The Marriage Solution

“Tess is always the first one in and the last to leave,” Owen told Jared. “And not just a dedicated worker but an incredibly talented one.”

While Tess appreciated the words of praise, she couldn’t help but wonder why her boss thought Jared McCabe would care about her work habits. But now wasn’t the time for her to ask that question, so she only said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Then, to Jared, “It was nice meeting you, Mr. McCabe.”

He smiled again. “It was my pleasure, Ms. Lucas.”

“Enjoy your weekend,” Owen said.

Tess nodded, her mind swirling with questions about the mysterious Mr. McCabe. Then she thought about her upcoming dinner with Craig and remembered she had bigger issues to worry about.

Chapter Three

It was after seven-thirty by the time Tess pulled into the visitor parking lot of Craig’s building but she stayed in her car a few more minutes, psyching herself for the next round with him. She hated the awkwardness between them—hated feeling edgy, irritable, confused. But she knew that wasn’t likely to change until they’d come to an agreement about her pregnancy and his role in their baby’s life.

She also knew that if she was to have any chance of talking Craig out of this crazy marriage idea, she would have to stay calm and focused. She could admit that marriage was an option, but she needed to convince him that there were compelling reasons to disregard that option.

Friendship and chemistry are both solid foundations for a relationship.

She shook her head trying to block out the echo of his words in her mind.

And if we got married, our baby would have a family.

A family was the one thing she’d always wanted and the greatest gift she knew she could give to her child. And Craig knew her well enough to know it was the most tempting thing he could offer.

But if she gave in to temptation, what would it cost? What would a marriage of convenience do to their friendship? How could she risk the solid relationship they had for the illusion of something more?

Tess pushed aside the questions along with her trepidation as she climbed out of the car. She’d asked him to be her friend—she needed to remember that he was the best friend she had and not do anything to screw that up.

She greeted the doorman by name as she made her through the lobby. Nigel responded with a smile and a wave, reaching for the phone to call Craig’s apartment and let him know she was on her way up.

Craig opened the door just as she stepped off the elevator.

“Sorry, I’m later than I expected to be,” she said. “I got caught up with Owen as I was on my way out.” She considered mentioning the odd encounter with the stranger but decided that could wait until later.

“Not a problem,” he said. “I’m a little behind schedule myself because of an impromptu visit from my mother.”

“I’m sorry I missed her,” Tess said, kicking off her shoes inside the entrance before following him into the kitchen.

“No, you’re not.”

She frowned.

“Long story,” he said. “And right now I’m going to put the grill on so we can eat soon.”

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked.

“You can throw the salad together if you want.” He gestured to the ingredients on the counter.

“Okay.” She washed the lettuce and began tearing it into pieces. She’d really hoped that having dinner with Craig tonight would be a step toward getting their relationship back on track, toward the resumption of their friendship. But she couldn’t deny that being alone with him here—for the first time since the night their baby had been conceived—filled her with foreboding.

Truthfully, she was more afraid of her own reactions to him than anything he might say or do. Ever since the night they’d spent together, every little touch sent tingles of awareness through her veins. Even the briefest contact taunted her with the recollection of how it felt to really be touched by him.

She forced the memories aside and began slicing the cucumber with a vengeance. Craig came into the kitchen, picked up the plate of steaks. As he moved past her, she caught the scent of his aftershave. Once familiar and comforting, it was suddenly new and arousing. She brought the knife down hard, as if the action could sever her wayward thoughts—and cut her finger instead.

“Damn!” She stuck her finger in her mouth to staunch the flow of blood.

He set the plate back on the counter with a clatter. “Are you all right?”

He grabbed her wrist, his fingers strong and firm as he tugged her hand away from her mouth. With his other hand, he turned on the faucet and shoved her finger under the stream of cool water.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice strangely breathy. He was standing close, so close she could feel the heat emanating from his body. Too close.

He moved her hand out of the water to inspect the cut. It was still bleeding, but it wasn’t very deep.

“Keep it under the water,” he said. “I’ll get a Band-Aid.”

She did as he requested, too shaken to do anything else.

Craig was her best friend—she shouldn’t be indulging in sexual daydreams with him cast in the starring role. But maybe the erotic images that haunted her were a result of the hormonal changes of pregnancy. Yes, that made sense. Once she had this baby, her relationship with Craig would settle back to normal. The next eight months might be a challenge, but she was confident she could get through them knowing that this fierce attraction was a temporary phenomenon.

Craig returned with a tube of antibacterial ointment and a Band-Aid, and she breathed in his scent again. He tore a paper towel off the roll and carefully dried her hand. Her finger, almost numb from the cold water, was infused with heat by the simple touch. Damn, it was going to be a long eight months.

“Okay?” he asked.

She nodded, then glanced up. And saw the awareness she felt reflected in the depths of his brown eyes. If this attraction was a temporary phenomenon, apparently it was affecting him, too.

But then he tore his gaze away from her to pick up the tube of cream and she managed to breathe again. His motions were brisk, efficient and so completely impersonal Tess wondered if she’d imagined the sizzle in the air between them.

He wrapped the Band-Aid around her finger. “There you go.”

She swallowed. “Th-thank you.”

“I’m going to put the steaks on.” His smile seemed strained. “Try not to cut off any appendages while I’m gone.”

Craig flipped the meat on the grill, listened to the sizzle and pop as the marinade dripped onto the hot coals. It reminded him of the heat that had flared between him and Tess when he’d touched her. He’d tried to keep the contact casual, impersonal, but the skin of her hand was soft in his and the scent of her hair tantalized his senses. And as he’d leaned over her by the sink administering first aid to her bleeding finger, he couldn’t help but notice how the soft fabric of her blouse molded to the curve of her breasts. And he couldn’t help but remember how those breasts had filled his palms, how she’d moaned in pleasure as he’d caressed them, with his hands, with his lips.

He breathed deeply of the cool night air as he willed the haunting images away. Tess would hardly be impressed if she knew about his prurient fantasies.

He was supposed to be her friend—and he had been, for fifteen years. There had been times in recent years that he’d wondered whether there could be anything more between them, but he’d always discarded the thought. He valued her friendship and he didn’t want to do anything to risk it. No matter how many times he’d wondered what it would be like to touch her, to kiss her, and not like a friend.

Now he knew—and he knew that being friends wasn’t enough anymore.

It was a huge leap from one night together to marriage, and he knew it wasn’t a commitment he’d be considering now except for the fact of Tess’s pregnancy. But instead of feeling trapped by the circumstances, he felt as if he’d been given an incredible opportunity. If only he could find a way to convince Tess of that fact.

He kept the conversation light and casual during dinner, and she finally seemed to relax a little. At least until he inadvertently brushed his knee against her thigh under the table. Then she jerked away as if he’d stabbed her with his steak knife, and he accepted that easing the tension between them wasn’t going to be that simple.

“I’ve got Chunky Monkey for dessert,” he said.

She loaded the dishwasher while he scooped her favorite ice cream into bowls. When he was finished, he decided that it was time to get to the purpose of her visit.

“You know that I wanted you to come over tonight so we could finish talking about my proposal.”

Tess took the bowl he handed to her, passed him a spoon she’d taken out of the cutlery drawer. “I don’t recall hearing an actual proposal.”

Craig followed her to the table, enjoying the gentle sway of her hips as she moved. Then her response registered and he frowned. “What do you mean?”

She dipped her spoon into the ice cream. “You didn’t ask me to marry you. You said we should get married.”

He watched her lips close around the spoon, heard her soft hum of pleasure as she tasted the ice cream. He shoved a spoonful into his own mouth, hoping that the cold substance would help alleviate the heat raging through his system. It didn’t work.

“I asked,” he said.

“No, you didn’t. You never ask,” she continued. “You just assume you’ll get what you want.”

“I do not,” he protested indignantly.

“Yes, you do. Because nobody ever says no to Craig Richmond.”

As he scooped up some more ice cream, he realized she might be right. As Vice President in charge of Research and Development at Richmond Pharmaceuticals, he held a position of power and he knew how to wield that power effectively, but he’d never realized that his professional demeanor carried over to his private life.

Was that why she’d turned him down, because he hadn’t asked?

He swallowed another mouthful of ice cream. “All right. Tess, will you marry me?”

She smiled but shook her head. “No.”

“No?” So much for her theory that no one ever said no to him.

“I didn’t refuse your so-called proposal because it wasn’t in the form of a question,” she told him. “I refused because my pregnancy isn’t a good enough reason for us to get married.”

Tess swirled her spoon in her ice cream, then licked the back of it. And he nearly groaned aloud at the erotic images the action evoked.

“I would never deny you access to our child,” she said, drawing his attention back to the topic of conversation. “And I’m not going to marry a man I don’t love and who doesn’t love me just so my child will have a family when we can accomplish the same thing by sharing custody.”

“I don’t want to be a weekend dad.” He couldn’t stand the thought of his child being shuffled between households, never feeling as if he truly had a home, somewhere that he belonged. He didn’t want his child to grow up thinking his father didn’t want to be part of his life. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Why can’t you accept that this is important to me?”

“Why can’t you accept that I don’t want to get married?”

“Because you were addressing wedding invitations not six months ago,” he pointed out.

“That was different,” she told him.

“Because you thought you were in love with Roger?”

“Maybe I was wrong about him, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up my dreams and settle for a loveless marriage.”

He pushed his empty bowl aside. “Did you ever tell your fiancé that you spent four years of your life in foster care?”

She frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It doesn’t change the fact that he was cheating scum and he didn’t deserve you,” he told her. “But I have to wonder if the relationship wasn’t doomed anyway because you didn’t let him see who you really are.”

“Four years in foster care didn’t make me who I am.”

“A friend once told me that everything we experience in life—the good and the bad—helps to make us the people we are.”

She shrugged, unable to argue against her own words. “Do you have a point?”

“Did he know about the foster homes?” he asked again. “Did he know how your mother died? How completely alone you felt when you realized her death made you an orphan? Did he know how much you looked forward to the monthly visits you were allowed with your stepsister, because she was the only family you had left?” He shook his head, then answered his own questions. “Of course he didn’t know because you never told him.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant,” she said.

“Or maybe you’re more wary of commitment than I am. You say you’re holding out for love, but maybe that’s just an excuse to be alone because you’re too afraid of being hurt again to let anyone get that close.”

“I didn’t know you got a psych degree along with your MBA.”

The dripping sarcasm in her voice proved that he’d made his point. He only regretted that he’d hurt her in the process.

“I don’t need a pysch degree because I know you,” he reminded her gently.

She sighed. “Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m as much a coward as you are a commitment-phobe. Which suggests to me that a marriage between us would be doomed from the start.”

“Except that we’re also both stubborn and determined,” he reminded her. “If we wanted to, we could make it work.”

She set the spoon down, looked up at him and he saw the conviction in her deep blue eyes. “I remember what kind of marriage my parents had, how much they loved each other. I was only eight when my dad died but I remember how happy they were together.

“When my mother married Ken, I knew right away it was different. She was on her own with me, he was on his own with Laurie. They married to give us—me and Laurie—a family, but neither of them was ever really happy.”

“That doesn’t mean we couldn’t be,” he persisted.

“If I get married, I want it to be because someone wants to be with me, not because I’m carrying his child.”

“I do want to be with you, Tess. I want us both to be there for our baby. I don’t know how this love thing works. I’m not even sure I believe it exists—not love of the happily-ever-after variety, anyway. But I want this baby to know he has two parents who will always be there for him, and the best way to ensure that is by getting married.”

She placed a hand over her chest. “I think that’s the most romantic proposal I’ve heard yet.”

He felt the frustration building inside him. “Is that what you want—romance?” he demanded. “Would it make a difference if I filled the room with flowers and soft music and candlelight?”

“No,” she said again and shook her head. “Nothing is going to make a difference because we both know it would be worse for our child to live in a loveless home than to have two parents who never married.”

“We could make a marriage work, Tess.”

“Do you really want to take that chance? Do you want our child to find himself in the middle of a custody battle if it doesn’t?”

“No, I don’t,” he admitted, understanding that she was only thinking about what he and his brother had gone through. “But that wouldn’t happen because we would always do what was best for our child.”

“That’s why I want to work out the details of custody and access now.”

“I don’t want access,” he said stubbornly. “I want my child to know he’s an important part of my life every day, not just on alternate weekends.”

“Is this about Charlene walking out on you?”

She never referred to the woman who’d given birth to him as his mother, because she felt—as he did—that Grace, his father’s second wife, was more of a mother to him than Charlene had ever been.

“This is about you and me and our baby,” he insisted.

But Tess—being Tess—didn’t accept his denial. She reached across the table and laid her hand on top of his.

“Charlene couldn’t handle the responsibility of having children,” she said. “But you’ve made it clear that you want to be a part of our baby’s life, and I would never stand in the way of that.”

He turned his hand over, laced his fingers with hers. Her hand was so small inside his and yet he drew comfort and strength from her presence, gained a measure of peace from her understanding. She knew him better than anyone, she understood his hopes and fears and she was always there for him. It was the kind of unconditional acceptance he’d never been sure of with any other woman, and yet another reason he believed they would make a marriage work.

But she was holding out for love, and as much as he cared about her, that wasn’t something he could give her. If he could love anyone, he wanted to believe it would be Tess. But he didn’t have it in him. And he wouldn’t lie to her—he wouldn’t use the words she wanted to hear to get what he wanted. Or maybe he just knew better than to even try because Tess would see right through him.

She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re going to be a wonderful daddy, Craig.”

“Don’t you mean part-time daddy?” He hated to think about missing a single day of his child’s life. He’d been five years old when his parents split up, but he remembered the feeling of loss, the sense of rejection when his mother walked out on them.

It had been months later before Charlene Richmond had decided she wanted to share custody of her children—or maybe she finally realized that by having them live with her part-time, she could get significant financial support from her husband. And the next few years had been a constant shuffle from one house to the other for Craig and his brother, Gage, the only consistent presence in their life being the nanny their father had hired and who accompanied them from place to place. Because as much as Charlene claimed she wanted to spend time with her sons, she was content to let the nanny deal with their day-to-day needs and, in fact, rarely interacted with them during their visits.

Then, one day when they showed up, she just wasn’t there. All she’d left was a note saying that she was getting married and moving out of the country and was, therefore, relinquishing full custody to the boys’ father.

At first, Craig had been relieved—the fighting would finally stop and he and Gage would finally be able to settle in one place. But the relief had soon been replaced by a niggling fear that his father might decide to go away, too. That no one loved him enough to stand by him.

He wouldn’t let his child feel the same way.

As much as Tess understood Craig’s reasons for wanting to get married, she wasn’t willing to sacrifice what was left of their friendship and give up her own dreams for a marriage of convenience she believed was destined to fail.

But when he looked at her as he was looking at her now, with such intensity and determination, she could feel her resolve weakening. Then he stroked his thumb over her skin and she felt a frisson of awareness skate up her arm and warmth spread through her body.

She tried to pull her hand away, knowing that if she had any hopes of maintaining a clear perspective on things, she couldn’t allow him to touch her. But Craig held firm.

“I’ve tried not to pressure you—”

She almost laughed at the absurdity of the statement as she felt the pressure closing in on her from all sides.

“—but you can’t keep your pregnancy a secret forever. Let’s go away somewhere and get married before the speculation begins.”

And despite all her reasoning and common sense she actually found herself tempted by the idea. Because the thought of having this baby on her own, of being—if not solely, at least primarily—responsible for its happiness and well-being, terrified her. But she’d never been the type to balk at a challenge or take the easy way out and she wasn’t going to do so now just because she was scared.

She carefully withdrew her hand from his grasp. “I can’t marry you, Craig.”

“Think about this logically,” he said. “We’ve known each other for years. What we have between us—friendship, trust, respect—they’re more important than love. And more enduring. There’s no reason for a marriage between us not to work.”

She didn’t buy his argument. Yes, friendship, trust and respect were important, but she wouldn’t enter into a marriage without love. “Look at your parents. Your dad and Grace,” she amended. “It’s obvious to anyone who sees them together that they love one another. Do you really want to settle for less than that?”

“I would never think of marrying you as settling,” he said.

He sounded so sincere and was looking at her with such earnestness in his dark eyes that Tess almost believed him. In her heart, she wanted to believe him. But her disastrous experience with Roger had made her wary. And while she’d known Craig a lot longer than she’d known Roger, so much had changed between them in the last few weeks that she wasn’t sure she really knew him at all anymore.

At work she was a confident, competent professional but that was because she’d spent years studying manuals and mastering computer code. There was no such training to succeed at relationships and she felt at a distinct disadvantage when it came to the games that men and women played.

Craig, on the other hand, had dated more women than she could count—beautiful, sophisticated women. He would never be happy with someone like her and she’d be deluding herself if she believed otherwise for a single moment.

Tess sighed and pushed away from the table. She crossed over to the window, looked out at the brilliant array of stars scattered across the sky. No, there was no way she could marry Craig.

“You might not think of it that way now,” she said. “But you’d eventually start to resent me, and the baby, for putting you in this position.”

And for Tess, the thought of losing Craig’s friendship and support was far worse than the prospect of raising a child on her own.

He didn’t say anything for a minute and she let herself hope he was actually considering what she’d said. She didn’t hear him leave the table, wasn’t aware that he was behind her until he put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around to face him.

She met his gaze evenly, almost defiantly. She knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t easily dissuaded from something he wanted, but she could be equally stubborn. And there was no way she was going to further jeopardize their friendship by marrying him. Her mom and Ken had been friends before they married and they’d had nothing left when their marriage had fallen apart. Tess refused to let that happen. Craig could use whatever arguments he wanted, she wasn’t going to change her mind.

But his response wasn’t at all what she expected. He didn’t argue or plead or use any of the other tactics she was confident she could handle. Instead, he lowered his head and he kissed her.

At first, she was too stunned to react. And then, as his lips continued to move over hers, soft but firm, strong yet coaxing, she simply melted.

He slid his fingers into her hair and tipped her head back to deepen the kiss. She opened for him willingly, all thoughts of resistance gone. Whether it was the pregnancy hormones running rampant through her system or her new awareness of Craig as a man, she had no desire to be anywhere but in his arms.

She shivered as his fingers massaged her scalp, moaned as his tongue tangled with hers. Somewhere, in the back recesses of her mind, she knew she should end this kiss. She shouldn’t allow this to happen but she was powerless to stop the desire that flowed hot and thick through her system. She wanted this—she wanted Craig—more than she’d ever thought possible.

He stroked his hands down her back, tugged the blouse from the waistband of her slacks, and she trembled with anticipation. Then his hands were on her skin and she could no longer think. She could only feel and she loved the way it felt to be touched by him, to touch him. She ran her hands up his chest, found the buttons at the front of his shirt and quickly worked them free.