“Are you sure?” Ellie asked. She had walked into this office on a bright Monday morning and now it seemed in the space of seconds, the day had gone dark.
Linda Simpson nodded. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”
She’d know Linda for months, and in that time, Linda had become Ellie’s biggest supporter as well as a friend. All these weeks, the news had been positive.
Operative words—had been.
Ellie pressed a hand to her belly, and thought of all she had given up to be a woman in a male-dominated field. Relationships … children. Children that now she knew would never happen naturally. Adoption, the obstetrical specialist had told her, was the only option.
Maybe it was her father’s illness, or the approach of her thirtieth birthday, but lately, she’d been thinking more and more about the … quiet of her life. For years, she’d been happy living alone, making her own hours, traveling where she wanted. But in the last year or two, there’d been no louder, sadder sound than the echo of her footsteps on tile. She had no one but her father, and if the doctors were right, soon she wouldn’t even have him.
And what would she have to show for it? A few dozen houses she’d designed? Houses where other people lived and laughed and raised children and shooed dogs out of the kitchen. Houses containing the very dreams Ellie had pushed to the side.
But no more. Jiao was waiting for her, now stuck in a limbo of red tape at an orphanage in China. Jiao, an energetic two-year-old little girl with wide eyes and dark hair, and a toothy smile. Everything Ellie had dreamed of was right there, within her grasp.
Or had been, until now.
Had Ellie heard wrong? But one look at Linda Simpson’s face, lined with sympathy and regret, told Ellie this was no joke. The adoption coordinator sat behind her desk, her dark brown hair piled into a messy bun, her eyes brimming with sorrow.
“I need …” Ellie swallowed, tried again. “A husband?”
“That’s what they told me this morning. Countries all over the world are tightening their adoption policies. The orphanage is sticking to the government’s bottom line. I’m sorry.”
A spouse.
Ellie bit back a sigh. Maybe it was time to pursue another adoption, in a more lenient country. But then she thought of Jiao’s round, cherubic face, the laughter that had seemed to fill the room whenever Ellie had played with her, and knew there was nothing she wanted more than to bring that little girl home. She had promised Sun, and Jiao.
But how was she going to do that and run her father’s company? And who on earth could she possibly marry on such short notice? There had to be a way out of this. A workaround of some sort.
“But they told me, you told me, I was fine. That because Jiao’s mother asked me specifically to raise her daughter and endorsed the adoption before she died, that I wouldn’t have to worry about the other requirements.”
“The government is the ultimate authority.” Linda spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “And they just feel better about a child being placed in a home with two parents.”
Ellie tamped down her frustration. Being mad at Linda didn’t help. The coordinator had worked tirelessly to facilitate this adoption, working with both the U.S. and Chinese governments, as well as the orphanage where Jiao was currently living. Ellie had contacted the agency where Linda worked shortly after returning from that fateful China trip. She’d explained the situation to the woman, who had immediately helped set everything up for a later adoption, easing Sun’s worries during the last days of her life.
Ellie had expected some delays, particularly dealing with a foreign government, but already three months had passed since Sun had died and Jiao was still in China.
A husband. Where was she going to get one of those? It wasn’t like she could just buy one on the drugstore shelf. Getting married took time, forethought. A relationship with someone.
“What happens now?” Ellie asked. “What happens to Jiao?”
“Well, it would be handy if you had a boyfriend who was looking to commit in the very near future. But if not …” Linda put out her hands again. “I’m sorry. Maybe this one isn’t meant to be.” Linda didn’t have to say anything more. Ellie knew, without hearing the words, that her child would go back into the orphanage system and maybe languish there for years.
Ellie couldn’t believe that this wasn’t meant to be. Not for a second. The entire serendipitous way she had met Sun, the way the two of them had become instant friends, despite the cultural and language barriers.
And Jiao …
She already loved the little girl. Ellie had held Jiao. Laughed with her. Bonded. During her trips to China, Ellie had become a part of Jiao’s little family. A second mother, in a way, to Jiao, who had curled into Ellie and clung to her when they had buried Sun. It had broken Ellie’s heart to have to go back to the United States without the little girl. She’d only done it because she’d been assured the next few steps of the adoption were merely a formality.
And now Jiao was all alone in the world, living in a crowded, understaffed orphanage, probably scared and lonely and wondering why she had no family anymore. Ellie thought of Jiao’s pixie face, her inquisitive eyes and her contagious smile. Desperation clawed at Ellie. Oh, God, Jiao. What am I going to do?
Ellie took a deep breath. Another. She needed to be calm. To think.
Damn it. Ellie had made a promise. Jiao deserved to be raised with security and love, and Ellie would find some way to make that happen. “Let me think about this,” she said. “Can I call you later?”
Linda nodded, her warm brown eyes pooling with sympathy. “Sure. I have a day or two to get back to the orphanage.”
The unspoken message, though, was that after that, Jiao would slip out of Ellie’s grasp like wind through the trees. Off to another family or worse, stuck in the system. Ellie needed a miracle.
And she needed it now.
FINN MCKENNA was not a man easily surprised. He’d heard and seen a great deal in the past ten years of running his own company. But this … offer, if that was what he could call it, from Ellie Winston was a total shock.
“Marriage? As in a church and a minister?” he said. The words choked past his throat.
“Well, I was thinking more like city hall and a judge, but if you insist …” She grinned.
“But … w-we don’t even know each other.” The words sputtered out of him. He, a man who never sputtered.
Ever since she’d walked into his office five minutes ago and announced she had a counteroffer to his, that was what he had done—sputtered. And stammered. And parroted her words back at her. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Shocked wasn’t an adequate adjective.
Marriage?
He had expected her to ask for more autonomy with the project or a larger cut of the fee. Something … practical.
Instead she’d said she would allow him to be an equal partner in the Piedmont hospital project, if he married her.
Marriage.
“I think I need a little more time to … think about this.” Or find a counteroffer that could possibly overrule her insane request. “Perhaps we could table this—”
“I’d rather not.” She was perched on the edge of one of the visitor’s chairs in his office. The late morning sun danced gold in her hair. She had