because we didn't want Pearl to die alone. Rose brought our dinner down to us, and we shared some of our dessert with Pearl. The taste of that baked apple must have given her a reason to go on living, because after she ate it, she got to her feet and stayed there.
'After that, she was so partial to apples that she'd start nickering the moment she saw one, and she lived to be twenty-two!'
Greatly satisfied with his effort, he slapped his knee and beamed at his unsuspecting daughter, sending the conversational ball flying straight at her. 'Well, Mary?' he prodded when she looked flustered. 'Remember how partial Robert was to whatever Mother cooked or canned? He just couldn't eat enough of whatever it was.'
'That's true!' Mrs. Foster said, belatedly rushing forward to assist the home team. 'My husband gained twenty pounds after we came to live here with him. He used to have a big dinner and then sneak down for midnight snacks, even though he wasn't truly hungry. Diana knew that, and I'm sure that's why she wanted to bring you all that extra food, Cole.'
Having made her successful play in the verbal volleyball game, she looked about for someone who hadn't participated yet, realized her mother was the only possibility, and quickly decided it was wiser to send the ball out of bounds instead. She aimed it straight at Cole on the sidelines. 'You know how fanciful teenage girls can be,' she told him with a smile. 'You were probably stuffed to your ears and wishing Diana would stop bringing those bags of food, while Diana was convinced she was rescuing you from starvation. You were being polite and Diana was being... an overimaginative teenage girl.'
Everyone looked expectantly at Cole, as if waiting for an official decision on the success of the game. When he realized it, he quickly declared an end to the match and issued his ruling: 'Diana was very kind, and I appreciated her kindness.'
Until then, Rose Britton had observed the entire scene with the innocent impartiality of an uninvolved spectator, but she shook her head in amused disagreement with Cole's verdict. 'Diana has always been thoughtful and kind, but the truth is, she had a crush on you! That's why she lugged all those sacks of groceries and leftovers to you all the time. We all knew how she felt about you. Although,' she confided with a reminiscent smile as she leaned a little forward, 'Diana wasn't nearly as obvious as Corey was about Spencer. By the time Corey was sixteen, she'd wallpapered her bedroom with Spencer's pictures and turned the place into a shrine! Diana was much more secretive, but it was my opinion that she was probably as crazy about you as Corey was about Spencer. She had all the symptoms of a girl in love, and we thought—'
'Mother!' Mrs. Foster said in a low, imploring voice. 'This isn't the time or place for that.'
'The truth's the truth, right occasion or not,' Rose Britton said; then she looked to Diana, of all unlikely people, for support. 'Was I mistaken, dear?'
Diana's initial dismay over her grandmother's commentary had already given way to relief. She'd been trying for hours to think of something to say to make her abrupt marriage to Cole seem less unjustifiably impulsive, and she seized on the fragile excuse Gram had just inadvertently provided her. 'No, you were absolutely right, Gram!' she exclaimed in a voice that sounded too eagerly enthusiastic for what was, after all, ancient history. 'In fact, I had a tremendous crush on him!' she added, stealing a quick glance at Cole to see how he was reacting to that piece of news, but his expression hadn't altered by so much as a flicker. Completely impervious, he stood with his arms loosely folded over his chest, his feet planted slightly apart, watching her. A little startled by his lack of response, she returned to the main issue. 'Now that you all remember how I felt about Cole when I was young, then what I have to tell you might not come as such a—a gigantic surprise.' The people she loved most in the world gazed at her in happy expectation of hearing something nice, and Diana faltered.
'Go ahead,' Spence urged with an encouraging grin. 'What's your surprise?'
Diana drew a steadying breath and plunged in. 'Well, last night, after the auction, Cole and I danced for a little while... And then... and then...'
'And then?' Grandpa prodded when she seemed to choke on the end of the sentence.
'And then we went up to Cole's suite, and we had a drink, and... we talked... about things...' Diana glanced at the coffee table between the sofas, wishing it would rise up on end on its legs and rush forward to shield her.
'And then what happened?' Gram prodded, looking expectantly from Diana to Cole.
Diana confessed the rest in a halting torrent of words: 'And then... we... left the hotel... and we... flew to Las Vegas... and we... got married!'
The taut silence that followed her announcement tore through Diana's nervous system like nails scraping over a chalkboard. 'I know you're all a little shocked right now,' she told the five faces that were staring at her in incredulous horror.
Her grandfather was the first to recover and react. Aiming a look of pure, undiluted loathing at Cole, he said bitterly, 'Mister, you must be some great talker. Especially when you get a lady alone in your hotel room. Especially if the lady's heart's just been broken and if she's had more to drink than she's used to having.'
'No, now wait!' Diana interrupted, stunned by her mild grandfather's unprecedented anger and determined to take matters in hand. 'It wasn't like that at all, Grandpa. Cole and I made a business arrangement that will benefit both of us personally as well as benefiting Foster Enterprises. By marrying Cole, I salvaged a little of my personal pride, but more important, I salvaged our magazine's public image. Cole has a problem, too, that being married to me will solve. He realized how beneficial a quick marriage would be for both of us, and then we discussed the terms and agreed on a temporary arrangement that would suit us both.'
'What sort of 'temporary arrangement'?' Spence demanded of Cole in a hostile voice.
'Marriage for one year—in name only—for business purposes,' Cole retorted, matching Spence's tone.
'That's it?' Spence said, sounding more confused now than angry.
'That's it,' Cole said.
'Just exactly what is your problem that marriage to Diana is supposed to solve?' Spence asked.
'It's none of your damned business.'
'Maybe not,' Grandpa said tersely, 'but it is
Diana had never imagined things would go this badly, and she opened her mouth to plead for calm, but to her surprise, Cole capitulated to her grandfather with glacial courtesy, but courtesy nonetheless. 'To put it succinctly, I have an elderly uncle—a surrogate father, actually—who is seriously ill and desperately, obsessively, determined to see me become a husband and father before he dies.'
'And just how do you intend to become a father in a name-only-for-business-purposes marriage?'
'I don't,' Cole stated flatly. 'But he doesn't need to know that, and unfortunately, he won't live long enough to discover it on his own.'
'You've got everything all figured out, haven't you?' Grandpa said with biting disdain; then he looked at Diana. 'What I can't understand is how you let this conniving schemer talk you into going along with all this.'
'He didn't talk me into anything, Grandpa. I told you, I agreed to marry Cole because it will solve some very difficult problems—his problems, and mine, and ours,' she emphasized, lifting her hand and gesturing toward all of them.
'Having you marry some conniving, smooth-talking cad you haven't seen in years isn't going to benefit your family one damn bit!' Grandpa fired back.
'Yes it will!' Diana insisted, so caught up in her explanation that she failed to notice she was inadvertently agreeing that Cole was a 'conniving, smooth-talking cad.'
'Anything that benefits Foster Enterprises benefits all of us, because we
