'Where's the limo going?' Rick asked. The two men had disappeared into the building, and it was pulling away from the curb.
'Out to the house. I made Tiffany stay home. I didn't want heR &Rose hovering while we were trying to make a deal. Where's Ashley? She should be here by now,' Joe said as the intercom buzzed, announcing their two visitors, who were then ushered into the conference room.
'And Nina's here from Lacy Nothings,' the receptionist said. 'She needs to see you, Mr. P. Shall I send her in too?'
'Yeah,' Joe told her. What the hell was going on? If Ashley was going to try to pull out of this he would no longer represent her. Hell! He'd represent SSEXL. 'Ray!' he greeted his cousin, and the two men embraced warmly. 'Sit down. You know my partner, Rick Johnson. Just give me a minute, will you?' He turned to Nina. 'Where is she?' he asked.
'She's going to be late. Madeira called, and I don't speak Spanish,' Nina said. 'It shouldn't be any more than ten minutes.' Then she turned and hurried out.
'Sorry about that,' Joe said. 'Ashley is going to be a few minutes late, and she sends her apologies. She had to take an overseas call. Could I offer everyone some coffee? Water?'
Judy, the firm's receptionist, stood waiting, and hurried out when she had been given orders for four coffees.
'Ryan,' Ray Pietro d'Angelo said, 'this is my cousin, Joe Pietro d'Angelo.'
The men shook hands and chatted over the coffee that Judy had returned with for them. And then the intercom buzzed again, and Judy said, 'Miss Kimbrough is here. I'm sending her in, sir.'
The conference door opened and Ashley came in, breathless from running from her shop. She was wearing white silk slacks and a red tee. 'I am so sorry,' she apologized. 'Did Nina tell you? Sister Marie Consuelo called from Madeira.'
'She couldn't call back?' Joe asked.
'No, she couldn't,' Ashley said. 'There is no phone at the convent. I pay the tavern keeper in the village a yearly fee to allow her to call me when my order is ready and has been picked up by FedEx. They're a pretty cloistered order, Joe, and she can't keep running down the hill from the convent all the time. Then I have to have the bank transfer the funds I owe them immediately. The convent isn't a wealthy one with a rich
He was dazzled by her bright green eyes. She wasn't at all what he had expected. Shaking her hand, he said, 'My dad was Mr. Mulcahy. I'm Ryan, Miss Kimbrough.'
'I'm Ashley,' she responded, and then they sat down. If she hadn't sat down, Ashley thought, she would have fallen down. He was nothing at all like she had expected. The picture she had briefly glimpsed on Google didn't do him justice. For openers, no one had told her he would be six feet, five inches tall. Or that he would look like an Italian model. The brown eyes that had locked onto hers momentarily were like liquid chocolate beneath their dark, bushy eyebrows. His face was long, with a long, narrow, aquiline nose and high cheekbones. His mouth. Oh, God, his mouth! It was full and lush. It begged to be kissed. And then she pulled herself up. This was business, and she was already half in lust. This was what always got her in trouble. She drew a deep breath. 'I suppose we should get started, gentlemen.'
She was all business, and it really turned him on, Ryan thought as he inspected Ashley from beneath half- lowered eyelids. But it shouldn't turn him on, damn it! She was nothing at all like the kind of girl he wanted to marry. To begin with she was big. Not fat by any means, but big. She had to stand at least five feet, eight inches tall. She was a brunette with pale skin like ivory porcelain, not the petite peaches-and-cream blonde he had always imagined he would marry. But those green eyes!
'Well, there's no secret why we are all here today,' Joe began. 'But let's put our cards on the table. Ashley Cordelia Kimbrough is her grandfather's only heir. The bulk of his estate is hers, but only if she marries by her thirty-fifth birthday, which is in December 2009. Unfortunately her business is part of the estate, and she will lose it if she cannot comply with the terms of Edward Kimbrough's will. She has made Lacy Nothings so successful that she could not afford to buy back her own business if she lost it, and there are at least two companies who have expressed interest in having it if she were interested in selling. They do not, of course, know Ashley's tenuous position. Ray?'
'Ryan Finbar Mulcahy has a similar problem. Although he made the business the financial success it is today, his father's will states that if he isn't married by the time he is forty-and that happens next spring-everything gets sold, and the proceeds parceled out to his sisters. His father was very generous in his will to those sisters, but they're already looking for a buyer for R &R. The value of the business is as much in Ryan's reputation as it is in the physical business itself. He could not outbid anyone else. Joe?'
'So,' Joe said, 'since both of these people have to marry to retain what is really theirs, it seems only logical that they marry each other. It would be a business arrangement with a prenuptial agreement signed by both parties. The marriage would have to last at least two years, and then each would leave the marriage with what they brought into it. In other words, no one gets hurt. But I think before we go any further we should hear from Ryan and Ashley.' He turned to them. 'What do you two think?'
'I think Ashley and I need to speak alone for a while,' Ryan said.
'Yes, we need to get to know a little bit more about each other before we make any decisions,' Ashley agreed. 'Even if this isn't a real marriage in the strictest sense, Ryan and I have to see if we can be together without grating on each other's nerves.'
'Good!' Joe said. 'I've ordered lunch in for you two. We'll come together again at two thirty and see how it's gone and what you think.' He stood up. 'Ray, Rick, come on. I made reservations for the three of us at the inn.' Joe walked out in the company of the other two men, closing the conference room door behind him.
'He's a decisive guy,' Ryan remarked with a small smile. 'A lot like Ray.'
'I hadn't planned to be away from the shop for so long,' Ashley said.
'What do you get from a convent in Madeira?' he asked her.
'Lace,' she answered him. 'Exquisite handmade lace. My first ex-fiance found it for me when he and his partner were traveling in Europe.'
'You're still friends with a guy you were once engaged to?' Ryan asked, surprised.
Ashley giggled. She couldn't help it. 'Carson is gay,' she told him. 'I was young and didn't realize it, and he had asked me to marry him. He says he was in his 'I can beat this' stage of denial over his homosexuality. But he couldn't. He ran off with the best man a couple of days before the wedding. I thought it was so sweet that he wanted to wait until we were married to have sex.' And she giggled again.
He grinned at her. In retrospect it was pretty funny, and she was certainly being a good sport about it. It said a lot about her character that she could laugh at herself. 'I've heard you had a couple of other fiances,' he noted.
'Yep, number two was Chandler Wayne.'
'The pro quarterback for the Chicago Razorbacks?' he asked.
'One and the same,' she responded.
'Didn't he die in Vegas after… Oh, yeah. Great tragedy.'
'If Chandler had to die young, and he did, he wouldn't have wanted to go any other way. The guy loved sex. I'm a little surprised at the circumstances, however. He wasn't the most creative guy in the sack,' Ashley said.
'You're not a virgin,' he said.
'I'm thirty-three,' she answered him dryly. 'How many thirty-three-year-old virgins do you know? But in answer to the unspoken question on your lips, I am not promiscuous. I have slept with only three guys in my thirty-three years, and two of them were going to marry me. The first was my college boyfriend. We did it twice, and then he broke up with me. I assume you've had a few adventures of your own, Ryan.'
He laughed. 'You are one candid lady, Ashley,' he told her.
