Lizzy shrugged, as if it went without saying any daughter would sacrifice her own sleep in order to comfort her mother.
Humbled, he studied her a long moment. “You’re something else. I’m way too late in offering, but is there anything I can do to help you?”
“Yes. Please don’t make it harder for me to leave the company than it already is. I care about what happens to Malloy Marketing. You can’t possibly doubt that. And I’ll complete as much of the SkyHawk marketing plan as possible in the next two weeks. But my priorities have shifted. I want to have a baby. Several babies, if I’m lucky.”
Warmth stirred in his heart and groin simultaneously. Jeez. She wasn’t the only one who was punchy.
“I always envied other children who had siblings,” she confessed. “Being an only child is a drag.”
He made a face. “Being one of four brothers can be a real pain in the ass, too.”
“Maybe. But most of the time it’s fun. No, I want a big family. And I am thirty-one years old. The sooner I get started trying, the better. So…do we have a deal?”
God, he would miss her.
“Deal. I hope your fiancé knows how lucky he is. When do I get to meet him?”
Her gaze veered off to land somewhere over his shoulder. “Um…soon, I hope. You know, if I’m going to cram four weeks of work into two, I’d better get cracking.”
The red flag in his brain slowly rose. “A few more minutes won’t make a difference. What’s his name?”
“Whose name?”
The flag fluttered. “The man who’ll father all those babies you want. The one who offered you ‘the most exciting and challenging career any woman with no previous experience can have.’ That man’s name.”
“Oh, you mean Larry.” She grabbed the ceramic mug sitting next to a folded newspaper, then drew it to her breast like a waif begging for coins. “I need more coffee.”
“Larry,” he repeated.
“That’s right. Larry. Have you tried to OD on caffeine, yet? Beats aspirin, hands down. Want me to bring you a cup?”
“Does he have a last name? Or is he just Larry? Like Fabio, or Sting?”
She stood. “I’m headed that way. It’s really no trouble—”
“Goddamn it, Lizzy! Do I have to buy a vowel to fill in the blanks about this guy?” Her cheeks matched the red flag flapping like hell in Cameron’s brain.
“His name is Larry Sanderson. He’s brilliant. He’s kind. And he never yells.” After a pointed look, she marched toward the door in a huff.
Larry Sanderson, Larry Sanderson…Cameron stiffened.
His gaze zeroed in on the folded newspaper, then flew to the furious woman nearing the door.
“Lizzy, wait!”
She grasped the doorknob and sighed. “What now?”
“You can’t marry the dimwit.”
Two heartbeats passed.
The stare she directed over her shoulder could’ve shriveled a grape into a raisin. “Don’t worry. There’s only one dimwit I can claim to know personally. And I wouldn’t marry you, Cameron Malloy, if you were the last man in Texas!” With a toss of her dark curls, she flung open the door.
Mitch, Pete and Rachel staggered forward into the room, their heads twisted in identical awkward positions.
Lizzy growled in disgust, shoved her way through the flame-faced group and disappeared from sight.
Cameron leaned back and tapped his chin thoughtfully. He’d been called a lot of things he deserved in his life, but dimwit wasn’t one of them.
Something funny was going on. Something besides the Three Stooges currently backing out the door. If his suspicions were true, then his deal with Lizzy was off.
Which meant he still had a chance not to fail.
CHAPTER FOUR
AT SEVEN-THIRTY the next night, Elizabeth drove into the parking garage of Capitol Tower, the high-rise condominiums where Cameron lived, and willed her jittery stomach to calm.
This was insane. She’d known the man since high school, for heaven’s sake. There was absolutely no reason for her to be this nervous.
Relaxing her white-knuckle grip, she swung into a visitor’s space and cut the engine of her Taurus.
Her heartbeat tripled.
Who was she kidding? She’d known Cameron half her life, true, but she’d never actually socialized with him, never sought to be more than his friend and colleague. In high school, the All-State quarterback and senior class president had been hounded by more popular and beautiful girls. When he’d noticed Elizabeth at all, he’d been nice…but he’d been nice to everyone—that was part of his genuine charm. To him, she’d been a studious girl in his English class, as easily forgotten as her stammering oral reports.
In college, she’d gained Cameron’s first focused attention as a fellow team member in an Advertising Campaigns course. They’d carried the other four students on their backs to an A for the term. The beginning of a beautiful relationship, but one that had never ventured outside of classroom or office walls.
Which was why she’d accepted his invitation to grill her a steak dinner tonight.
She had no illusions about his motive. It wasn’t, as he wanted her to believe, to kick off their truce and cheer them both up after their unprecedented “fight.” And it sure wasn’t to get her alone in his bachelor pad and have his way with her—though, with luck, one day soon that’s exactly what he’d want.
Unfortunately, what he sought now was uninterrupted privacy to question her about Larry. The steak was a decoy. Cameron was a master at hunting for the Achilles’ heel of his opponents, and the instant she’d resigned from Malloy Marketing, she’d joined their ranks.
Elizabeth unbuckled her seat belt shakily. It was his fierce competitiveness, his inability to resist a challenge that had sown the seed of a Valkyrie idea in her mind. For years she’d watched other women try to “snare” the hunter. Of course they’d failed. If she could take a lesson from the master and decide that the means justified their happily-ever-after end, her impulsive marriage announcement might be the smartest dumb mistake she’d ever made.
She grabbed her purse and briefcase, slid out of the car, then locked and slammed the door. Hard.
No guts, no glory. Given the slightest indication tonight that her strategy might work, she would step to the front of the class and, for the first time since joining Malloy Marketing, present her own plan…hopefully without stammering. Head held high, Elizabeth marched across the parking garage toward Capitol Tower and her uncertain fate.
Minutes later, after receiving clearance for takeoff from the security desk, she rocketed twenty-four stories in a mahogany-paneled elevator so smooth and quiet, she was startled by the soft ding! of arrival.
The hushed atmosphere of luxury continued in the small waiting area outside the elevator. Cameron had moved into his condominium about six months ago, but this was her first visit. She consulted a wall plaque and entered one of four hallways.
Underlying the stately quiet, the driving pulse of a bass guitar sounded out of place. The closer she drew to 24C, the louder it got, along with drums, lead guitar and frenzied vocals. Vibrations from the blast of a song she didn’t recognize seeped under the door and literally buzzed her feet.
She set her briefcase on the floor, fished a compact from her purse, checked her face in the