The Millionaire Claims His Wife(2)

       
           



       

"Will you be serious? I've got a hundred people waiting out there." And  Chase, she thought, so quickly and so senselessly that it made her  blink.

"What's the matter now?"

"Nothing," Annie said quickly. "I mean...just help me figure out how to repair some of this damage."

Deb opened her purse. "Wash your face," she said, taking out enough cosmetics to start her own shop, "and leave the rest to me."

* * *

Chase Cooper stood on the steps of the little New England church, trying to look as if he belonged there.

It wasn't easy. He'd never felt more like an outsider in his life.

He was a city person. He'd spent his life in apartments. When Annie sold  the condo after their divorce and told him she was moving to  Connecticut, with Dawn, it had damn near killed him.

"Stratham?" he'd said, his voice a strangled roar. "Where the hell is that? I can't even find it on a map."

"Try one of those big atlases you're so fond of," Annie had said coldly,  "the ones you look in when you're trying to figure out what part of the  country you'll disappear into next."

"I've told you a million times," Chase had snapped, "I have no choice.  If I don't do things myself, they get screwed up. A man can't afford  that, when he's got a wife and family to support."

"Well, now you don't have to support me at all," Annie had replied, with a toss of her head. "I refused your alimony, remember?"

"Because you were pigheaded, as usual. Dammit, Annie, you can't sell this place. Dawn grew up here."

"I can do what I like," Annie had said. "The condo's mine. It was part of the settlement."

"Because it's our home, dammit!"

"Don't you dare shout at me," Annie had yelled, although he hadn't  shouted. Not him. Never him. "And it's not our home, not anymore. It's  just a bunch of rooms inside a pile of bricks, and I hate it."

"Hate it?" Chase had repeated. "You hate this house, that I built with my own two hands?"

"You built a twenty-four story building that just happens to contain our  particular seven rooms, and you made a million trillion bucks doing it.  And, if you must know, yes, I hate it. I despise it, and I can hardly  wait to get out of it."

Oh, yeah, Chase thought, shuffling uneasily from one foot to the other  and wishing, for the first time in years, that he hadn't given up  smoking, oh, yeah, she'd gotten out of the condo, all right. Fast. And  then she'd moved herself and Dawn up to this-this pinprick on the map,  figuring, no doubt, that it would be the end of his weekly visits with  his daughter.

Wrong. He'd driven the hundred-and-fifty-plus miles each way every  weekend, like clockwork. He loved his little girl and she loved him, and  nothing that had happened between Annie and him could change that. Week  after week, he'd come up to Stratham and renewed his bond with his  daughter. And week after week, he'd seen that his wife-his former  wife-had built herself a happy new life.

She had friends. A small, successful business. And there were men in her  life, Dawn said. Well, that was fine. Hell, there were women in his,  weren't there? As many as he wanted, all of them knockouts. That was one  of the perks of bachelorhood, especially when you were the CEO of a  construction company that had moved onto the national scene and  prospered.

Eventually, though, he'd stopped going to Stratham. It was simpler that  way. Dawn got old enough so she could take a train or a plane to  wherever he was. And every time he saw her, she was lovelier. She'd  seemed to grow up, right before his eyes.

Chase's mouth thinned. But she hadn't grown up enough to get married.  Hell, no. Eighteen? And she was going to be some guy's wife?

It was Annie's fault. If she'd paid a little less attention to her own  life and a little more to their daughter's, he wouldn't be standing here  in a monkey suit, waiting to give his little girl away to a boy hardly  old enough to shave.

Well, that wasn't quite true. Nick was twenty-one. And it wasn't as if  he didn't like the kid. Nick-Nicholas, to be precise-was a nice enough  young man, from a good family and with a solid future ahead of him. He'd  met the boy when he'd flown Dawn and her fiancé to Florida to spend a  week with him on his latest job site. The kids had spent the time  looking at each other as if the rest of the world didn't exist, and that  was just the trouble. It did exist, and his daughter hadn't seen enough  of it yet to know what she was doing.                       
       
           



       

Chase had tried to tell her that, but Dawn had been resolute. In the  end, he had no choice. Dawn was legally of age. She didn't need his  consent. And, as his daughter quickly told him, Annie had already said  she thought the marriage was a fine idea.

So he'd swallowed his objections, kissed Dawn, shaken Nick's hand and given them his blessing-as if it were worth a damn.

You could bless the union      of two people all you wanted, but it  didn't mean a thing. Marriage-especially for the young-was nothing but a  legitimate excuse for hormonal insanity.

He could only hope his daughter, and her groom, proved the exception to the rule.

"sir?"

Chase looked around. A boy who looked barely old enough to shave was standing in the doorway of the church.

"They sent me out to tell you they're about ready to begin, sir."

Sir, Chase thought. He could remember when he'd called older men "sir."  It hadn't been so much a mark of respect as it had been a euphemism for  "old man." That was how he felt, suddenly. Like an old, old man.

"Sir?"

"I heard you the first time," Chase said irritably and then, because  none of what he was feeling was the fault of the pink-cheeked groomsman,  he forced a smile to his lips. "Sorry," he said. "I've got the  father-of-the-bride jitters, I guess."

Still smiling, or grimacing, whichever the hell it was, he clapped the  boy on the back and stepped past him, into the cool darkness of the  church.

* * *

Annie sniffled her way through the ceremony.

Dawn was beautiful, a fairy-tale princess come to life. Nick was  handsome enough to bring tears to whatever eyes weren't already  streaming, though not to his former guardian's, who stood beside him  wearing a look that spoke volumes on his handsome face.

Chase was wearing the same look. Her ex was not just dry-eyed but  stony-faced. He'd smiled only once, at Dawn, as he'd handed her over to  her waiting groom.

Then he'd taken his place beside Annie.

"I hope you know what in hell you're doing," he'd muttered, as he'd slipped in next to her.

Annie had felt every muscle in her body clench. How like him, to talk  like that here, of all places. And to blame her for-what? The fact that  the wedding wasn't being held in a church the size of a cathedral? That  there wasn't room for him to invite all his big-shot clients and turn a  family event into a networking opportunity?

Maybe he thought Dawn's gown was too old-fashioned, or the flower  arrangements-which she, herself, had done-too provincial. It wouldn't  have surprised her. As far as Chase was concerned, nothing she'd ever  done was right. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, standing  beside her, straight and tall and unmistakably masculine.

"Isn't Daddy gorgeous in formal wear?" Dawn had gushed.

A muscle twitched in Annie's cheek. If you liked the type, she supposed  he was. But she wasn't a dumb kid anymore, to have her little heart sent  into overtime beats by the sight of a man's hard body or equally hard,  handsome face.

There had been a time, though. Oh, yes, there'd been a time that just  standing next to him this way, feeling his arm brush lightly against her  shoulder, smelling the faint scent of his cologne, would have been  enough to-would have been enough to-

Bang!

Annie jumped. The doors at the rear of the church had flown open. A buzz  of surprise traveled among the guests. The minister fell silent and  peered up the aisle, along with everybody else, including Dawn and Nick.

Somebody was standing in the open doorway. After a moment, a man got up and shut the door, and the figure moved forward.

Annie let out a sigh of relief. "It's Laurel," she whispered, for the  benefit of the minister. "My sister. I'm so relieved she finally got  here."

"Typical Bennett histrionics," Chase muttered, out of the side of his mouth.

Annie's cheeks colored. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me."

"I most certainly did, and-"

"Mother," Dawn snapped.

Annie blushed. "Sorry."

The minister cleared his throat. "And now," he said in tones so rounded  Annie could almost see them forming circles in the air, "if there is no  one among us who can offer a reason why Nicholas Skouras Babbitt and  Dawn Elizabeth Cooper should not be wed..."