“And you were how old then?”
Kathryn considered. “Three. Maybe four.”
“Great idea. A major stockholder who can’t spell kitchen, much less know her way around one.”
She decided to ignore him. “At any rate, Douglas was forcing himself to marry me so he could use my money to pay off his gambling debts.”
There was a long silence. “You made a good decision,” Jonah said gruffly.
“I’m glad you approve.”
“To dump him, I mean. Running away…well, that’s not so smart. Why didn’t you tell your father what you’d found out? Kick the jerk out and then go right on and dance at your party?”
“I tried,” she said softly.
“Jock didn’t believe you?”
“He trusts Douglas. Just as I did.”
The hiss of the tires on the highway mingled with the throaty hum of the engine to produce a hypnotic murmur. The strain of the day gradually began to melt out of Kathryn’s body, to be replaced by exhausted acceptance.
“I never thought Douglas loved me,” she said, almost to herself. “That was all right, because I didn’t exactly love him, either. But I thought he respected me. Liked me. To find out that he didn’t…that it was just the money again….”
“Again?”
She nodded. “All my life people have been more interested in my money than in me. But it never went this far before. The others weren’t as good as Douglas at covering things up, so it didn’t take as long to discover the truth—that a man who was admiring my every habit and hanging on each word was really eyeing my bank balance instead.”
“It’s happened a lot, then.”
She sighed. “It seems like just about everybody I ever dated. I think that was one of the reasons I wanted to marry Douglas—so it would all be over and I wouldn’t have to guard against fortune hunters anymore.”
“Well, now’s your chance to get away from them. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Yeah,” she said softly, and turned to face him. “You’re right. Once in a lifetime.” She took a deep breath. “Jonah Clarke, will you marry me?”
CHAPTER TWO
JONAH’S hand jerked on the steering wheel and the car swerved across the center line and halfway into the oncoming lane. He pulled it firmly back to safety and reminded himself that no matter what kind of kooky question his passenger asked, it was no excuse to take his attention off the road even for an instant.
“It’s fortunate that eighteen-wheeler wasn’t any closer,” Kathryn said coolly.
Almost automatically, Jonah defended himself. “It was a good quarter of a mile away.”
“And closing fast. What’s the matter, did I shock you?”
“You could say that. What the hell are you talking about, asking if I’ll marry you?”
She shifted her shoulder belt and wriggled a little. “I thought the question was pretty clear, myself. What didn’t you understand?”
“For one thing, how you got from having a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to dump the fortune hunters to issuing a marriage proposal.”
Kathryn shrugged. “It wasn’t much of a leap. I just figured you were thinking along the same lines.”
“Me?” Jonah knew he sounded appalled, and he didn’t care. “I was suggesting that the rich little girl who attracts all the riffraff could disappear right now. You could go somewhere new and just be plain Kathryn Campbell instead, and then you’d be sure that any man who came buzzing around you wasn’t after the money, because he wouldn’t know about it.”
“Would I be sure?” she asked, sounding almost wistful. “How could I ever be certain that he hadn’t done some secret research?”
She had a point, Jonah supposed. There were lots of ways to find people’s secrets, and anyone who was interested in marrying money would certainly know how to sniff out the details. “So change your name. If you’d go wait tables at a Katie Mae’s for a while, you’d soon learn to tell who was serious and who wasn’t.”
“Hide out in my father’s own restaurant chain?”
“He certainly wouldn’t be looking for you there. But I suppose you couldn’t live without your luxuries for longer than a day or two, and it would be more difficult to conceal your financial circumstances if you were driving a Porsche and wearing designer suits.”
“How much do you want to bet that I can’t do without all the luxuries? Besides, I don’t own a Porsche, I’ve never owned a Porsche, and I don’t intend to own—”
“Then no doubt you prefer Jaguars. Don’t change the subject, Katie. What the devil were you thinking, asking me a question like that? Or do you ask every man you meet to marry you?”
“Don’t be silly. I only thought that you might be…well, everybody could use a little extra money, right?”
“I suppose so,” Jonah admitted. “But—”
“So I thought we could make some sort of a deal. I do owe you, you know.”
“You said I could have my choice, remember?” He frowned. “You can’t actually be serious. Because I think I heard you say that you’d pay me to marry you, in order to avoid being chased for your money—and that makes no sense at all.”
“Yes, it does. It would be clean and up front, with no sneaking and no lying.” She looked out the window. “Oh, just forget it.”
He’d like to forget it. But the question she’d asked was still echoing through his mind. Along with it circled something else she’d said, in that wistful way of hers: That was one of the reasons I wanted to marry Douglas, so it would all be over and I wouldn’t have to guard against fortune hunters anymore.
Now he could see the convoluted, Katie-Mae-Campbell sort of logic in the plan. It ranked right up there with her escape stunt.
“You’re saying that you’d rather marry an honest fortune hunter,” he said slowly, “than one who’s trying to hide himself behind a pretense of loving you.”
“At least I’d know the truth. Really know it, not just suspect.” To his surprise, there was no defensiveness in her voice, only a note of sadness. “And knowing up front would be a lot better than being made to feel like a fool in the end.”
At that instant, Jonah wanted—more than anything else in the world—to be able to wipe her unhappiness away. But that, he told himself severely, was clearly not one of his saner impulses.
“So what will you do next?” he asked casually.
“Now that you’ve turned me down? I don’t know. Probably look for someone else who likes the deal better.”
The woman was completely self-destructive. How she had managed to make it this far was beyond him. Out on her own, alone in the world—she’d be shark bait, no question about it. But even worse, she was actually going to invite the sharks to come closer and circle around….
He took a deep breath and tried to look at things from her perspective. Her nickname was a byword across the nation. Her picture—actually it was a photo of her as a child, but there was no question the resemblance was still a strong one—was a trademarked symbol. How could she ever be absolutely certain that any man loved her for herself and not her money?