The Millionaire's Proposition

“No, sir, not yet,” the voice crackled back at him.

“Well, buzz me as soon as you find out anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Where was that girl? How could she have just vanished like that?

“And women, too,” Baxter raved on. “You do it with women. You most certainly do.”

“I can’t help it. I happen to like women.” He sat back in his chair, glanced at Baxter and smiled. “That kind of thing is genetic, they say.”

Baxter didn’t even crack a smile.

Clark didn’t care. His mind was elsewhere—with that girl. He could still see the look of stupefied innocence and outrage in her sparkling eyes, the tinge of red flushed over her peaches-and-cream complexion.

He glanced down at the charm. A baby bootie. A token representing her own child? He thought not. No woman who had become someone’s mother would allow herself to get so easily flustered by a seductive wordplay and a predatory glance by a stranger.

Besides, a mother who’d lost a sentimental token like that would have waited there by the elevators for him to bring it back to her. He’d tried, gotten off at the next floor and come back down, but she’d already taken off. Maybe it didn’t mean as much to her as she wanted him to think. Maybe she’d expected him to offer a large remittance for damage to the trinket and when he did not offer that instantly...

“You’ve got it all figured out with women, too.” Baxter created a flourish with his hand. “You lavish the women in your life with gifts and take them on luxurious trips and pamper and spoil them—”

“The poor dears, and I practically have to force them to accept.”

“And when it’s all over, do they want to scratch your eyes out? Write tell-all books about their horrific experiences? Slap you with palimony lawsuits?”

Clark started to push the intercom button again, then curled his fingers into a fist. Someone had to have seen that girl. Her appearance alone drew enough attention to her to insure that, and the scene she’d made, not to mention her last threat to him...

“No, any woman you’ve tangled with always wants to stay friends. They actually still like you even after you’ve treated them like goddesses and given them their every desire!”

“Imagine that. They must be deluded.”

“Yes, they are, and the sad fact is they don’t even know it.”

“If you were deluded and you knew it, you wouldn’t exactly be deluded, not in the strictest sense, would you?”

“They think they’re happy!”

“But they’re not?”

“No! How could they be? They’ve all been run through the Clark Winstead patented self-integrity shredder.”

Clark frowned. “Which one of my companies makes that one?”

“Make fun if you want. But I’m telling you the truth. Look out this window.” Baxter swiveled Clark’s chair around so that he had a view of the street below. “Any other person would look at all those people there and see the pride and accomplishments, boredom and despair, the little joys and deep-seated depressions that are all part of the human condition.”

Clark gazed at the smudges of color through the rain-speckled glass. She was out there, somewhere. A wounded kitten who thought her claws made her a tiger. How was he going to find her?

“But does Clark Winstead see those things? No, he does not!”

Clark scanned the bustling crowd, wondering if he might be able to pick her out from this distance.

“Clark Winstead sees every human being with a price tag on them.” Baxter straightened up, his neck lengthened, his chin up. He gave his head a shake like a rooster getting ready to crow. “And if he likes what he sees, he has no problem meeting that price to get his way.”

Clark blinked, then twisted his head toward his friend. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that all of us, every employee who takes a frivolous bonus or accepts a bigger salary than they earnestly merit, every woman wearing a piece of jewelry given by you—and not a one of them a wedding or engagement ring in all your thirty-nine years, I might add—”

“The first few of those thirty-nine years they had to settle for candy necklaces, I’m afraid.”

“Every charity that names a Clark Winstead scholarship winner or dedicates a Clark Winstead memorial wing,” Baxter went on with dogged determination to finish, “every friend who takes a handout and company that gets treated to one of your affable takeovers, we’re all walking around with your flag blazing over us—planted right square in our backs—like the proverbial dagger.”

“I’ll have to see if our insurance covers that kind of thing.”

“We all know, deep down, that you’ve got us. We’re bought and paid for and we owe you. As much as we like you, we do owe you. We’ve sold out, and no man—or woman—can be truly happy knowing that about themselves.”

Clark considered that a moment.

“That’s why I think you’ve never married, my friend.”

“I’ve never married—I never intend to marry—because I do not personally believe in the institution. I saw how it destroyed my parents and I want no part of it.” He started to turn his attention back toward the window.

“Had!”

Clark gawked at Baxter.

“You’ve never married, Clark Winstead, ol’ pal, because you know what I just said is true. You know that you could have any woman you want, but you don’t want any woman you could have because in your heart you’d know it was just another sellout. Ironical, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“That good ol’ Clark Winstead is trapped in the same illusion as he’s created for the rest of us. He thinks he’s happy, but because of who he is and what he’s got, he can’t be—”

“Then I’m content in my anguish,” he lied, feeling all but content in his impotence at finding this girl with the wayward charm.

“Ha!”

“What is your point, Baxter? What?” he finally snapped. Baxter had it all wrong about him. He really did bear the scars of a terrible childhood. Watching his parents squabble and then drag him into the middle of the fray made him vow that he would never go through that again. Most of all, he would never put another child through it. To hear his hidden pain made light of on top of the incident with the girl did not put him in a sterling mood. “listening to you, a person might think I’m some kind of devil.”

“Worse.”

“Worse than a devil?”

“Yes, much worse because you’re not just a devil...”

Suddenly, a splash of blue and pink out the window caught his eye, then the outline of an umbrella shaped like a squatty teapot. Her! She was standing there on the street corner, her head bent over her cupped palm.

“...you, Clark Winstead, are the worst kind of devil. You are a decent man.”

“Hold that thought, will you?” Clark stood so fast his chair spun halfway around and slammed against his leg. In two long strides he was at his office door.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Clark grinned and gave the door a mighty push. “Off to corrupt another soul.”

Chapter Two

“Twenty-five, thirty-five, thirty-six...forty-six...” Becky flicked her fingernail through the change in her hand and muttered, “Give me back my charm, that’s what I should have said.”

The wind plastered her thin coat against her back. The umbrella that balanced over her shoulder rustled in the wind. Rain from the flapping awning overhead splashed the back of her neck and made her shiver. She lifted her head, suddenly on alert. People hurried past her as if she did not exist.

In the past five months, she’d grown accustomed to that feeling. But even after that amount of time on her own in the city, she could not accept getting stepped on or having something of hers so blithely whisked away.

That arrogant jerk’s attitude still galled her and if he were here right now she’d probably... The image of him, this virile suit-and-tie man with a supercharged aura of confidence, to-die-for eyes and a quick, wicked grin, filled her mind.

She’d probably stare at him like the big, uncultured goof that she knew in her heart she was, she thought. Her shoulders slumped forward. Maybe her brother had the right idea. Maybe she should go back to Woodbridge, marry a guy like Frankie McWurter and have a bunch of bucktoothed kids with big ears who all looked like their hairy-backed, knuckle-dragging father.

Becky shuddered at her own meanness toward poor ol’ Frankie and at the prospect of marriage to a small-town Lothario. On the other hand, she thought, maybe she’d stay in the city and give finding a job another shot. After all, after a day like today, how much worse could it get?

She inched in farther under the awning, closed her umbrella and propped it against her shin. She narrowed her gaze again over her cluster of coins. “Forty-six plus another twenty-five, that’s—”

Kaching.

“Seventy-one,” a deep masculine voice intoned.

“My missing charm,” she whispered, raising her gaze from the slightly mangled baby bootie to the man who had just dropped it into her palm.

“No, it’s my charm that’s been amiss today.”

Her heart did a little kaching of its own, skipping out an erratic rhythm at this first slow, enthralling look into that man’s eyes up close. “You? You!”

“Me. Me.”

“I looked all over for you in there.” She pointed lamely to the building across the way. “Even got in the very next elevator to try to catch up with you.”

“And I got on the very next one coming down.”

“You did?”

“Of course, what did you think? That I’d tromp on your trinket and then not see that you got it back?”

She had thought exactly that. “Um, no, I—”

“I’m surprised our paths didn’t cross in the building, though. I came right back and looked around for you, but you seemed to have disappeared without a trace. Instead of wasting too much time trying to seek you out, I went up to my office and had my secretary start an all-points search for you.”

“Y-you did?” Wow, she thought, her and her little charm had caused all that?

“I did indeed. She didn’t have any luck, either. Why was that? Did you take the stairs coming back down?”

“No.” She lifted her face and inhaled the smell of rain and exhaust from the street mixed with just a hint of masculine cologne from his expensive overcoat. “I, um, I had no idea where you were headed, so I, kind of, well, I...I pressed every button in the elevator, and when the doors opened, I stuck my head out to see if there was any sign of you.”

“I’m sure that made you very popular with the elevator crowd.”

“Well, when you look slightly unbalanced, people don’t tend to voice their complaints.” She held out her arms a bit, offering herself as evidence.

He took a long, leisurely look at her, not the least bit hesitant in showing how his gaze traveled from the tips of her waterlogged shoes to the top of her haywire hairdo. A subtle smile played over his hard lips at the parts in between. Nothing leering, just a hint of appreciation that carried over into his voice as he said, “I think you look very nicely balanced.”

She giggled. Giggled. That’s a great way to impress a suave man like this, she chided herself.

“And I admire your character, not afraid to go after what you wanted, protecting what belonged to you, Miss... Mrs... 7”

“Ms.”

“Of course, how Neanderthal of me.” He smiled but not just with his lips—with his eyes, the tilt of his head, the lines in his face. Even his posture added to his air of amusement. “Ms...?”

“Taylor. Becky—Rebecca—Taylor.” He admired her. Who’d have expected that? She tugged off her warped glasses and shoved them into her coat pocket. Legally, she needed the corrective lenses for driving and they helped tremendously when navigating the streets of Chicago on foot, but in a pinch she could get along without them. She pulled free the rubber band constraining her ponytail, shook her head, then fluffed her hair with one hand. “Becky, usually.”

“Well, Ms. Becky usually, I believe I owe you an apology for not returning this to you more promptly.”

He tapped the charm in her still-outstretched palm with his blunt fingertip.

The coins jingled.

Becky’s pulse leaped.

The simple gesture of this man dipping his finger into the hollow of her hand had an instant, almost erotic effect, with tiny, tingling waves building outward from the spot where his skin touched hers.

“I hope I didn’t inconvenience you too much by the delay,” he said.

“Oh, no. You didn’t delay me. You couldn’t delay me. I mean, I have nowhere special to go. Oh...that makes me sound homeless or...I’m not, not yet at least. I’m job hunting, so you see...I’m just unemploy...” The words rushed out all breathless with an unexpected young-girl quality that made her selfconscious, aware of the need to shut herself up. “Um, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He took his hand away and slipped it into his pocket, but before he did, Becky took the time and care to notice that he wore no wedding ring.

She focused on the objects remaining in her hand, wanting to say something, anything, to show herself as calm and casual about the whole awkward situation. This man had seen her looking like a big fool after all, and suddenly it felt very important to counteract her first impression. She plucked up the bootie, turning it this way and that. The gray morning light brought out the flaws and fine details of its design. A thought struck her. “I feel a little like Cinderella here. You know, you tracking me down with only this shoe to go on.”

“That would make me, what? Prince Charming?”

“That’s Snow White. I don’t think the prince in Cinderella ever gave his name.” She shifted her umbrella. “See? There’s another similarity. You haven’t given me your name, either.”

“Winstead. Clark Winstead.” He extended his hand.

Clark Winstead. He even had a great name. She put her own hand forward, remembered she still held the bootie in her fingers, dropped her gaze to it, then started to tuck it back into her other hand.

Clark Winstead stopped her.

“Here, if you don’t mind?” He took the trinket, apparently forgetting about the handshake entirely.

Becky felt a twinge of regret at not getting to feel her band in his. They’d made a connection, she thought, one she’d have liked to prolong if only with a more formal introduction.

“I notice it’s a bit worse for the run-in with my heel.” He examined the charm with one eye half-shut, then fixed those amazing eyes on her. “Why don’t you let me have my jeweler fix that for you?”

This guy has his own jeweler? she thought.

“Or I could replace it altogether,” he suggested.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want a new one. This one has sentimental value.”

“For your own baby?”

“No, I’ve never had any babies.” She gazed up into those heart-melting brown eyes. But I’d have yours, a little voice inside her sighed. “I do hope to have one someday.”

He nodded as if she’d just confirmed something to him.

“I know I don’t look terribly responsible or anything right now, but I am. I’ve always had goals in my life—like going to college, moving to Chicago. I made the second one happen—obviously—and hope to make the first one happen when I can afford it. I think that’s the kind of thing that helps make a good mother, having priorities and never slacking off on self-improvement.”

She knew she sounded like she was applying for the job. She felt the heat rise from her neck to her cheeks, even singeing the rims of her ears, at her chattering on. But a girl like her only met a prince, or a Clark Winstead, once in a lifetime, and something inside her told her to give him as much information about herself as she possibly could. It couldn’t hurt and something she said might just strike a chord in the guy.

“Plus I love kids and they love me. When the time comes, I think I’d be a very good mother.”

“No doubt.”

What had she thought? That he’d be so awed by her blathering that he’d propose right on the spot and ask her to bear his child? She folded her coat around her like a security blanket. “Um, in answer to your question, the bootie charm is for my nephew. I have one for my niece, too. I have a charm for every major event in my life.”

She held up the bracelet before she could stop herself from the childish, bumpkin behavior. Like the man wanted to see her stupid bracelet!

“Delightful,” he said. “May I?”

This time, he took her hand in his and Becky decided then and there she knew how the “real” Cinderella must have felt when the prince slid that glass slipper into place on her foot.

He turned her hand over and the bracelet clattered softly. “Why, it looks like you’ve led a very full life, Ms. Taylor.”

“I guess as full as a girl can lead and still be allowed to sing in the church choir in Woodbridge, Indiana.”

He laughed, probably just out of politeness, but it was a warm, genuine-sounding laugh all the same that radiated through Becky’s rain-soaked being.

He raised his eyes to look at her, his chin still tucked in. “That’s where you’re from? Woodbridge, Indiana?”

“Born and raised,” she said, nodding.

“Lucky Woodbridge.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He released her hand and reached inside his pocket. In a moment, he had withdrawn two perfect business cards the color of rich vanilla ice cream. He handed them both to her, then took a pen from inside his overcoat.

Becky recognized the type of pen from windowshopping for a gift for her brother’s last birthday. That simple, stylish, fine writing instrument, as they were called in the store, easily cost more than she could earn in a month at her old job in Woodbridge. Well, she thought, had she expected less from a prince?

“Write down your name, address and phone number on one of these,” he said. It wasn’t a request.

He wants my number, she thought. Her fingers could hardly grip the pen he handed her.

“I’ll take the charm to my jeweler to be repaired, then have him send it to you.”

“Oh.” She blinked. The noises of the city, which had seemed muted by the very presence of the man, came rushing back to fill her ears. Car horns blared, tires whooshed over the wet road, people called out to one another. Becky swallowed hard and managed to eke out a stiff but respectful “Thank you.”

If she had a shred of pride left, she’d tell him not to trouble himself. Correction—if she had pride and enough money to get the charm repaired herself, she’d tell him...

She looked up into that face.

His gaze brushed over her chin, her lips, her hair, then settled on her eyes.

She’d tell him... “Here you go. If it takes past the end of the month, I may not be at that apartment anymore, so I jotted down my brother’s address in Woodbridge.”

He slid the card slowly from between her fingers and placed it in his breast pocket. “Good. And you keep my card just in case they don’t do the job to your satisfaction.”

She ran her fingertip over the engraved lettering. “thank you. I will.”

He tipped his head and took a step backward. “Goodbye, then.”

“Bye.” She smiled, then stepped back herself, bumping into a burly mailman as she did. Her umbrella slid down her shin and clunked to the pavement, rolled into the gutter, then burst open just in time to get run over by a speeding taxi.

She was having one of the worst days of her life and the only prince she’d ever meet was right there to witness it.

Becky Taylor was either the sweetest, most innocent young woman he had ever run across—or she was a stark, raving lunatic.

“Miss Harriman, have this sent to my regular jeweler for repair and then have it...” He glanced down at the name and number written in delicate swirls on the back of one of his business cards.

Plus I love kids and they love me. When the time comes, I think I’d be a very good mother. Her words echoed through his mind.

He ran his thumb along the sharp edge of the card.

Flawless-as-cream skin, hair that looked, when not bunched up on her head, like the spun-gold curls straight off a Christmas angel and every bit as wholesome.

Clark did not often run into girls like that. The novelty of her spirit and innocence intrigued him, stirred something up in him. Other things about her stirred him up, as well.

Not too thin, but not too plump, either, the girl had a body that would fill a man’s hands, that could fulfill his most primal fantasies. Not like those stick-figure women who inhabited his moneyed world. That type wouldn’t do more than nibble on the exorbitant meals he’d buy them at all the best restaurants, but they’d damn sure eat a girl like Becky Taylor alive if given the chance.

And she’d give them indigestion for their trouble, too, he decided with a wry smile.

He chuckled to recall the fury she’d shown when she thought he’d made off with her prized ornament. Oh, sure, she looked like a pitiful but precious rag doll at first glance, but underneath it she had fire in her, self-reliance and character. And she was a virgin, too. He’d stake his fortune on that fact.

That “fact” touched something in him, awakened his male protective instinct and made him feel proprietary even though he hardly knew the girl. And any girl who did that to a man like him, someone suspicious of entanglements since childhood and distanced from them by choice in adulthood, deserved due consideration.

Yes—provided she wasn’t a lunatic—Becky Taylor might just be exactly what he was looking for.

He closed his hand over the crisp card. “Just have the charm repaired, Miss Harriman, then returned to me. I think I can handle it from there.”

Chapter Three

A hot shower. A cool drink. A warm bed, then out cold. That’s all Becky wanted tonight. Feet aching and spirit sagging, she trudged up the first fight of stairs, with their worn rubber surface, to her tiny apartment. She gripped the wobbling handrail for support and clutched a file folder filled with copies of her résumé, job applications and the day’s paper, thinking only of the night ahead. Well, not only of the night ahead, she corrected herself, rounding the first landing. One other thing she wanted, and wanted badly—to put Clark Winstead completely out of her mind once and for all.

She hadn’t done that last night or the night before. In fact, not one morning or afternoon or evening or night—since she’d met the man three days ago—had gone by without something reminding her of him. Each morning when she closed the clasp on her favorite charm bracelet before going out job hunting, she thought of him. When she’d spent an afternoon on a temp job handing out samples of expensive men’s cologne, she thought of the scent that had clung unobtrusively to his overcoat. In the evening, when she enjoyed the only entertainment she could afford—a romance novel checked out from the library—the hero’s voice became his voice in her mind. And when she went to sleep at night...

Becky bit her lip and staggered to a stop on the second landing. Such dreams! And from a former vacation Bible school assistant teacher and onetime Sweetheart of the Future Farmers of America! She blushed at her own imagination in an area that had, until now, not been overly explored in her life. In aspects of romantic love and unbridled lust, Becky could count herself a novice, a subnovice, in anything approaching serious intimacy. Quaint and old-fashioned as it probably seemed to many, she’d always figured she would reserve learning more about “it” until after she got married.

Now, one bumbling run-in with Clark Winstead and she seemed ready to sign up for night school! What had become of her? She laughed to herself at the ridiculous idea that a man like Winstead would even recall who she was, much less want to sign on as her very own professor of passion.

She started up the stairs again with renewed vigor. This wasn’t the mopey little farm girl who had arrived in Chicago months ago. She had too much at stake here to let childish fancies, or even mature fantasies, distract her from her real work of finding a job and making it on her own. She did not need a man to come along and make everything wonderful for her. She had everything it took to make her own way in life, to succeed and excel. She hardly needed rescuing, for heaven’s sake. She was strong and resourceful and determined; those traits alone would see her through this current crisis in good stead.