His Marriage Bonus. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      Not that his mother had let the catastrophe get her down—her short and fluffy blond hair was as youthfully and impeccably arranged as always, her blue eyes lively, her trim figure clothed in a stylish silk pantsuit.

      Mitch smiled, glad to see his mother looking so well. The idiots who had pronounced her “too old” to do her job might not know it yet, but Grace would land on her feet yet. And Mitch and the rest of the Deveraux clan would be there to applaud her when it happened.

      Mitch accepted a glass of wine from his dad. “Lauren called and said she was running a little behind schedule and would just meet me here.” Mitch hadn’t been pleased to get the message from his secretary. He had the feeling it was just one of many excuses Lauren would offer up over the coming week to avoid spending even one more second than she absolutely had to with him. But since he hadn’t known where Lauren was when she called, and she hadn’t been answering her cell phone, he’d had no choice but to do as she had asked, and arrive without her.

      “Lauren who?” his father asked as he sat down kitty-corner from Grace and Mitch.

      Mitch figured now was as good a time as any to lay the bomb on his parents. “Lauren Heyward.”

      Tom Deveraux frowned. Mitch wondered if it was his imagination or had the gray at his father’s temples recently become more pronounced?

      “You know the rule about climbing into bed with the competition,” Tom said.

      “Tom!” Grace chided, a flush coming into her pretty cheeks.

      “Mitch knows what I mean,” Tom said, raking a hand through his closely cropped dark brown hair. “I wasn’t speaking literally. Although now that we’ve brought it up, that better not be the case, either.” Tom leveled a warning look at Mitch, his brown eyes darkening all the more. “There’s nothing more potentially damaging than pillow talk, when it comes to industrial espionage.”

      The last thing Mitch wanted to be imagining was his head next to Lauren’s as they exchanged teasing quips and soft words of love and lust after making love. He didn’t want to think about her lying naked beneath him, either, her slender arms and long sexy legs wrapped around him. His relationship with her was too potentially beneficial to both of them to risk ruining with casual sex. If things went his way, he could make his mark with this deal with Payton Heyward, and Lauren would own the historical home of her dreams. And that was as far as Mitch was prepared to take it at this time, despite Payton Heyward’s very interesting offer. Or his own desire for Lauren.

      “Lauren doesn’t work for her father,” Mitch said, putting his own uneasiness about Payton Heyward’s unprecedented actions aside. “Furthermore, she has zero interest in his company.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Tom said gruffly. “She’s still an heiress to our biggest rival. And could inadvertently end up passing information to her father about what we’re doing at Deveraux Shipping Company.”

      Mitch had no intention of letting Lauren know anything she shouldn’t. He would also keep a very close eye on her. “The competition between Payton Heyward’s company and ours isn’t the biggest threat to our continued prosperity, Dad. The Web-based exchanges on the Internet are.”

      “Those companies are a fad.”

      Mitch knew a lot of top businessmen thought so, given all the dot-com firms that had already gone under. He didn’t agree. He felt it was one of the fastest growing markets and would continue to be for some time. “They also offer faster bookings at cheaper prices.” And that was a problem, Mitch thought.

      “Most big deals are made over a meal and closed with a handshake. That’s always been the case and always will be.” It was the really big deals, not the unpredictable little shipments, Tom Deveraux was interested in locking up.

      In the past, those big deals had kept the Deveraux and Heyward shipping companies on top. But Mitch knew there was more money to be made by pursuing lots of smaller customers, too. They just needed a cost-effective way to do it. “I still want to use this year’s expansion money to put up our own Web site and start doing business that way as well,” he said.

      Tom gave him a look that reminded Mitch just who was CEO of the Deveraux Shipping Company. “And I want to invest in more container ships.”

      They would have more ships at their disposal if they merged with Heyward Shipping, Mitch thought. Because Payton Heyward had just added two new state-of-the-art vessels to his fleet. And then they could still add an e-commerce component to their business, too, without over-mortgaging the firm, without worrying whether Payton was going to edge out Tom on an upcoming deal with a customer or vice versa. But he sensed he was going to have a hard time convincing his father to put his own uneasiness and suspicion aside and merge companies with Payton Heyward.

      “When did the two of you start dating?” Tom asked.

      “Tonight’s our first date,” Mitch said. “And you might as well know there are going to be six others this week as well.”

      Grace looked over with a raised eyebrow. “Cleared your calendars, did you, dear?”

      Briefly, Mitch laid out the deal that had been offered to Lauren and him by Payton Heyward, while Lauren was present. He did not tell them about the dowry Payton had promised after she left in a huff. As he had expected, his parents were as shocked as he had been.

      “Forget for a moment the fact that I would never agree to a merger between our two companies,” Tom said when Mitch had finished. “This whole idea of an arranged courtship is crazy! I’m surprised you even agreed to hear Payton out, never mind agreed to follow this cockeyed plan of his.”

      Grace nodded her agreement as she swiftly took Tom’s side in this. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here, Mitch?”

      Mitch knew he could convince his father a merger between the two powerhouses was the right way to go, once he had Payton Heyward firmly in his corner and all the details worked out. His business case was that strong. But he would have to wait for the right time to do that and, unfortunately, now was not the right time. It was victory enough that he had even been able to broach the topic with his father, given his father’s insistence they keep their firm private and family-owned, despite all business indicators to the contrary. СКАЧАТЬ