Marion Lennox - The Last-Minute Marriage

© 2004

MARCUS BENSON shoved open the fire-escape door-and ran straight into Cinderella.

Marcus running into anyone was unusual in itself. The influence of the Benson Corporation reached throughout the international business community, and Marcus, at its head, was a man held in awe. Bumping into people was unheard of. A path usually cleared before him.

It wasn’t just power, wealth and intellect contributing to the aura surrounding him. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and superbly fit, with jet-black hair and striking, hawklike features. His charisma and influence were such that women’s magazines were unanimous in declaring him to be America’s most eligible bachelor.

And Marcus was likely to stay that way.

Well, why not? His experience of family life had been a disaster. His time in the armed forces had taught him loyalty and friendship, but loyalty and friendship had ended in tragedy. So Marcus Benson was a man who walked alone.

But that was before he met Peta O’Shannassy.

And Peta’s kids, dogs, cows and catastrophe.

He didn’t see that now, though. All he saw was a kid who reminded him oddly of Cinderella.

But Cinderella should be in her castle kitchen, tending the fire. Hungry. Wasn’t that how the story went? Surely she shouldn’t be eating her lunch on the landing of a New York fire-escape.

Maybe Marcus was making a few assumptions. He assumed this was Cinderella. He assumed it was lunch. In reality, all Marcus saw was a spilled yellow drink, a flying bagel, and, underneath, a tattered kid with bright chestnut curls and skimpy clothes.

So maybe she wasn’t Cinderella.

Who, then? A street kid? She was wearing shorts, a frayed T-shirt and battered sandals. His first impression was of a waif.

His second sensation was horror as waif-and lunch-fought for balance, lost, and tumbled to the next landing.

What had he done?

He’d been in too much of a hurry. There weren’t enough hours in the day for Marcus Benson. He had people waiting.

They’d have to wait. He’d just knocked a kid down half a flight of stairs. She was crumpled in a heap on the next landing, looking as if she wasn’t going anywhere.

It seemed an eternity while she slid, but in fact it was two or three seconds at most. The next moment, Marcus was brushing the bright curls away from her face. Trying to see the damage.

Again he had to do a rethink. She wasn’t a street kid-or not the type that he recognised.

She was clean. Sure, she was covered in what remained of her bagel and her milkshake, but her mop of curls were soft to touch. Her shorts and her T-shirt were freshly laundered under the mess he’d made, and she was…

Cute?

Definitely cute.

She wasn’t a kid.

Maybe she was about twenty, he thought. Her eyes were closed but he had the impression that it wasn’t unconsciousness that was causing her eyelids to stay shuttered. There was a sense of exhaustion about her, as if she was closing her eyes to shut out more than the pain and shock of the moment. Dark shadows smudged deeply under her eyes. She was thin. Far too thin.

His first impression solidified. Cinderella.

Her eyes fluttered open. They were wide green eyes, deep and questioning. Pain-filled.

‘Don’t move,’ he said urgently and she focused on his face, questioning.

‘Ouch,’ she whispered.

‘Ouch?’

She appeared to consider.

‘Definitely ouch,’ she said at last, and the strain in her voice said she was trying hard to make light of something that was worse than just ouch. She didn’t move; just lay on the steel-plated landing as if she was trying to come to terms with a catastrophe that was just one of a series. ‘I guess I spilled my milkshake, huh.’

‘Um…’ He looked down to the next flight of steps. ‘Yeah. Definitely.’

‘And my bagel?’ Her accent was Australian, he thought. It was warm and resonant, with a tremor behind it. From shock? From pain?

But she was worried about her bagel. He smiled at that, albeit weakly. If she was worried about her bagel, chances were that she wasn’t suffering injuries that were life-threatening.

‘I’d imagine your bagel is at ground level,’ he told her. ‘It’ll have turned into a lethal missile by now.’

‘Oh, great.’ She closed her eyes again and his impression of exhaustion deepened. ‘I can see the headlines. Australian drops New Yorker with jelly-loaded bagel. I’ll probably get sent to prison-for-terrorists on the first flight out of here.’

‘Hey.’ It was too much. Marcus Benson, who seldom-well, never, in fact-let himself get involved, put his hand on her cheek in a gesture of comfort. Good grief. He’d blasted her down a flight of stairs. He’d ruined her lunch. He’d hurt her-and she was trying to turn it into a joke.

‘Australian Braining New Yorker with Bagel is the least of our legal worries,’ he told her. ‘How about Corporate Idiot Shoves Australian Downstairs?’

She opened one eye and looked up at him. Cautiously. ‘You mean I can sue?’

‘For at least the cost of a bagel,’ he told her, and his words produced a smile.

It was a great smile. A killer smile. Her eyes were deeply green and they twinkled, as if it was their permanent state. Maybe she wasn’t twenty, he thought. Maybe she was older. With a smile like that… Well, a smile like that took practice.

He’d never seen a smile like it.

But he couldn’t stop and think about a woman’s smile. Or he shouldn’t. He was in a rush. The reason he’d used the fire stairs was that he was in a hurry. The lift had jammed at just the wrong time. His assistant would be waiting at street level, checking her watch. He had a deal to close.

But he couldn’t just leave this kid here.

He lifted his cellphone. ‘Ruby?’ he snapped as his assistant answered.

‘Marcus.’ This was a busy day, even for the super-efficient Ruby, and his assistant sounded worried. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m on the fire-escape. Can you come up, please? I have a situation.’

As he tucked his phone back into his jacket he found himself suppressing a grin. A situation on the fire-escape. That’d have Ruby having kittens all the way up. Ruby was efficient but things like…well, situations on fire-escapes were unusual, even for Ruby.

She’d cope, he thought. Ruby always coped. But until the cavalry arrived he needed to focus on the girl.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, and found she was staring straight up at him now, both her eyes fully open. She’d rolled over on to her back. There was a dollop of jelly wedged under her curls near one ear, and he had the weirdest desire to wipe it away…

Heck, cut it out, Benson, he told himself. This was getting personal. He didn’t do personal. That was what Ruby was for.

But apparently the waif didn’t want his attention just as much as he didn’t wish to offer it. ‘Thank you for asking,’ she said politely. ‘But I’m fine. You can go away now.’

He blinked. ‘I can go away?’

‘You’re in a rush. I sat in your way. You’ve squashed my bagel, you’ve spilled my milkshake and you’ve hurt my ankle, but hey, it’s my fault. I’m-’

‘You’ve hurt your ankle?’

‘It appears,’ she said with cautious dignity, ‘to be hurt.’

He checked her out. Her legs were long and tanned and smooth. Really long, in fact, and really tanned, and really smooth. They were great legs. It was incongruous that they ended up with shabby leather sandals that looked as if they came from a welfare shop.