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He looked up almost hopefully, expecting the waitress. Perhaps Henry’s granddaughter had at least called the tavern and sent him a message to say she wasn’t coming. It would be the decent thing to do, instead of leaving him dangling. It wasn’t as if he was to blame for her grandfather’s crazy ideas, after all.
But the woman who stood beside the booth wasn’t wearing the tavern’s uniform. She was dressed in a dark green suit that hugged her in all the right spots, and a string of perfectly matched pearls peeked out from inside the high collar of her jacket, right at the base of her throat. She was small-boned and petite. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes as green as the suit and fringed with the darkest lashes he’d ever seen, and her pure-black hair was drawn back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck.
“My grandfather sent me,” she said.
David felt as if someone had plunged a very sharp, very thin knife into the sensitive spot just beneath his ribs. He didn’t know what he’d expected Henry Birmingham’s granddaughter to be like—in fact, he’d had no expectations, for he hadn’t given the matter an instant’s conscious thought. He only knew that this woman wasn’t anything like he would have anticipated. This woman would turn heads in a morgue.
She said, “He suggested we chat over lunch.”
David scrambled to get to his feet, belatedly trying to at least look like a gentleman. “You’re…Eve,” he said, and felt as foolish as he must have sounded.
“Yes. Eve Birmingham.” Her gaze was as direct and intent as Henry’s, her eyes as bright and searching. But her face was curiously still. “May I?” Without waiting for an answer, she slid into the seat across from him.
David was glad he could sit down again himself, for his knees had gone a little weak. He had never dreamed she would actually come…
Just because she’s here doesn’t mean she’s agreeable, he reminded himself. She might just be too polite to leave me stranded. Or maybe she doesn’t even suspect what Henry’s got in mind.
Eve asked the waitress to bring her a pot of tea, and David used the interval to collect himself.
“I understand you and Henry have had a heart-to-heart talk,” she said as she filled her cup.
“He had some interesting proposals,” David said, and caught himself. Bad choice of words, Elliot. “I mean…Look, I don’t know if he’s told you what this is all about.”
Eve set the teapot down. “Henry keeps very few secrets from me.”
“This may be one of them.”
“I’ve known for quite a while that he was thinking about retiring, and that he didn’t want to sell the business and take the chance that it would become something less than what he’s worked so hard to maintain. He told me some time ago that he was looking for a young designer, an artisan who shared his vision of what jewelry could be, to carry on for him.”
“What about you?” David didn’t realize until the words were out that the question had been nagging at him ever since Henry had made his crazy offer. “Don’t you want the job?”
Eve shrugged. “I know good design when I see it, but I could no more produce it myself than I can fly to the moon. Those genes passed me by.”
“You sound very calm about it.”
“I’ve had years to come to terms with the idea that my talents run in other directions. So has Henry, as a matter of fact—he realized long since that I wasn’t able to be quite what he needed.”
“But you must have feelings about him bringing a stranger in.”
“Of course I do. As a matter of fact, I’m very involved in the business—I manage the staff, I handle customer service, I watch the bottom line. But I have to agree with Henry. Much as it would hurt me to close down Birmingham on State, I’d rather see that happen than have it be merged into one of the companies that mass produces jewelry for the lowest common denominator.” She looked at him across her teacup. “If he thinks you’re the right man, then I’m quite happy to endorse his choice.”
David rubbed his knuckles against his jaw. “If you’re serious about that, then he can’t have told you his whole plan.” He poured himself more coffee. He’d had too much already, he knew. His nerves were jangling. On the other hand, that would probably be happening even if he hadn’t consumed any caffeine at all.
Her voice was calm. “If you’re asking whether he’s confided in me that he wants me to marry his chosen successor—”
David dropped his spoon. “You know about that, too?”
The look she gave him was almost sad. “I did tell you that he keeps very few things from me.”
“You can say that again. You must think it’s a little medieval of him.”
She looked as if she was thinking it over. “He has his reasons,” she said finally. “His own marriage was arranged by his family, and it was successful—so of course the idea occurred to him when he began thinking of the future of Birmingham on State. Legal partnerships have their shortcomings, while a marriage would be safer for the business. A stranger who marries into the family isn’t a stranger anymore. I couldn’t toss you out on your ear if you displeased me, but you couldn’t take over the firm and cut me out, either.”
“He obviously hasn’t heard about this thing called divorce.”
“He sees no reason why a marriage which is arranged to achieve good and sensible goals, and entered into with both parties’ full knowledge and agreement, should ever dissolve. And I must say I agree.”
“My God, you don’t only look like the ice queen, you’re frozen all the way through.”
The words were out before he’d stopped to think, and for an instant he thought he saw the glint of tears in Eve’s eyes before she looked away. Regret surged through him. It wasn’t like him to be carelessly rude.
But before he could speak, she’d faced him again, and her gaze was resolute. “Of course, you should also understand that Henry is looking to the future of Birmingham on State. Beyond his lifetime—but also beyond yours and mine. A legal partnership can’t create an heir for the business, but a marriage could.”
The woman was obviously serious. Along with being crazy as a loon, he thought. He set his cup down with a click. “And you still don’t think he’s a little twisted?”
Eve’s voice was cool. “I think that what Henry doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“In other words,” David said slowly, “whatever Henry has in mind, you’re planning on a marriage in name only.”
She nodded.
“Why?”
Her composure seemed to slip. “You mean why don’t I want to…to—”
“No, I’m not asking why you don’t want to sleep with me. I want to know why you’d settle for a marriage that isn’t a marriage.”
Her fingers tightened on her cup till her knuckles were white. But her voice was once more steady. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. Let’s just say that I have my reasons for wanting the protection of a wedding ring, without emotional entanglements.”
You poor deluded darling, he thought. To think that a ring will keep men from hitting on you, the way you look…Of course, once a man actually got close enough to realize that underneath the gorgeous, intriguing exterior lay the soul of a glacier, he probably wouldn’t come back for more. But there would always be another man in line…
Then her words echoed oddly through his mind. I have my reasons for wanting the protection of a wedding ring.
“I think I see,” he said gently. “You may as well tell me, Eve. Do you know that you’re pregnant or are you just afraid you might be?”
She drew in a sharp breath and for a moment he thought she was going to throw her teacup at him. He watched with fascination as the color rose in her cheeks, as she fought for and regained self-control. So she wasn’t quite as chilly as she’d seemed; the glacier appeared to have a crack or two.
“Neither,” she snapped.
“That’s good. I’ve never given much thought to the idea of raising kids, but I guess if I was stuck with a couple of rug rats I’d rather they be mine.”
He could almost hear the tinkle of ice in her voice. “You certainly won’t have to worry about rug rats.”
“You’re pretty certain I’m going to agree to this crazy plan.”
“It would be very foolish of you to walk away. To be Henry Birmingham’s hand-picked successor is a solid-gold opportunity.”
“I wonder what he’d do if I turned him down,” David mused.
Eve shrugged. “Probably work his way on through his list.”
“What list?” He recalled a comment Henry had made almost carelessly. At the time David had been too flattered by the idea that the king of jewelry design had noticed him at all to pay much attention to the details. But suddenly he remembered the remark all too well. Henry hadn’t just told David he was talented. He’d said something about him being one of the three best young designers in the country. So Henry had a list of three…at least.
Eve’s gaze flicked over him. “Don’t take it personally. You can’t think you’re the only gifted young man in the country. Or that Henry would gamble the future of his business on the first man who seemed to meet his specifications, without looking any further.”
“How far down his list was I?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Her voice was calm and level.
“I see. That’s one of the few things he didn’t share with you.”
“Quite right. If it makes you feel any better, you’re the first one he’s asked me to meet.”
So if there had been others higher on Henry’s list, they hadn’t passed all the hidden tests along the way. “That’s a relief. I think.”
“Anyway, now that he’s made the offer, it doesn’t matter where you ranked. Any designer with sense wouldn’t worry about how his number happened to come up, he’d gladly give an arm for this opportunity.”
“Actually,” David mused, “you’re wrong about that. Henry isn’t asking for an arm—just a rib.”
She fidgeted with her teacup, turning it ’round and ’round on the saucer. “As far as that goes,” she said. Her voice was different, almost hesitant, and he was intrigued. “I don’t expect there would be much contact, really. We’d have to share a house, I suppose.”
“I think Henry would notice if we were living in separate suburbs, yes.”
“But I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t be civil about it.”
“Roommates,” he said thoughtfully.
“If you want to put it that way. And what he’s asking is nothing, really, weighed against Birmingham on State.”
It all came back to the business, David knew. Eve was absolutely right. Henry Birmingham’s offer presented a chance he could never have achieved on his own. It was an opportunity he could not refuse, whatever the cost—because to turn it down would be to sacrifice his dreams and throw away his talent. There would never be another opening like this.
He looked across the table at her and felt his future shift—as if he had slid into some kind of time warp—and settle into a new pattern. A pattern that included Birmingham on State. And Eve.
“Let’s have lunch,” he said, “and plan a wedding.”
Not that there was much to plan as far as the wedding went, and Eve thought it best to make that clear from the beginning. “I don’t intend to play silly games,” she said. “There will be no white satin beaded with pearls, no train-bearers, no morning suits and spats, no orange blossoms, and no—”
“No illusion.”
She looked at him sharply, studying him for the first time. He was good-looking enough, though perhaps his face was just a little too roughly cut to be considered exactly handsome. He had ordinary brown hair and anything-but-ordinary brown eyes, flecked with gold and surrounded by long, curly lashes. And the air of self-confidence he projected gave him a certain presence.
“Isn’t that what they call the stuff they make veils out of? Illusion?” He sounded quite innocent, but there was more of an Atlanta drawl in his voice than Eve had detected before. “I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.”
No illusions…. That was what he’d meant, of course. But since it was exactly what she’d been getting at, Eve could hardly take offense. “None. Also no bridesmaids, no wedding cake in little decorated boxes for guests to take home, no romantic first waltz, no garter to remove and throw to the bachelors in the crowd—”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me,” he said.
It obviously hadn’t been a question, but Eve thought she saw puzzlement as well as a tinge of relief in his eyes. The puzzlement annoyed her just a little. Did he really believe that the height of every young woman’s ambition was an elaborate wedding ceremony, no matter what circumstances lay behind the marriage?
The relief he displayed, however, she had no trouble understanding. She didn’t doubt that if she insisted he would have agreed to the most formal wedding ever organized —even if he’d had to grit his teeth and get half smashed to make it through the ceremony—for no price would be too high in return for what he was getting. A wedding was only one day. Birmingham on State would be forever.
But Eve was glad that she’d thought it all through ahead of time and made her decision. Their reasons for marrying were perfectly good ones, but the world would never understand them. And standing in front of an altar, making solemn religious vows and pretending starry-eyed love—or even fondness—that they didn’t feel, would be sheer hypocrisy. Far better to have a low key and private civil ceremony, and let the world think what it liked.
“And, of course, no guest lists of thousands,” she finished. “So if your mother is the managing type who’ll be disappointed that she isn’t the general in charge of an extravaganza, you can tell her from me that it isn’t going to happen.”
“She died when I was eighteen,” David said quietly.
Eve caught her breath with a painful gulp. “I’m sorry. I let myself get carried away, and I never stopped to think…”
“You couldn’t have known.” He toyed with a bread stick. “You didn’t mention a ring in that catalog of traditions you don’t plan to indulge in.” He was looking appraisingly at her left hand, which was lying cupped on the red-checked tablecloth.
She looked down at her bare fingers and summoned all her self-control to keep from moving her hand out of sight. “If you’re already turning over designs in your head for some stunning engagement ring, don’t bother.”
He frowned. “You don’t want a ring? Henry Birmingham’s granddaughter not wear an engagement ring? Besides, it’s what I do, Eve. People would expect—” He stopped suddenly.
“Exactly. And while you were creating it you’d be thinking not of what I liked or wanted, because you don’t even know that. You’d be thinking of the impression it would make on the people who saw it. Thanks, but I’d just as soon not be a walking billboard.”
“Dammit, Eve, you’re making some pretty big assumptions here—such as concluding that I wouldn’t even ask what you’d like to wear.”
“You want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you. I want a platinum band.”
“Much better for your coloring than gold. What about a stone? A diamond, or would you rather have color?”
“Just a band. A plain platinum band. No diamond, no decoration.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and then he said, sounding grim, “Purely utilitarian. Just like the marriage. I’m beginning to get the picture.”
“Good,” she said. “Because then we understand each other.” And, with her hand shaking only a very little, she picked up her cup and sipped her lukewarm tea.
CHAPTER TWO
EVE arrived at the airport a full hour before David’s plane was due to land.
A whole hour to kill, she thought as she settled into the area set aside for greeting incoming passengers. It was just a good thing David would never know how early she was. He might conclude that she’d been in a rush because she was anxious to see him, when the truth was that she had merely been escaping from Henry—and spending an hour in a lounge at O’Hare was a small price to pay if it meant she didn’t have to deal with her grandfather for a while.
The fifth time this afternoon that Henry had put his head into her office to ask if she’d heard from David yet today, Eve had lost her temper. “He’s a grown man, Henry. He can get himself onto a plane without directions from me. I’ve ordered a limo to meet him at O’Hare, and the driver has full instructions to take him to the hotel so he can drop off his luggage, then bring him to the store. What else do you want?”
“That just doesn’t seem very friendly, somehow,” Henry said. “I mean, the boy’s making a big change by coming out here. Giving up a lot.”
“I’m sure he feels quite comfortable about the sacrifice he’s making.” Eve didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“We want him to feel good about the decision.”
“That’s why I called the limo service instead of suggesting the hotel shuttle or a cab. If you don’t think that’s enough, why don’t you go meet him?”
“Well, I could, I suppose. But what about you? It’s been a whole month since you’ve seen him, Eve. Greeting him here on the sales floor—in front of the staff and all—just doesn’t seem right.”
“You needn’t worry about a public display of affection embarrassing the staff.” Eve shuffled papers and bent her head over her desk once more.
