Judith McNaught - Remember When

Fascinated by his candor and unable to see how such a kind and caring old man could now be the source of Cole's unnamed "problem," Diana sipped her champagne waiting for him to continue, but he seemed content to watch her instead. "Go on," she urged. "So far he sounds like the last man in the world to cause a 'problem' for you."

"He thinks he's solving a problem, not creating one."

"I don't understand. Even if I hadn't had so much wine and champagne tonight, I don't think I'd understand."

"You don't understand because I haven't told you that part, which is this: After I graduated, my uncle gave me all his savings from the well on his land, and then he borrowed another two hundred thousand dollars against it, so that I could start my own company. Naturally, I insisted on signing a legal note for the money and on making him a full partner in the business."

To the best of her recollection, the article in Time magazine about Cole Harrison's spectacular business successes placed his net worth at over five billion dollars. "I assume you repaid the loan?" she prompted.

He nodded. "I repaid it—along with interest calculated at the rate in effect at the time, as agreed in the note." A wry smile softened his granite features. "Among my uncle's eccentricities is a streak of stinginess a mile wide, which made his willingness to hand over all his money to finance my business plan even more meaningful. To illustrate my point, despite Cal's wealth, he still clips coupons from the newspaper, he still fights with all the utility companies about his bills, and he still buys his clothes at Montgomery Ward. He is so bad that if his phone service goes out for a few hours, which happens several times a year, Cal deducts one day's charges from his bill."

"I didn't know you could do that," Diana said, impressed.

"You can," Cole said dryly. "But they'll turn your phone off until you pay up."

Diana smiled at the colorful description he'd provided of a stubborn, elderly man with a big heart and a tight fist. "I still don't understand how your problem is connected with him."

"The connection is that Cal was a full partner in my original business, and I—who owe my current success to his past moral and financial support—could never bring myself to hurt or offend him by asking him to sign papers dissolving the partnership, not even after I repaid his loan with full interest. Besides, I would have trusted him with my life, and so it never occurred to me that he would balk at turning over his stock when I asked him to do it, let alone consider signing it over to someone else."

Diana was astute enough as a businesswoman to immediately grasp the devastating impact of such an action, but she couldn't quite believe that the man Cole had described would be capable of such treachery. "Have you formally asked him to sign over his shares to you?"

"I have."

"And?"

A grim smile twisted Cole's lips. "And he's perfectly willing to do that, except for one small problem that he feels I'm obliged to solve for him before he can justify giving my company's stock back to me."

He paused and Diana, who was helplessly enthralled, said, "What problem?"

"Immortality."

She gaped at him, caught between laughter and confusion. "Immortality?"

"Exactly. It seems that in the last six or seven years, about the time he turned seventy and his health began to fail badly, Uncle Calvin acquired a strong desire to immortalize himself by leaving behind a brood of descendants. The problem is that besides me, he has only one other blood relative, my cousin. Travis is married to a woman named Elaine and they are both very nice but far from brilliant, and they have two children who are neither nice nor brilliant, and Cal can't stand either one of them. Because of that, Cal now wants to see me married so that I can produce clever babies to carry on the family line."

Still unable to believe she understood what he was trying to tell her, Diana said, "And if you don't do that, then what?"

"Then he will leave his share of my corporation to Elaine and Travis's children, Donna Jean and Ted, who are both in college." He paused to take a swallow of his drink as if he wanted to wash away the bad taste of the words. "In that event, Elaine and Travis would become my business partners with enough shares between them to control the company on behalf of their children until Donna Jean and Ted come of age. Travis already works for me, as the head of Unified's research and development division. He's loyal and he does his best, but he doesn't have the brains or imagination to run Unified, even if I were willing to hand it over to him, which I assuredly am not! His kids lack his loyalty and their mother's common sense and kindness. In fact, they're greedy, egotistical schemers who are already planning how to spend my money when they get their hands on it."

Diana bit back a helpless grin at his plight: Cole Harrison, the invincible wheeler-dealer, the lion of Wall Street, was being held over the proverbial barrel by a frail, elderly uncle—an uncle who was probably getting senile. "Poor Cal," she said on a smothered laugh. "What a dilemma. One great-nephew has no business acumen, but he has a wife and children. The other great-nephew is a brilliant entrepreneur, without a wife or children—"

"And without the slightest desire to ever have either," Cole added, summarizing his own attitude. Satisfied that she'd grasped the full situation, he lifted his glass in a sardonic toast to her insight.

His unequivocal wish to remain not only single but childless was obscured for the moment by Diana's helpless amusement at his disgruntled tone. "You do seem to be in a remarkable fix," she said with a wayward smile.

"Which, I gather you find entertaining?"

"Well, you have to admit it is just a little... er... gothic," Diana managed unsteadily.

"At the very least," he agreed grimly.

"Although," she continued with an irrepressible grin, "in gothic romances, it's the heroine who gets coerced into a marriage she doesn't want. I've never heard of a hero who got himself into such a position."

"If your intention is to cheer me up, you're not succeeding," he said bitterly.

In fact, he looked so chagrined by her description of his "unhero-like" predicament that Diana had to look away to hide her laughter. She was so amused that it took several moments before she realized how presumptuous and offensive his proposed solution actually was. "And so," she concluded, trying to sound as calm and detached as he had earlier, "when you saw me tonight, you remembered I'd been jilted, and decided I'd be eager to marry you and help solve your problem—particularly if you bought me a necklace to help me save face."

"I'm not that selfish—or that vain, Diana. I know damned well you'd throw my proposition in my face, except for one thing."

"And that is?"

"By marrying you, I'd be offering myself as a solution to your problems."

"I see," Diana said, though she didn't see at all. "Do you mind explaining how?"

"Simple logic. Even though you've been publicly jilted, you can save your pride if you marry me immediately. Tomorrow, the newspapers will be filled with pictures of us kissing on the balcony tonight and the story of my buying you this necklace. If our marriage is announced the next day, people are going to assume that we've had something going all along and that you probably did the jilting, not Penworth."

Diana shrugged to hide the sharp stab of anger and hurt she felt at his callous summation of her own predicament. "I don't have that much pride to save, not if it requires anything as outrageous and rash as what you're suggesting."

"No, but you do have a business to save. The shield of being engaged for the last two years was already wearing thin. Now that that is gone," Cole finished, "your competitors will double their attacks and the media will collaborate in publicizing all the furor and hype for their own benefit."