“I’ve only known myself for a few weeks,” she said defensively. “And if you want to be involved, you can.”
He released a frustrated sigh. “If? You’re talking about my child here, Katie. Marry me.”
“Why?” she countered again. “Are you afraid of how people will react?” Suddenly, she nodded. “Oh, I see. Having a baby out of wedlock would be a strike against the Carrington family name.”
“Yes, it would,” he agreed. Not that he cared. “And it sounds as if it would be a strike against the Topper name, too.”
“We Toppers might not have much materially, but we have values, Ford. Marriage means something to me!”
He’d about had it. “And it doesn’t to me?”
“Your crowd marries for money and status,” she returned heatedly.
That much was true. “So?”
“So, I can’t talk about marriage in the way you do.”
“The way I do?”
“Yeah, in that calm, cool, collected voice, like it doesn’t mean anything more than sharing a house with a woman who keeps her own friends and bedroom.”
“I asked you to marry me, Katie,” he retorted. “I don’t recall saying anything about separate bedrooms.”
She gaped at him. “You’re not in love with me, Ford!”
He wasn’t even sure what love was. “No, I’m not.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Look, this conversation is getting too personal.”
“Marriage is personal, Katie.” So was the energy current flowing between them as fast as a flooding river. Ford had no idea where it was taking them, only that the ride would be memorable.
“Marriage and childbirth are sacred to me, Ford,” she managed to say. “So is extended family. My mama died when I was kid, but I remember how it was with her, how close we were. My family’s still close. Family’s the most important thing in the world to me.” Color had flooded her cheeks. “I…” She paused, tightening her clasped hands. “Look, you’re not in love with me, so why are you doing this?”
He was still thinking about the tensions in his family, and he had to admit she was right. Marriages in his crowd were often cold. People made convenient, public matches, then had private affairs for other needs. But Katie was a warm woman. She needed more. She needed a loving man in her bed every night. “There’s more to the proposition,” he said.
She looked wary. “Really?”
“Really.” In a voice gone soft with seduction, he murmured, “There’s ten million dollars involved, Katie.”
She blinked, but to his surprise and her credit, she didn’t miss a beat. “You say that like you expect me to sell my soul to the devil, Ford Carrington.”
He smiled. “Not to the devil, Katie. To me.”
She looked as curious as she was cautious, and he suddenly wondered if he’d found a woman who really would marry only for love. “Hmm,” she said. “You and the devil. Why do I get the impression that at the moment there’s not much of a difference between the two?”
“Because there isn’t.” Now that he had her attention, he proceeded to explain the stipulation in his grandfather’s will. “I’ve always said I’m a committed bachelor, and my grandfather was worried I wouldn’t leave any Carrington heirs, so as an incentive, the next blood Carrington born gets a big chunk of change. Ten million. It comes out of the funds for the Carrington Foundation, which he started before he died.” So what if he’d also been lusting for Katie Topper? he thought. So what if having this baby excited him more than he wanted to admit? “It’s only practical. Think hard before you answer me, Katie.”
Her expression held equal parts frank curiosity and outraged fury. “And to think I’ve admired you,” she finally said stiffly. Raising her voice, she added, “Think? Oh, Ford, my mind’s running a million miles a minute.”
“Let it run ten million miles a minute, Katie. Because it’s in your hands right now to give our baby everything in the world. Summer houses. The best schools. Horses. Camps.” Everything Ford had been given—everything except the kind of love he imagined most kids got for free. His own baby would have it all.
She glanced away. She was thinking about how the money might affect the baby’s life, and how she would be able to tell her religious papa she wasn’t having it alone, but that a surgeon from a prestigious family wanted to marry her.
“You’d move into my place until the baby’s born,” he added reasonably, barely able to believe what he was suggesting. “After that, it’s up to you. After that, all the money belongs to the baby. But I can’t do it without you. The trust is set up so that I have to be married.”
“You never wanted it before?”
“I don’t care about money, Katie. It’s for the baby.”
“And later?” Her voice was suddenly so small, so resigned that Ford wanted to retract the words…to take back that damnable Carrington power that no one could ever stand up to.
“Later, we’d work out visitation arrangements.”
Her chin thrust upward a proud notch. “It would be for the baby. And, uh, I’d insist on my own bedroom.”
Not a point he’d wanted to negotiate. “You said you didn’t want to see me again, Katie,” he forced himself to say, stubborn pride stopping him from asking why she’d deny such insistent attraction. “Three months ago, we both agreed nothing more was going to happen between us.”
Swirling the coat from her shoulders, she held it out to him, and as he took it, she edged around him, managing to open her car door. She got in and slammed the door. As she started the engine, she rolled down the window.
He squinted at her. “Katie? We’re not through talking.”
“I’ll think things over, Ford,” she promised, the line sounding oddly rehearsed. “And I’ll get right back to you.”
And then she simply pulled away, offering what was almost a jaunty wave. A stunned, bemused smile curled his lips as the dented white compact plunged into the night. Exiting the parking lot, she suddenly braked. Was she coming back? No. She flung open the door, leaped out as the dome light flicked on and charged to the front of the car.
“She forgot about her clothes,” he whispered. Swiping them from the hood, she got inside, slammed the door and drove away. Watching the fading tail-lights, Ford couldn’t help but murmur, “Talk about hell on wheels.” But he felt strangely light, as if a cage inside him had opened and something had been set free. Was he really going to be a father in a few months? He’d expected to feel the usual fear that he’d revisit his childhood on someone else. Instead, he felt as light as air.
His and Katie’s baby.
These past two years, as they’d worked together in the OR, who would have guessed it? Just as intriguing was the fact that Katie was capable of turning down ten million dollars and a marriage proposal.
Or maybe she wouldn’t
“She said she’d get back to me,” Ford whispered with another low, astonished chuckle. And for the first time since he’d last seen Katie, he felt genuinely curious about what would happen next.
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