Dear Reader,

I’m pleased to introduce a brand-new series, THE DEVERAUX LEGACY. Set in beautiful and historic Charleston, South Carolina, the books follow the fortunes of the Deveraux family.

Grace and Tom Deveraux divorced years ago—for reasons known only to them. Both have regrets, as well as a deep and abiding love for each other, and they worry their own foolhardy actions have permanently affected their children. More than anything, Grace and Tom want their children to avoid their mistakes and have the kind of enduring, happy marriages of which dreams—and families—are made. Both are equally skeptical it will ever happen, however, since…

Chase, the oldest son and magazine publisher spends his time advising his male readers how to be happy—with or without a wife. Mitch, an innovative businessman and the second-born son, who will one day take his father’s place at the helm of the Deveraux Shipping Company, has already weathered a divorce of his own and is now willing to consider marriage as a business deal. Third-born Gabe, a doctor and the Good Samaritan of the family, is contemplating siring a baby as a favor for one of his lady friends! Only Amy, the baby of the family and owner of her own interior design business, wants it all—love, romance and children—the old-fashioned, time-honored way.

Eventually, of course, all the Deveraux siblings will find happiness, and the love, passion and romance they have been waiting for. And perhaps a little of life’s wisdom along the way…

Best wishes,

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Harlequin American Romance, where you’re guaranteed heartwarming, emotional and deeply romantic stories set in the backyards, big cities and wide-open spaces of America. Kick starting the month is Cathy Gillen Thacker’s Her Bachelor Challenge, which launches her brand-new family-connected miniseries THE DEVERAUX LEGACY. In this wonderful story, a night of passion between old acquaintances has a sought-after playboy businessman questioning his bachelor status.

Next, Mollie Molay premieres her new GROOMS IN UNIFORM miniseries. In The Duchess & Her Bodyguard, protecting a royal beauty was easy for a by-the-book bodyguard, but falling in love wasn’t part of the plan! Don’t miss Husbands, Husbands…Everywhere! by Sharon Swan, in which a lovely B & B owner’s ex-husband shows up on her doorstep with amnesia, giving her the chance to rediscover the man he’d once been. This poignant reunion romance story is the latest installment in the WELCOME TO HARMONY miniseries. Laura Marie Altom makes her Harlequin American Romance debut with Blind Luck Bride, which pairs a jilted groom with a pregnant heroine in a marriage meant to satisfy the terms of a bet.

This month, and every month, come home to Harlequin American Romance—and enjoy!

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Cathy Gillen Thacker
Her Bachelor Challenge

This book is dedicated to David and Meredith Thacker, who have found in each other everything they have always wanted. I couldn’t be happier about your marriage. I wish you much love and joy in your new life together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathy Gillen Thacker married her high school sweetheart and hasn’t had a dull moment since. Why, you ask? Well, there were three kids, various pets, any number of automobiles, several moves across the country, his and her careers, and sundry other experiences. But mostly, there was love and friendship and laughter, and lots of experiences she wouldn’t trade for the world.

You can find out more about Cathy and her books at www.cathygillenthacker.com, and you can write her c/o Harlequin Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.

Who’s Who in the Deveraux Family

Tom Deveraux—The head of the family and CEO of the Deveraux shipping empire that has been handed down through the generations.

Grace Deveraux—Estranged from Tom for years, but back in town—after a personal tragedy—for some much-needed family support.

Chase Deveraux—The eldest son, and the biggest playboy in the greater Charleston area.

Mitch Deveraux—A chip off the old block and about to double the size of the family business via a business/marriage arrangement.

Dr. Gabe Deveraux—The “Goodest” Samaritan around. Any damsels in distress in need of the good doctor’s assistance…?

Amy Deveraux—The baby sister. She’s determined to reunite her parents.

Winnifred Deveraux Smith—Tom’s widowed sister. The social doyenne of Charleston, she’s determined never to marry. That’s not what she has in mind for her niece and nephews, though.

Herry Bowles—The butler. Distinguished, indispensable and devoted to his boss, Winnifred.

Eleanor Deveraux—The Deveraux ancestor with whom the legacy of ill-fated love began.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Chase Deveraux knew from the moment he got the summons to the Deveraux family’s Meeting Street mansion that it was going to be hard as all get-out to hold on to his temper. And that was never truer than when he walked in the front door and saw his woman-stealing brother Gabe standing next to the fireplace in the drawing room.

Gabe looked at Chase with his typical do-gooding innocence and said, “I can explain.”

“I’ll just bet you can,” Chase replied sarcastically, his temper escalating all the more. There were times he was glad he and his three younger siblings had all decided to settle permanently in Charleston, South Carolina, along with their father, instead of taking jobs at various places around the country as many of their friends had done. This wasn’t one of them.

He glared at his baby brother and pushed the words through his teeth. “The only problem is, I don’t want to hear it. Not after what I saw at noon today.”

“Maggie called me.” Gabe heeded Chase’s low warning tone. “It was a medical emergency.”

Chase lifted a brow in raging disbelief as he moved across the brilliant-blue carpet, embossed with gold stars. “One that required mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, no doubt.”

“I’d have thought you would have had more sense than that,” Mitch, the second oldest son, scolded their baby brother as he took off the jacket of his pearl-gray business suit and jerked loose the knot of his austere silver tie. “Seeing Maggie Callaway is bad enough, after what she did to this family two years ago.” Mitch grimaced in disbelief as he spoke for the group assembled. “But kissing her? In front of Chase? That’s low, Gabe!”

Amy, the peacemaker, as well as the youngest of the family, stepped into the breach. Maybe it was because she and Gabe were closest in age, but she was always quick to rise to Gabe’s defense. “Isn’t it possible that you misunderstood what you saw, Chase?” she asked anxiously as she fussed with the pink roses set out in crystal vases around the house. “After all, if it was a medical emergency—if Maggie fainted or something—maybe Gabe was just doing what had to be done. He is a doctor, for heaven’s sake!”

“Is that what happened?” Chase asked as he turned back to the increasingly guilty-looking Gabe. The old bitterness and betrayal cut him like a knife as he pushed away the mental image of Gabe and Maggie staring deep into each other’s eyes, even while Maggie had still been engaged to marry Chase! Not that it had mattered. In the end Gabe hadn’t suffered any qualms about betraying his brother. Then or now. Family loyalty was something Gabe apparently just didn’t have. “Did Maggie call you out to her beach house because she was feeling faint?”

Gabe said nothing.

More furious than ever, Chase continued, “Let me guess what happened next. You rushed over. She answered the door—swooned at the sight of you. And then you hauled her into your arms and laid a big one on her. All in the name of medical science, of course.”

Looking guiltier and all the more uncomfortable, Gabe dragged a palm across his jaw. “She didn’t faint.” It was his turn to push the words through his teeth as he moved toward the floor-length sash windows that graced both ends of the elegantly appointed room.

“Then what happened?” Mitch sank down on a Duncan Phyfe chair, which was covered in the same brilliant-blue-and-gold-star pattern as the carpet.

“I can’t really say,” Gabe replied with a reluctant shrug. “Beyond the fact that Maggie called me and asked me to meet her at her place, pronto.”

“For…?” Amy probed curiously, when Gabe didn’t go on.

“That’s confidential,” Gabe replied stiffly as he moved beneath the portrait of Revolutionary War hero General Marshall Deveraux.

“I’ll just bet it is.” Deciding he’d had enough of trying to play it cool, Chase went straight for his father’s whiskey and poured himself a shot.

Gabe met Chase at the bar. He helped himself to a club soda over ice. “Look, if you must know, she was talking to me about a medical matter.”

Chase knew his brother had worked hard to perfect his bedside manner during med school and residency, but this was ridiculous. “Is that how you minister to all your patients?” Chase asked, deliberately goading Gabe. “By kissing them?”

“She’s not my patient,” Gabe said hotly. “All I was doing was listening to her and offering advice.”

Chase would have liked to believe it was just that innocent. Just as he would have liked to believe that Maggie’s feelings for his brother had been platonic, from the get-go. Unfortunately that wasn’t true and he knew it. The minute Maggie had laid eyes on Gabe, her engagement to Chase might as well have been history. And that was a public humiliation Chase still found very hard to take, regardless of the fact that his feelings for Maggie, whatever they had been, had long ago faded to obscurity.

“Then what were you doing giving her mouth-to-mouth?” Chase demanded, trying to push the image of the two standing on Maggie’s doorstep, wrapped in each other’s arms, out of his mind. If that wasn’t a sign of some ongoing clandestine rendezvous, he didn’t know what was!

“That kiss you saw today just happened,” Gabe countered hotly. “We didn’t plan it. Any more than you planned to be driving by at the exact second I was saying goodbye to her.”

“I see. It was an accident. Just like your stealing Maggie away from me just two days before our wedding and then dumping her the moment her wedding to me was officially off was an accident.”

Gabe glared at Chase in frustration. “I couldn’t get involved with her after what had happened to our family!”

Chase snorted derisively as he choked down a swallow of fine Southern whiskey. “Too bad you couldn’t have decided that before you wrecked my wedding plans,” he fumed.

“If anyone wrecked your wedding plans, Chase, it was you.”

Chase set his glass down with a thud. He turned away from the sideboard and asked ever so slowly, “What did you say?”

Gabe’s eyes gleamed with temper. “You heard me. If you’d just paid one-tenth the attention to Maggie that you pay to your work at the magazine…”

Chase flushed. Was it his fault Maggie had led him to think she was a low-maintenance woman, when the truth was she was anything but? “If she’d wanted me to sit around listening to her all the time, I would have done so!” Or at least he would have tried, Chase amended silently, knowing as well as everyone else in the room that he had a very low tolerance for chitchat.

“A woman shouldn’t have to tell you that,” Gabe shot back, looking even more peeved.

That wasn’t Chase’s experience with the fairer sex. The women he dated couldn’t have cared less about scintillating conversation—they wanted passion and sex. Period. Besides, he’d never been able to read a woman’s mind the way Gabe could.

“Now listen,” Amy broke in, anxiously wringing her hands, “Chase and Maggie’s breakup was probably bound to happen, anyway. Because of the Deveraux family legacy—”

Chase and Gabe groaned in unison. “Not that again,” Chase said, shooting an exasperated look at his little sister.

“Amy might have a point,” Mitch said with extreme civility. He looked at Chase sternly, acting more like the older brother. “If you and Maggie had managed to marry and live happily ever after, you would have been the first Deveraux to do so in three generations.”

Chase scowled. “Our failed betrothal has nothing to do with the curse put on our great-aunt Eleanor.”

“Tell that to everyone who’s had their love life wrecked for no reason in the past sixty years,” Amy countered. “And then tell me the curse hasn’t carried over to the next Deveraux generation!”

Gabe glared at Chase, even as he addressed his remarks to his two calmer siblings. He downed the rest of his club soda in a single gulp. “I still say I had nothing to do with the breakup. If Chase and Maggie had been meant to marry, they would have. Curse or no curse. And nothing I said or did or didn’t say or do would have stopped them from tying the knot.”

“You just keep telling yourself that,” Chase said sarcastically. He’d had some miserable days in his life, but he’d never been more hurt and humiliated than he was the day Maggie had walked out on him and their wedding. For he’d known then that it wasn’t just his divorced parents or brother Mitch—who was also divorced—who were unable to find and keep wedded bliss. People just didn’t stay together in this day and age. They didn’t find happiness in the act of permanently joining their life with another’s. Hell, nowadays they were lucky if they could even make it to the altar and say “I do.” And learning that lesson the hard way had made him stop trying to find the “happily ever after.” Instead, it made him look to the immediate present for his happiness, and no further.

“Moreover,” Amy continued passionately as she stuck her hands in the front pockets of her pastel coveralls, which were embroidered with the name of her decorating business, “Chase needs to get over the way Maggie walked out on him and be glad she came to her senses before they entered into a marriage that most likely would have ended in divorce, anyway. And most important of all, he needs to stop trying to seek revenge for Maggie’s actions on the whole female population!”

“And how am I doing that?” Chase demanded furiously, incensed to find Amy—who could usually be counted on to soothe the wounded egos of all three of her brothers—scolding him, too. It wasn’t as if he promised women anything but what he could give them, which was today!

Amy gave him a droll look as she explained, “You do that by turning women into objects in your magazine and trying to nail every female in Charleston.”

Chase shook his head in exasperation, knowing that the very well-paid models for Modern Man never complained about how beautiful they looked in the pages of his magazine. “Actually, that’s old news. I’ve moved on—” Chase quipped, knowing even as he spoke it wasn’t entirely false “—to the entire East Coast.”

“That’s not funny, Chase.” Amy scowled.

“It’s not supposed to be,” Chase retorted bluntly, using this—and every other opportunity that came his way—to shamelessly plug the premise of the notoriously lighthearted and controversy-inspiring magazine he had created just for guys. “Women are here on this earth for one reason and one reason only. To make guys happy.” And as far as he was concerned, guys were only there to make women happy. It was pretending otherwise, in his opinion, that made people so darn miserable.

“And that tally includes dear old Maggie,” Chase continued, deliberately ignoring the warning glare Gabe gave him. “Which is undoubtedly the reason Gabe rushed out to the beach house.” Chase turned to his brother and proceeded to hit Gabe where he knew it would hurt the most—Gabe’s legendary sense of duty. “Maggie was lonely. She was desperate.” And like the rest of us mortals, in urgent need of some happiness to call her own. “So she dialed the emotional equivalent of 911, and Gabe here, ever the good Samaritan, rushed right out to administer the much-needed and -wanted, obligatory mercy—”

Chase never had the chance to finish his sentence. But then, he thought, with a certain grim satisfaction as Gabe’s fist came flying up to meet him, he’d known for certain he never would.

BRIDGETT OWENS parked her Mercedes convertible at the rear of the Deveraux mansion and headed in the servants’ entrance. She paused just long enough to kiss her mother’s flushed cheek and ask, “What’s the emergency?”

Theresa Owens grabbed a floral-print apron from the drawer and slipped it on over her uniform—a plain navy-blue dress with a white collar. Tying her apron behind her as she moved, Theresa headed swiftly for the ancient subzero refrigerator in the corner. Quickly she pulled out a package of fresh crabmeat and another of cream cheese. “Grace is coming home.” Theresa checked her recipe and collected milk and horseradish from the fridge and an onion from the mesh basket on the counter. “Tom went to the airport to get her. All the children are here. And I’m short-staffed.”

“Where is everyone else?” Bridgett asked. Tom Deveraux had a chauffeur and a gardener, in addition to her mother, his full-time cook and housekeeper.

Theresa brushed auburn tendrils off her face with the back of her hand. “It’s their day off.”

“Mom, you should have a day off,” Bridgett said, wishing her mother would listen to her and give up working as a domestic. Especially now that it was no longer necessary. Theresa could retire and live with Bridgett and never have to worry about money or putting a roof over their heads again.

Theresa frowned as she measured ingredients into the casserole dish and stirred them together briskly. “Then who would cook for Tom?”

“Maybe he could order takeout?” Bridgett suggested as her mother slid the crabmeat dip into the oven to bake. “Or eat at a restaurant.”

Theresa wiped her hands, then restored order to the bun on the top of her head. “I have all the time off I need whenever I need it.”

Bridgett sighed, knowing she was about as likely to talk her mother into taking early retirement at fifty as she was to get her to change her hairstyle or stop wearing the “uniform” that Tom and Grace Deveraux had both told her years ago she did not have to wear. “Except you never take any time off,” Bridgett reminded her mother gently.

“Honey, I don’t have time to argue with you.” Theresa went back to the refrigerator for salad fixings. “I’m trying to put together a dinner party for six on thirty minutes’ notice. And Tom said it was crucial that everything be very nice.”

Bridgett zeroed in on the concern in her mother’s voice, even as she did what she had done for years, as the daughter of a Deveraux domestic—pitched in to lend a hand. “Did something happen?” Bridgett asked as she rolled up her sleeves and helped her mother make a dinner salad on the fly.

“I’m not sure.” Her expression increasingly worried, Theresa got out the food processor and set it on the counter. “But he said Grace might be upset when she gets here and he wanted all the children to be in attendance so they could talk to them together.”

A feeling of foreboding came over Bridgett as she watched her mother fit the slicing disk into the machine. Bridgett hadn’t seen much of Grace Deveraux since Grace had gone to New York City to host the Rise and Shine, America! morning news program fifteen years ago, but she cared about her nonetheless. She cared about all the Deveraux, just as her mother did. “Grace isn’t ill, is she?”

Theresa shrugged. “I’m not sure Tom knows what this is all about, either. But you know how it’s been between the two of them since they divorced.”

“They can hardly stand to be in the same room with each other.”

“So if Grace called Tom and asked him to pick her up at the airport and bring her here, of all places…”

To the home the two of them had shared in happier times.

“It must be bad,” Bridgett concluded, reading her mother’s mind.

Theresa nodded.

And it was then, as she looked at her mother’s face, that Bridgett realized the real reason her mother had called her. Not because she needed help preparing dinner or carrying a tray of canapés. But because she needed moral support in dealing with whatever the fallout of Grace and Tom’s news. Theresa might insist on reminding herself daily in a million little ways that there was a huge class difference between the Owenses and the family Theresa had worked for since before Bridgett was born, but Theresa and Bridgett both loved all the Deveraux like family nevertheless. “How is Chase and everyone taking this?” Bridgett asked, knowing that Chase was likely to have a tough time with any calamity involving his parents. Maybe it was because he was the oldest, but he had taken his parents’ divorce thirteen years ago especially hard.

“I’m not sure,” Theresa said, jumping and grimacing at the big thud and shouting from the front of the house. Then the sound of glass breaking.

“Apparently,” Bridgett said, answering her own question, “not so well.”

There was another crash, even louder. Then the sound of Amy screaming.

“Oh, dear.” Theresa’s hand flew to her chest and she got a panicked look on her face.

“Sounds like another fight.” One of many, both before and after Tom and Grace’s divorce. Bridgett sighed. She put up a hand before her mother could exit the kitchen. “I’ll go, Mom.” She had experience breaking up fights. Why should this one be any different?

“DAMMIT, GABE, I don’t want to hurt you.” Ignoring the pain across his shoulder, where he’d caught the edge of the mantel, Chase staggered to his feet. He pressed one hand to the corner of his mouth, which seemed to be bleeding, and held Gabe at bay with the other palm upraised between them. “So back off!”

Gabe shook his head, his expression angry, intense, and continued coming, fists knotted at his side. “Not until you take back what you said about Maggie,” he stormed.

Chase smirked, not above taunting a self-righteous Gabe. “Right. Like you plan to take back sucking face with her?”

“That does it!” Gabe leaped over the back of the sofa, grabbed Chase by the shirt and swung again, his fist arcing straight for Chase’s jaw.

Chase ducked the blow and countered with a punch to Gabe’s gut. As he expected, it didn’t do much damage. Gabe had been ready for him, muscles tensed. Just as Chase was ready for the tumble over the upholstered Duncan Phyfe chair to the floor. Gabe landed on top of him, but not for long. Chase forced him over onto his back. He grabbed his brother by the front of his shirt, still seeing red. For the life of him, Chase didn’t understand why Gabe continued to defend—and apparently desire—the woman who had come as close to two-timing Chase as any woman ever would. Especially when Gabe had to know how hurt and humiliated Chase had been, both by the events and all the sordid speculation that had followed. Not that it had been any easier for Gabe and Maggie. Both their squeaky-clean reputations had been forever tarnished, too. And for what? It wasn’t as if the two of them had found any happiness, either. “Gonna give up now?” Chase demanded in frustration, wishing they could put this ugly episode behind them before it further destroyed their family.

“Not on your life.” Gabe scowled back, looking ready to do even more damage.

And that was when it happened. A shrill whistle split the air and two spectacular female legs glided into view. Sexy knees peeked out beneath a short silk skirt. His glance then took in slim sexy calves, trim feminine ankles and delicate feet clad in a pair of strappy sandals. Chase knew those legs. He knew her fragrance. And he especially knew that voice. It belonged to one of the most sought-after financial advisers in Charleston, South Carolina.

“One more punch, Chase Deveraux,” Bridgett Owens said sweetly, “and you’re going to be dealing with me.”

THE FIRST THING Chase thought was that Bridgett Owens hadn’t changed since he had last seen her. Unless it was to get even better-looking than she already was. Her long auburn hair had been all one length when she’d gone off on her phenomenally successful book tour three months ago. That soft-as-silk hair still fell several inches past her shoulders, but now it was layered in long sexy strands that framed her pretty oval face. She’d done something different to her eyes, too. He couldn’t say what it was exactly, though he figured it had something to do with her makeup, because her bittersweet-chocolate eyes had never looked so dark, mysterious or long-lashed. She was wearing a different color of lipstick, too. It made her lips look even more luscious against her wide, white orthodontics-perfect smile.

She was also dressing a little differently.

Maybe it was because she also ran a private financial-counseling service out of her home and hence felt the need to present a serious, businesslike image to the public that she’d worn suits that were so tailored and austere it was almost ridiculous. Today, however, she was wearing a silky pencil-slim skirt that was so soft and creamy it looked like it was made of raspberry-swirl ice cream. With it she wore a figure-hugging tank top in the palest of pinks and a matching cardigan sweater. The overall effect was sophisticated, feminine and sexy. Too sexy for Chase’s comfort.

“Honestly,” Bridgett continued, seeming to scold Chase a lot more than Gabe, “aren’t you two a little old for such nonsense?”

Chase scowled. The last thing he wanted—from anyone—was advice on how to handle the restoration of his pride. “This is none of your business,” he fumed, still holding tight to Gabe’s shirt.

“The heck it’s not!” Bridgett charged closer, inundating Chase with the intoxicating fragrance of her perfume. “When it’s gonna be my mother explaining to your parents what happened to all the priceless furniture here!”

“No explanation needed,” came a deep male voice from somewhere behind them.

Every head turned. There in the portal stood Tom Deveraux, dressed in a dark business suit, pale-blue shirt and conservative tie. Coming in right behind him was Chase’s mother, Grace. As the two of them stood frozen, looking at their two brawling sons, it was almost like going back in time for Chase—before his mother had moved to New York City. Before the estrangement between his mother and father, which neither he nor his siblings really understood to this day. To the time when they had been, for whatever it was worth, a family that was united, even in times of strife. Nowadays it seemed that all they had left was the strife. And the heartache of a once-loving family that had fallen apart.

“I suppose we don’t even have to ask what was the reason for this,” Grace said wearily, touching a hand to her short and fluffy white-blond hair.

Chase immediately noted the strain lines around his mom’s mouth, the shadows beneath her blue eyes, and his heart went out to her. Something had happened, he thought, and it was bad enough to bring his dad to her side again.

“If the two of you are fighting like this, Maggie Callaway has to have something to do with it,” Tom surmised frankly, clearly disappointed in both of them.

Neither Gabe nor Chase said anything.

Bridgett offered Chase her hand. Though hardly ready—or really even willing—to end the brawl with his woman-stealing brother, Chase took the assistance Bridgett offered. And, to his mounting discomfort, found his old pal Bridgett’s manicured hand just as delicate in shape, strong in grip and silky soft as it looked.

Tom continued shaking his head at everyone in the room, then settled on Mitch and Amy. “You couldn’t have stopped this before they broke half the vases in the room?” he asked them.

Amy made a face and brushed her long hair, a dark brown like Tom’s, from her eyes. “It’s sort of a long story, Dad.”

Mitch shrugged his broad shoulders. “Amy and I figured they were going to come to blows again, no matter what. Better it happen here. Where they’re unlikely to get arrested or otherwise bring dishonor to the Deveraux name.”

Tom looked at Chase and Gabe. His lips thinned in disapproval as he demanded, “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

“Not a thing,” Chase muttered, resenting being questioned like this at his age, even if he and Gabe did deserve it.

Gabe grimaced, looking at that moment like anything but the good Samaritan he was. “Me, neither.”

Tom turned to Bridgett. “At least you were trying to break it up.”

Bridgett smiled at Tom respectfully. “Someone had to. And since I have…I think I should excuse myself.”

“No reason for that,” Grace said, putting up a staying hand before Bridgett could so much as take a step out of the drawing room. “You’re family, Bridgett, you know that. Besides, I have something to tell you all,” Grace added, just as Theresa came into the room, a silver serving tray of hot crabmeat dip and crackers in hand. “Sit down, everyone.” Grace waited until one and all complied, including Theresa, before she continued reluctantly, “I wanted you to hear this from me before it hits the airwaves.” Grace paused, took a deep breath. “I’ve been fired.”

Chapter Two

Chase stared at his mother, barely able to believe what he was hearing. “What do you mean, you’ve been fired!”

“They can’t fire you!” Mitch cried, incensed, as the entire Deveraux family closed rank around Grace. “You’re the a.m. Sweetheart!”

Looking even more upset than their mother, Amy argued emotionally, “The American public loves you! They said so at last year’s Favorite Celebrity awards!”

Grace sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Since when?” Chase asked, incredulous, unable to understand how his mother could remain so resigned in the face of such a professional catastrophe. For the past fifteen years, her whole world had revolved around that job. She had given up her life in Charleston, sacrificed her marriage and what little happy family life they’d had, at that point, for that job. “Amy’s right, Mom. The morning news shows sink or swim on the personality of their cohosts.”

Grace sat down, looking unbearably weary. Her skin was pale against her cheerful yellow tunic and matching trousers. “The show’s ratings have been sinking for some time now.”

Gabe picked up an overturned chair and set it to rights. He looked their mother square in the eye. “You’re sure you can’t do anything to change the network’s decision?”

Again, Grace shook her head. “It’s not just me,” she said softly. “They’re replacing my cohost, too. And going with a younger couple.”

The family gave a collective sigh as Tom went over to the bar and fixed a tall glass of diet soda and ice. He brought it back to Grace and sat down next to her.

“When is all this going to happen?” Chase asked. He caught Bridgett’s gaze and saw she was just as concerned about his mother as he was. That was no surprise. He knew Bridgett loved his mother, too.

Grace cupped the glass in both her hands and ducked her head. “The network is going to announce my replacement later today. It’ll probably be on the evening news tonight. It may make the Internet before then.”

“You’re not going to hold a press conference?” Mitch, ever the businessman, asked.

Grace shook her head. “I’m letting my publicist handle it. We crafted a statement together before I left New York. She’ll release it.”

“And then what?” Gabe asked. “Will you be going back to finish up?”

“Surely the network is going to give you a big send-off,” Amy said.

Grace sipped her soda. “The network wanted to make a big deal about my leaving, but I told them I didn’t want it. Those things are always maudlin. I’d rather viewers remember me just as I was this morning, when I taped my last show. Besides, it’s not the last time I’ll ever be on television. My agent is already fielding offers. They began coming in last month when there were rumors a change was going to be made.”

Silence fell. Chase noted with no small amount of admiration that his mother seemed to be handling this catastrophe better than the rest of them. “So what are you going to do now?” he asked casually after a moment.

“Your mother is going to be staying here at the mansion,” Tom said. “I’ll be staying at a hotel.”

Chase wasn’t surprised. That had been the case ever since his parents’ divorce. Whenever his mother came to Charleston, she stayed at the family mansion, and his father moved—temporarily—to the Mills House Hotel. It was the only way his mother could get any privacy, she was so well-known. She was besieged by autograph hounds if she checked into a hotel. And staying at the mansion made it easier for her to see all four of her children.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” Grace said, suddenly looking as if she was going to burst into tears, after all, “it’s been a very long day and I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down. That is, if you boys think you can stop fighting long enough to give us all some peace.”

“They had better—” Tom Deveraux cast a warning look at his sons “—or they aren’t half the men I thought they were.”

“WELL, I GUESS he told us,” Chase murmured after his father and mother had disappeared up the wide sweeping staircase.

Bridget looked at Chase. “It’s not as if you didn’t deserve it,” she said, clearly exasperated. “You and Gabe are far too old to be rolling around on the floor.”

“I’ll certainly second that!” Theresa Owens fumed, like the second mother she was to them all. “Chase, you’re bleeding. And Gabe, you need some ice on that eye.”

“You take care of Gabe. I’ll take care of Chase,” Bridgett told her mother. Before Chase could reply, Bridgett had him by the sleeve of his loose fitting linen shirt and was tugging him toward the powder room tucked beneath the stairs. She shut the door behind them, pushed him down on the closed commode and began rummaging through the medicine cabinet for supplies.

“Just like old times, huh?” Chase said. Glad Bridgett had volunteered to act as his nurse, but sorry she had witnessed his humiliation and juvenile behavior, he began unbuttoning his ripped shirt to get a look at the stinging skin underneath.

Bridgett set the antiseptic, antibiotic cream and bandages on the rim of the pedestal sink. She turned back to him, pushed up her cardigan sleeves and prepared to get to work. “You haven’t punched out Gabe since the wedding that wasn’t, have you?”

“No.” Chase peeled off his shirt and stared at the nasty-looking scrape that ran from his left shoulder to midchest and down his arm. He was pretty sure it had happened when he slammed into the mantel and slid to the floor. “Although maybe I should have,” Chase added as he touched his lip and found that it, too, was still bleeding, just a little bit. “Gabe still doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson about stealing someone else’s woman.” Chase grimaced as he checked out a rug burn beneath his right elbow.

“He stole another of your girlfriends?” Bridgett frowned at the scrape on his forearm.

Chase scowled, recalling. “I saw him and Maggie at her beach house a few hours ago. They were kissing.”

Bridgett wet a sterile pad with warm water, doused it liberally with soap, and began washing the scraped skin. “You and Maggie are back together?”

“Hell, no!” Chase clamped his teeth together. Damn, that stung! And damned if Bridgett didn’t seem to enjoy making it sting, too!

“Then why does it matter if Gabe kisses her?” Bridgett added more soap and moved on to his shoulder.

Chase tried not to think about how good it felt to have her hands moving across his skin in such a gentle, womanly way. Bridgett was and had always been his friend, not an object of lust. “Because she was my woman and I was there first!” Chase hissed again as Bridgett dampened another sterile pad and rinsed away the soap on his skin.

Bridgett shrugged. “If that’s your only objection, she was right not to marry you.”

Chase shot her a look. He didn’t care if the two of them had been as telepathic as twins since the moment they were born. He didn’t like the censure in Bridgett’s low tone. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, turning toward her.

“I mean,” Bridgett enunciated as if speaking to a total dunce, “I understand your not wanting him to kiss her if you were in love with her, but if you’re not—”

“I’m not,” Chase interrupted firmly.

“Then it shouldn’t matter to you. Period.”

“Well, it does.” Chase bristled under her watchful gaze.

“Why?” Bridgett dabbed antibiotic cream across his shoulder.

“Because it’s like pouring salt in a wound,” Chase explained in frustration, wishing she would hurry up and get this over with.

“One that obviously has yet to heal,” Bridgett countered, moving close enough to Chase that he could see the barest hint of cleavage revealed by the décolletage of her form-fitting sweater set. He swallowed around the knowledge that Bridgett’s breasts were fuller and rounder than he had ever realized. Or wanted to realize.

“I’m over her,” Chase said, struggling to keep his mind on Maggie, instead of Bridgett and what her closeness, her sheer femininity, were doing to him.

“Just not over the humiliation of being dumped by her,” Bridget guessed, apparently oblivious to the discomfort she was causing him.

Chase shifted his weight to relieve the unexpected pressure at the front of his khaki beach shorts. “You got it.”

Bridgett unrolled sterile gauze across his shoulder. “Well, then, I suggest you get over it,” she advised, her warm hands brushing across his even warmer skin as she taped the bandage into place.

“And why would that be?” Chase asked, feeling as if he was going to explode if he had to sit there for one more second.

Bridgett looked at him sternly. “Because if Gabe was kissing her today, Chase, that can mean only one thing. Gabe still has the hots for Maggie. Even after all this time. And he doesn’t care who knows it.”

Chase vaulted to his feet, grabbed his shirt and shrugged it on. “I’m tired of talking about me and my unconscionable behavior. Let’s talk about you and yours,” he said, leaning back against the closed bathroom door.

Bridgett squared her slender shoulders and shot him a stern look. “I don’t behave unconscionably.”

Chase quirked a brow, wondering if she had missed seeing him as much as he had missed seeing her. And how was it the two of them had grown so far apart, anyway? Was it just because they were older with different personal and career agendas to pursue? Or was there more to it than that? “You used to get into trouble right along with me,” he said softly, thinking about the fun the two of them had had during their childhood and teen years. It had only been later, after college, that they’d begun to drift apart. To the point that these days they rarely saw each other at all. And then, only by chance.

The picture of efficiency, Bridgett put the first-aid kit back in the medicine cabinet. “I’ve grown up,” she told him plainly.

Too much, Chase thought, wondering when it was, exactly, that Bridgett had gotten so serious. “So I see.” he shot her a teasing leer, meant to make her laugh.

“Cut it out, Chase,” she ordered. Frowning, she gathered up the paper bandage wrappers and excess bits of tape and tossed them into the trash.

Chase could see he had offended her, when that was the last thing he’d wanted. “You used to have a sense of humor.”

Bridgett shrugged and continued to avoid looking at him. “I used to be immature.”

“And now you’re not.”

“No.” Bridgett lifted her head and looked at him coolly. “I’m not.”

Silence fell between them. Chase knew she was ready to leave the intimate confines of the guest bath, but he didn’t want to let her go. Not yet. Not with the mood between them so unexpectedly tense and distant. He folded his arms in front of him and asked seriously, “How was your book tour? I assume you just got back.”

Finally the sun broke out across her face. “Last night,” Bridgett confirmed happily. “And the experience was wonderful, if grueling, and very satisfying, economically and personally. Just the way every three-month book tour should be.”

Chase found himself warming to the deep satisfaction he saw on her face. He had always wanted the very best for her. Always known she would get it. “Did you really cover every region across the country?”

Bridgett nodded, the depth of her devotion to her work apparent. “And I helped more women than I can say,” she confided, leaning back against the sink.

Maybe it was because he had grown up wealthy as sin and knew firsthand how little real joy a hefty bank account could bring a person, but it bothered Chase to know that Bridgett valued money more than just about anything these days. She used to treasure more than that. She used to treasure her friends—especially him. “Just what this world needs.” Chase sighed, ready to goad her back to sanity, if need be. “Even more women who think money is the route to happiness.”

Bridgett scowled at the sarcastic note in his low tone. “It is.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts defiantly.

Chase kept his eyes on hers. “If you say so.” He inclined his head indifferently.

The fire in Bridgett’s eyes sparked all the hotter. “Don’t belittle what I do for a living, Chase.”

“Why not?” Chase pushed away from the closed door and stood straight, legs braced apart, once again. “You certainly belittle what I do,” he reminded her as he narrowed the distance between them to just a few inches.

Bridgett straightened, too. “That’s because your magazine—”

“Modern Man,” Chase helpfully supplied the publication’s name, in case she’d forgotten.

“—does nothing but teach guys how to get what they want from women!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Chase demanded. Clueless for as long as he could remember about what women really wanted or needed in this life, he had started his magazine as a way of collecting data from other men, about what worked and what didn’t with the women in their lives. As far as Chase was concerned, he was providing a public service, making both men and women a little happier, while doing his part to tamp down the battle of the sexes and reduce the number of unhappy relationships overall.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that.” Bridgett planted her hands on her hips. “It makes guys think that women are ‘a problem to be handled’ and that there is something fundamentally wrong with marriage.”

“There is something fundamentally wrong with marriage,” Chase shot back flatly, not about to sugarcoat his opinion on the subject on her account. “Or hadn’t you noticed the soaring divorce rate in this country?”

Bridgett released a long slow breath. She looked as if she was fighting for patience. “Lately the divorce rate has actually been going down. No thanks to you!”

Chase brought his brows together in consternation. “You don’t know that,” he argued back. He was tired of taking the blame for things that were way beyond his control. “Maybe I’m the one to credit for that.” He knew for a fact, from reader mail, that there were a lot of guys who had really appreciated his series on how to get their women not to just tolerate, but love the sports they followed. The same went for his series on cooking in, instead of eating out.

Bridgett rolled her eyes. She stared at him, making no effort to hide her exasperation. “And how do you figure that?” she asked drolly.

“Because,” Chase said, thinking how much he had always enjoyed a spirited argument with Bridgett and how much he had missed having them with her since she’d been away, “I also run articles that convince guys not to get married when they’re not ready.”

Bridgett’s eyes turned even stormier. And worse, looked hurt. “Exactly.”

Too late Chase realized he had hit a real sore point with Bridgett. The fact that her own parents had never married, even when Theresa Owens had gotten pregnant. “I’m sorry,” he said swiftly, seriously. “I know your, uh—”

“Illegitimacy?” she provided when he seemed unable to blurt it out.

“—is a real sticking point with you,” Chase continued, with some difficulty. It was, he knew, probably the biggest hurt of her childhood, though she rarely talked about it.

Bridgett waved him off, already done talking about it, and ready to move on. “I just think you’re doing a disservice to men with that whole marriage-isn’t-really-all-that-necessary attitude you and your magazine perpetuate.”

“Yeah, well, I think I’m helping my readers,” Chase said stubbornly. He was making them see that marriage was a serious step. And if they weren’t serious about a lifetime commitment, or the women they were chasing weren’t serious about the same, marriage was not the path to take. He certainly didn’t want them to end up a public laughingstock, the way he had, when his bride had ditched him just days before they were to marry.

“Whatever.” Bridgett tugged the sleeves of her elegant silk-and-cotton cardigan down to cover her wrists. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Like hell it didn’t, Chase thought, studying the wealth of emotion on her face.

“I’m late, anyway,” Bridgett continued.

“For what?” Chase asked curiously. And that was when he saw it. The big fat emerald ring.

Chapter Three

Bridgett thought she was past the third degree when it came to Chase and her beaux. Apparently not. He still felt—wrongly so—that he had the right to comment on the men she chose to date. Not to mention the gifts they might have or have not chosen to give her.

“What,” Chase demanded, his handsome features sharpening in disapproval as he looked down at the emerald ring glittering on the ring finger of her right hand, “is that?”

Bridgett had an idea what he was going to say. She didn’t want to hear it. Deliberately misunderstanding where he was trying to go with this, she lifted her shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “I can’t buy myself a ring?”

Chase’s sexy slate-blue eyes narrowed even more. He took a step closer and said, very low, “I know you, Bridgett. You invest in real estate, growth stocks, a car that will go a couple hundred thousand miles before it quits. You don’t spend thousands of your hard-earned cash on baubles. Someone gave you that very pricey emerald-and-platinum ring.”

Someone he apparently already didn’t like, even though he had yet to find out who it was. “So what if it was a gift?” Bridgett shot back just as contentiously. Expensive as the ring was, she knew that to a man like Martin, it was just like penny change. Martin never did anything in a small or inconsequential way. When they dined out, it was at the very best restaurants. They drank the rarest, most expensive wines. He didn’t just send her roses. He gave her vases of the most exquisite orchids or lilies. Once, he’d flown her to Europe for the weekend, simply because he wanted her to see Paris in the springtime. Initially, of course, she’d tried to discourage such lavish gifts. Now she knew that was just the way Martin and everyone else in his family lived.

Chase braced a hand on the wall just beside her head. “I want to know who gave you that ring.”

Bridgett refused to let him intimidate her with his I’m-in-charge-here body language. Honestly, she didn’t know how Chase did it! She had been back in Charleston less than twenty-four hours and already Chase—the bad boy of the Deveraux clan—was already under her skin. Big time.

She angled her chin at him defiantly “I don’t have to answer you.”

“Darn it, Bridgett. You know how much I care about you.”

Cared, Bridgett thought, but didn’t love. Would never love. At least not in the way she had once wanted desperately for Chase to love her. Now she knew better, of course. Chase might have once considered her his very best buddy and partner in mischief, but when it had come to dating, he had always chosen others. At first she had thought—wrongly—it was just because he was romancing women from his own social class. That theory had been blown out of the water when he became engaged to Maggie Callaway, who was from the same working class background as Bridgett. Then she had known that social status was not the reason Chase didn’t pursue her. He simply wasn’t attracted to her. Not in that way. So she had put any lingering hope of a romance between them aside and kept her distance from Chase as much as possible. She had known then what she had to remind herself of now. Chase protected her and watched out for her in a familial sort of way. There was nothing the least bit romantic in his feelings toward her—and never would be.

Silence fell between them. “Your mother didn’t tell me you were engaged,” Chase said finally when she didn’t respond to him.

“That’s because I’m not yet,” Bridgett explained with a great deal more patience than she felt.

He dropped his arm, stepped back until he was once again leaning against the opposite wall of the first-floor powder room, his six-foot-two-inch frame dwarfing her own five-foot-seven one a little less. “But you’re close,” Chase asserted unhappily, still studying her face.

“I think we’re definitely headed that way. Yes.”

Abruptly Chase looked as if he had received a sucker punch to the gut. Again Bridgett warned herself not to take his reaction personally. Chase was probably just suffering the pangs any “brother” would have about seeing his “sister” married off.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Chase asked finally in a rusty-sounding voice.

Bridgett tried not to notice how handsome Chase looked in the soft lighting of the room. After all, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to his stunning good looks. She had grown up looking into those long-lashed, slate-blue eyes of his and knew full well they were the color of the ocean on a stormy day. She had committed to heart the rugged planes of his face, the square jaw, the high cheekbones and wickedly sexy smile. Okay, maybe his shoulders did look a little broader and stronger, his abdomen a little flatter, since the last time she had seen him. Maybe he was a little more tan and rough around the edges. But the ensemble of pleated khaki shorts, loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt and sneakers was the same. Chase wanted people to see him as a slacker when she knew full well he was anything but. Deep down he was as ambitious and determined to succeed in business as she was, if not more so.

“The guy?” Chase prodded again when Bridgett failed to answer his query. “The ring giver does have a name, doesn’t he?”

Bridgett flushed. “Martin Morganstern.”

Chase shook his head and looked all the more disappointed and distressed. “Not the art-gallery guy over on King Street,” he said, groaning.

“One and the same,” Bridgett confirmed, unable to help the haughty edge that came into her voice. “And you needn’t speak of him with such derision.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “Man, Bridgett! That guy is old enough to be your father!”

Bridgett forced a droll smile as she allowed, “Only if I were sired when he was thirteen.”

“Which makes him…?”

Bridgett pushed aside her own lingering uneasiness that there was something just not right about her and Martin, despite the fact that on paper, anyway, when it came to all the relevant facts, they looked very good as a couple. “He’s forty-five.”

“To your thirty-two.” Chase blew out a gusty breath and slammed his hands on his hips. “The guy’s too old for you. Way too old.”

Bridgett shrugged. She didn’t know why, exactly, but Chase was making her want to punch him. “You’re welcome to your opinion,” she told him icily. “Fortunately,” she said as she tried to step past him once again, “I don’t have to abide by it.”

Chase smiled as if he had an ace up his sleeve and once again stepped to block her way. “What does your mother think about that ring?” he asked smugly.

Another alarm bell went off in Bridgett’s head. Ignoring the probing nature of Chase’s gaze, she said stiffly, “She hasn’t noticed it yet.” She’d been too busy in the kitchen.

Chase immediately had an “Aha!” look on his face.

Bridgett grimaced all the more. “I was about to show her when you and Gabe started brawling.”

Chase smirked. “Likely story.”

Not for the first time in her life, Bridgett wished Chase didn’t know her so well. “I’ll do it later,” she said.

Chase ran a hand along the light stubble on his jaw and continued to regard her smugly. “I think you’re stalling.”

Bridgett squared her shoulders as if for battle. “I am not.”

Chase lifted his dark brow in silent dissension. “Your mom won’t approve of you accepting such a lavish gift from him,” he predicted matter-of-factly.

Unfortunately Bridgett was pretty sure Chase was right about that, since to date Theresa hadn’t approved of much of anything Martin had done.

“In fact,” Chase predicted, leaning even closer, “I bet she doesn’t like you dating Martin any more than I do, does she?”

“Fortunately for me,” Bridgett parried, ignoring the warmth emanating from Chase’s tall strong body, “it’s not up to my mother whom I should or should not spend time with.”

Chase’s brows drew together like twin thunder-clouds. “You should listen to her, Bridgett. Your mother has always had a lot of sense.”

“In most matters.” Bridgett felt her hackles go up as she delineated precisely, “Not this.”

“You need to give that ring back, Bridgett.”

“Really.” Taking exception to the tone of his voice, Bridgett folded her arms beneath her breasts contentiously and glared at him. “And why would that be?”

Because that ring is the kind of gift a man gives to announce a woman is his. And his alone. And I just can’t see you with a smooth talker like Morganstern, Chase thought. Aware she was waiting for an answer and fuming while she did so, Chase did his best to conjure up an answer. “Because you’re too young to get that serious about someone,” he said finally.

“I’m thirty-two,” Bridgett shot back, temper sparking her beautiful brown eyes. “If I want to have a family of my own—”

“You’ve got plenty of time for that.”

Again she looked down her nose at him, as if he just didn’t get it. “I’m ready to get married and settle down now,” she explained as if to a moron.

Chase frowned, and unable to help himself, blurted out in frustration, “At least find someone who can make you happy while you do it!”

Bridgett propped her hands on her hips. “What makes you think Martin won’t make me happy?”

Because I just know, Chase thought, uneasiness sifting through him. Aware how lame that would sound, he remained silent.

Bridgett stared at him as if she had never seen him before and had no clue who he was. “Like I said, I’ve got to go.” She ducked around behind him and exited the powder room without another word.

CHASE WAS DISAPPOINTED he hadn’t been able to make Bridgett see what a mistake she was making even dating Mr. Wrong. But that didn’t mean he was giving up. He figured it would take time—and persistence—to make Bridgett see the error of her ways. But he figured she’d be grateful to him in the end. He didn’t want her suffering the way he had when he’d been betrothed to the wrong person.

In the meantime he needed to check on his mother. He found Grace upstairs in the guest room where she always stayed. She had changed out of her travel clothes and into a slim apple-green dress that only seemed to emphasize her recent weight loss. The strain lines on her face seemed all the more pronounced in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. “Are you going to be okay?” He didn’t know why, but she seemed more vulnerable now than when she had first arrived and told them she’d been fired. He wasn’t used to his take-charge, kick-butt mother being weak.

“Of course I’ll be all right,” Grace said in the firm parental voice she had used on him and his siblings. She looked at him sternly. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“Can’t help it.” Chase sauntered into the bedroom and shut the door behind him, so they could talk privately. “In the first place, I’m the oldest son.”

“Which does not make you responsible for me.”

Maybe that would’ve been true had there been someone else—like a husband around all the time—to protect her. But there wasn’t. “Even so, in your place, I’d be reeling,” Chase told her frankly.

Grace opened the first of several suitcases with a beleaguered sigh. “I’ve suffered setbacks before, Chase.”

Chase knew she had. First and foremost among them had been her legal separation from his father, a year after she had moved to New York City to work on Rise and Shine, America! Another year after that, there’d been the finalization of the divorce. None of which Chase understood to this day. Oh, he knew marriages didn’t last anymore. And maybe they never should have lasted for decades even in years past, when that was the norm. Most of the married couples he knew did not seem all that happy once the wedding rings were on their fingers, the shackles around their ankles.

“Plus, I work in television,” Grace continued, as she took out a stack of clothes and put them neatly in a dresser drawer. “Being hired and fired is all part of the routine business cycle.”

“It still must hurt,” Chase persisted, taking a seat on the ivory chaise in the corner.

Just as the divorce had hurt. Not that Grace and Tom had ever let their kids see them quarrel. It had been their strict policy not to let their four children be privy to anything going on in their marriage, especially anything bad. The idea, of course, had been to protect Chase and his siblings from any unpleasantness. And so all their kids had thought everything was fine when it was not, and had ended up feeling baffled and distressed when Grace and Tom—for no reason any of their children could fathom—suddenly stopped speaking to each other and began living separate lives. Chase had often wondered what the breaking point had been. Had one of them been unfaithful or done something equally unforgivable? And if so, why? Was the love between a man and a woman something that could just end without warning or reason? Frustratingly these weren’t the kinds of questions his parents fielded. All he knew for certain was, after they’d split, the anger and bitterness between Grace and Tom had been fierce and unrelenting. And that tension had gotten worse, before it had ever gotten better. These days, of course, the two were able to be cordial to each other—at least on the surface. But deep down, Chase still felt there were problems that remained unresolved to this day. Divorce or no divorce.

“I admit my pride is wounded,” Grace said in a way that reminded Chase that this was the first time his mother had been fired from a job. Previously whenever Grace had left a television show, it was to take a better position at another show.

Grace took out several pairs of shoes and carried them to the shelf in the closet. “It hurts having the failure of the show blamed on me and my cohost. But that’s just the way it is in the business.” Grace returned to her suitcase for her toiletry bag. “Whoever is out in front takes the credit or the blame, and in this case it was blame that needed to be apportioned out to appease the sponsors.”

Restless, Chase got up to help. “Something better will come along. Before you know it, you’ll be back in New York on another network,” he assured his mother as he unzipped the first of her two garment bags.

Grace smiled ruefully as she lifted out the clothes already on hangers and carried them to the closet. “I’m not sure I want to work in early-morning television again. Getting up at three-thirty every morning did not do much for my social life. I was going to bed for the night when everyone I knew was just getting off work for the day.”

“Then something that airs later in the day,” Chase persisted, pushing away the disturbing thought of his mother wanting to keep company with any men besides his father. It had been bad enough occasionally coming face-to-face with his father when he was squiring other, usually much younger, women around. Now he’d probably be seeing his mother going out on dates, too. “An afternoon talk show, maybe,” Chase suggested.

Grace made a face as she set out her hairbrushes and combs on the old-fashioned vanity. “Right now that sounds like even more of a grind. No. What I want to do right now is spend more time with you and your brothers and sister, Chase. I’ve missed that.”

Chase warmed at the idea of being able to see and talk to his mother whenever he wanted again and still live and work in the city he had grown up in and come to love like no other. “We’ve missed you, too, Mom.” More than she would ever know. It was their dirty little secret, but without Grace around, the Deveraux did not seem like much of a family. Not the way they once had been, anyway.

Grace enveloped Chase in a warm hug. “And besides, I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook.”

“I THOUGHT YOU’D BE happy for me,” Bridgett told her mother emotionally. She had just shown her the emerald ring Martin had given her after picking her up at the airport and taking her to dinner the evening before. “I thought you wanted me to be happy.” And frankly she was hurt that her mother wasn’t more enthusiastic about the serious turn her relationship with Martin was about to take.

“I do want you to be happy,” Theresa explained gently. “Which is why I want you to spend time with someone whose background is similar to yours.”

“Not to mention,” a deep male voice said from the doorway, “someone your own age.”

Theresa beamed at Chase the way she always did whenever he entered a room. “See, he agrees with me,” Theresa said as Chase kissed her cheek.

“Chase just doesn’t want to see anyone get serious,” Bridgett said, more irritated than ever to have Chase putting his two cents in about her personal life. She stopped folding napkins for her mother long enough to glare at Chase. “Chase does not believe in monogamy, never mind marriage.”

Chase plucked a carrot from the salad Theresa was making. He shrugged his broad shoulders without apology as he turned back to Bridgett. “I certainly don’t believe you should yoke yourself to some hoity-toity art dealer.”

“Hoity-toity?” Bridgett echoed in amazement, unable to believe Chase had actually used such a term.

“Haughty, arrogant, condescending.” Chase pulled up a stool and joined them at the butcher block, where they were preparing dinner.

“I know what it means,” Bridgett countered irritably, wishing Chase would just go away. She put the last of the fan-shaped napkins into a basket for her mother. “I write for a living, too, you know.”

“Martin’s old money, darling,” Theresa warned. “Very old money. And you know what they always say…”

“The rich are different,” Bridgett repeated wearily. She had heard that old saw from her mother a thousand times.

“Not all of us.” Chase helped himself to a tomato wedge. “Some of us old money fellas are down to earth. Just not ol’ Martin Morganstern of the Morganstern Gallery of Charleston. Martin is as blue-blooded and luxury-loving as they come.”

Bridgett found herself defending her soon-to-be fiancé hotly. “He’s very nice.”

Chase raised a dissenting brow as he added salt to the tomato wedge.

Theresa sighed as she continued to whip up a vinegar-and-oil dressing. “All men are nice when they’re trying to…to…”

“Get into my bed?” Bridgett guessed, saying what her mother seemed unable to articulate.

Theresa flushed with embarrassment but did not back down as she poured dressing on the salad and tossed it. “You’re the daughter of a domestic servant, Bridgett. You may want to forget that. But ten to one, in the end, Martin Morganstern and his very old and very proper family won’t.”

REALIZING IF SHE DIDN’T get a move on, she was going to be late, Bridgett said goodbye to her mother and headed out the back door. To her dismay, Chase followed her. “Your mom is right,” he said as he shadowed Bridgett out to her Mercedes. “What you have is new money. To a guy like Martin Morganstern, there’s one heck of a difference. To a guy like me, well, cash is cash.”

Bridgett unlocked her car and tossed her purse inside. “Thank you ever so much for enlightening me.” Hot air poured out of the sedan’s interior through the open door.

“I don’t care if you have any money or not,” Chase continued while Bridgett waited for her car to cool down before she got in. “I am and will always be your friend, regardless of your financial circumstances.” Chase folded his arms on the top of the door and continued to regard her with a cheeky seriousness that really got under her skin. “Can you really say the same about Martin Morganstern?”

Realizing she would be too hot with her cardigan on, Bridgett slipped it off, and tossed it on the seat beside her purse. She ignored the way Chase’s gaze slid over her bare arms and shoulders. “You’ve been listening to my mother for too long!”

Chase grabbed her wrist before she could slide in, his fingers warm on her skin. “Your mother is just trying to keep you from getting hurt,” he said seriously.

“And what’s your excuse for butting into my life?” Bridgett turned away from the stormy gray-blue of his eyes and put up a hand to stop any further diatribes. “Don’t answer. I really don’t want to know.”

Afraid she would lose it if they said anything else to each other on the subject, she started her car and drove off.

MARTIN WAS WAITING for Bridgett in the Barbados Room in the Mills House Hotel. He was wearing a sage-green suit with a tie and white shirt. His black hair was neatly brushed away from his handsome face, his gray eyes alert and interested. As always, he looked thrilled to see her approaching him. Just being with Martin made her feel calm inside, not all fired up and agitated the way she was when she was with Chase Deveraux.

As she neared, he stood and helped her with her chair. “I ordered you a glass of wine.”

Bridgett smiled gratefully, appreciating his gentlemanly manners. “Thank you.”

“What’s wrong?” Martin studied her silently. His glance fell to her right hand, before returning to her eyes. “Don’t tell me. Your mother thinks you shouldn’t have accepted the ring I gave you.”

Bridgett didn’t have the heart to tell Martin how upset her mother had been about the gift and what it might mean when he had been so excited about giving it to her. So she said only, “My mother’s very old-fashioned when it comes to a lot of things.”

Martin frowned. “You should have let me come with you when you went to see her today.”

That would have only made things worse, Bridgett thought, because there was no telling what her plain-spoken mother would have said to upset a quiet cultured man like Martin. “It’ll be fine,” Bridgett insisted, glancing at the menu.

Martin studied her. “I hope so. I really want your mother to like me. That’s rather hard to manage when she never spends any time with me.”

Bridgett swallowed. She had tried to get her mother to have an open mind about her relationship with Martin—to no avail. Her mother thought people should get married only if they were wildly in love and of similar backgrounds. She and Martin flunked that litmus test. Their backgrounds were as different as night and day, and as for their feelings for each other, well, those were more of a tranquil nature. Steady and reliable. Without the ups and downs of passion. What no one seemed to understand, Bridgett thought, was that this was what she wanted. A relationship that was as safe and dependable as municipal bonds. She didn’t want to be worried about being abandoned by the man she loved, the way her own mother had. Nor did she want to worry about getting divorced, the way Tom and Grace had. It was so much better, she thought, to enter into a lifelong relationship with someone with a cool head and a sensible attitude.

Martin continued to watch Bridgett, waiting.

“My mother is going to need a little time,” Bridgett said finally, thinking that a guaranteed low-yield investment was better than the ups and downs of a high-risk annuity any day.

“I have been patient, darling,” Martin said gently, covering her hand with his.

Bridgett swallowed and tried not to think how heavy and almost uncomfortable the emerald-and-platinum ring felt on her right hand. She looked into Martin’s eyes. “I know you have,” she said softly.

“I waited for you throughout the long months of your book tour.”

And he had never complained about her absence, Bridgett thought in her soon-to-be fiancé’s defense. Not once.

“But my patience,” Martin continued, “is almost gone.”

HOURS LATER, Bridgett’s mind was still reeling with all Martin had demanded of her as he walked her to the front door of her newly acquired “single house” in the historic district of Charleston. Like all town homes of the early 1800s, the single-pile redbrick Georgian had been turned sideways on the narrow city lot. A two-story piazza, or covered porch, had been built along the length of the building to provide outdoor living space for each floor, as well as shade on the windowed facade. On the first floor the street-front room was her office, where she worked on her books and advised clients on financial matters. The single room behind it was an eat-in kitchen. On the second floor, she had a combination master bedroom and bath at the front of the house and at the rear a cozy sitting room, where she relaxed, read, watched television and entertained. It was small but perfect, and as soon as Bridgett had purchased it, she had known she had really made it. No longer was she merely the daughter of the housekeeper of a well-heeled Charleston family. Now she was one of the elite that kept the city humming.

“You’ll call me in the morning to let me know what you’ve decided?” Martin said as he ever so tenderly increased his grip on her hand.

Bridgett nodded as she looked into his eyes. “Absolutely.”

“Sleep well, my precious.” Martin brushed his lips across her temple. He turned and headed down the sidewalk to the car at the curb. Bridgett waited, enjoying the splendor of the cool spring evening, until he’d driven away before she turned to let herself inside. And that was when she saw him, relaxing in the shadows, of her first-floor piazza.

Chapter Four

“My precious!” Chase echoed. “Who says something like that? Oh, right.” He snapped his fingers. “Someone from the previous generation.”

Bridgett told herself she was not in the least bit glad to see him as she unlocked her front door. “What are you doing here?” She tried to behave as if she wasn’t perturbed by the fact that Chase had been not just waiting for her to come home from her date, but had declined to make his presence known right away, spying on her and Martin, as well.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chase strolled around to join her and followed her into the house. “I came to talk to you.”

Bridgett shut the door behind them. “It’s after midnight, Chase.”

“I know.” Chase made himself at home on the red damask settee.

Bridgett noted he was still in the casual clothes he’d had on earlier, with one exception. He’d taken off the shirt he’d torn in the brawl with Gabe and put on a plain blue oxford-cloth dress shirt that looked as though it might have belonged to his dad. He’d left the shirttails out and rolled the sleeves to his elbow. “You changed your shirt,” she said.

“Had to.” He sat back amiably and propped an ankle on his knee. “Dinner with the folks.”

Deciding the room was much too cozy with only one lamp burning, Bridgett walked around the room and turned on a few more lights. “How’d that go?”

Chase’s eyes turned serious as she came back to join him in the small sitting area of her home office. “It was exceptionally quiet. Gabe got called back to the hospital halfway through. Amy was her usual worried self. And Mitch seemed preoccupied—something to do with the family shipping business. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“What about your parents?”

“They were pretty quiet, too. I had the feeling they wanted to spend some time alone, talking about Mom’s situation, I’m sure. They were just going through the motions of a family dinner to reassure us everything would still be okay, despite the very public firing.”

“Once a parent, always a parent, I suppose.”

“I guess.” Chase surveyed her midnight-blue silk chiffon sheath, with the handkerchief hem and matching chiffon shawl. He regarded her in a way that reminded her just how well he knew her. “What are you doing out so late on a weeknight, anyway? Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

Knowing he was right—normally she would be in bed a lot earlier on a weeknight so she could be up bright and early the next morning to write or meet with the clients she was advising on financial matters—Bridgett sat down in a straight-backed chair opposite from him. “I’m taking a few weeks off before I start my next project,” she said. “And I have no client appointments scheduled for the next week, either.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.” Chase leaned forward earnestly, hands clasped between his spread knees. “Because I need your help. Professionally speaking.”

“I’m not writing anything for Modern Man,” she told him flatly.

“Sure now?” Chase flashed her a sexy grin. “We could use a woman’s perspective on money matters. You wouldn’t even have to write anything. We’d conduct it interview-style. And I’ll put it all together in an article about you and your success.”

Bridgett knew that where Chase was concerned, nothing was this simple. If he wanted to do something, it was because he knew his readers would benefit in ways specifically aligned with his way of thinking. She had to think for a minute to figure out how Chase would probably spin it. “So you can tell your readers how to get women to do what they want in a financial sense,” Bridgett guessed. While still avoiding marriage like the plague.

Chase flattened a palm against his rock-solid chest and regarded her with mock hurt. “You sound like you’ve been listening to my critics.”

“I’ve been reading your magazine,” Bridgett said.

“And…?”

“If you really want to know, I think you’re so off base in your assessment of the current battle between the sexes, it’s ridiculous.”

“Come on, Bridgett.” Chase gave her a look that begged for understanding. “Most of the stuff you’re referring to is meant solely to amuse.”

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