The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange (2 page)

Her father hadn’t stayed long, but it must have been long enough for Rolf to get an idea on how to in
filtrate her father’s company.  Her father hadn’t told her that he’d contacted, or been contacted by, the man she’d introduced to him that day. 

So this whole business was her fault?  She’d done this to her family? 

She stared at Hector’s face as he continued to explain but she didn’t hear the words any longer.  She was trying to figure out an alternative, not wanting to sacrifice her life by marrying a man as cold
, frightening
and unfeeling as
Hector Christophe
. 
She reacted to this man in an elemental way that, in her mind, was shocking
ly
unsuitable
.  Her stomach muscles tightened as his male scent drifted to her nostrils, making her head swim in an inappropriate way. 

He wasn’t handsome, but she had to admit that there was a certain
bold, earthy
appeal to the man.  He was extremely tall and he definitely had a good tailor because his shoulders looked very broad and muscular.  Good padding, she thought. 

His eyes were grey
and sharp, intelligent was the best she could describe if she were being generous.  But she didn’t want to marry a man like that. She wanted a man who was warm and comforting, someone she could cry to when she needed help or who would listen when she was stuck on a problem. 
She was fairly certain that
Hector
Christophe
wouldn’t listen.  He’d just fix everything and tell her
in a patronizing tone that
she was a good girl for coming to him with the problem
, then carry on with his own business issues
. 

Kallista
put her hand over the pile of papers, stopping him from continuing.  She had no idea what he was saying, nor would she
even
if he tried to
patiently
explain it all over again.  Her mind was too consumed with the fact that, at the bottom of all of this, she’d started the ball rolling.  If she could stop it simply by marrying Hector and saving her father’s pride, she had to do it. 

“I’ll marry you,” she said softly, looking away and trying to hide her tears
and confusion
.
Wasn’t she a good daughter?  Hadn’t she been raised to think of marriage as a union between two people who
loved
and respected one another?  So why was she entering into this
marriage with cold deliberation?
  And, if she were completely honest with herself, secret admiration for a man she didn’t understand. 

Hector looked at the lovely woman with the soft hair and
blue, alluring
eyes.  He wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything would be okay,
that he would fix this problem and maybe they could be happy.  B
ut he wasn’t sure he could do that.  He could
definitely
fix the problem with her father, but there was
so much more to happiness and he couldn’t promise her that.  Not with his history. 

As an orphaned child, left on the streets to rob and steal, to scrounge in the garbage and gutters for food, he knew that happiness was elusive.  If it weren’t for Kallista’s father, he might still be in the gutters.  The day Hector had tried to steal from Demetrius, and been caught, had been the day his life had become worth something.  Demetrius hadn’t allowed the police to take him.  Instead, the kind man had brought him to a restaurant and fed him.  He’d been kind, patient, ignoring the shifting eyes of a
young boy who was looking for his next victim and told that young boy that he was better than this.  That he could be so much more if he wanted. 

Demetrius had saved Hector’s life and now the tables were turned.  There was no way he would allow Demetrius, nor the other employees of his company, to fall victim to Rolf Peterson’s activities.  Having lived the life of a gutter rat, Hector knew how to play with the worst of them.  He’d never break the law again.  That would be letting down the man who had given him so much.  But Hector had quickly learned how to use the laws to his advantage. 

As he watched Kallista’s gentle features, he knew instinctively that he wanted to protect her again.  So many evenings he’d sat across the table from her at her parents’ house, watching her, knowing that she was out of his league, that she was too good for him
.  He’d honestly tried to come up with an alternative, but when it came down to it, marriage to her was the best he could do and would allow him to move in quickly and fight Peterson with everything in his arsenal. 

With a stern nod, he stood up.  “I’ll stop by your house tonight and we’ll tell your parents the news.”

Kallista
also stood and followed him, trying to get her mind to focus but she wasn’t sure that was possible anymore. 
This had been a crazy morning and she was off kilter, needing some way to ground herself.  The thought occurred to her that his shoulders were definitely wide enough and strong enough to give her a place to cry out her fears.  But she squashed that thought, knowing that Hector Christ
o
phe was not the kind of man who would endure tears with
fortitude. 
“I’ll meet you there then.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his hand resting on the door to his office but not opening it.

“I have my own place,” she said, staring at the center of his red silk tie, unable to look him in the eye. 

“Why aren’t you living with your parents?”

She laughed softly,
even
though his comment was
n’t the least bit amusing.  “Why don’t you live with your parents?” she asked softly
.
  When she received no response, she took that to mean that she’d explained her point.  “Everyone needs their own space.  I grew up and thought it was
time to stand on my own.  I’ve
had my own apartment ever since I finished college.”

Since there were double doors, she reached out for the knob of
the other
door and pulled it open, walking out without bothering to say goodbye
, leaving him with a small smile which she hoped conveyed her thanks, but she suspected that it might just give him a hint as to how frightened she was in his presence
. 

At the elevator, she pressed the button and thought about all she’d just committed herself to.  Would her parents even approve of the marriage?  She wasn’t sure she could hide her
fear
for hector from them.  He was so different from the other men she’d dated, surely they would see through the lie and call her on it. 

Maybe if they did that, she could then sit down with them, explain Hector’s offer of help and they would finally accept it.  That would get her out of a marriage that she just couldn’t endure, wouldn’t it?

Yes, her parents would see through the lie.  They would sense her frustration and she could convince them.  Wasn’t her whole world all about convincing people through words?  As a journalist, she knew that finding the right story to tell w
as only part of the
question
.  Telling the story so everyone could understand and absorb
the information
, that was the other half of the challenge.

Right now, she was working on a huge story, one that could catapult her into another realm of journalism and she wasn’t about to let it go just to marry a man who was the equivalent of a
terrifying, unfeeling
cold fish.  Albeit a tall fish, she thought with a chuckle. 
And an extremely handsome one.  No chuckle this time as her body shivered with the memory of his strong, elegant hands. 

Out in the street and back in the sunshine, she felt enormously better. 
With Hector’s generous help, s
he could get her parents through this crisis and they would be stronger for it.  She wouldn’t have to sacrifice her life or her career for the problem and she might even get additional information about the subject of her investigation from Hector once they’d resolved the corporate crisis.