The Bachelor's Bride

They sat down to eat, and Trudy smiled, her mouth stuffed with lo mein. “Don’t we get along great?” she asked.

“Wonderfully,” Rachel said as she toyed with the fried rice.

“You know,” Trudy began, “we’d be great together.”

“Together?”

“Yeah. Living together.”

“What are you talking about?” Rachel asked.

“You. Me. Living together at my place.”

“Oh, Trudy—”

“No, really. We could do it. I work all day. You could help me out keeping the place neat and all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You barely have enough room for yourself.”

“That’s not true. There’s that little alcove. We could put the crib in there. You could sleep in my room.”

“And what about Jake?”

“What about him?”

“Your relationship is just heating up. How is he going to fit into all this?” Rachel asked with a shake of her head. “Really, Trudy. Three’s a crowd. And once the baby comes, it’ll be four.”

“So? We’ll have a parade! Come on, we can do it.”

Rachel shook her head. “No.” She leaned forward and put her hand over Trudy’s, not even trying to fight the tears that filled her eyes. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had in my entire life. Thank you for the offer, but no. I’ve already made up my mind what to do.”

“And that is?”

Rachel pulled back her hand and looked down at her dinner. She didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, as if once she did, she would be bound by them.

“Well?” Trudy prompted.

Rachel lifted her eyes and met her friend’s concerned stare. “I’m going back home.”

“You can’t. You’ll hate it there.”

“I’ve already called the airlines.”

“But have you called your father?”

“No. But I will. Tomorrow.” She looked at Trudy’s disapproving face. “I have no other choice.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What? Tell me what other choices I have?”

“Reid.”

Rachel shook her head adamantly. “No.”

“Why not? He’s got more money than God. He can help you out, get you a job, set you up—”

“No. Don’t even think it. I won’t take money from him. Not now, anyway. Maybe later. When the baby’s older. For college.”

“Why? For heaven’s sake, tell me, why?”

Rachel gave up on eating. She stood and scraped the remainder of the food off her plate into the trash. “Because I’d be putting myself—the baby—up for sale. I’d feel obligated to him. Not to mention the publicity. Can you imagine what the newspapers would do if they found out about this? New York’s most eligible bachelor and moi. I could see the headlines now.”

“You’d live through it.”

“But I don’t want to live through it! I want to have my baby in peace and quiet. I don’t want to become part of any Reid James media circus. I couldn’t do it, Trudy, even if he offered.” She paused. “He hasn’t, has he?” she asked.

Trudy shook her head slowly. “No, but I know he would if—”

“If I asked him? Oh, Trudy, can’t you see how that would make me feel?”

Trudy got up from the table and came over to Rachel. She put her arm around her. “Why are you being so stubborn? He can do things for you.”

“I think he’s done enough for me already, don’t you?”

“That’s not fair,” Trudy said. “He’s really a great guy. A little rough around the edges, but that’s to be expected based on his background.”

“What about his background?”

The phone rang. Rachel drew a deep breath and let it out slowly as she walked over to answer it by the bed. She lifted the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Rachel? How are you?”

It was Reid. Rachel sank onto the edge of the bed and mouthed his name to Trudy. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“I hope you don’t mind my calling. Trudy gave me the number.”

“No. No, I don’t mind your calling.”

“Hell, no,” Trudy said out loud. “We were just talking about you.

Rachel shushed Trudy with a wave of her hand. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to meet with you...talk to you.”

Rachel shut her eyes and pressed her lips together for a moment. “I’ve already made my decision, Reid.”

He hesitated. “And...”

“And I’m going to keep the baby.”

If she thought it really mattered to him, Rachel could have interpreted a note of relief in his intake of breath.

“I’m glad.”

“Are you?” she asked.

“Yes. Very. Will you meet with me?”

“I don’t know for what, Reid.”

“To discuss how we’re going to handle this.”

“We aren’t handling anything. I’ve decided to go back home.”

“Home?”

“To Ohio.”

“Oh. Is that definite?”

“Yes. All the arrangements are made,” she lied.

Reid was silent for a long time. Rachel could almost feel the steam from his temper seeping through the phone. Her heart began to pound.

Finally he said, “I see. Well, then, I guess this is—”

“Goodbye.” Rachel finished his sentence for him.

She hadn’t thought this would be so hard. She didn’t really know him at all. For all intents and purposes he was a stranger. Except for the outcome of their night together, they would probably have never met again. He’d only been a face in a dream to her, but meeting him again, seeing the dream come to life, walk, talk, touch her, was unbalancing to say the least.

He was real, and they had shared something special. She felt something for him she couldn’t even put a name to.

The lump in her throat was growing larger and more prohibitive by the second. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could continue to speak, so she thought it best to end this conversation as soon as possible.

“I have to go.”

“Okay...” he said softly. But when she didn’t hang up, he added, “Rachel? Are you still there?”

“Yes...” she squeaked.

“Will you let me know...when, and all...”

“Yes. Of course. Goodbye, Reid.”

And this time she did hang up, cradling the phone and gripping the receiver long after the connection was broken.

“Well, that’s that,” Trudy said with a faint tinge of disapproving resignation.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “It’s over.”

Three

It wasn’t over. Not as far as Reid was concerned. Not by a long shot.

Rachel Morgan couldn’t possibly believe that she could enter his life, drop this kind of bombshell in his lap, and then shoo him away like an annoying fly on a hot summer day.

He stared at the phone on his desk for the longest time after cradling the receiver. He’d stayed late at the office with no desire to go home and return to the scene of the crime, so to speak. He wanted to wallow for a while, a bit of self-indulgence he’d made it a point never to give in to anymore, but for some reason needed to sink down into right now.

So she was going home, she said. To Ohio, no less. Not that he had anything against Ohio. He had a very nice, profitable business there. He even visited now and then. But Ohio was not where he lived. He was here. In New York. And this is where he wanted her to be.

Especially now. Especially since she’d decided to keep the baby.

He couldn’t believe how pleased—no, overjoyed—he was by her decision. Or how apprehensive he had been about what that decision might be. He didn’t really know what he would have done if she had chosen otherwise, but he would have done something.

He wanted her in his life. In whatever capacity she’d accept, and that was the bottom line. He needed to come up with a strategy to accomplish that, and that would take some planning. But he was good at planning. He’d lived his whole life setting and reaching goals, most of them deemed by others to be impossible. This would be no different.

He would set her up. An apartment on the Upper West Side maybe. Something near the park so that they could take the baby there on nice days. He’d get her a nanny, or better yet, a nurse, too. The best of care for his son...or daughter. Whatever. It didn’t matter. The child was his. No report from Mazelli was going to refute what he knew in his heart to be so.

Right or wrong, good or bad, Rachel Morgan and Reid James had made a baby that night.

He wasn’t a religious man, and he didn’t believe in fate. You made your own luck. But too much had happened, too many things had had to fall into place for this to be dismissed as coincidence.

So something had brought them together that night. Be it God, or the fates, or the stars in the universe, something beyond and more powerful than them had decreed that this should be, and his gut instinct told him that there had to be a reason for it.

He’d always trusted his gut instinct, even when logic had said no, even when people had thought him crazy, and never, ever, had he been wrong. He wasn’t wrong now, either. Rachel and he had made a baby and, ego aside, he was meant to be part of the child’s life.

So that meant one thing.

She wasn’t going to live in Ohio.

And he’d have to work on the way to stop her.

He mulled over his options. He didn’t know much about her, but what he did know told him she wouldn’t take well to the authoritarian approach. No, she’d have to be gently persuaded, perhaps with a healthy dose of reality and logic.

But she had a tender side, too. His insides twisted with the memory of the warmth she was capable of. She said she didn’t remember any of it, but he did, and that would have to do for now.

Reid tapped his index finger against his mouth as he contemplated his next course of action. His private line rang and he picked it up.

“Yes?”

“Mazelli, here. I’ve got something for you.”

“That was fast.”

“Once I had her name, it was a breeze, Mr. J. She’s no mystery.”

Easy for you to say. “Tell me.”

“Thirty. Typical small-town background. School, church, you know the drill. Mother dead two years. She’d been sick a long time. Rachel nursed her to the end. Father remarried—”

“When?” Reid asked.

“Couple of months after the mother died.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah. Real heartbroken guy.”

“Anything more?”

“She was engaged to a Tom Walcott. Sold insurance. He broke it off and married someone else. Got a kid now.” Mazelli paused. “From the dates, it looks like he left her around the time her mother died.”

“Another sweetheart,” Reid said, a picture beginning to form in his mind.

“Also,” Mazelli continued, “she came to New York after that. Worked for Forster Fashions for a year and a half, then got laid off. She’s currently unemployed except for a part-time deal with a local restaurant.” When Reid was silent, Mazelli added, “The lady’s had a lot of tough breaks.”

“It would seem so. Anything else?”

“Nah. Just the usual. Address, phone number, credit rating—”

“Give me the address.” Mazelli obliged.

“One other thing. She charged a one-way airline ticket to Ohio.”

“For when?”

“The last Friday in August.”

Reid marked his desk calendar. “That’s the Friday of Labor Day weekend.”

“Yep.”

“Thanks. You do good work, Mazelli.”

“Call me anytime, Mr. J.”

“You got it.”

Reid hung up and stared at the address he’d scribbled across the white pad. Ripping off the sheet of paper, he folded it and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. He lifted his jacket off the back of his chair and put it on, unconsciously straightening his tie and tugging at his French cuffs as he headed for the door.

The end of the month. That didn’t leave him much time. But he worked under pressure all the time, and if nothing else, it spurred him on all the more.

He left Charlotte a note. He wouldn’t be in tomorrow. Perhaps not the day after that, either. A feeling of elation washed over him with the realization that he’d found what he’d been looking for—a damned good reason for him to take a break from the business, a new challenge, something exciting, important.

A reason for living.

A baby and...

Rachel.

* * *

Everything was packed. When Rachel surveyed the meager display of boxes, she became even more depressed than she already was. When she’d first arrived in New York it had been smarter—and cheaper—to rent furniture for a while. The “while” became much longer than she’d ever imagined, and she’d never gotten around to purchasing anything worth taking.

The rental company had picked up the few pieces that had been part of her life these two years, leaving only these boxes filled with her personal items. Not much to show for her time here, she thought. So, apparently, did the moving company she’d hired. They were piggybacking her belongings with another family’s, and she was more or less at their mercy.

So there she sat, on a box in the middle of her empty studio apartment waiting for the movers to arrive. She had planned to spend her last night in New York with Trudy, but she’d had to push up her departure date unexpectedly. She would have to leave this afternoon to accommodate her father’s schedule. She and Trudy had had to make do with a tearful goodbye on the telephone this morning.

Most of all, she would miss her friend. Trudy represented all that was right about the city Rachel had adopted as her home. How would she survive without her wit and her wisdom? Rachel smiled to herself, remembering Trudy’s last words. “Don’t forget. You always have a home here with me.”

But Rachel knew that once she left, she’d never return, not even for a visit. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. Her stomach churned anew with the realization that in a few hours she would be back in her father’s house.

It’s funny, she thought, sometime during the two years she’d been away, the house she’d grown up in had ceased to be hers or even her mother’s. It had become her father’s house. Her father’s and his wife, Sally.

It had been so hard making that phone call...

Shaking herself out of her reverie, Rachel bit her lip. You’re making the right decision, she repeated to herself for the hundredth time.

She checked her watch. She still had time, but not much. Mentally, she shrugged. Even if the movers didn’t arrive before she had to leave, she had arranged to have her super let them in.

The buzzer sounded, and with a sigh of relief Rachel rose and hit the entrance button. She opened her front door to allow them to enter, then made a quick and final foray around the large L-shaped room to check for the umpteenth time that she had packed everything.

Bent over a box, she heard the knock. “Come on in,” she said. “Everything’s ready to go.”

“Rachel?”

She spun around at the sound of his voice. Reid stood in the doorway, dressed casually in low-riding jeans and a blue sport shirt, one hand on the knob, one foot over the threshold.

“Reid! What are you doing here?”

“May I come in?”

“Yes, of course.” She straightened, running her fingers through her hair to smooth it back in place. “Moving day,” she said with a sheepish grin and a hand motion toward the boxes.

“So I see.” He shut the door behind him and moved more deeply into the room. “I’ve come in the nick of time.”

“Nick of time? To what?”

“To persuade you not to go.”

When Trudy had called to advise him that Rachel was leaving today and not Friday as originally planned, he’d jumped into his clothes and called for his car. Though he knew if he missed her he could just as easily follow her to Ohio, common sense told him that he would stand a better chance if he pleaded his case before she set foot on the plane. Once she was back home it would be more difficult to get her to return.

More difficult, but not impossible.

Rachel smiled. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. My plane leaves in—” she checked her watch again “—two hours.”

“The plane can take off with or without you, Rachel.”

“But it won’t.”

“Won’t you at least hear me out before you leave?”

Rachel shut her eyes for a long moment. “Please don’t do this, Reid. I’ve said all I have to say to you over the phone. This is difficult enough without you confusing the issue at the eleventh hour.”

“Perhaps the fact that it’s difficult is telling you something.”

“Such as?”

“That you shouldn’t go.”

Rachel shook her head. “There are no other options.”

“Yes, there are. You’ve chosen not to pursue them.”

“You mean, you.”

“Yes, me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not taking any money from you. I’m not...the baby’s not for sale.”

“I would never presume to think that. There are other ways, Rachel. Not money. Help. So that you don’t have to go back to your father with your tail between your legs.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I don’t. I guessed.”

“You had me checked out, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, I did. Things haven’t been easy for you, have they?”

Unbidden tears tightened her throat and she fought for control. She stared at him. His eyes were an all-business green, cold, hard, deliberate. Why was he doing this?

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth.

“Because I want you to stay.”

“What you mean is, you want the baby.”

“Same thing.”

“Not to me.”

Reid’s jaw tightened and he pinned her with his eyes. The words hung in the air as the buzzer sounded again. Rachel didn’t move right away, mesmerized by his presence and his intense look. It buzzed again.

“I’d better get that.” She walked around him and hit the button, then turned back to him. “The movers are here.”

“Cancel them.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.”

She shook her head. “No.”

Reid came up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Give me a chance to talk you out of this.”

“The plane—”

“All right. My car is downstairs. I’ll take you to the airport. If I can’t change your mind before the plane takes off, I’ll come back and personally arrange to have your belongings transported to Ohio. Deal?”

“Why would you—”

“The meter’s ticking, Rachel. All I’ve got is two hours to convince you to stay. Give me at least this, won’t you?”

The knock saved her from answering. A gruff voice sounded on the other side of the door. “Movers.”

Reid’s gaze locked with hers. She didn’t protest when he pulled her back from the door and opened it. He took it for her acquiescence.

“We won’t be needing you anymore,” he said to the burly man standing in the hall.

“What? I got an order here says I have to pick up—”

“Yes, well, the order’s canceled.” Reid reached into his pocket and pulled out a billfold. Extracting one of the larger denominations, he handed it to the mover. “For your trouble.”

The man looked at the bill, then at Reid. “Suit yourself,” he said, then marched back toward the elevator mumbling to himself.

Reid shut the door and turned to face Rachel.

“Now you’ve done it,” she said. “The way things were I already had to wait a week for my things. Now who knows when I’ll see them again.”

“I promise you’ll have everything within a week if I have to rent a truck and drive to you myself.”

Rachel turned her face from him, his eyes too penetrating for her to withstand right now. He was seeing too much with those eyes. Seeing things she didn’t want to admit even to herself.

She hadn’t realized how fragile she was until he’d appeared. She had thought she was handling this move so well. Why even the difficult phone call to her father had gone okay, with Sally being very congenial and friendly, and her father’s voice soft and welcoming.

She’d thought she had reconciled herself to her decision to go home. She was no longer hesitant about leaving, had even convinced herself that it might be fun living back in her old room, seeing everyone again.

But she hadn’t counted on Reid showing up and dredging up all her reservations she’d done her best to bury.

“I have to leave,” she said, feeling trapped here in this small apartment with him and her misgivings.

Reid picked up her two suitcases. “I’ll take you to the airport.”

She nodded, following him out the door, locking it behind her. Rachel glanced at the key in her hand and was about to pocket it, then changed her mind. “Here,” she said to Reid. “Take this. You’ll need it to ship my stuff.”

“I’ll take it, but I won’t need it,” he said.

Her smile was puzzled. “You seem so sure you’ll get your way.”

Reid put a hand to her back and ushered her toward the elevator. “I usually do.”

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