The Fiancée Fiasco (2 page)

With her too-thin lips pressed even thinner, Roseanne turned toward George's 'old friend,' now standing next to her in front of George's desk. "Pleasure to meet you," she cooed in a tone clearly implying the opposite.

"Likewise," Carruthers drawled, his eyes hooding.

Roseanne stuck out her hand. Hell, if she couldn't plot her own career advance this afternoon, maybe she could do something for her boss's. "We all hope," she told him, "you'll consider rejoining us here at Covington March."

In the process of surrounding her hand with his much larger one, Carruthers lifted his gaze. Roseanne received an intense hit of blue.

"It sure would mean a lot to George," she added, hammering it in.

Carruthers' eyes now flicked toward George, obviously puzzling it out.

Was it possible, Roseanne wondered, the big gadoof didn't even realize what he'd done to George four years ago?

"Much obliged for the sentiment," he murmured, and released her hand. But his eyes remained intent upon her face.

She'd wanted to prick him, to rock his self-centered world a little bit, but instead she found it was a very odd sensation to be under the scrutiny of Carruthers' penetrating eyes. He almost seemed to be...questioning her sincerity.

As if he had the right!

Frowning, Roseanne glanced toward George. "I'll be in my office."

Her boss gave her a why-did-you-do-that smile and waved her toward the door.

Roseanne stepped into the hall, feeling oddly off balance. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought there was some integrity behind that gaze of Carruthers.' And even— But no. That couldn't be. Shaking her head at herself, Roseanne stepped across the carpeted hall. A man who'd deserted his wife had no integrity; he had no feelings. Roseanne knew. At the age of eleven she'd found that out.

She pushed open her office door, the one with "Associate" written on it. Deliberately, she dismissed the lingering image in her mind of Winthrop Carruthers' deep blue eyes. The momentary impression of...pain.

Roseanne shook her head. This was one man she was sure didn't deserve a moment's pity. In fact, for his sake, Roseanne hoped Mr. Texas Businessman-Slash-Engineer would be winging his way back down to Houston—or was it Dallas?—very soon. Because if he pestered George one more time she'd be tempted to do something drastic.

~~~

"There must be someone we can call." Roseanne's anxious law clerk made this protest the following afternoon. She tried to peer over Roseanne's desk to see what her boss was doing.

"There's no one to call." Roseanne had wrestled her desk chair to the ground and was on the knees of her expensive pantyhose, trying to examine what had gone wrong with the wheels at the base of the thing. "In this case, as in most of life, we're on our own, baby."

"But surely building maintenance—"

"Couldn't care less about private office chairs."

Roseanne came to the conclusion that only by unfastening her smart wool jacket, swinging the buttons out of the way, and then lowering onto her belly could she get a decent look at the faulty wheel. The damn chair had nearly thrown her when she'd attempted sitting down a moment ago. It hadn't been a very dignified moment, not to mention the danger she'd face the next time she tried to sit down to get some legal work done. It wasn't often she got a chance to do real legal work, instead of wasting her time in court.

Of course, the real obstacle to doing legal work wasn't her failed office chair. She needed the powers-that-be at Covington March to recognize her true talent and make her a partner this year. The decisions on the three openings would be made in July—less than two months away. It wasn't much time in which to pull off the kind of miracle that would convince them she had the right stuff, but Roseanne was determined.

She'd find a way to show them she could do the most important job of all: bring in money.

"The office janitor, then," her law clerk persisted, clearly dubious about Roseanne's mechanical abilities. She made the mistake of adding, "At least let's get a man to look at it."

Roseanne's head came up so quickly she nearly bumped it into one of the airborne legs of the chair. "Oh, no!" She shook her silky black hair. "That isn't the proper attitude. Not at all."

On the other side of the desk, the law clerk groaned.

The poor girl had heard this lecture more than once, but that wasn't about to stop Roseanne. She made her voice stern as she lowered back down to the floor. "The problem with asking men for help is that one starts to depend upon them. The only reliable person to depend upon is oneself."

Roseanne turned her attention back to the wheel. On her stomach with her knees bent, her feet dangled over her back. Perhaps that thingamabob was the problem. It looked different on this wheel from the others. Roseanne shoved an experimental fingernail at the object, hoping she could avoid breaking it. The fingernail, that was.

"In reality, we women need men for very few things." Roseanne felt the heels of her black pumps pop off her feet. Considering how long she'd been on those feet this morning, the sensation was quite pleasant. She flapped the loose shoes happily against her bare heels.

"So you say," her law clerk grumbled. "But I think you need help with that chair. I'm going to get somebody."

"Not so fast. I'm not done yet." Roseanne didn't mind the argument with her law clerk. She enjoyed a good debate. That's why she'd chosen the law, after all, among the various professions. That some profession was her goal she'd known from a very early age. At eleven years old, Roseanne had resolved to be a career woman, a woman who could look out for herself in every possible way.

"Now, what do I need a man for?" Roseanne went on, warming to her topic. "Sex, of course. I won't argue with that. Or children, if you're into that sort of thing." She grinned at the chair wheel, thinking of the loathsome creature she'd found in her bathtub that morning. "All right, all right. I'll admit men come in handy for killing the occasional spider."

"Ahem."

Roseanne ceased her happy shoe-flapping activities. That deep voice was not her law clerk. She glanced under the table. Instead of the sensible pair of feminine loafers that should have been standing there, she saw a pair of very un-feminine tan leather boots, Western in style.

Darn it all! Wasn't he supposed to be back in Texas by now?

But no. Twisting her neck, she found Winthrop Carruthers peering down at her over the desk.

He looked surprised. "Why, you're on the floor, Miz Archer." He had a funny way of slurring the distinction of her title, spanning the entire range from Mrs. through Ms. to Miss.

"So I am." She didn't bother disguising her annoyance. What was he doing here?

"You'd best get off the floor," Winthrop advised. He started around the corner of her desk.

Roseanne pushed herself to a sitting position, her long legs curled to the side. Her blasted bob of dark hair fell into her eyes and she had to blow it out of the way to look up at him.

He obviously couldn't see the glare in her eyes warning him not to do so, for he leaned forward, caught her arm around the elbow and gently raised her to her feet.

For a moment they just stood there looking at each other. It was a strange moment. Roseanne was fully conscious of the sure strength of his arms and the height of him rising above her. As she'd noted the day before, he was quite a bit taller than she was, even when she was standing in her high heels.

Okay, okay. She noticed him...physically. So what? She still didn't like him. "I thought you were all done here," she said.

Frowning down at her with his terrible blue eyes, Carruthers seemed unaware he was having any kind of effect on her. "Did you mean what you said yesterday in George's office?" he asked.

"I said quite a few things." Roseanne cocked her head. "Wanna give me a hint which one you mean?"

He averted his gaze. "About George, and me firing Covington March four years ago."

"Ah." So he'd put the pieces of the puzzle together. Roseanne was mildly impressed.

"He wasn't even working on my file at the time." Winthrop looked back at her. "How could he get the blame when I canned the law firm?"

"Easily." Roseanne gave him a pitying smile. "In a big firm like this someone always has to take the blame. It's political and it's ugly, but it's how the game is played. In your case, since George was the initial contact—"

"He helped with a tax problem when Carruthers Engineering was just getting started down in Houston."

"Anyway, as I was saying, he brought you in. You became his responsibility, even if he wasn't working directly on your case." George, transferred from Texas up to Covington March's branch in Seattle, probably hadn't even been aware that the Houston branch had made the classic error of trying to take care of a family law problem for a corporate customer. Carruthers' divorce had been a doomed project from the beginning.

Carruthers took a step back. "How do you know so much about this?"

"I read your file."

His eyes widened in clear alarm. "The whole thing?"

Roseanne smiled. "There were several volumes. No. I only read the highlights."

The alarm simmered down to something close to humor. "You saw the letter firing Covington March?"

"Oh, yes."

Winthrop pointed a finger at her. "Now
that's
what I call a highlight."

"Which is exactly what we were discussing. But it's all water under the bridge now." Roseanne hesitated, considering. "Unless, of course, you're thinking of retaining Covington March again."

He didn't appear to have heard her. "Not that it did any good to fire you s.o.b.'s. I ended up with the same exact divorce settlement from my next lawyer." He gave Roseanne a man-to-man look. "Do you know I'm
still
paying that woman part of the profits made by Carruthers Engineering?"

"Considering she didn't make you sell the company to give her half the value, I'd say you got a very generous deal."

"Hmph." Winthrop shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "Maybe. If that's all I had to pay. But Sylvia's been finding ways to take even more out of me. Look at this newspaper gossip article."

Roseanne was surprised. "You think Sylvia planted the article?"

His tone was grim. "I know it."

"But what would she get out of it?"

He gave a humorless laugh. "She wants to make it come true."

"She does?" Roseanne shook her head, unable to get her mind around the concept. Why would Carruthers' abandoned wife want her ex back again? "Can she do that just by spreading rumors?"

"She's creating
pressure
." Sighing, he looked longingly out Roseanne's office window, as though he wished he could be far away from it all. "There are a lot of parties who'd like to see Sylvia and myself married again."

"Including Sylvia." Roseanne felt the need to confirm this enigma.

Winthrop shrugged. "She has her reasons, too."

From the way he put it, those reasons didn't include love and affection. Now Roseanne was beginning to understand. Sylvia clearly had other, more practical, objectives in wanting Winthrop back again.

"So," Roseanne asked, curious, "what are you going to do?"

"Do I have a choice? Ride it out somehow." He grimaced. "Jesus. I'd do anything to nip this thing in the bud."

Anything
? The word echoed in the cluttered space between Roseanne's ears. Together with the expression on Mr. Carruthers' face, it started a chain reaction in there.
Anything
? Roseanne cleared her throat. "How much longer did you plan to stay in town?" Suddenly she was not so eager to see him gone. Exactly what might he be willing to do to nip it in the bud...?

He gave her an odd look. "Why do you want to know?"

Roseanne searched quickly for an explanation. Best he not suspect the thoughts stirring crazily in her mind, at least not until they'd developed into a working plan. "There are...a few phone calls I need to make. Then I may have a proposition that will solve your little problem. Nip it in the bud, just the way you want." Hadn't George said that Win needed a wife—?

"You don't say?" He was plainly dubious.

"Trust me," Roseanne encouraged him, most falsely. The last person in the world Carruthers should trust was Roseanne. "When is your flight out?"

"Tonight." He looked wary, but also curious. It was just the way she wanted him.

Yes
. That miracle Roseanne had been looking for was standing right in front of her. He was a walking ticket to partner. Without realizing it, Roseanne's boss had given her the answer to her dilemma after all. George's 'good friend' was a former client of CovMarch, a big former client, and a disgruntled one. He was a lucrative contract nobody ever expected to see again. But if Roseanne could reel him in...she'd be a hero.

"Good, good, good," she murmured in a calculatedly mysterious professional fashion. She looked around, intending to sit down and reach importantly for the telephone, signaling to the unfortunate Mr. Carruthers that he was dismissed. But, alas, there was nothing to sit in. Her chair was lying in a terminal condition on the office carpet.

"What seems to be the trouble with that?" Carruthers followed her gaze.

Roseanne shrugged. "One of the wheels buckled. I suppose I'm missing a screw or something."

"Or something," he murmured, squatting to give the wheel a superficial look.

Surely he didn't intend trying to repair it, himself, Roseanne thought, panicking. She didn't want help from anybody, but particularly not Winthrop Carruthers. Fortunately, he straightened and she relaxed.

Too soon. From a standing position, he put out his hand and took hold of the chair. He held it for a moment as though taking its temperature. Then, light as a feather, he raised the unwieldy creature, gave it a solid little shake and set it on its feet. It landed firmly. It did not fall over. It didn't even list to the side.

"That should do it," he said, but without a trace of triumph. In fact, he sounded rather sour.

"I don't believe it." Roseanne looked over at him and then reached for the chair. She rolled it backwards and forwards. The wheels cooperated smoothly, not even a squeak. Giving the man a deeply suspicious glare, she lowered gingerly into the seat. It held. Not only held, it felt solid.