His Marriage Bonus

“I’m still not attracted to you,” she repeated.

Oh, but it was going to be fun tearing down her barriers and making her face the truth about the chemistry between them. Mitch grinned. Feeling happier, more optimistic and content—than he had in a long time, Mitch looked deep into her eyes and ran his hands from her shoulders to her wrists.

Linking his fingertips intimately with hers, he asked softly, “Then why are you trembling?” Why were their entire bodies still reverberating with excitement and desire?

Lauren tore her eyes away from his and stared at the open collar of his shirt. “Because this whole idea of the two of us being together…because of a proposition put forward by my father—upsets me, that’s why.”

Mitch knew the idea of dating—maybe even marrying—a woman he barely knew should have been disturbing to him, too. But now that he’d spent a little time with Lauren, it wasn’t. Not at all. “How come?” he asked.

“Because we’re talking about the possibility of us one day getting married as calmly and logically as if it was a business deal, and it’s not!” Lauren said emotionally, pushing him away.

“Maybe it should be,” Mitch murmured back, and found he was beginning to agree with Payton Heyward more and more. The only mystery was why he’d never noticed Lauren Heyward before and sought her out on his own.

Lauren took a deep, bolstering breath. She let her hands fall to her sides as she looked into his eyes and squared off with him. “I want children, Mitch.”

“I want them, too,” Mitch said sincerely. So there was no problem there. If the kisses they had just shared were any indication, there wouldn’t be a problem in the bedroom. The problem would be staying out of the bedroom.

Lauren pressed her right hand to her chest. “I want a marriage from the heart.”

So had Mitch—once. But he had learned the hard way not to look for a passionate love affair to give him happiness. He clamped his lips together. “Infatuation fades.”

Lauren narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what happened with you and Jeannette Wycliffe?”

Mitch sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Suffice it to say, we were two people who definitely never should have married.”

“But you did get married.”

Mitch nodded, reflecting soberly on what a gargantuan mistake that had been. “Because we let our hormones dictate our actions. When I marry again, it will be because I’ve thought it out thoroughly and rationally, and know it’s a sound alliance that will infinitely benefit us both.” That we’ll be good together both in and out of bed.

Lauren rolled her eyes and looked at him askance. “It doesn’t get any more romantic than that.”

“I’m not looking for the romantic—I’m looking for the practical. And you should be, too,” Mitch advised stoically. The way he saw it, a temporary liaison between them would be very advantageous. Should they prove compatible, in the bedroom and out, an eventual marriage would be even more beneficial to them both. But even if they didn’t get along all that well or share the same goals and ideals, there wasn’t much risk or cost to either of them in dating each other exclusively for a period of one week. He’d had business deals he’d worked months to achieve that had paid him far less in actual dividends than this merger would. And he wanted—needed—this merger. Both the Heyward and Deveraux shipping companies did.

“In fact,” Mitch continued sincerely, “I think you should be grateful to your father for setting this up.” He knew he was.

At that, Lauren just shook her head at Mitch and muttered something about him being about as romantic as a tree.

“What time are we supposed to do this again?” she asked with thinly veiled impatience.

“From 6:00 p.m. until midnight, every night, starting tonight,” Mitch replied over the staccato tapping of her foot against the wood floor.

“Fine.” Lauren sighed, doing nothing to mask her lack of enthusiasm for the evening ahead. She planted her hands on her hips. “Where do you want to meet?”

“I’ll pick you up at your place.” Mitch plucked his suit coat off the banister and headed for the door. “And you probably want to dress nicely,” he added.

“Why?” Lauren regarded him warily.

“We’re having dinner with my parents.”

AND LAUREN HAD THOUGHT her day, already as eventful as all get-out, couldn’t possibly get any worse. She held up a hand to stop Mitch’s flight and stepped into the open portal in front of him. “Whoa! Why bring them into this?”

Mitch stood, his jacket slung over his shoulder. “Because I already had plans to see them. I can’t cancel. My mom has been having a rough time.”

Lauren’s heart filled with empathy for Grace Deveraux. “I saw she had been fired from her job on Rise and Shine, America! How could they do that anyway? She was the best host they’ve ever had on that morning news show.”

Mitch nodded. “We all thought so, too, but apparently the network brass wanted to go with someone who would bring in younger viewers.”

“That’s crazy. You can’t teach experience.”

“Exactly.” Mitch continued out onto the front porch.

Silence fell between them as Lauren crossed the portal and shut the door behind her. “How is your mom?” she asked gently.

Abruptly, Mitch’s blue eyes became troubled. “We’re not sure. She seems fine on the surface, but…she has to be hurting at the way she was dismissed from her job. Anyway, we’re taking turns sort of circling the wagons and making sure she has plenty of moral support. Tonight is my night, and my father is joining us.”

That was interesting, considering Grace and Tom had been divorced for thirteen years. “Are the two of them thinking of getting back together?”

Mitch shrugged.

Even though he didn’t come right out and say so, Lauren could tell by the look on Mitch’s face that he wished they would.

“They’ve both been dating other people since the divorce,” he said.

“And now?”

“No one special, on either side, from what I can tell. But I don’t know a lot about their personal lives.” Mitch regarded Lauren casually. “What about your dad? Is he seeing anyone?”

“He hasn’t dated at all since my mom died eleven years ago. He says he already had the love of his life. Which makes it worse, you know,” Lauren related with a beleaguered sigh, “because the two of them had an arranged marriage. They didn’t know each other from Adam when the two of them got together.”

“But they fell in love.”

“Yes, they did. Although my mom and I always—always—came second to his business,” Lauren reflected with more bitterness than she would have liked.

Mitch looked at Lauren sternly. “Just because he cares about his company doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you.”

That just showed what little Mitch knew, Lauren thought. Her father never did anything that didn’t somehow positively impact his business. Hence, Payton’s trying to fix her up with the son of his fiercest business rival. Payton Heyward was always thinking ahead. Always trying to make more money. Or become more successful yet. And while Lauren applauded her dad’s ambition, she did not like the way he had—with Mitch’s help—tried to include her love life in Payton and Mitch’s plans for a merger between the Heyward-Deveraux shipping companies. But since this was the only way she was going to get the mansion she had wanted to refurbish for most of her adult life, Lauren knew she had to either bow out or cooperate. And for the sake of this lovely old home, she was going to cooperate—for a week anyway.

“So—” Lauren dug the toe of her shoe into the brick and mortar floor of the porch, then looked up at Mitch “—which one of us is going to tell my father we’re taking him up on his deal?”

“I’ll call him, if you’d like,” Mitch said.

Lauren nodded. Bad enough her father had won this round of machinations. She didn’t want to hear the victory in his voice when he realized it. Because although she had agreed to date Mitch Deveraux for one week—against her better judgment—there was absolutely no way she was marrying him, no matter how much her father wanted it, or how wonderfully Mitch kissed!

Chapter Three

“I thought you said you were bringing a date tonight,” Grace Deveraux said to Mitch as he walked into the family’s Charleston mansion several hours later.

Mitch looked at his mother. Thanks to her career as a television newswoman, she had one of the most widely recognizable faces in the entire country. She couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized, which was why she was currently staying with Tom Deveraux in the home they had shared before their divorce, some thirteen years ago. It was the only way she could get any privacy in the wake of her very public firing.