License to Love (20 page)

“Did you ask Michelle to marry you when she told you she was pregnant?” Jamie demanded. “Did you tell her you loved her and that you were happy she was carrying your child?”

Steve blanched. “No. I—I was shocked, Jamie. I never expected—”

“You are such a snake!” Jamie raged. She stood up and began to pace, too. “You aren’t careful and then you have the nerve to be shocked by the natural consequences! You didn’t say what that poor girl desperately needed to hear, and now you have the nerve to whine that she ran out on you.”

Jamie snatched a magazine from the nightstand, rolled it up and began whacking Steve with it. Matthew waved his chubby little arms and chimed in vociferously with his own baby syllables.

“Hey, what’s this? The latest sortie in Saraceni sibling warfare?” Rand Marshall, Jamie’s husband, entered the room and took in the scene at a glance. Baby Matthew crowed with delight at the sight of Rand and launched himself into his father’s arms. “Stop picking on poor Steve, Jamie,” Rand added drolly. “After all, he’s only twice your size.”

Jamie dropped the magazine but her dark eyes were glittering with emotion. “Oh, Rand, he’s really done it this time. He got a girl pregnant and rejected her and now he’s telling the family he intends to marry her when he doesn’t.” “But I do!” Steve exclaimed. “I really want to marry her. After I made the announcement to the family, I—I realized that I wanted it to be true. And having to defend myself to you totally convinced me, Jamie. I
want
to marry Michelle.”

“Do you love her?” Rand asked wryly.

“Yes.” Steve’s dark eyes were filled with pain. It was the first time he had admitted it, even to himself. If only Michelle had been around to hear it. “I love her. More than I wanted to. I never wanted to fall in love. But it happened and I want her forever. I’ll never be happy without her, I know that now.”

“Why don’t you tell her so?” suggested Rand.

“Only leave out all the I-never-wanted-to-love-you angst,” Jamie added. “Instead, say that you—”

“Honey, you don’t have to write a script for him,” Rand said amusedly. “When it comes to making a case for himself, your brother is in a class all his own.”

“Not this time.” Dispirited, Steve sat down in his old desk chair. “You see, there’s an additional complication. Michelle thinks I used her to obtain inside information for one of my clients about a bill her boss introduced.”

“Did you?” Jamie asked severely.

Steve winced. “No. I had some confidential inside information, but not from Michelle. I learned where the sites being considered for hazardous waste elimination centers by the committee were to be located and passed on the word to my client. They bought property in the proposed counties. When the bill passed, they were light there, as owners of the land.”

“So your clients got the contracts to build the centers, you got a nice fat bonus, but Michelle ended up pregnant, feeling used and abandoned.” Jamie shook hferbead. “There’s no easy way out of this one, brother dear.” Rather tentatively, she patted his arm. “For the first time in our lives, I actually feel sorry for you. And if you really love Michelle, I hope she’ll give you another chance to prove it.”

“I really do,” Steve said. The familiar steely glint of determination glittered in his dark eyes. “And she will. The next time I’m in Merlton, Michelle will be with me—as my wife.”

It was hot and muggy when Michelle pulled her car into the parking lot adjacent to her apartment building. The drive from Washington had taken longer than usual due to the heavy holiday weekend traffic and Burton and Squeaky, secure in their cat carriers, were not at all pleased with their temporary captivity. Michelle had to play the radio extra loud to drown out their incessant meowing complaints, and her ears were ringing as she climbed out of the car.

She was relieved to be home. Her holiday visit to Courtney and Connor had been a mistake. All weekend long, as she’d watched the newlyweds so deeply in love with each other, the weight of her own loneliness had grown to crushing proportions. The man she loved hadn’t loved her at all.

He’d used her, to obtain information about
hazardous waste elimination sites.
It was galling, it was heartbreaking—it was downright toxic! Fury momentarily supplanted her despair.

But only momentarily. Michelle’s thoughts rarely strayed from the new little life growing within her and soon shifted back to her pregnancy. This past weekend she’d been acutely aware of three-month-old Sarah and the constant care and attention that an infant required. Lucky little Sarah had two devoted parents to care for her, a stay-at-home mother and a hands-on daddy who willingly pitched in to help whenever he was home.

The family interaction had been wonderful as well as painful for Michelle to watch, underscoring the practicalities of her own predicament. Who was going to be there for
her
baby twenty-four hours a day? She would have to work full-time as there would be no husband to support them. And there would be no daddy to take over for a tired mother or to share the pleasures and the anxieties and all the little details of parenthood.

Michelle reached into the back seat to remove the cats from the car. She felt like crying. She’d been doing a lot of that lately, although only at night, alone in bed in the dark. She wasn’t ready to share her secret just yet, she wasn’t ready to admit that she’d been
Hooked!
just like those hapless, heartbroken women in Ashlinn’s proposed book.

“Let me get those for you.”

Michelle jumped at the sound. She recognized Steve’s voice, of course, without turning around. “Don’t bother,” she said coldly, hanging onto the handles of the cat carriers, one in each hand.

“I insist.” He reached for them, touching her in the process.

Michelle instantly set the carriers on the ground. His touch, impersonal and serviceable as it was, was too much for her to cope with. Grimacing, she reached for her suitcase.

“Leave it,” Steve ordered, picking up the cats. “I’ll come back for it.”

“No thank you. I can manage.” The bag wasn’t heavy and she easily lifted it. Her heart was pounding, her stomach as jumpy as a restless, caged cat, but she hid her anxiety behind a coolly impenetrable facade. Silently she headed into her apartment; Steve following close behind.

As tempting as it was, she couldn’t slam the door in his face, leaving him outside. He had her cats, guaranteeing him entry. Which was exactly what he’d planned, of course. Michelle scowled. Steve Saraceni always had a plan, one he would successfully implement to suit bis own ends. No one knew that better than she.

Once inside, Steve freed the cats, then stood watching her, his dark eyes sharp and intent. “I have a whole carload of gifts in my car for you,” he said at last. “I went to a mall while I was in Jersey and for the first time ever, I ended up buying more than my shop-aholic cousin Saran. I bought you perfume, candy, books, silk flowers, lingerie. Oh, and a life-size toy cat that looks so real Burt and Squeak will either try to fight it or adopt it. If I go down to my car to get the stuff, will you let me back inside?”

“No,” Michelle said succinctly, her blue eyes as icy as her tone.

“I figured you wouldn’t. That’s why I didn’t try.” He sat down on the sofa, stretching one arm along the back of it, lifting his right ankle to rest upon his left knee, casual and relaxed, as if he were settling down to watch some TV. Only his eyes, intense and piercing, belied his carefree mode.

For a while Michelle pretended he wasn’t there. She put food down for the cats, unpacked her bags and straightened up the already orderly living room. Finally the strain of his watchful presence was too much for her.

“You can leave anytime,” she said caustically. “The sooner the better.”

“I’m not leaving, Michelle.”

“Well, you certainly aren’t staying.”

“Yes,” Steve said calmly. “I am.”

“You can’t!” Michelle stared at him. It occurred to her that if he refused to leave, she had no means of forcibly evicting him from the premises. He was bigger and stronger than her in every way. She couldn’t physically pick him up and toss him out the door. Frustration roiled within her. “If you’re trying to infuriate me, you’re succeeding masterfully.” She clenched her teeth tightly. “I suppose there’s a reason you’re inflicting yourself on me. Say what it is and then get out!”

“I want to marry you,” Steve said bluntly.

Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that! She was unprepared, tired and vulnerable. Unexpected, unwelcome emotional tears filled her eyes. She tried to blink them away. “Just drop the euphemisms and say what you really mean for once. You don’t
want
to marry me, you feel obligated to make the offer. Well, don’t do me any favors, Steve. I don’t want to marry you, either.”

“Yes, you do,” Steve said calmly. “So let’s get married, Michelle. As soon as possible. If we apply for the license tomorrow, we can be married by the end of the week.”

He made it sound so easy, so logical. Michelle was incensed. “Don’t insult my intelligence! You’re the man who wouldn’t even attend my sister’s wedding with me and now I’m supposed to believe that you want to be
in
one with me? I know all about your aversion to marriage and commitment, remember? You told me countless times how much your freedom means to you.”

“That was when I was confusing narcissism with freedom,” Steve said. “I’m not, not anymore.”

“Where did you come up with
that?”

He shrugged sheepishly. “My sister Jamie. But she was right on target, I can see that now.”

“Well, I can’t. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to go to your office and tell you about—” Michelle swallowed “—that I’m pregnant, you never would’ve bothered to see me again. After all, I’d served my purpose to you. You found out where the committee voted to place the hazardous waste sites and relayed the news to your client. You got a big cash bonus for your efforts and you—”

“I intend to use that bonus as a down payment on a house for us. I’ve arranged for a realtor to take us around to look at places later in the week. ’ ’

Michelle was outraged. “When it comes to—to sheer audacity and tenacity, you have no equal! I don’t know why you’re even going through this charade. You don’t care about me!”

“Yes, I do.” Steve stood up. “And I’ll prove it to you. I can refute your arguments point by point. First—”

“Stop trying to lobby me!”

“I’m not lobbying you, I’m trying to tell you that I love you! ” His voice rose. His first proposal and he was botching it. His lobbying skills suggested backing off and trying a new angle, but he wasn’t a lobbyist now, he was a man in love.

Passionately, Steve forged ahead. “Michelle, you were
not
stupid to tell me you’re pregnant. But even if you hadn’t come to my office last week, I would’ve found out anyway because I certainly intended to see you again. I would’ve called you, sweetheart. I missed you and—”

“If this wasn’t so nauseating, it would be hilarious,” Michelle cut in crossly. “Steven Saraceni’s revisionist relationship history—conveniently ignore the facts and make up new ones. The truth is that you hadn’t called me for two and a half weeks after our fight. It was definitely all over between us.”

“It wasn’t over, although that was the worst fight we’d ever had. Actually, it was our only serious quarrel, which certainly proves how strong our compatibility quotient really is. But think back to that fight, Michelle. You accused me of using you to gain information. You said I deliberately sought you out because of your position on the committee, that I was a back-stabbing double-crosser because I took advantage of your feelings for me to use for my own political gains. You didn’t believe me when I denied it, you’d already tried, judged and found me guilty. I was furious, Michelle. I was also hurt that you had so little faith or trust in me. I—” Steve cleared his throat and looked at the floor. “I kept expecting you to call me to apologize.”

“Me
apologize to
you?”
she echoed incredulously.

He nodded. “I respected everything you ever told me as a confidence between us, Michelle. I never used you. But you wouldn’t believe me.”

She folded her arms in front of her chest and glared at him. “I still don’t believe you. I remember how quick you were to use the information I gave you about Ed’s basketball career way back in January. You spotted me as a... a source and cultivated our relationship and I was naive enough to trust you and confide in you. But it’s my fault, too. I should have known it would end badly. I received a chain letter the day I met you, promising doom and destruction if I broke the chain. Well, I did break it, and look what happened to me.
You!”

“Michelle, the day we met was the luckiest day of my life, and these past months have been the happiest. You fell in love with me and I.. .fell in love with you, too.” He walked toward her. “I want you and I want our baby, sweetheart.” The closer he came, the faster Michelle’s bravado faded. He held out his hand to her and she refused it, backing away from him. “Don’t touch me! And stop lying to me! You don’t love me and you never have. You saw my love as a weakness and since you’re a man who exploits other people’s weaknesses, you used me and my love for you. You used me politically and sexually and when you were finished with me, you were perfectly content to end it between us.”

Her temples were beginning to throb from the tension and she rubbed them with her fingertips. “But you must’ve had second thoughts about my pregnancy,” she continued grimly. “Enough people have seen us together these past months to connect you with this baby I’m having and you’ve decided that the politically correct thing to do is to marry me and avoid gossip.

“Well, that’s not enough for me, Steve.” Her voice rose, straining with emotion. “I’ve been in this situation before, you know, twenty-five years ago when / was the baby who caused two people to live unhappily in a miserable marriage. I won’t put my child in that position. And I won’t make someone else a prisoner in a marriage he doesn’t want.” To her horror, she nearly burst into tears.