Sandra Field - Honeymoon For Three

“I want you to marry me, Cory. I want our son to have a proper father.” “I want you to marry me, Cory. I want our son to have a proper father.” Cory winced. “I’ve already told you I won’t marry you.” Struggling for calmness, Slade said, “Don’t you think it’s time you started to figure out all the implications of what you’re saying? There are three people involved here, not just you. And one of them is our son.” “I should have drawn up a contract for our agreement. Instead, I trusted your word. Big mistake,” Cory retorted. Only the sure knowledge that he was fighting for his life enabled Slade to keep his temper. “I want to live with you, Cory. For the rest of my days.” About the Author Although born in England, SANDRA FIELD has lived most of her life in Canada; she says the silence and emptiness of the north speaks to her particularly. While she enjoys traveling, and passing on her sense of a new place, she often chooses to write about the city which is now her home. Sandra says, “I write out of my experience. I have learned that love with its joys and its pains is all-important. I hope this knowledge enriches my writing, and touches a chord in you, the reader.” Title Page Honeymoon for Three Sandra Field www.millsandboon.co.uk CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN Copyright

“I want you to marry me, Cory. I want our son to have a proper father.”

Cory winced. “I’ve already told you I won’t marry you.”

Struggling for calmness, Slade said, “Don’t you think it’s time you started to figure out all the implications of what you’re saying? There are three people involved here, not just you. And one of them is our son.”

“I should have drawn up a contract for our agreement. Instead, I trusted your word. Big mistake,” Cory retorted.

Only the sure knowledge that he was fighting for his life enabled Slade to keep his temper. “I want to live with you, Cory. For the rest of my days.”

Although born in England, SANDRA FIELD has lived most of her life in Canada; she says the silence and emptiness of the north speaks to her particularly. While she enjoys traveling, and passing on her sense of a new place, she often chooses to write about the city which is now her home. Sandra says, “I write out of my experience. I have learned that love with its joys and its pains is all-important. I hope this knowledge enriches my writing, and touches a chord in you, the reader.”

Honeymoon for Three

Sandra Field

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

SLADE REDDEN ran his eye down the day’s list of appointments. “Cory Haines? Who’s he? Another politician looking for a handout? If so, he’s clean out of luck.”

Mrs. Minglewood coughed discreetly. “Cory Haines is a woman, Mr. Redden. She owns a landscape design company here in the city.”

“And what does she want?”

“She did not disclose the nature of her business, sir. But she was quite insistent that she have an appointment as soon as possible.”

She’d want something. Everyone did these days; it was one of the penalties of success—or so Slade was learning. Ever since he’d won that international award for his inner city design in Chicago, realtors and bureaucrats and architects had been after him in droves. He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept well last night, and the mixture of rain and snow that was choking the air was no incentive to get to work. Halifax, capital city of Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s eastern seaboard provinces, had obviously not heard of the concept that March was supposed to usher in the season called spring.

Mrs. Minglewood regarded him sympathetically. She liked working for Mr. Redden on his rare visits to the company offices in Halifax; he was, in general, even-tempered, and treated her as though she was a real person and not a piece of modular furniture. Hidden somewhere in her capacious bosom was the added factor that he was easily the most attractive—not even in her secret thoughts would Mrs. Minglewood use the word sexy—man she had ever laid eyes on. None of the heroes of the old movies she doted on could compare with him. They didn’t even come close.

“...at lunch?”

Flustered, she said, “I beg your pardon, sir?” Patiently Slade repeated his question, and within half an hour Mrs. Minglewood had enough work to keep her busy the whole day. But she was not so busy around two o’clock that she didn’t watch for the arrival of Cory Haines.

At three minutes to two the elevator doors opened and a young woman stepped out. She approached Mrs. Minglewood’s desk and said in a pleasantly low-pitched voice, “I have an appointment with Mr. Redden at two—my name is Haines.”

Mrs. Minglewood’s bosom indulged in a pleasurable flutter of romanticism. Without a speck of envy—for she loved her stout, garrulous husband Wilfred and considered herself a truly happy woman—she decided that Cory Haines was exactly what Mr. Redden needed on such a miserable day. A real pick-me-up. “Come this way, please,” she said, and tapped on Mr. Redden’s door.

Slade had been absorbed in the computer printouts of one of his latest projects—a renewal of the harbor frontage. He wasn’t happy with the placement of the boardwalk, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong. “Come in,” he called brusquely. He’d give this appointment ten minutes. Maximum.

Cory heard the brusqueness and squared her shoulders. He wouldn’t be the first business executive to give her grief, nor would he be the last. Although his CV hadn’t led her to expect real problems.

“Ms. Cory Haines, Mr. Redden,” Mrs. Minglewood said, and hesitated just a fraction too long before regretfully closing the office door.

Cory walked into the office as though totally confident of her welcome. The magazine articles she’d searched out had prepared her for Slade Redden’s rugged good looks. But in person the man was far more impressive than any two-dimensional photograph could possibly portray. Oh, my goodness, she thought. It’s a good thing I’m immune... talk about an unfair advantage.

Slade, quite unjustly, had pictured a gray-haired martinet with a jutting chin. He saw a woman considerably younger than his thirty-four years who nevertheless possessed that indefinable something called presence. In an attractive contralto voice she said, “It’s very good of you to spare me some of your time, Mr. Redden. I know how busy you are.”

He stood up automatically, wishing he’d taken the trouble to comb his hair. His tie was askew, his jacket draped over the chair and his shirtsleeves rolled up. Oh, well, she’d have to take him as he was.

At six feet he topped her by three or four inches. “May I take your coat?” he asked.

It was a smart navy blue trenchcoat. As she slid it from her shoulders, he caught the scent of her perfume, a subtle blend that hinted of warmer climates; the overhead lighting caught in her smoothly groomed hair so that it gleamed like strands of copper. “Please sit down,” he said, hanging up her coat, pushing the papers on his wide mahogany desk to one side and getting right to the point; he rarely wasted time on social niceties. “What can I do for you?”

He watched her take a moment to gather her thoughts. Her flared wool skirt, kingfisher-blue, worn with a richly embroidered vest and a white silk shirt, spoke of a woman confident of her own taste, who took pleasure in texture and colour. Her face, he thought, rather surprised both at his interest and his acumen, was like a good painting; something to which you could return again and again, always with reward. She was excited about something, he thought slowly. Very excited.

Cory leaned forward in her chair and smiled at him, a smile that warmed her dark brown eyes. Just because he was easily the most attractive man she’d ever met, she saw no reason to change her game plan. “I want something from you, Mr. Redden—and I’m willing to give you something in return.”

“Then you’ve just differentiated yourself from a great many people who come through that door,” he said drily.

“Have I?” Her lashes flickered. “You’re a very successful businessman—but I think you really care about the quality of your work and how it affects those who live with it. And that, I’d say, differentiates you from a great many people.”

She’d neatly turned the tables on him. “And why do you believe that about me, Ms. Haines?” he said, then wondered if she’d think he was fishing for compliments.

“I’ve done my research—I’ve read everything I could find about you and your company.” Again her inner excitement welled up, causing her words to tumble out. “You and I have something in common, I’m convinced of it—and it’s on the basis of that certainty that I’m here. Because if your time is valuable, so also is mine.”

She wasn’t being arrogant; she was simply stating a fact. Intrigued in spite of himself, Slade said, “You have an advantage over me. Because I know nothing whatsoever about you.”

“I own my own company too: Haines Landscaping.” Her lips quirked. “A much smaller company than yours. I’ve been doing landscape design in this area for five years, and last year I won both a municipal and a provincial award for a community park I designed in the north end of the city.”

Unable to contain her energy, she got up, walking over to the tall windows, which were streaked with rain, and gazing down into the street. “I love this city, Mr. Redden. I want it to be a good place for people to live. I want it to stay human-oriented ... user-friendly, if you like. And that’s where you can help. Because I think you share those values.”

“I’m not averse to making money,” he said sharply.

“Neither am I. Nor do I apologize for that.”

He leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his neck, feeling the pull on his chest muscles. “So what kind of a touch are you going to put on my checkbook?”

A flush rose in her cheeks. She jammed her hands in the pockets of her skirt and said with noticeable coolness, “I don’t want your money. I want your land.”

She was nothing if not straightforward, thought Slade. For some reason wanting to jolt her out of her composure, he said, “Land is money—surely I don’t have to spell that out for you?”

“Land is a lot more than money. I don’t have to spell that out for you.” She bit her lip, leaving a trace of peach-toned lipstick on one tooth. “Specifically, I’m interested in two properties—the old parking lot on Dow Street, and the comer lot on Cornell and Cruikshank. Neither one is what you’d call a desirable property in monetary terms.”

He got up too, and walked over to the window, his gaze trained on her face. “So why do you want them?”

She said with an intensity he was almost sure she was unaware of, “The parking lot on Dow Street could be made into a wonderful community garden—plots for individual families, small sheds for equipment, a shaded playground at the far end for the children whose parents are working in the garden. As it is now, it’s a wasteland—garbage all over the place, potholes, nothing to please the eye. Or the soul.”

Deliberately needling her, Slade said, “How very eloquent of you.”