SUSAN MEIER - Married Right Away

Again, the silky feeling floated through her.

“You don’t have to wait on me. I can get my own coffee. You sit.”

Their gazes locked and, once again, Savannah felt she could get lost in his eyes. Almost black and warm with emotion, they held her as surely as the grip of a hand. She reminded herself that their baby inspired the tenderness she saw in Ethan’s eyes. She told herself it had nothing to do with her, but that didn’t stop the flood of recognition that flowed through her. Whether it was wise or not, at this precise moment she wasn’t thinking about the baby. She was thinking about how attractive he was. How awful his divorce had been. How genuinely kind he had been to her when her parents died. What she was experiencing was an appreciation for him as a man.

Tall and lean, he had the structure and solidness of someone upon whom she could depend, and his behavior backed that up. He hadn’t demanded she marry him. He hadn’t waved his family’s money or position to threaten her. He had asked her to marry him and given her time to think it through because he was intelligent, responsible and fair. For Savannah that was every bit as sexy as his compelling dark eyes, beautiful black hair and the cute little cleft in his chin.

Perhaps if the situation were different, if she had met him on the street and didn’t have any prior association with him, she might want to flirt with him, wishing he would ask her out, wondering what it would be like to be his wife. Instead, they did have a connection, she didn’t dare flirt with him. And in a few days or weeks, whatever timeline they decided this morning, she would be his wife.

The thought shot a shiver through her and she backed away from the table. If she didn’t watch herself, she could end up in big trouble here. She could easily fall in love with this guy and end up completely brokenhearted.

When Savannah stepped away from the table, Ethan rose to get his coffee from the pot on the counter. Lifting the container, he noticed his hand was shaking and he knew why. When he put his palm on her abdomen, he felt a zing that had nothing to do with the baby he was touching and everything to do with Savannah. Logically he knew that was because he hadn’t really touched a baby. He had touched her. He had stroked the soft skin of her tummy. And he felt a hundred emotions he had no right to feel. Appreciation. Wonder. Awe. And affection. He could put his genuine affection for Savannah down to having worked with her for two years, and he did, but he wasn’t so foolish as to not realize that with very little help his feelings for this woman could explode.

And that would be trouble.

He had exonerated her, and he wasn’t pressing charges against her brother. In return, she was helping him cover the problem so that the press didn’t hurt his father. They were working together amicably, but that didn’t mean he should relax with her. He didn’t really know that she wouldn’t take advantage of this situation to extort money. But even if she was sufficiently cleared of that, he couldn’t afford to get emotionally involved with another woman.

Unfortunately, if he got any more appreciative of Savannah, he wouldn’t merely be involved, he would be smitten. Then he would give her anything she wanted when they divorced, and that took him back to his bottom-line suspicion. Savannah might not have helped her brother cook up the scheme to get a part of the McKenzie money, but now that she had her foot in the door there was no telling what she could demand. Though he didn’t believe Savannah was greedy, he couldn’t completely leave himself and his family unprotected, either. Which meant he couldn’t act upon any feelings he had for Savannah beyond what was appropriate.

“So, when do you want to get married?” he asked, taking his coffee to the table.

She shrugged. “I need two weeks to help my friends create a schedule and train them so they can run the bed-and-breakfast for the months I’m gone. Plus, we’ll need time to get a license and do whatever else is required to get married in Maryland.”

“That makes sense. How about the Saturday after next, then?”

She nodded. “The Saturday after next,” she said, playing with her silverware as Ethan helped himself to one of her delicious-looking cinnamon rolls, if only to give her a few seconds to acclimate. He knew her entire life was being turned upside down, but there was no help for it. Getting married was the only way to protect his father.

“So…have you told your parents?”

He glanced at her. “I’m not going to.”

She gasped. “You’re not?”

“Not on your life. I discussed this with Hilton last night,” he said, referring to Hilton Martin, family friend of the McKenzies, owner of Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods and a man Ethan knew Savannah very much liked and respected. “And he agrees that there is no reason for my parents to know. Actually, their not knowing will help keep the scenario safe for them. Because they don’t know the truth, they won’t ever be lying to the press.”

“That makes sense,” Savannah agreed quietly.

“Yes, it does. The fewer people who know, the better,” he began, but he suddenly realized something he should have thought of immediately and he almost groaned. “Savannah, did you tell anyone how you got pregnant?”

Obviously realizing why he had asked, Savannah grimaced, “This isn’t something you share with the general public, so I only told the four women you met last night and Olivia Brady.”

“Olivia Brady? From Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods?” Ethan said, stiffening with fear that his perfect plan had a big hole in it.

“I didn’t actually tell her everything when I had lunch with her in March. I tried, but she thought I was only considering getting pregnant and she never let me finish the story.”

Ethan relaxed. “So, that’s good, then. At the very least it’s manageable. We can say we bumped into each other while you were in Atlanta, realized we were head over heels in love and keep the story as pure as the driven snow.”

“I wouldn’t call this story as pure as the driven snow,” Savannah said, again playing with her silverware. “It’s a lie.”

“Yes, but it’s a necessary lie,” Ethan insisted. “What about your friends?”

“What about my friends?”

“What did you tell them?”

For this she looked him right in the eye. “I told them exactly what you told Hilton Martin.”

Understanding the comparison she had deliberately made, Ethan sucked in his breath. He couldn’t criticize her for telling her friends because he had confided in Hilton. “Do you trust them?”

Savannah gaped at him. “Of course, I trust them! I trust them enough that they’ll be running my business for six months.”

“This is different….”

“I don’t see how. Besides, even if I hadn’t wanted to talk with them about this last night to get my bearings, I would have had to tell them something to give them a reason for why I was marrying somebody they didn’t know and pulling up stakes. But only for six months. Not forever. Which immediately would alert them that something was wrong. There was no way I could have lied to them.”

“Right. You’re right. And I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

Looking at Savannah’s angry face, Ethan suddenly felt like the villain. And he wasn’t. Her brother was. He wouldn’t be coercing her into marriage if it weren’t for her brother.

Nonetheless, guilt swamped him because he was asking a great deal of this woman. Then concern for her safety struck him next. What the hell was he doing upsetting the mother of his child? But continued fear about her friends hit him last and when that wave came it was a tsunami because it was a deal breaker. He wasn’t afraid one of them had already leaked her secret. Up to now the details of her pregnancy were highly personal for Savannah, a secret easily kept among friends. But now that the information had real value in the tabloid marketplace, Ethan knew any one of those four women could decide to sell this story. Which would make getting married pointless. If even one of them wasn’t as trustworthy as Savannah believed, this plan was dead in the water.