Billion Dollar Bride

Anna nodded, jealousy at work deep down where she hid all private thoughts. But she smiled brightly, forgetting everything else and telling herself she was fortunate to have her son.

When she’d learned she was pregnant with Will, her husband, John, had been unenthused, and for the first month or so her happiness had felt hollow because he hadn’t shared it.

Then her family’s excitement and her reading and research began to thrill her despite John’s lack of interest. The first time she felt the baby move, she realized she already had a relationship with him, and nothing would ever diminish the miracle of that for her.

And nothing ever had. Even when she’d been about to deliver and John had chosen to support a client through a tricky deposition rather than his wife at the birth of their son, she’d approached labor gleefully, eager to see this child she’d come to love so much.

From the moment she first rested her eyes on Will, he’d been everything she’d ever prayed for.

She was delighted that her brother would support his wife throughout her pregnancy. Anna had never regretted a moment of hers, but she imagined it would be wonderful to have a husband’s hand to hold through it all. She had never and would never experience that.

“I know it’s early,” she said as R.J. and Dana drew apart. “But have you thought about names yet?”

“We bought a book that’s in the car,” Dana said, “But you’re commissioned to watch for great names as new clients come through your office.”

“How about Austin for a boy?” Will asked eagerly. “Mom’s going to do Austin Cahill’s wedding to… Mom?”

“Caroline Lamont,” she provided.

“I know Cahill.” R.J. nodded, as though expressing approval. “Nice guy. Smart. But a cool customer. I met him when I was on the board of Texas Charities, and then I saw him at the gala last month. Nothing gets by him.”

“He’s buying RoyceCo,” Will informed him. “I’d buy some shares, Unc. It’s about to go up.”

R.J. smiled at his nephew, his expression half affection, half attention. “No kidding. I’ll have to look into that. Did you tell Drake?”

Drake Logan was Maitland Maternity’s vice president in charge of finance, and he and Will met regularly to talk stocks.

Will shook his head. “I’ll tell him when I see him.”

“I imagine that’ll be quite a wedding,” Dana speculated. “I had to call Caroline Lamont when I was soliciting donations for a silent auction your mother was chairing for the Lone Star Ladies, and she sent a litter of wolfhound puppies. They made a bundle on those pups! They’d all had their shots, too, as I recall.”

Anna remembered that. “She thinks big. We’re doing a medieval English theme complete with armor and horses.”

R.J. laughed. “Don’t forget to hire someone to follow with a shovel. We’d better move, sis, if we’re going to see Mom before she goes to bed.”

He stood and pulled Dana to her feet. “Thanks for the coffee, but please don’t plan a party. You’ve got enough to do already.”

She hugged him tightly. “It’s what I do best, brother mine. And I’d love to throw a shower for you two. I’m sure I’ll have more than enough help from the family. We’ve all waited a long time to see you married and walking the floors with a teething baby.”

He held her away from him and frowned teasingly at her. “That’s sadistic.”

She smiled shamelessly. “I know. Let us have our little fun.”

“So, don’t you think Austin’s a cool name?” Will asked as R.J. wrapped an arm around him and headed for the door. Anna and Dana followed.

“It is,” R.J. agreed. “I like it. We’ll put it on the list we’re collecting. Of course, Will’s a pretty good name, too.”

Will grimaced. “It’s too ordinary.”

“But you, and the grandfather you were named for, have made it special.”

They stopped at the door, and Dana patted Will’s shoulder. “Names mean different things to different people,” she said. “Sometimes you dislike an otherwise beautiful name because you associate it with someone you can’t stand. Personally, I think Robert William would be a perfect name for a boy.”

“Not Robert,” R.J. said.

“But it’s your name,” Dana insisted.

“You just explained why we hate some names. And I have reason to hate that one.”

She sighed wearily. “It’s time to put that away.”

He opened the door. Though he didn’t dispute her statement, something in his stance, in his manner, said he would never forgive his long-missing father. His love for Dana had resolved many things in his life, but not that. Never that.

Anna hugged her sister-in-law. “Congratulations, Dana. I’m so happy for both of you. Start thinking about a list of invitees for the shower because I’m going to begin planning it right away.”

Dana kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Anna. I’d love that. We’d love that.”

As she headed for the car, R.J. lingered an extra moment and asked Anna quietly, “You’re okay?”

“Of course,” she replied, pretending she had no idea why he asked the question. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m sure it’s…hard for you to be happy for us.”

She punched his shoulder playfully. “A lot you know. I’m thrilled that the two of you have it all. Go! Dana’s waiting for you.”

R.J. honked the horn as they backed out of the driveway, and Anna closed the door and looked into her son’s concerned expression.

“I should probably learn something about sports,” he said as they walked to the sofa.

“Why?” Anna asked in surprise.

“Because if they do have a boy and I’m going to be his older cousin, he’ll probably want to learn things from me.”

Anna withheld a smile, afraid he’d misunderstand. “I imagine he will.”

“And I don’t think the stockmarket is going to thrill a little kid.”

“Probably not.”

“Maybe Uncle R.J. will take me to the gym when he and Drake and Michael and Uncle Mitchell play basketball.”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

They settled onto the sofa again, and Will reclined against his pillows, pulling the throw over him. He continued to look concerned. “You think I’ll get killed on the court?” he asked worriedly. “I’m not very fast. That’s why I don’t play sports.”

She tried not to make an issue of it. He rode his bike all the time, so she was sure he got enough exercise, but it was a relatively solitary activity, and she often wished he’d get involved in team sports for the social benefits.

“I suppose you could try it. Practice might make you quicker. But if you still don’t like it or don’t feel comfortable playing, you don’t have to. I’m sure your cousin will love you anyway and will have lots of other things to learn from you.”

Will sighed, and she felt his feet resting against her relax.

“My father was really a jerk to not love you,” he said, turning his face to the television. “You know everything.”

Later, when he was asleep in his bed and she walked through the house turning off lights, checking that the doors were locked, Anna thought maybe she should have recorded that statement to play back to him when he was a teenager and inevitably came to doubt her knowledge and experience.

She felt oddly restless. She was thrilled about her brother’s baby, but it would put a little more distance between them, just as his marriage had.

After her divorce, she and R.J. had supported each other in their single lives. She’d accompanied him when he needed a woman on his arm at some function or other, and he’d been her escort when she’d required one. He’d cheerfully gone with Will to father-son functions at school.

But now he had his own family to think of. He had all the things she’d hoped to find with John and failed.

Having glimpsed the possibilities of a marriage based on shared loved made contemplating her single status that much more difficult.

With a toss of her head, she walked upstairs, reminding herself how much she’d hated living with John. The only good thing to come out of their relationship was Will.

She walked into her pink and green bedroom, redecorated last year when she’d been in a mood like the one she was in tonight. Leaning in the doorway, she reflected how perfect it looked, bed linens layered and coordinated, window treatments matching, family pictures hung on the walls and interspersed with beautiful wreaths and swags from Hope Logan’s gift shop at the hospital.

She folded her arms and allowed her irrepressible sense of humor to slip into her melancholy mood.

What she needed was an arrangement like Caroline’s. She needed some kind, intelligent man to want her simply for sex.

She laughed out loud at that thought. A kind man would never want a woman simply for sex, but she couldn’t help but think that it would suit her needs right now.

It was impossible to deny that she was lonely and getting older. There hadn’t been time for serious relationships since John had left, and she didn’t believe in casual ones. With Will aware of everything, she’d thought it easier to be celibate than to be careful.

But, strangely, that was becoming more difficult as she grew older. She was very aware that soon her chances at finding love would disappear altogether, and it was hard to face the reality that she would never—ever—know what it was like to lie with a man who loved her for herself.

So maybe she should look around for someone who was only interested in sex.

With a sigh, she accepted that she would never do that with Will just down the hall.

She flipped the light off and climbed into her perfect bed, an unbidden image taking shape in her head. It was Caroline Lamont and Austin Cahill standing at the foot of a bed somewhere in Kauai. Long sheer curtains fluttered into the room on the night breeze, revealing a sliver of moon in the sky.

Anna closed her eyes against the picture, annoyed and ashamed that it had come to her. But it persisted.

He was a little cool, she remembered, and he admitted that he was a busy man. Would he take his time? She wondered idly, then hated herself for entertaining the thought. What was wrong with her? She felt like a voyeur.

But she couldn’t help it. Then an odd change took place. The naked feminine body in his arms was familiar—hips a little too wide, breasts a little too full. It was her!

While that vision was even more horrifying, it also made it somehow more acceptable to watch as Austin Cahill did everything that she’d dreamed a man would do to her—for her.

Her breath grew shallow as the image became real enough for her to feel his touch against her skin, his breath on her cheek, the graze of his knee against her thigh as he rose over her.

With a growl of disgust at herself, she sat up in bed, turned on the bedside light and simply sat there, heart pounding in her chest, fingers trembling.

She experienced a moment of real shock as she realized how deeply she was affected by an adolescent daydream.

Maybe a cold shower would help, she thought half-seriously. She opted instead to go downstairs and give some serious thought to R.J. and Dana’s shower.

Planning someone else’s party always helped her forget her own deprivations.

CHAPTER THREE

AUSTIN AWOKE to the ringing of the telephone. He squinted sleepily at the travel alarm on the hotel’s bedside table as he reached for the receiver. Three-twelve.

His first thought was that something had gone wrong with the deal. But common sense reminded him that it couldn’t be that. He’d closed it already.

Then he remembered that his mother was traveling in Africa with her best friends, Dorothy Churchill and Emily Pratt. She’d returned from Ireland the previous year with a knot on her forehead after being lowered by her ankles to kiss the Blarney Stone. What could she have done this time—enraged a rhino or caused an elephant stampede?

“Hello?” he said urgently.

“Hi, Austin! Did I wake you?” It was his mother, and the question sounded hopeful rather than apologetic.

“Yes, you did,” he answered, relieved at the sound of her voice. “It’s just after three here.”

“Well, it’s ten-fifteen here in Nairobi, and Dot and Emmy and I are having breakfast on our sunporch. Wish you were here.”

He propped up on an elbow and laughed lightly. “Oh, you do not. Having a man along would just cramp your style.”

“That’s true. The gigolo I’m looking for would think I already had a young man. Are you still getting married?”

He’d stood firmly against her disapproval since he’d announced his plans just before she’d left for Africa. When he’d driven her and her friends to the airport, she’d lectured him on the necessity of marrying for love.

“You married for love,” he’d told her, “and look at what happened. You held everything together, and if my father hadn’t killed himself by driving drunk, you’d still be supporting him.”

“It apparently wasn’t love on his part, because love gives you comfort and the ability to endure. Austin, I wish you wouldn’t think of marriage as just another merger.”

“Mom, I’m doing what’s right for me.”

“You’re doing what’ll get you a child. That’s all.”

“A child is all I want.”

“That’s insane, Austin!”

He’d framed her face in his hands as her flight was called. “Mom,” he’d said gently. “You don’t exactly set the standard for sanity, so don’t judge, all right?”

He’d tried to turn her toward the boarding gate, but she’d taken hold of his lapels and held on, her dark eyes gravely serious.

“Darling, don’t do this to yourself,” she’d pleaded. “I like Caroline. She’s a good friend to you. But don’t miss the chance for a love relationship just to have things your way. Please.”

Then her friends had tugged on her, and the three of them had disappeared past the gate.

He sat up in the cool bed and said firmly, “Yes, Mom. I’m still getting married.”

“You know what’ll happen,” she predicted. “You’ll be married two weeks, and you’ll meet someone you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with. But it’ll be too late.”

“That wouldn’t happen to me, Mom.”

“Austin, everyone is skeptical of love until it happens to them. You think because you saw it fail that it fails all the time. But it doesn’t. Dorothy had a wonderful marriage for half a century. Emily was married to Ray for thirty-seven years. And they were happy.”

That wasn’t precisely the point, but explaining required too much thinking, too much analyzing. And it was three in the morning, for God’s sake. “That’s great. It’s just not for me. You have enough money?”

She emitted a high-pitched sigh, which he recognized as surrender. It was her signal that she was tired of arguing with him.

“You gave me enough money for my birthday to allow me to buy Africa. Money isn’t everything, you know. I thought I taught you that.”

“You did. It’s just more reliable than people. Except for you, of course. I love you, Mom. Be careful, okay?”

She made that sound again. “Okay, Austin. But I give you fair warning. When the day comes and the minister asks if anyone has a reason the wedding shouldn’t take place, I’m going to speak!”

“Mother…”

“Bye, dear. Dorothy and Emily say hi.”

The line went dead, and he cradled the receiver, the room suddenly very dark and very quiet.

Lying back and pulling the covers up, he rested his hands behind his head and listened to the sounds of his loneliness. Quiet, distant traffic, the ticking clock, the nighttime sounds of the hotel—furnace, plumbing, soft steps walking past his door.

He remembered how quiet their Dallas apartment had been at night when he was a child. His father had been out drinking or home sleeping it off. He’d died when Austin was eight, but the house remained quiet because Austin’s mother had slept in exhaustion from working twelve hours a day, six days a week just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Austin could clearly recall lying in bed and worrying about his mother, worrying about himself. He’d loved his father and hadn’t understood his need for the booze that rendered him unconscious. And like most children in similar situations, he’d been convinced that something he’d done had made his father unable to cope.

He used to wonder if it would drive his mother away one day.

When he felt bold enough to share that worry with her, she’d wept and assured him that nothing in the world would ever separate them until he was old enough to make his own life. He was everything in the world to her, she’d said, and she would always be there for him.

And she had been. She’d slaved with overtime and extra part-time jobs all through his childhood, until he was old enough to help and finally take over responsibility for their household.

What he’d liked best about money, he thought now, was that generating it created noise and activity. It filled the awful silences where fears bred and worries accumulated.

And so he’d dedicated himself to making money. He had a gift for it and eagerly learned all that he could to turn the gift into a skill.

Was he really missing something, as his mother insisted?

It didn’t feel as though he was. He had everything he wanted and, probably within a year, he would have a child. If Caroline chose to stay with him, that would be fine because they were good friends and she was pleasant company.

If she chose to leave, that would be fine, too. Although he liked having her around, he didn’t really need her. And he would be there for their baby. He’d learned parenting skills from the very best.

He closed his eyes, relieved to have heard from his mother and to know that she was safe. He was also satisfied with his analysis of his life. He had things perfectly balanced at the moment, and the love his mother was so sure he needed would only unsettle that balance.

Yes. Life was good as it was.

“MOM THINKS this would be the perfect setting for your wedding,” Anna said, stopping in the middle of her mother’s garden and gesturing around her. “Of course, not all the flowers are in bloom yet, but they should be beautiful in time for your wedding. What do you think?”

She turned to face the couple following her through the garden. The path spilled into a broad expanse of velvety green lawn.

Connor O’Hara and Janelle Davis came toward her hand in hand, he a tall, well-muscled man and she a slender brunette with watchful eyes and an effusive manner. Both looked around appreciatively at the setting.

Their story was one for the soap operas, Anna thought.

Their baby had unwittingly invaded the lives of Anna’s mother and her children last September, the day Megan invited the press to Maitland Maternity Clinic to talk about preparations for the hospital’s twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration.

The infant lay in a Moses basket on the back step of the hospital, fragile and beautiful, causing a commotion among the hospital staff and the press.

Connor arrived in October, and the Maitland siblings eventually learned that he was their cousin, the adopted son of their father’s sister, Clarise.

Janelle came to Austin in January, claiming that she was the baby’s mother and Connor his father. She’d explained that she’d abandoned her relationship with Connor because he’d been a workaholic. When she discovered she was pregnant, she’d tried to contact him, only to learn that he’d sold his ranch and moved on.

When she’d given birth to the baby, she had no job, no money and no family, and she’d heard about Maitland Maternity Clinic.

Anna’s mother believed them, but Social Services insisted that Janelle produce the baby’s birth records before he could be removed from Megan’s foster care. Apparently the records were in New Mexico, and bureaucratic red tape and a fire were interfering with their journey to Texas.

Meanwhile, Megan kept the baby in the hospital’s day care while she was at the office, and at home with her at night. Janelle and Connor visited him regularly.

Anna had been suspicious of them at first, but Janelle’s sincerity was becoming difficult to question. Anna knew some of her siblings still had doubts, but Megan’s happiness at discovering her nephew was all Anna needed to convince her that Connor was genuine.

“This would be perfect!” Janelle said, clutching Connor’s arm in her delight. “I can’t believe this is happening to us! To think that just seven months ago, I thought I had nothing. I’d given up my man and my baby and I was sure I’d end up spending the rest of my life behind the counter of some fast food restaurant, thinking about what I was missing.”

Her voice broke, and Connor drew her closer, smiling apologetically at Anna as Janelle broke down.

She did that a lot, Anna noticed, but then it was an emotional time for all concerned. And it must be killing her not to be able to take her baby home.

“When you make the right decisions,” Anna said, “like coming back to claim your baby, things usually turn out well. So let’s not waste energy on what you thought the future would be when it now includes a newfound family, a wedding to plan and—as soon as the records arrive—the right to take your son home.”

Janelle reached out to pull Anna into her embrace with Connor.

“We’re so grateful to you!” she said.

Anna shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“But you’re planning our wedding as a gift!”

Anna shrugged. “You’re just lucky enough to have a fiancé whose cousin is in the business. Now, come on. Mom wants us to have coffee with her while we plan the menu for the reception.”

ANNA MAITLAND was everything Janelle hated in another human being—in a woman particularly.

She was all grace and good manners and good intentions. And it didn’t hurt that she looked like some supermodel who now had better things to do.

It helped soothe Janelle’s feelings of hatred and resentment that Anna didn’t have a husband. It was nice to know that her privileged life had left her needing something.

And it was also satisfying to know that though she was smart enough to have had that brilliant kid and to own and run her own business, she was still gullible enough to have swallowed the story, hook, line and baby.

She believed that Petey Jones, Janelle’s husband, was Connor O’Hara, Megan’s long-lost nephew. And she believed that Janelle had really given birth to the little stinker in the house and had turned her life around to reclaim him and give him a loving home.

Ha!

She couldn’t wait for the day Miss Grace and Beauty learned the truth.

“HELLO!” Megan Maitland opened the back door, baby in her arms, and called, “Coffee’s ready!”

Anna hurried her step. Her mother was the only sixty-two-year-old woman she knew who could run a corporation, know what was going on with every member of her family, happily cope with the daily care of a seven-month-old baby and still look as though she’d never lifted a finger.

She wore a gray-blue wool dress today that lightened her dark blue eyes. Her soft white hair was drawn into her favorite French twist. She had an air of serenity Anna had always wanted to acquire but never quite mastered.

“Hi, Cody,” Anna said, reaching out for the baby and settling him on her hip. With her free arm she hugged her mother.

“Chase, Anna,” Megan corrected. “Not Cody. You are having a hard time with that.”

Anna groaned as she kissed the baby’s plump fingers. “Sorry about that. Chase is really a good name for you,” she said to the baby, who watched her with big eyes, “because I could just chase you all over then eat you up!” She nibbled at his fingers, and the baby laughed.

When he’d been found on the hospital doorstep, her mother had called him Cody because of the initials C.O. on a baby bracelet he wore. When Janelle came to claim him, she explained that the initials stood for Chase O’Hara.

“I swear, Mom,” Anna said, bouncing the baby. “This child must be gaining a pound a day.” Janelle and Connor approached, and Anna handed the baby over to his mother.