Christine Rimmer - The Millionaire She Married

“I am not your—”

“Sorry. Old habits. Now, get out of the way.”

He stepped forward, took her by the shoulders and guided her back from the door. Then he gestured at the waiters again. They followed him into the front parlor, where they proceeded to set up the table on her mother’s hand-hooked Roosevelt Star rug.

In the ensuing seven or eight minutes, Jenna tried to tell Mack a number of times that she wasn’t having dinner with him. He pretended not to hear her as the waiters trekked back and forth from a van out in the front, bringing linens and dishes and flatware and a centerpiece of flower-shaped candles floating in a cut-crystal bowl. They also brought in a side table and set it up under the front window. They put the food there. It looked and smelled sinfully delicious.

When all was in readiness, one waiter lighted the candles as the other pulled out Jenna’s chair for her.

Jenna sent a glare at Mack. “I don’t like this.”

He put on an innocent expression, which she did not buy for a nanosecond. “Come on, Jenna. It’s only dinner.”

The waiter waited, holding the chair.

Jenna gave in and sat down, thinking that Mack McGarrity might have managed to develop a little patience, he even might have learned how to relax. But in this, he hadn’t changed at all. He still insisted on doing things one hundred percent his way.

Mack slid into the chair opposite her. He gestured to the waiters and one of them set a bread basket on the table, along with two plates of tempting appetizers: stuffed miniature Portobello mushrooms and oysters on the half shell, nestled in chipped ice. The other waiter busied himself opening a bottle of Pinot Grigio, which Mack sampled, approved and then poured for Jenna and for himself.

That done, Mack signed the check.

The moment the front door closed behind the waiters, Jenna placed one mushroom and one oyster on her plate. She also buttered a warm slice of sourdough bread. Then she rose from her chair. She dished up more food from the offerings on the side table—a good-sized helping of salade ni oise and a modest serving of sautéed veal scallops with marsala sauce.

She sat down and ate. The appetizers were as good as they looked, as were the salad and the veal. She did not touch her wine.

As she methodically chewed and swallowed, Mack kept trying to get her talking. He asked about her shop and complimented her on the changes she’d made in the decor of her mother’s front parlor. He wondered aloud where Lacey was and tried to get her to tell him more about her sister’s life as a struggling artist in Southern California.

Jenna answered in single syllables whenever possible. When the question absolutely required a longer answer, she gave him a whole sentence—and then went back to her meal.

She was finished ten minutes after she’d started. She pushed her plate away. “Thank you, Mack. That was excellent.”

“I’m so glad you enjoyed it,” he muttered, finishing off his glass of wine and reaching for the bottle again.

She granted him a sour smile. “You’ve hardly eaten.” He’d taken one mushroom and a single breadstick.

“For some reason, I feel rushed. It’s ruined my appetite.” He poured more wine, set the bottle down.

Jenna smoothed her napkin in at the side of her plate. “Well, then. If you don’t feel like eating, then maybe we can proceed to the main order of business here.”

He was staring at her engagement diamond. “Nice ring,” he muttered.

“Thank you. I like it, too—and can we talk about what you supposedly came here to talk about?”

He gestured with his wineglass. “By all means.”

She straightened her shoulders and inched her chin up a notch. “As I told you on the phone, I want to get married again.”

“Congratulations.” Mack took a minute to sip from his glass. Then he lowered the glass and looked at her straight on. “But don’t you think you ought to get rid of your first husband before you start talking about taking on another one?”

“I am rid of my first husband,” she replied in a carefully controlled tone. “Or I was supposed to be. Everything was settled.”

“For you, maybe.”

She glared at him. “It was settled, Mack.”

He grunted. “Whatever you say.”

“Well, all right. I say that everything was over—except that, for some reason, you never got around to signing the papers that my lawyer sent your lawyer.”

Mack studied the depths of his wineglass for a moment, then looked at her once more. “It was a busy time for me. I had a lot on my mind.”

She decided to let his lame excuses pass. “The point is, it’s over, Mack. Long over. And you know it. I don’t know why you’re here, after all these years. I don’t care why you’re here.”

He sat up a little straighter. “I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you want. Just—” Give me those papers and get out of my life! she wanted to shout. But she didn’t. She paused. She gathered her composure, then asked quite civilly, “Do you have the papers?”

He brought his wineglass to his lips again and regarded her broodingly over the rim. “Not with me.”

Jenna could quite easily have picked up the crystal bowl of floating candles from the center of the table and heaved it at his head. To keep herself from doing that, she folded her hands in her lap and spoke with measured care. “You said you had the papers.”

“And I do. I just didn’t bring them with me tonight.”

“You lied.”

“I didn’t lie. You heard what you wanted to hear.”

Another lie, she thought, but held her tongue this time. She’d lived with Mack McGarrity long enough to recognize a verbal trap when he laid one. If she kept insisting that he’d lied, they’d only end up going around and around, her accusing and him denying, getting nowhere.

Let it go, she thought. Move on. She said, “You told me you wanted to talk to me. In private. Well, here we are. Just the way you wanted it. You’d better start talking, Mack. You’d better tell me what is going on.”

He set his glass on the table. “Jenna, I—” He cut himself off. Something across the room had caught his eye. She followed his glance to the black cat peeking around the edge of the arch that led to the formal dining room. “My God. Is that…?”

“Byron,” she provided reluctantly, at the same time as he whispered, “Bub?”

The cat’s lean body slid around the arch. Then, his long tail high, Byron strutted over, jumped lightly onto Mack’s lap, lay down and began to purr in obvious contentment. Mack petted the black fur in long, slow strokes. Jenna looked away, furious with him for this game he was playing—and moved in spite of her fury at the sight of him with Byron again after all these years.

She stared out the front window at the Boston fern hanging from the eaves of the porch as the sound of Byron’s happy purring rumbled in her ears. When she looked back, Mack was watching her. His eyes were soft now, full of memories, of dangerous tenderness. “He has some gray, around his neck.”

Jenna’s throat felt uncomfortably tight. “He’s not a young cat. He was full-grown when we found him.”

She thought of their first meeting again, though she shouldn’t have allowed herself such a foolish indulgence.

Nine years ago. It seemed like forever.

And also, like yesterday…

She’d been in her junior year, majoring in business administration at UCLA. And he’d been twenty-five, just finishing law school.

Once he’d led her into his apartment, he’d informed her that the cat had adopted him.