Bertrice Small - Sudden Pleasures

Ashley dipped her spoon into the pale green yogurt.

"Yeah," Rick agreed. "He got the recipe from his grandmother in Rome."

Tiffany fished a crouton from her salad and ate it. "Talk," she said.

Joe took another bit of his hero and then, grinning, put it down, looking at Ashley. "His name is Ryan Finbar Mulcahy. He owns an outfit called R8cR-Restorations and Replications, Inc. His father started the business and did nicely. Ryan graduated college and took over the company to build it into a multimillion-dollar establishment. But it was still the old man's company. When he died a couple of years ago the old man left each of his daughters a quarter mil, and the wife the house and a good income. Everything else went to Ryan on the proviso that he be married by the time he was forty. He'll be forty next spring, and he hasn't even come close to getting married," Joe said.

"What's the problem?" Ashley wanted to know.

"The guy is a workaholic," Joe said. "His old man was the craftsman, the artisan. Ryan knows what good is, but his head is more for the business. It was his idea to add the reproductions branch of the business. There's a lot of money out there today, and new money wants to look like old money. But there are only so many antiques to go around. So R &R designs seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repros that look every bit as good as the real thing. The business is booming. And Ryan hasn't had a moment to get a relationship going with any woman. But if he isn't married by forty, he's out, the business is sold, and his sisters get the benefit of the sale."

"What if he doesn't like me?" Ashley asked.

"What if you don't like him?" Joe countered. "Look, Ash, life is at best a crapshoot. You toss the dice and hope you don't hit snake eyes. You've hit snake eyes three times now. I think it past time for you to make craps. Ray is bringing him out tomorrow for an initial meeting. No promises. No obligations. You're just both going to take a look at each other to make certain you're human."

"Let's Google him," Tiffany said.

"Of course!" Ashley agreed. "Now that we know his name and his business name we can look him up."

"In my cubicle," Tiffany replied, standing up from the conference table. "Come on, Ash. Enjoy your lunch, boys!" She hurried out with Ashley following with her yogurt.

"What do you think?" Rick Johnson asked his partner.

"I think we've got a shot," Joe responded, "if they click."

"An arranged marriage. It sounds so cut-and-dried. So loveless," Rick said. "I thought people had to fall in love to get married. What are they going to do about the sex, I wonder?"

"That's one matter they'll have to negotiate themselves," Joe said, grinning. "We can set up the prenups with Ray, but the rest of it is going to be up to them."

"What do you think he's like, this Mulcahy guy? Is he really so busy he can't make time to go courting?" Rick wondered.

"Want to check out what the girls have found?" Joe said as he picked up the second half of his hero.

"And let them know we're as nosy as they are? I think not," Rick said. "I'll wait till I get home to Google him. Carla's filling in tonight at the hospital for one of the night nurses. She won't be home until around eleven thirty. God, I hope she likes him. We gotta get Ash settled, and soon. Old Kimbrough will come out of his grave if we let his wealth go to SSEXL."

"Then he shouldn't have been such a smart-ass and added that clause to the will. I told him not to do it," Joe grumbled. "Mulcahy is probably all right. Have you ever seen an ugly Irishman, Rick?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact I have," Rick replied. He cocked his head to one side. "Did you just hear a 'woo-woo' from Tiff's cubicle?"

"Oh, my God!" Tiffany Pietro d'Angelo stared at the computer screen. "Well, he ain't ugly," she said. "You're going to have beautiful babies, honey."

But Ashley wasn't really looking at the face on the screen. She had given it a quick passing glance to ascertain whether he was normal-looking, and then she had moved on to his biography. He had gone to Catholic school first, done his undergrad work at one of the state universities, then gotten a second degree from the Wharton School of Business. Smart, Ashley thought. The state school was cheap, and good for a bachelor's. It was the grad school that had to be the best, and it was.

"Will you look at that face!" Tiffany enthused.

"He's nice-looking," Ashley said, "but I'm more interested in his background."

"Nice-looking?" Tiffany said, surprised. "He's a god."

"Look at how fast he brought his father's business from just a restoration house making a nice bottom line to a restoration and reproduction business with an incredible bottom line. Boy, I would love to do that myself for Lacy Nothings. Think he would give me some advice, Tiff?"

"I don't believe you," Tiffany said, exasperated. "Here is this gorgeous man whom you will probably marry, and all you're interested in is his business acumen?"

"Tiff, if -and it's a big if-Mr. Mulcahy and I decide to marry, it's just a business arrangement. We've both been the recipients of bequests that will screw us out of our inheritance unless we get married. I've got lousy luck picking men, and he's too busy to properly look for a wife. And time is running out on both of us."

"Marriage isn't a business," Tiffany said, not certain whether she should be shocked.

"Sure it is," Ashley told her.

"What about love?" Tiffany asked.

"What about it? Three times I thought I was in love. I obviously don't know what love is, and any man willing to marry to keep his money doesn't know either. Love will not be part of the equation here."

"Sex?" Tiffany said weakly.

"I've got all the sex I can handle on the Channel with Quinn and Rurik," Ashley said. "Tiff, this isn't happily ever after. It isn't personal. It's business. If he wants to have a girlfriend it's fine with me, as long as it's discreet."

"My God!" Tiffany said. "What have I done?"

Ashley laughed and patted Tiffany's hand. "You've probably saved me from a fate worse than death-poverty! Now, I've gotta go. Nina has a dental appointment at one fifteen, and I'll need to be in the shop. Brandy doesn't come in until after school."

Tiffany Pietro d'Angelo watched her go, and then walked back into the conference room, where her husband and his partner were just finishing their lunches. "This is terrible," she said, plunking herself into a chair.

"What's terrible?" Joe asked.

"Ashley said any arrangement made will be business, no sex, and he can have a girlfriend if he's discreet," Tiffany said.

Rick snickered.

"Good," Joe replied. "I'm glad Ashley understands, and doesn't have any silly romantic ideas in her head about Mulcahy."

Tiffany looked at her husband as if he had just returned from the moon.

"Is the guy hot?" Rick wanted to know with a grin.

"Yes, he's hot," Tiffany snapped. "Joseph Anthony Pietro d'Angelo, where has your heart gotten to, and don't you see how awful this will be for Ashley if she isn't loved by her husband? And what about kids?^What the hell good is all that money going to do either of them without kids to share it with or help out?"

Joe reached across the table, took his wife's hand, and kissed it. "My own little romantic," he said with a smile. "Listen, honey, Ashley and Mulcahy have a problem, and getting married will solve that problem for them. If they like each other, maybe something good will come of it. But for now it's just business. An arrangement like this can't be anything else but business."

"I think this is so sad. When I suggested it I wasn't considering the reality of it all," Tiffany responded with a deep sigh.

"What would be sad would be if these two hardworking people lost everything because some damned fools added dumb clauses to their wills in order to get their own way even after death," Rick remarked. "I don't know about Mulcahy's father, but why the hell Edward Kimbrough thought Ashley couldn't survive without a big, strong man to keep her safe I'll never know. She is one competent girl."