Nancy Holland - Owed - One Wedding Night

“How is she? It must have been a terrible shock.”

Madison’s eyes stung with a rush of unexpected grief. Shock, yes. Terrible, yes. But not in the way he thought.

For a moment the devastating memory of that pre-dawn phone call, made stronger by being in Jake’s presence, threatened to overwhelm her. Her first impulse, almost a compulsion, had been to call him, to go to him for the strength and comfort she needed, even though she’d no longer had a right to expect anything from him. Reality, and duty, had won out. She’d gone to her mother, been the strong one, the comforter. She’d had no other choice.

She fought off the still raw pain by making the Ms.-Manners-approved response. “It was nice of you to come to my father's memorial service.”

“Old friends and all that. You and your parents came to the one for my father.”

Those two unhappy events were the only times she and Jake had seen each other in three years. She sighed.

The momentary weakness didn’t go unpunished.

“So why did you, or rather your mother, want to talk to me?”

The ice in his voice made her knees wobble. Obviously the pleasantries were over.

She gave a meaningful look at the comfortable chairs that flanked the fireplace at the far end of the office, but instead he gestured at the stiff leather chair across the desk from his. They sat down at the same moment, eyes fixed on each other’s faces, like boxers circling in the ring.

She took a deep breath and began in a professional tone she hoped she could hang on to. “How much do you know about the circumstances surrounding my father’s death?”

He had the good grace to look uncomfortable. “Only what was in the newspapers. I didn’t follow all the stuff that showed up on the web.”

And thank you for that .

“I take it there are financial issues,” he continued.

She wondered if that was how her mother had phrased it when she made this appointment. Or was he only being polite? Madison took another deep breath and carefully unknotted her hands.

“These last few years…” She forced air into her lungs. “My father's relationship with Dartmoor's Chief Financial Officer…” Anger and shame, added to the nervousness that kept her heart pounding double time, finally stole her voice.

Jake chose to be merciful. “The woman he was with when he died?”

She nodded. Able to breathe again, she gave up on spontaneity as a bad bet and launched into the speech her mother would have made.

“Dartmoor Department Stores has suffered from an unfortunate lack of financial oversight recently that has left it in a difficult situation. New leadership…” Her heart stumbled at the thought. “New leadership is now in place.”

At least she’d been able to convince her father’s mistress to resign. Firing her would only have added to the scandal. Unfortunately, nothing could be done about the all-cash golden parachute the former CFO and Madison’s father had set up for her, which had decimated Dartmoor’s cash reserves.

“However,” Madison continued, “the missteps of the previous CFO have left the company seriously short of the capital it needs to move forward in this challenging economy.”

“Missteps, incompetence, or fraud?” Jake interrupted.

Madison looked down. “We’re not sure.”

“Has the new leadership you referred to had a forensic audit done?”

Her face heated. “That would cost more money than seemed wise to spend on the chance it would turn up any criminal misconduct.”

Criminal misconduct, which might, she didn’t bother to add, implicate her father.

She raised her eyes to search Jake’s face for some clue as to what he might be thinking, but met only a stare so cold it knocked what she meant to say next out of her mind completely.

“Go on,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt such a carefully canned speech.”

His disdain shook her mind free of its temporary paralysis. “Unfortunately, most of my mother’s assets and those of the other investors in Dartmoor have also been victims of the economy, and as things stand there’s little chance of attracting private capital or new investors.”

“What about the trust fund from your grandmother?”

Of course he’d remember that little detail.

“My mother and I have been living on it since my father died.” Nana’s money had also put Madison through business school, but she didn’t dare say so. “We’re spending the principal now.” She suppressed a shudder at the thought of how soon they’d use up the last of that.

Jake shook his head. She was probably the only person in the world beside his mother who would recognize the tiny tic of impatience at one corner of his mouth.

His voice was as bland as his features. “So, where do I come into the picture?”

She looked past him out the window at the sunshine glinting off the building across the street. No inspiration there.

If it was up to her, she’d have sold everything and lived in a tent in Golden Gate Park rather than answer Jake’s question. She’d exhausted every other option first. She’d sold the condo where she lived while she was in business school and now shared the Pacific Heights apartment her mother had moved into when she'd been forced to sell their home in Marin County.

Jake sat there, watching her.

Panic swept over her, choked her. She couldn’t do this. There had to be another way. She’d let Dartmoor go and take one of the jobs she’d been offered in Silicon Valley. She and her mother could get an apartment together down there…

And her mother would be miserable. The humiliation of having her husband die in another woman’s bed, then all the stress of learning that they might have to close Dartmoor had already aged Dana Ellsworth ten years in the last two months. She’d had lived a mockery of a marriage for as long as Madison could remember and even that might not have been enough to keep Dartmoor in the family.

Which is why Madison was sitting here, face hot with humiliation, damp hands once again knotted in her lap.

She let out a long, slow breath. “If you would loan my mother…” She couldn’t finish.

He raised his eyebrows in a way she’d once thought the sexiest thing in the world. Right now the gesture made her look for a waste basket, in case her stomach betrayed her completely.

“How much?”

She named a figure that made Jake’s eyes open wide.

“How much of that is for Dartmoor and how much is to support your mother’s lifestyle? Not to mention yours?”

Madison was tempted to tell him her lifestyle, as bare-bones as it had become lately, was none of his business. But that wouldn’t help her mother.

“All the money will be used to implement my plan to revitalize Dartmoor.”

Both his eyebrows went up. “Your plan?”

This was the opening she needed. She lifted the briefcase to her lap and opened it.

“Yes. If you look at the some of my ideas, you'll see…”

He held up his hand. “Spare me. I don't think I can sit through another of your amateur sales pitches.”

She started to protest that her MBA in marketing made her far from an amateur, but the look on his face, somewhere between amusement and rage, stopped her. Instead she set the case down again and tried to ignore the memories that kept flooding back and threatened to make it impossible for her to continue.

“So, the money would all go to Dartmoor.”

She nodded.

“And what will you two live on in the meantime?”

What should she tell him? The whole truth wasn’t an option.

“I've had several job offers.”

Something dark crossed his face, then evaporated.

“Jobs that will pay enough to support your mother’s current lifestyle?”