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“Workplace romances are inherently plagued with problems,” her cousin warned.
“There’s no romance.”
“Obviously something happened to make you forget your dress,” Ashley pointed out.
“He asked me to help him pick out a birthday gift.”
“Not for another woman?” Paige demanded.
Megan shook her head. “For his niece.”
“Oh.” Her sister smiled. “That’s sweet.”
It was kind of sweet. And after Megan had gotten over the nervousness evoked by Gage’s mere presence, she’d been impressed to realize that he really did care about finding a gift the little girl would like.
“So we went to the toy store, and I must have put the dress down—”
“And picked up stars in your eyes,” Paige interjected.
Megan shook her head. “I have no illusions.”
Ashley frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“He’s just not the type of man who would ever notice a woman like me.”
“Define a woman like you,” Paige demanded.
Megan loved that her cousin and her sister were so quick to defend her, but family loyalty didn’t allow either of them to see her as clearly as she saw herself. She wasn’t beautiful or sexy or charismatic, qualities that both Paige and Ashley had in spades. She was the girl next door, the reliable friend, the neighborhood pal. And that was why she and Gage Richmond would never be anything more than colleagues and possibly friends.
“I only meant—”
The doorbell chimed, sounding a reprieve.
“That will be Mom,” she said, pushing her chair away from the table.
“Mom doesn’t ring the doorbell,”Ashley reminded her.
When Megan opened the door, her sister’s statement was confirmed. It wasn’t Lillian Roarke on the doorstep. It was Gage Richmond.
“I called Lois Edmond in H.R. to find out where you lived,” he told her.
“Why?” Megan asked, too stunned by his unexpected appearance to think of anything else to say.
“Because you forgot this—” he held up the bag from Chaundra’s Boutique”—in the toy store, and I didn’t know if it was something you needed tonight.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. But thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Before Megan could say anything else, she heard footsteps in the hall and knew that curiosity had drawn her sister and her cousin to the door to check out their visitor.
“Hi, I’m Ashley,” she said. “Megan’s sister.”
“I would have guessed that,” he said.
“Really?” Ashley said, while Megan resisted the urge to snort her disbelief. No one who didn’t already know they were related had ever commented on a resemblance between the sisters.
“You have the same eyes,” he explained, an observation that made Megan rethink her own opinion of Gage Richmond.
While people frequently commented on Ashley’s unusual eyes, they rarely took note of Megan’s, hidden behind her glasses. Maybe he wasn’t quite as shallow and self-absorbed as he was painted by his reputation.
“Handsome and observant,” Paige noted with approval.
Megan found herself wishing for an earthquake again. Hadn’t she embarrassed herself in front of the boss’s son enough already without her sister and cousin adding to her humiliation?
“My cousin Paige,” Megan told him, reluctantly making the introduction.
“And you are?” Ashley prompted the man on the doorstep.
“Would you believe the deliveryman from the boutique?” Megan suggested before Gage could reply.
“No,” her sister replied flatly, not taking her eyes off of Gage.
Not that Megan could blame her for that.
“Gage Richmond,” he said, and offered one of his infamous heart-stopping smiles.
“Thanks for bringing the bag,” Megan said, silently urging him along before her well-intentioned but misguided family members could say or do anything to embarrass her further. After all, she didn’t need their help when she’d already done a fine job of that entirely on her own.
“Yes, thank you,” Ashley said. “Since the dress is for my engagement party, I very much appreciate that you returned it to Megan.”
“It was my pleasure,” Gage said. “And bringing it by gave me another chance to thank your sister for her help with my shopping.”
“Handsome, observant, considerate and appreciative,” Paige amended, with a nod of approval. “Why don’t you come in for a glass of wine so we can chat some more?”
“I’m sure Gage has somewhere else that he needs to be,” Megan interrupted quickly, desperately.
She caught the gleam of amusement in his eyes and suspected that he was considering Paige’s invitation, if only because he knew she didn’t want him to. But when he finally spoke, it was to say, “As a matter of fact, I should be getting home. I have some birthday presents to wrap.”
“Another time?” Paige said.
“Thank you again.” Megan spoke clearly, determined to take control of the situation—and the flutters in her tummy.
Gage nodded, accepting the dismissal, before turning his attention to the two women hovering in the doorway behind her. “It was nice meeting you both.”
“You, too,” they chorused, leaning closer to watch him walk down the driveway.
Though Megan was probably even more reluctant to tear her gaze from his retreating form, she firmly closed the door and turned back toward the kitchen.
Paige raised her brows. “Now I understand why you forgot the dress.”
Megan held the bag aloft, eager to talk about anything but Gage Richmond. “Didn’t you say you wanted to see this?”
“Later.” Ashley took it from her and hung it in the closet. “Right now, I want to hear more about Mr. Tall, Dark and Yummy.”
“There’s nothing more to tell,” Megan insisted, turning back toward the kitchen as the door opened behind her again.
As Ashley had noted when the bell rang earlier, their mother wasn’t the type to observe such formalities at their home.
“Who was that just leaving?” Lillian Roarke asked in lieu of a greeting.
Before Megan could reply, Paige said, “That was Megan’s new boyfriend.”
Gage was wrapping Lucy’s presents—or at least stuffing them into decorative bags with tissue—when Allan Richmond stopped by on his way home after a late meeting. He’d seen his dad at work earlier and would be seeing him again at Lucy’s birthday party the next day, so Gage guessed there was a specific reason for this visit now, even if he couldn’t figure out what that might be.
He offered his father a beer and a microwaved meal. Allan took the drink but declined the frozen lasagna.
“Grace is holding dinner for me,” he explained.
“Must be nice to go home to a hot meal,” Gage said, shoving the box back into the freezer.
“It’s even nicer to have someone to go home to.”
“Is that the real reason you stopped by—to extol the virtues of married life?”
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time—nor the last. Though Gage couldn’t remember exactly when his parents had become so interested in his marital status, he thought it was some time after his brother and sister-in-law had announced—after the birth of their fourth child—that they weren’t planning on having any more. Grace absolutely doted on her grandbabies and had apparently turned her attention to her younger son in the hope that he would settle down and add to the clan.
Actually, Craig and Gage were Grace’s stepsons, but she had always been more of a mother to the boys than the woman who had given birth to them. As a result, there wasn’t anything Gage wouldn’t do for Grace—except marry and have children.
“No,” his father responded to his question. “I stopped by to tell you that Dean Garrison is planning to retire at the end of the summer.”
The announcement wasn’t really news to Gage. Garrison, the current vice president of Clinical Science, had been talking about retirement for a few years now.
“You’re one of several candidates whose name has been put forward to fill the position.”
“One of several?” Gage echoed, unable to hide his surprise.
Though no explicit promises had ever been made, he’d always believed that the job would be his when Garrison retired. It was all he’d ever wanted, everything he’d worked toward.
“I want to give you the job,” Allan told him.
“But?”
“But the fact that your name is Richmond isn’t justification enough. You need to prove that you’re V.P. material.”
“Hasn’t my work over the past half dozen years proven it already?”
“Your work has been exemplary. It’s your reputation outside of work that has led some of our more conservative board members to question your maturity and commitment.”
“My reputation outside of work?” he found himself echoing his father’s words again.
“Your inability to commit to a relationship,” Allan clarified. “Moving from one relationship to another, from one woman to another, could give the impression that you’re shortsighted—unable or unwilling to focus on the long-term.
“Face it, Gage. You’ve earned yourself quite the reputation as a playboy and that’s not the image we want for our executives at Richmond Pharmaceuticals. Until you settle down, I can’t—and I won’t—go to bat for you with the board.”
“I used to date a lot of different women,” he acknowledged. “But I haven’t been dating at all in the past few months.”
“Why is that?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
His father finished his beer and set the empty bottle down. “Maybe that’s true.”
“What else could it be?”
“Do you really want to know what I think?”
Gage wasn’t sure, but he nodded anyway.
“I think—I hope—you might finally have realized that you’ve been wasting your time with women who are completely wrong for you.”
“That’s assuming there’s a woman out there somewhere who’s right for me.”
“There is,” Allan said with certainty. “And when you find her, you’ll know it.”
Gage wasn’t convinced. He also wasn’t looking for any “right” woman. He liked being able to come and go as he pleased, not being accountable to anyone but himself. He was happy with his life—or he would be, as soon as he was in the V.P. office.
And now he had a specific timeline to focus his efforts: six months. He’d been given half a year to prove to his father and the rest of the board of directors at Richmond Pharmaceuticals that he was mature and responsible—like his brother, Craig.
Allan Richmond might not have mentioned his older son’s name out loud, but the comparison was implied. Gage had always been measured against his brother, and he’d always come up short. The fact that Craig was already a V.P. and Gage was not was proof of that.
But what else did Craig have that Gage didn’t?
A wife and four kids.
He frowned at the answer that immediately sprang to mind, because he had no intention of following his brother’s footsteps down the matrimonial path. He didn’t want to get married. He didn’t want to settle down. Maybe a wife and family was the American dream for a lot of men, but to him, it was a nightmare.
As a child caught in the middle of a nasty custody battle between his parents, he’d learned early on to protect himself. He put up safeguards around his heart so that every time he moved from his father’s house to his mother’s and back again, it hurt a little less. When his mother left for the last time, he almost didn’t care.
And he hadn’t let himself love another woman since. Not the head-over-heels type of love, anyway. Maybe he’d come close a couple of times, but he’d always pulled back before he got in too deep. Even with Beth, his only serious long-term girlfriend and the only woman he’d even believed himself to be in love with, he’d been the one to leave rather than be left behind.
And thankfully he’d been mistaken about the whole love thing, which he proved by putting Beth out of his mind and concentrating on his career. And any woman who claimed he didn’t know the meaning of commitment didn’t understand him at all, because he was already committed to his job. And now he had a new focus—to ensure that the V.P. office would be his by the end of the summer.
It was almost ten o’clock before Lillian Roarke was finally satisfied that all the necessary details for the engagement party had been taken care of and said good-night to her daughters and niece. Ashley went to her room to call her fiancé and update him on the plans, and Megan turned to Paige and demanded, “What have you done?”
Her cousin didn’t feign ignorance or apology. “I got your mother off your back for one night,” she said.
“But now she thinks I have a boyfriend, which she interpreted to mean a date for Ashley’s engagement party.”
