrella and wearing a...what’s it called?” He pointed to his wrist, then the answer hit him and he snapped his fingers. “Wearing a silver charm bracelet”