LITMIR.BIZ

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she had owned.

      Piper slowly moved up the stairs and let herself in through the front door. She started as a tall shadow materialized from the formal parlor on her left.

      “Wade,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you here.”

      “I managed to clear things up at the office earlier than I’d anticipated.”

      Her eyes raked his face for any sign of the man who’d deliberately advanced money to her only to recall it when he knew she was at her lowest ebb. Just how long had he been prepared to go on making money available to her? she wondered. If she hadn’t come back when she did, how much would she have ended up owing him?

      It didn’t make sense. She had no way of paying him back. Why would he want to have such a hold over her when it was outside the realm of possibility that she’d ever earn enough money to settle the debt?

      “Is that right?” she replied, fighting to keep her voice level when all she wanted to do was bombard him with angry questions.

      “I take it the news at the lawyer’s wasn’t good?”

      “You take it correctly.”

      “We should talk.”

      “No kidding,” she said with an insolence she was incapable of hiding.

      Wade gestured for her to precede him into the parlor and waited until she was seated before he lowered his body into one of the fabric-covered armchairs. The blowsy cabbage rose pattern on the chair was at complete odds with his controlled appearance. Not a hair was out of place on his head. His striped tie, a perfect match to the steel gray of his suit, was immaculately knotted at the equally immaculate fold of the collar of the white shirt he wore. He was altogether formidable, and he knew it.

      Piper decided to take the bull by the horns.

      “It would appear I owe you some money,” she said, lifting her gaze to meet his squarely. There was no way she would show him that she was quaking inside.

      To her surprise, Wade laughed. His even white teeth flashed in his face, his eyes crinkled in genuine mirth and the sound, a deep belly laugh that in any other circumstance would have been infectious, rang out to fill the room.

      “I have to hand it to you, Piper. You’re the mistress of understatement today.”

      She refused to be drawn to respond. He could think what he liked. He knew, as well as she did, that he held all the cards very firmly in those beautiful hands of his. While he composed himself she waited patiently for the bullet to come.

      “Mr. Chadwick made you aware of the sum of money you owe me,” he finally said, his voice no longer holding any hint of the humor that had just consumed him.

      “He did.”

      “And he made you aware that the debt has been recalled.”

      “With interest, no less,” she said, aiming for flippancy.

      Maybe if she could make him angry she’d feel anything but the numbness that had pervaded her entire body since she’d heard the news.

      “No less,” he agreed.

      He sat back in his chair and rested his hands on the arms of it, his rangy body relaxed even though his eyes were sharply focused on her face.

      “I need time,” she stated flatly.

      “Is that a fact?”

      “Of course it’s a fact,” she snapped, rising to his bait in spite of her best intentions. “I need time to find a job, get established. It’s completely unreasonable of you to insist on repayment in full when I have no means to meet that commitment.”

      “Yes, indeed. Thing is—” he paused and flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his trouser leg “—I don’t feel particularly reasonable right now.”

      A chill ran down Piper’s spine. “You don’t?”

      “No, I don’t. You never finished university, despite every opportunity to do so. You never sought gainful employment while in New Zealand. And if your current lack of funds is any indication, I’d say you’ve never actually worked a day in your life. Why should I believe that you could find a job now? The employment market is tough, Piper. Tougher now than it ever was. Even the local supermarkets have had more than two and a half thousand applicants for each of the new stores that have opened recently. What makes you think you’re better than all those skilled, and unskilled, workers desperate to find a job?”

      “I never said I was better than anyone else.”

      “No, you didn’t. At least not recently, anyway.”

      Piper felt hot color flood her cheeks. She remembered exactly what he referred to. She’d been an utter bitch to him when he’d refused to drop his internship with her father and travel with her overseas. She’d wanted him to prove that he loved her—that she mattered to him more than her father and his own future. When he’d refused, she’d said things that didn’t deserve remembering, let alone repeating. That he hadn’t forgotten them was quite clear.

      “I’m sorry for all that, Wade. I really am. I was young, headstrong and entirely stupid. I couldn’t see past what I wanted back then.”

      “And you’ve changed so much now?”

      Wade watched her carefully. He didn’t believe she’d changed a bit. Not where it mattered. She could have swallowed her pride years ago. Come home before choosing to terminate the pregnancy that was the lingering proof of the love he’d thought they’d shared. But, no. She’d destroyed his son or daughter as callously as she’d cast away everything in their relationship. And she hadn’t even bothered to contact him—then, or in the eight years that had followed.

      “I have changed,” she insisted, the color in her cheeks rising. The sound of her voice becoming even more impassioned. “I used that money for good purpose.”

      “All of it?”

      “No, not all of it. I was an idiot when I left here. I had some serious growing up to do, but I did grow up. I have changed.”

      “Admitting your faults all sounds very impressive, Piper, but again, none of it solves your current problem, does it?”

      “I just need time.”

      “Time isn’t an option.” He put up a hand before she could protest. “I do, however, have an alternative for you. A suggestion that takes into account your lack of credible work experience and probably accommodates the one thing I do know you’re good at.”

      She leaned forward on her seat, clearly eager to hear what he had to say. He doubted she’d be as eager once she knew what he had planned for her.

      “What sort of alternative?”

      “I worked hard for your father over the years. And with your father gone, my workload has doubled at Mitchell Exports.

      “As a result, I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to devote to a relationship with the type of woman I may want as a wife. Settling down just isn’t possible for me right now. But I do have one thing, above all else, that I wish for.

      “I’ve accumulated quite a legacy of my own, now, and it’ll be all for nothing unless there is someone special in my life to leave it to. You know about how my mother died when I was ten and how my father refused to support me. You know how determined that made me to have children who will receive all my love and protection. I want to be the kind of father Rex was to you. When you were a toddler and your mother died he never let you go. It would have been far easier for him to have done so. Yet, no matter what, he always provided for you—sometimes too much.”

      “Our circumstances are completely different, Wade. Sure, Dad supported me, but not in all the ways that really mattered to me. I had to fight for his attention.”

      “He wasn’t always the easiest of men to impress,

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