The Marriage Agenda: The Marriage Conspiracy / The Billionaire's Baby Plan

“But you don’t look—”

Robert interrupted, “My wife says she is fine.”

“Well, I know, but—”

“Please. I have something of real importance to propose to you now. I’ll need your undivided attention.”

Joleen did not get it. Antonia looked positively stricken, and all her husband could think about was what he wanted to say? A sarcastic remark rose to her lips. She bit it back. “All right. What is it, Mr. Atwood?”

Robert cleared his throat. “Joleen, after the spectacle I have witnessed today, I find I cannot keep quiet any longer. I have come to a difficult but important decision. It is painfully obvious to me that my grandson cannot get the kind of upbringing he deserves while he is in your care. Antonia and I are prepared to take him off your hands. I’m willing to offer you five hundred thousand dollars to sign over custody of young Samuel to me.”

Chapter 3

Joleen forgot all about Antonia’s distress. She could feel her blood pressure rising. So much for trying to make it work with the Atwoods.

She spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry. I’m sure I could not have heard you right. You did not just offer to buy my baby from me—did you?”

Antonia squeaked. There was no other word for it, for that small, desperate, anguished sound. She squeaked and then she just stood there, wringing her hands.

Robert, however, had no trouble forming words. “Buy your baby? What an absurd suggestion. Of course, I’m not offering to buy Samuel. What I am offering you is a chance. A chance to do the right thing. For your child. And for yourself, as well.”

“The right thing?” Joleen echoed in sheer disbelief. “To sell you my baby is the right thing?”

Robert waved a hand, a gesture clearly intended to erase her question as if it had never been. “I know that you have never attended college—except for a year, wasn’t it, at some local trade school?”

“Who told you that?”

“I have my sources. Now you will be able to finish your education. You’ll be able to do more with your life than run a beauty shop.”

“I happen to like running a beauty shop.”

He looked vaguely outraged, as if she had just told an insulting and rude lie. “Please.”

“It’s true. I love the work that I do.”

He refused to believe such a thing. “I am offering you a future, Joleen. You are a young, healthy woman. You will have other children. My son only had one. Antonia and I want a chance to bring that one child up properly.”

“Meaning I won’t bring Sam up properly.”

“My dear Joleen, you are twisting what I’ve said.”

“I am not twisting anything. I am laying it right on the line. You don’t think I will bring my son up right, so you want to buy him from me.”

“You are overdramatizing.”

Joleen, who, since the loss of her kind and steady father a decade before, had always been the calmest person in her family, found it took all of her will not to start shrieking—not to grab the brass paperweight on her father’s desk and toss it right in Robert Atwood’s smug face.

“My offer is a good one,” Robert Atwood said.

Joleen gaped at him. “I beg your pardon. It is never a good offer when you try to buy someone’s child.”

“Joleen—”

“And what is the matter with you, anyway? Your ‘offer’ is bad enough all by itself. But couldn’t you have waited a day or two? Did you have to come at me on my sister’s wedding day?”

“Please…” croaked Antonia. She looked as if she might cry.

Robert put his arm around her—to steady her or to silence her, Joleen wasn’t sure which. He held his proud white head high. “Once we’d made the decision, the sooner the better was the way it seemed to me. Might as well make our position clear. Might as well get you thinking along the right track.”

A number of furious epithets rose to Joleen’s lips. She did not utter a one of them—but she would, if this man went on saying these awful things much longer.

This conversation can only go downhill, she thought. Better to end it now.

“Mr. Atwood, I’m afraid if you stay very much longer, I will say some things that I’ll be sorry for. I would like you to leave now.”

Antonia made another of those squeaky little noises. Robert squeezed her shoulder and said to Joleen, “I want you to think about what I’ve said.”

I am not going to start yelling at this man, she told herself silently. She said, “I do not have to think about it. The answer is no. You cannot have my child. Not at any price.”

Robert Atwood stood even taller, if that was possible. “My dear, I would advise you not to speak without thinking.”

“Stop calling me that. I am not your dear.”

“Joleen, I am trying to make certain that you understand your position here.”

Joleen blinked. This had to be a nightmare, didn’t it? It could not be real. “My position?”

“Yes. You are an unwed mother.”

Unwed mother. The old-fashioned phrase hurt. It made her sound cheap—and irresponsible, too. Not to mention a little bit stupid. Someone who hadn’t had sense enough to get a ring on her finger before she let a man into her bed.

Maybe, she admitted to herself, it hurt because it was all too true. She had not been smart when it came to Bobby Atwood. Which seemed funny, at that moment. Funny in a sharp and painful way. A tight laugh escaped her.

“Don’t try to make light of this, Joleen.”

The urge to laugh vanished as quickly as it had come. “I promise you, Mr. Atwood. I am not makin’ light. Not in the least.”

“Good. For child care, you rely on your family members, and they are not the kind of people who should be caring for my grandson.”

Joleen thought of that paperweight again—of how good it would feel to grab it and let it fly. “You better watch yourself, insultin’ my family.”

Robert Atwood shrugged. “I am merely stating facts. Your mother, from what I understand, and from what I witnessed today, is sexually promiscuous. Your younger sister has been in serious trouble at school and was arrested last year in a shoplifting incident. Your other sister has had some problems with the law, as well. None of those three—your mother or those sisters of yours, are the kind I would trust around my grandson. If it comes down to it, I will have little trouble convincing a judge that females like that aren’t fit caregivers for Samuel, that he would be much better off with Antonia and me.”

Joleen couldn’t help it. She raised her voice. “‘Females like that’?” she cried. “Just who do you think you are, to call my family females like that?”

“You are shouting,” said Robert Atwood.

“You’re darn right I am. I was warned about you and I should have listened. But I didn’t, and look what has happened.”