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Now, eleven stories up in the tower office where she’d worked for the past few months, Diana gazed out the undraped windows, watching as men in overcoats and wool-lined denim jackets moved briskly along the sidewalks below. Limousines and pickup trucks moved sedately along Royal’s Main Street. Women wearing fur coats and custom-made boots dashed from heated cars to heated churches.
Winter came in several varieties in Texas. Wet and cold was the worst. Silently she vowed that the next time she relocated, it would be to a place where the seasons were more temperate. She’d had enough of extremes.
Will, too, was leaning against a windowsill. He’d been there when she’d come in, and she’d apologized for no logical reason for being late. Neither of them had been obligated to come in today. There wasn’t that much more to do.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Well, she did, of course…. “I’ve always been a morning person.”
“Not a problem. I wasn’t expecting you, anyway. There’s nothing much more to be done here.”
The cleaning crew had already started. The curtains were gone, the carpet people would be in next. Diana was surprised that Will was there at all, but then, his own office was probably overrun with auditors.
“You’re right.” She sighed, marveling at how drastically life had changed for a little girl who had once depended on toenail polish for her identity.
Feeling his eyes on her, she glanced up, wondering at the fleeting expression of…what? Interest? She’d known for days that he was curious about her. The trouble was, she’d been just as curious—just as interested in him, even before that. What woman wouldn’t be?
But anything more than the business relationship they had cautiously established was out of the question. If she’d learned one lesson it was the value of separating business from personal life. By now everyone must have guessed why the newest hired secretary in the pool had been yanked upstairs to work for the boss.
Will must certainly have guessed. Avoiding his look, she scuffed the toe of her loafers over an ink stain on the carpet under the edge of Jack’s desk. “I hope the cleaners can get it out. But then, Sebastian…” She didn’t know him personally, but for now there was only one Mr. Wescott at Wescott Oil, and that was still Jack. “He’ll probably want to have the whole place recarpeted.”
Ignoring her remark, Will said, “What would you say to transferring to the Houston offices?”
She felt behind her for a chair. As much as she’d been thinking about relocating—especially now that she knew about the baby—the one thing she hadn’t considered was a transfer. “You mean go on working for Wescott Oil?”
He nodded. The way he was studying her made her wonder if she’d remembered to floss her teeth before she’d dashed out that morning. Lately she’d been feeling so awful it was all she could do to get out of bed. She still felt queasy, probably from skipping breakfast.
Or maybe not.
“You don’t have any family here, as I understand it. No…close relationships?”
He had to have suspected what had been going on. The two men had been friends for years, according to Jack. Besides, as CFO, he must have known about the money Jack had given her to pay her mother’s bills, even though she was almost certain it had come out of Jack’s personal account.
Had Sebastian known?
How utterly embarrassing. Houston might not be far enough away if everyone in town knew about her relationship with the Wescott of Wescott Oil.
Sebastian and her baby would be half brothers. And half brother to the new man in the computer division, Dorian Brady. According to the grapevine, he’d been another of Jack’s mistakes.
Diana took three deep, slow breaths. It didn’t help. She swallowed a sudden surge of nausea. Things were getting entirely too complicated. If Sebastian had any idea she was pregnant with Jack’s baby, would he try to take it away from her? Could he?
He was certainly in a better position to take care of a child than she was. Hadn’t he taken in his illegitimate half brother, Dorian?
If she’d had to have an affair, why couldn’t it have been with an ordinary man instead of a man who could reach out from the grave and steal her baby from her?
But, of course, an ordinary man would never have been able to do what Jack had done for her mother.
Will moved away from the window, flexing his broad shoulders. Even looking as if she’d swallowed a fly, the lady was a major distraction. “We’ve got everything under control here. Why don’t you take off for a few days. Think over what I said about transferring to Houston and give me your answer next week, all right?”
He watched the last dregs of color fade from her face and wondered what the devil he’d said to cause her to look as if she’d lost her last friend in the world.
Suddenly she turned and rushed into the private bathroom Jack had recently had fitted out with a hot tub and a large screen TV. Sounds of retching came clearly through the door, which had bounced open when she’d slammed it behind her.
“Miss Foster? Diana? Are you okay?”
Come to think of it, she’d looked sort of shaky every morning they’d worked together. No matter what she’d said about being a morning person, some women simply weren’t at their best early in the day.
She was on her knees, struggling to get to her feet when he let himself in. “Diana? Look, if you need to go home, I’ll drive you, all right? You’re obviously in no shape to drive yourself.”
She turned to him then. Big brown eyes, looking like chestnuts in the snow. “Yes, I am,” she said, swallowing hard. “I’m just fine.”
Will dampened a towel and handed it to her, and she held it to her face for a moment. A long moment. He was still standing there, feeling acutely uncomfortable, when she looked up at him again.
“If I transfer to Houston, I’d still have my company insurance, wouldn’t I?”
“Insurance? Yeah, sure. Want to tell me why that’s so important?”
She stared at him, abject misery in every line of her slender body, and the answer suddenly blindsided him. “Oh, hell. You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
To her credit, she didn’t try to lie. “Just barely.”
“Just barely? Just a little bit pregnant?”
“Look, it’s not a problem. I mean, I can go on working for months once my hormones settle down, according to—well, the experts.”
“And which experts would that be?”
She shook her head, reached behind her to put down the lid, then sat on the commode. Will sat on the edge of the monstrous hot tub with the gold-plated faucets and the mini refrigerator within easy reach. He wondered if Diana and Jack had ever used it together.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t concern you or Wescott Oil or anyone else but me. I paid cash at the clinic. And Houston’s fine. How soon can I transfer?”
“Whoa, hang on a minute. This changes things.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
She was making an effort to conceal it, but the lady was scared out of her penny loafers. She was shivering, and the temperature was somewhere in the low seventies.
“Hot tea? Isn’t that the usual prescription? I’ll make some tea and see if I can find some crackers.”
“No, that’s…” Her voice trailed off, and she nodded weakly. “A cola? Something carbonated?”
So he led her back into the office and settled her in the most comfortable chair. She looked lost. Vulnerable. He didn’t think she’d appreciate being told as much, so he poured a freshly opened soda over ice and waited for it to fizz down while he thought of the best course of action.
Under the circumstances there was no best course of action. All the same, he knew what he had to do.
“Is it Jack’s?” He was pretty sure it was, but he was a firm believer in covering all the bases.
“That doesn’t concern you.” She met his eyes with a miserable but unwavering look that was sheer bravado.
The baby was Jack’s. Otherwise, she would have denied it. He’d come to recognize a basic honesty about the woman in the brief time they’d been working together. It was just one of too many things about her that drove him a little crazy. One minute he’d be thinking of her as just another in a long line of Jack’s women. The next, he’d be looking at her as the innocent victim of a lecherous jerk who knew exactly which button to push when he wanted something.
Or someone.
For years Will had been dealing with the untidy loose ends left by his hardheaded, heedless friend. Ladies who claimed Jack had promised to marry them, when Will knew damned well the man had never promised any such thing. Jack had been married once, to Sebastian’s mother. That had been before Will’s time. Will hadn’t asked about it, and Jack had never volunteered any information. Neither had Sebastian.
As for his long string of alliances, most lasting no more than a few months, Jack usually made the women sign releases before he even took them to bed. He hadn’t gotten where he was by being careless about minor details.
One woman claimed he’d given her a house in Midland but had forgotten to give over the deed. Jack had been dead only three days when she’d come barreling up to the top floor to demand that deed.
Will, still in shock himself, had taken the time to look into the matter and discovered that his reckless friend had given her a one-year lease on a tract house. As the lease still had seven months to run, he’d let it stand.
No woman, to his knowledge, had ever come forth claiming to be pregnant with a little Wescott heir, though it was possible that more than one had found herself in that condition. As a rule Jack paid his women off and hustled them out of town if there was the slightest possibility of that happening.
Matter of fact, this woman hadn’t made the claim, either. Which was only one of the reasons why Will decided to clean up one last mess his untidy friend had left behind. He wasn’t sure Diana could handle it financially—knew damned well she couldn’t handle it emotionally if today was an example.
“Feeling better now? Look, don’t worry about the insurance. If I set the wheels in motion right away, we can be married within the week.”
Her jaw fell. It was a delicate jaw, one he’d like to cup with his hand, but this was hardly the time. “I’m talking a business arrangement, Diana. I have a pretty good idea of your resources—” At her look of indignation, he said, “Yeah, I know, I had no right, but you see, one of the trails I had to follow to unravel Jack’s financial affairs led directly to your bank account. I finally figured it out with a little research.” Not to mention recalling a few of Jack’s insensitive remarks that Will had only recently put into context.
She was breathing too fast. There was an angry spark in her eyes that he’d as soon not have to deal with. But determined to settle things before she split, he plowed ahead.
“Look, it makes sense as a purely business arrangement. I’m unattached. You’re unattached. You need something that I can offer.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest—breasts. Uh-uh, he preferred to think of the area as a chest. “What do you need, Mr. Bradford? That is, what would you get out of it?”
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