Eva Rutland - Almost A Wife

Tray continued. “You deserve more than…than this,” he said, his gesture taking in the kitchen. “We have to decide where we go from here.”

“We?” Lisa blinked. “I don’t know about you, but I am very well prepared to take care of myself.”

“You’ve proved that. But we both know this is temporary. I might be able to make you an offer….”

Eva Rutland began writing when her four children, now all successful professionals, were growing up. Eva lives in California with her husband, Bill, who actively supports and encourages her writing career.

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3439—MARRIAGE BAIT

3490—THE WEDDING TRAP

3518—THE MILLION-DOLLAR MARRIAGE

3550—HER OWN PRINCE CHARMING

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With love, to my delightful granddaughter, Chelsea, and her bear.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LISA REYNOLDS gazed with apprehension at the empty lobby of the Bonus Bank Building. No one standing by the bank of elevators. No telling when someone would come and choose the one marked Floors 21 to 40.

She walked to that elevator, and courageously lifted her finger.

She couldn’t push the button.

This was crazy! Just because it happened once didn’t mean you were going to be stuck every time you stepped into an elevator.

She wasn’t crazy. Hadn’t she breezed through college, and earned a master’s degree in business by the time she was twenty-three! Now, at twenty-six, she was director of research and development at CTI—Computer Technology Incorporated.

Not anymore, she reminded herself.

Well, she hadn’t lost the job because she wasn’t darn good at it.

Mergers! That was what was crazy. All these takeover, downsizing shenanigans going on in business today.

Anyway, it was CTI’s loss, not hers. She already had feelers out. With her qualifications, she’d be hired by the competition in a hot minute.

Maybe with an office on the ground floor, she thought, trying to laugh at herself. Why couldn’t she lose this ridiculous phobia about elevators!

She had almost overcome it. Out of necessity. She could hardly have climbed the stairs to her thirty-fourth floor office each working day for one whole year. She had compromised. She would board the elevator only if someone got on with her. That way she wouldn’t be alone in death or disaster.

She should have come earlier. Not everybody had lost their job, and the elevators would have been crowded with workers.

Bad timing. Stupid to think being a little late didn’t matter because it was her last day.

She straightened hopefully as a woman breezed into the lobby. But the woman stopped at the one to twenty-block. Lisa stepped back as if waiting for someone. She pretended to be studying the mural on the opposite wall while gazing surreptitiously at the woman. She looked very chic in a smart gabardine business suit, one leather gloved hand clutching a smart leather attaché case.

Like me, Lisa thought, touching a hand to the cloud of silky black hair that framed her face in a smart shoulder-length cut. I’m coiffured, manicured and groomed as sleek as the sleekest of women executives! And I’m more efficient than most. Sam Fraser said so.

“I hate doing this to you,” he had said when he handed her the pink slip that terminated her employment. “Research and development was gaining momentum under your management, and it’s not your fault that we’ve dropped in the market.”

“But that’s only temporary,” she protested, at the moment more concerned with the potential of CTI’s software than with her personal problem. “Of course we show a slump in the market when a large share of funds is going into development. But when the new programs are on the market, our stock will go up.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “But the merger hangs on the current rating. Tray Kingsley, the man who’s negotiating the deal, is looking at the market and if our stock doesn’t go up, a sell-off will begin. We’ve got to cut overhead to raise profit. Middle management is the first to go. Sorry.”

So her job had vanished. Just like that. Just because some big shot sat in his New York office, studying the stock market. A big shot named Tray Kingsley. She hadn’t known she could hate a man she’d never seen.

What could he tell about the real worth of CTI, sitting on his backside three thousand miles away?

More to the point…why the dickens did CTI decide to merge with Lawson Enterprises just at this time! She had been with them only one year, hardly eligible for the golden handshake!

She straightened again as a man entered the building. Any other time she might have noticed that he was tall, dark and quite handsome. But this morning she only noticed that he headed straight for the 21 to 40 block of elevators. She sprang into action.

Tray Kingsley smiled as he pushed the button. He was on the way up in more ways than one. After only one year with Lawson, he had been chosen to negotiate the takeover of CTI, for which he had received a sizable bonus. Now he had been selected as the new CEO to head the new San Francisco subsidiary. His tenure here was only temporary, an opportunity to study the facility and decide the best economic shifts. But the bonus included a substantial increase in salary, and a brief taste of sunny California. You couldn’t beat that with a stick.

Actually he had suggested the California stint himself. It provided a diplomatic breather from his indecisive involvement with a very persistent lady who just happened to be the boss’s daughter.

Not much of a breather. He still maintained his position at the New York headquarters and would be there often. And, to be fair, he enjoyed his association with Chase Lawson. She was beautiful, and charmingly acquainted with all the right people, a companionable asset in any social gathering. Personally? He tried to think beyond the social swirls to the little dinners and their intimate times alone. Well…Perhaps the fact that she was a Lawson was the put off. He liked to think his advancement was due to his capabilities…not as a future son-in-law.

So, back to the job, he thought as the elevator door slid open. This would be his first look at the physical site, but he was already immersed in plans for improvement and expansion. The first thing to do was—

“Pardon,” he said, a little startled and not sure who had brushed against whom, for they seemed to enter the elevator simultaneously. He didn’t look at her, and hardly noticed that there was no response.

The key man here was Sam Fraser, he thought. Perhaps he could arrange to take him to lunch. Talking was better than looking when it came to sizing things up. He meant to get a good grip on things right off. Wouldn’t bother about an apartment. The hotel was convenient and…