“I’m not asking for a kidney!” Ryan snapped. “I just need you to be my fiancée again.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. She was too sore and tired from the previous night’s events to do much arguing. “I’m really sick of this on again off again relationship we have going on here. You’re really mixing up my poor, little head.”
“Will you please be serious for five minutes?”
“I thought I was,” Rachel mumbled to herself.
“How was I to know the Parker’s were coming?” Ryan dropped down in an overstuffed easy chair. “This is turning into a nightmare.”
Rachel kicked the back of his chair. “Well, it’s no dream-come-true for me, either! I don’t like being used.”
“You didn’t seem to mind being used by Ty Porter’s lapdog last night!” Ryan jumped up and shoved the chair into the wall.
“That wasn’t my fault, Ryan! What is this? Blame the victim?”
“You wouldn’t have been a victim if you weren’t out running around like a common tramp.” Ryan backed her into a corner and hemmed her in, his bandaged hands pressing against the wall behind her. “You’re being paid very well to keep up this charade, Miss Peters. It’s only until after Elizabeth’s wedding, and then I don’t give a damn who you choose to lay around with!”
“Liar.”
His head dropped to his chest. “You’re impossible.” He looked up and peered into her eyes. “Are you going to do this, or not?”
Gritting her teeth, Rachel took a deep breath and calmed her flaring temper. “Fine. I’ll be your fiancée, but after this wedding, you’re on your own.”
Ryan crossed his arms. “There. Was that so hard?”
“Very!” Rachel shoved past him and stomped toward the door.
“Party starts at seven, Miss Peters. Please don’t be late.”
That smug bastard! If he thought he could control her by bringing out the office voice, he’d better think again. It didn’t work at the office, and it won’t work here.
Rachel ran head-long into George in her flight from Ryan.
“Don’t you two ever have a civilized conversation?” George stuffed a cigar in his mouth and motioned to his office. “Let’s go talk.”
“I can’t help it,” she said as he closed the door. “He’s infuriating!”
“He’s always been a firecracker, Rachel, but without the flame, he never exploded. You, my dear, are the flame.”
“Was April the flame, too?” Though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt a bit of jealousy toward April. Okay. A lot of jealousy.
“Did Ryan tell you?”
“Ty.” Rachel meandered around the room straightening the pictures on the wall. “He said it was pretty bad.”
“It was. Ryan doesn’t come up here too often anymore. This is where it all happened, you know. Too many people have half-truths or complete falsehoods, and they all love to gossip. Can’t get away from that in a small area.”
“And Elizabeth? She seems to have managed to put it behind her and move on. What’s stopping Ryan?
“She didn’t have it quite as tough. She was looked at as the victim. Ryan, on the other hand, was made out to be some kind of monster who was trying to get out of the responsibility of taking care of his child.”
“But, I thought it wasn’t his?”
“It wasn’t. But the gossips only hear the dirt. They don’t follow up and find out the truth. They just add to the lies.”
Rachel had first-hand knowledge of this. She’d been a victim, herself, a time or two. “What about the baby?”
“Looks nothing like Ryan, but you’d never know it from the word on the street. ‘Spitting image’, they say. She even had the nerve to give the boy the Stanley name.”
Having never seen George even remotely close to angry, Rachel was a little taken aback when George slammed his fist on the desk.
“Now I see where Ryan gets it.” Her gentle tease put a smile on his face.
“I’m sorry.” A glimmer of mischief twinkled in his eyes. “We need a real Stanley baby around here.”
“Oh, no, George. You kind of need a willing partner in that sort of thing, and your son’s as far from willing as he can get.”
“Not for long.”
The steely, determined tone in which he said it made Rachel a little nervous. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,’ said George, snuffing out his cigar, “that I’m going to tell him the truth about everything. I can’t let him throw away the best thing that ever came his way just to keep my own butt out of trouble.”
A wave of tears welled up. “But, George, I like your butt.”
“And I like yours,” he said. “In a metaphorical sense, of course.” He cleared his throat. “That’s why it has to be done. You came entirely too close to having something terrible done to you last night, and I blame myself for that.”
Rachel wrapped her arms around his neck. George was understanding and safe – two things that Junior refused to let out of his locked up heart. “Give me a little more time, George. At least until after the party tonight.”