He grinned then. “Just remember that. I can’t have my wife going around belittling her accomplishments. It might reflect badly on my judgment,” he joked, “and cause Unified’s stock to drop.”
“And Wall Street to collapse,” Diana put in, her spirits lifting crazily beneath the warmth of his sudden smile.
Chapter 35
STANDING AT THE KITCHEN SINK, where she was tearing red leaf lettuce into small pieces, Corey studied the couple in the backyard. She was so absorbed with the scene and its possibilities that she jumped when her husband came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. “Where is everyone?” Spence asked.
“I suggested they relax before dinner. Glenna and I have everything under control in here.”
“I tucked the girls into bed and gave them a kiss from Mommy. That’s where I’d like to be—” he whispered as he nuzzled the side of her neck, “—in bed. With you.”
Corey turned her face up for his kiss just as the housekeeper bustled into the kitchen, and they automatically moved apart like guilty teenagers. “Go ahead with what you were doing,” Glenna said. “Don’t let me interrupt. I’m just trying to get a six-course meal for seven people on the table.”
Scowling, Spence watched her bustle off. “Why does she always say something that makes me feel guilty?” Automatically, he picked up a knife and began slicing green peppers into thin strips. “She’s been doing that for fifteen years.”
Corey smothered a laugh, but her attention was on the scene beyond the window. “She does it because it works so well. You’re helping with the salad, aren’t you?” She handed him a clean dish towel. “If you tuck this into your waistband, you won’t get anything on you.”
The former star quarterback from Southern Methodist University eyed the towel askance. “Real men don’t wear aprons,” he joked.
“Think of it as a loincloth,” she suggested.
They worked in companionable silence for several moments, both of them watching the couple in the backyard. Diana was leaning against a palm tree and Cole was in front of her, with his hand on the trunk above her head. Whatever she was saying to him made him laugh. “When we were teenagers,” Corey said with a reminiscent smile, “I was so completely infatuated with you that I didn’t understand why all the other girls thought Cole Harrison was so incredibly sexy.”
“But now you do?”
Corey nodded. “I’d love to photograph him someday. He has a marvelous face—it’s all hard planes and tough angles.”
“He doesn’t look like GQ or Brooks Brothers material to me.
“Oh, he isn’t! There’s way too much raw masculinity about him for a men’s clothing model. There’s almost a . . . a predatory quality about him.”
She dropped a fistful of curly lettuce into the bowl and picked up some long, damp spinach leaves, shredding those as she continued thoughtfully. “I’d photograph him in a setting that suits his looks.”
Spence scowled out the window, piqued by Corey’s fascination and lavish praise of another man’s face. “What sort of setting?” he asked as he began slicing a red onion.
“I think I’d choose some sort of rugged terrain. A desert in the hot sun, maybe, with barren mountains in the background.”
Mountains without trees or snow struck Spence as ugly. He nodded agreeably. “That’d work. Suits him perfectly.”
Blithely unaware of the negative reason behind his affirmative comment, Corey stopped tearing spinach for a moment and continued studying her subject.
“Tell me something,” Spence challenged. “How would you hide his eyes?”
“Why would I want to hide his eyes?” she asked, looking over at her husband.
“Because they are as cold and hard as granite. I watched him in the living room this afternoon, and I don’t think there’s an ounce of warmth or feeling in him.”
“He does seem a lot harder than I remember him being,” Corey admitted, “but I don’t think he’s cold. Think of the way he bought her that necklace at the auction and made everybody think it was love at first sight for him. Now look at the two of them together out there. When I do that, I see Prince Charming who rushed forward at the ball to rescue Cinderella.”
In skeptical silence, Spence gazed out the window. Realizing his lack of response was disagreement, Corey said, “What do you see when you look at them?”
“I see Little Red Riding Hood smiling at the Big Bad Wolf.”
She laughed at the storybook images, but her smile faded as he continued, “Based on everything I’ve read and heard, I can tell you that the man you’re rhapsodizing about is probably the most unfeeling son of a bitch you’ve ever encountered, as well as being the most ruthless entrepreneur of this decade.”
Corey forgot the greens she was shredding. Although she wasn’t nearly as astute about the stock market as Spence was, she certainly kept up on national news. “I don’t understand why you would say that. Not long ago, it was all over the news that he’d ‘masterminded’ some sort of buyout of a computer company and they kept calling it ‘a major coup.’ They didn’t say he’d done anything illegal.”
“He bought Cushman Electronics, Corey,” Spence said flatly. “They called it a coup because, just before Harrison bought it, there were rumors all over Wall Street that Cushman’s new computer chip had problems in the testing phase, and Cushman’s stock plunged from twenty-eight dollars a share to fourteen dollars. As soon as it fell to fourteen dollars, Unified Industries moved in and Harrison got himself a company worth three hundred million dollars for half that much.”
“What’s wrong with that? Aren’t you supposed to buy stock when it’s low, in hopes it will go hi
gher?”
“Who do you think started the rumors? And guess who is said to own the independent testing facility that Cushman used to test their chip?”
Corey’s jaw dropped. “Has anyone proved that Cole’s people falsified test results or started the rumors?”
“If someone can prove either thing, he’ll go to jail.”
Corey felt a shiver of apprehension, but it was offset somehow by her memory of Cole at the Haywards’ stable, gently soothing a sick colt, and the way he seemed to soften now when he looked at Diana in the backyard. “Until someone proves it, it’s really nothing but an ugly rumor,” she announced.
“Rumors seem to follow him everywhere,” Spence pointed out sarcastically. “Whatever Harrison does, he always has some sort of intricate hidden agenda in mind. Last night,” he said, “he was in need of a suitable wife to pacify his uncle. He saw the perfect opportunity with Diana, so he played Sir Galahad at the auction—with the press there to record his performance—and while she was glowing with champagne and gratitude, he flew her to Nevada and married her—another ‘major coup’ for his record. In less than twelve hours, he coerced his way into this family, and now he’s driving all of us crazy trying to second-guess him.”
Corey smiled at the last part of what he’d said and started putting everything they’d sliced, shredded, or chopped into a beautiful wooden bowl, burnished from years of use. “Besides being handsome and sexy, Cole’s a billionaire, and he’s been seen with lots of beautiful women. Believe me, Spence, Cole didn’t have to go to all that trouble last night, just to get a beautiful wife.”
“Harrison didn’t just get himself a beautiful wife when he married Diana,” Spence scoffed bitterly. “Last night, Cole Harrison also accomplished the nearly impossible: he got himself a shiny new public image.”
“How?”
“When those pictures from last night hit the news, the public is going to believe Cole Harrison took one look at the woman Dan Penworth discarded—a woman who also happens to be one of America’s sweethearts—and in true fairy-tale style, he rescued their beautiful damsel in distress, showered her with jewels, whisked her off in his private jet, and married her that same night. By the end of this week, Cole Harrison will become the most noble, romantic hero of the decade.”