The Inconvenient Bride

They wouldn’t have sex, they’d have mergers, he’d told the old man after the last one. There was no way on earth he would ever consider someone like that!

“Well, what do you want?” Douglas had sputtered.

“To be left alone,” Dominic growled and banged down the phone.

He had been for the past three weeks. He’d hoped his father had got the message at last. Now the old man was on line one.

Dominic punched the button and barked into the phone. “What?”

“And a lovely fine morning to you, too,” his father’s cheerful voice boomed in his ear.

“Not lovely here. It’s raining like hell.” Dominic scowled out the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office onto the gray damp dismal world beyond.

“I’ll tell Evelyn to pack my umbrella and rubber boots.”

“Pack—? Why?” Dominic sat up straight, his fingers strangling his Mont Blanc pen.

His earlier vague sense of foreboding was presently slamming him right between the eyes. Why should his father’s housekeeper be packing Douglas’s umbrella and rubber boots, unless—

“I’m having dinner with Tommy Hargrove this evening. Been talking to him about maybe coming on board. So Viveca and I are catching the noon flight to New York and—”

“Whoa. Stop. Tommy Hargrove is not coming on board.”

If they’d been through this once, they’d been through it a thousand times. Tommy Hargrove’s small company might once have been a possible acquisition. It was no longer. “Wolfe Enterprises isn’t in the market for a small outdated communications firm. And who the hell is Viveca?”

“Tommy and I are old friends.” Douglas ignored the last question, going on smoothly, “We go back a long way, since before you were in diapers, young man.”

Whenever Dominic became “young man” it meant Douglas was meddling again.

“And,” his father went on, “it is not a foregone conclusion that Tommy’s company isn’t just what we need.”

“Yes,” Dominic said, his voice pure steel. “It is.”

“We’ll see,” Douglas said enigmatically.

“We won’t—”

“It is possible,” Douglas went on as if Dominic hadn’t begun to speak, “that I could agree with you. If you and Viveca…”

Dominic slammed his pen down on the solid teak desk.

“Haven’t I spoken of Viveca?” Douglas was all mild innocence.

“No,” Dominic said through his teeth.

“Ah. Well, she’s why I called actually,” Douglas said with determined good cheer. “Lovely girl. Stunning, really. Pauline Moore’s daughter. You remember Pauline. Miss America pageant. Mensa. Phi Beta Kappa. Ran into Pauline and her daughter at the club on Monday. Pauline introduced us. Wondered if I didn’t have a son about her age. Of course she meant Rhys. Viveca’s much younger than you. Gorgeous girl. Long blond hair. Brilliant. Witty. Charming. Did I tell you she’s getting a Ph.D. in art history. She—” Douglas was gearing up for a long discussion of Viveca Moore’s best qualities.

“Cut to the chase,” Dominic said wearily.

“Marry her,” Douglas said flatly.

“What!”

“You heard me. Get married. To her. You need to get married. To have children. To carry on the line. Marry Viveca,” Douglas said, “and I’ll tell Tommy we’ve taken another direction.”

“I’ll tell Tommy we’ve taken another direction and I won’t have to marry her.”

There was a second’s silence. “Then I’ll tell the board I don’t support you.”

It was as if all of Manhattan had ground to a halt. For one long moment there wasn’t a sound, beyond the pounding of his own blood in Dominic’s ears.

And then he said with a calmness he didn’t begin to feel, “Is that a threat?”

“Of course it’s not a threat,” Douglas blustered. “It’s a damn promise, boy. You’re not getting any younger. You’re thirty-six years old! You should have got over that nonsense with Carol—”

“Carin.”

“Carol, Carin—whatever her name was—years ago! It’s like riding a horse, lad! If you fall off you don’t run away and lick your wounds, you damned well get back on again.”

“Marry the next woman down the pike, you mean?” Dominic was amazed his voice sounded so mild. He felt like the top of his head was about to come off.

“Of course not. Not just any woman! But there’s plenty of damn fine gals around. You’ve had a dozen years to find one and you haven’t done it!”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Nonsense!” Douglas didn’t even consider that. “You need to. For the business if not for yourself. People trust a married man. He seems responsible, reliable. They’ve given you the benefit of the doubt for years. But you’re walking the edge now. Besides,” Douglas changed his tack, “you’ve got the makings of a fine family man. A fine father.”

“Like you?” Dominic’s voice was scathing, but his father didn’t even notice.

“Chip off the old block,” Douglas agreed without missing a beat. “That’s why I know you’ll like Viveca.”

“I don’t want—”

“You don’t know what you want anymore! I bring you a redhead, you want a blonde. I bring you a homemaker, you want a Ph.D. I bring you a—”

“I want you to stop bringing me women!”

“I will.”

“When?”

“After tonight. After you meet Viveca. You won’t want another woman after Viveca! She’s everything you want. A blonde. A homemaker with a Ph.D.! And—”

“And if I don’t marry her you’re going to go to the board with a vote of no confidence,” Dominic said through his teeth.

There was a split second’s hesitation. Then Douglas said, “You’re damn right.”

Dominic understood that split second. It was the point-of-no-return. It was the jumping off spot. The last chance to turn back.