She smiled to herself at that unsurprising announcement. She could not seem to stop smiling. Turning her face up to his, she braced herself to find out how far he’d taken the decision-making process without consulting her.
“We have a logistics problem,” Cole began. He saw her eyes begin to shine with laughter, and he cuddled her closer. He could not be close enough to her. “I think you’ll have to move to Dallas, darling. I can’t move Unified to Houston. It’s a bad idea for several reasons, not to mention fiscally suicidal.”
She feigned a sigh. “Under the terms of our original agreement, we’re to maintain separate residences in the two cities. That was the deal.”
Cole thought she was serious. “That’s impossible.”
“That was our agreement. We had an iron-clad verbal agreement.”
He brushed that aside with amused male arrogance. “You can’t have an iron-clad verbal agreement. It’s a complete contradiction in terms.”
“So all bets are off?”
Cole looked down sharply, studying the deceptive innocence of wide jade eyes fringed in long russet lashes beneath gracefully winged brows. “Diana,” he whispered, “you are beautiful. And you are getting at something. What is it?”
“I would be willing to move the administrative and business divisions of Foster Enterprises to Dallas and leave the art and production staff in Houston under Corey.”
“Then that settles everything,” he said with satisfaction, bending his head to kiss her. His body was already thrilling to the idea of making love to her again.
She splayed her fingers and ran her hand down the plane of his stomach, her eyes turning hopeful and full of appeal.
“Whatever it is you’re asking for with that look in your eyes,” Cole said mildly, “the answer is yes.”
“I’m asking for babies. Your babies.”
He tipped his chin down, frowning warily. “How many?”
Her smile dawned like sunshine, her eyes sparkled like the eight-carat oval diamond he’d slipped on her finger while she dozed. He’d brought the ring here, hoping this would happen. No, he’d never dared to hope this would happen.
“I’d like three children,” she replied.
“One,” he countered sternly.
She looked at him. “I’ll give you Park Place and Boardwalk and all my rental properties if I can have two.”
“Done!” he said with a chuckle.
Chapter 49
CAL’S FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN, so Diana went on inside. Cole had let her sleep late and had left her a note to come down to Cal’s when she was up. She could hear Cal talking to Cole in the kitchen while Letty served breakfast. “Was I wrong not to tell you before?”
“No,” Cole said flatly. “And now that you’ve told me, I couldn’t care less.”
Cal sounded relieved. “Do you mind doing those errands for me? You could stop by the old place and see if there’s anything you want. It’s on your way.”
Diana walked into the kitchen, just as Cole added in a chilly voice, “I remember where it is.”
They were sitting at the table, and Cal gave her a quick smile of greeting; then he returned his full attention to the discussion under way. Diana moved around the table to help Letty carry plates of scrambled eggs and biscuits smothered with white country gravy to the table. “You remember where what is?” she asked.
“My ancestral home.” There was a snide, toneless quality to his voice when he said that, and Diana noticed it as she put one hand on his shoulder and leaned around him with his plate. “I’ll go with you. I’d love to see it.”
“No!” he said so sharply that Diana paused as she put the plate in front of him. He apologized for his tone by reaching up and catching her hand, pressing it to his shoulder for a moment.
The two men waited until Diana slid into her chair; then Cal picked up his cause again, and Diana had a glimpse of where Cole had gotten his tenacity. “If you’d read something besides financial statements and stock prospectuses once in a while, you’d know about grieving and getting resolution after a loss. Deal with it now or deal with it later, that’s what the psychologists say. It’s right there in the living room in books and magazine articles written by the experts.”
“Last year,” Cole said wryly to Diana, “he was on a campaign to have me ‘get in touch with my feminine side.’?”
Diana choked on her coffee.
She had already gathered that someone who lived in the general area had died, but since Cole seemed completely indifferent to the person’s death, she didn’t pursue the subject. Moreover, when Cal tried to return to the topic again, Cole said tersely, “I do not want this subject discussed in front of Diana.”
Cole left right after breakfast to do a series of errands for Cal in town that he expected to take two hours at most, but he insisted that Diana stay with Cal. When he got up from the table, he rumpled her hair, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to her cheek, then walked forward . . . without letting go of her wrist. Laughing, Diana was hauled out of the house onto the porch, soundly kissed, then sent back inside.
Cal observed the little vignette with an expression that struck Diana as somber at best and disapproving at worst. Feeling a little hurt and a little self-conscious, she walked over to the fireplace mantel, where framed pictures, mostly quite old, were lined up in rows. With her hands linked behind her back, she studied each one, while Cal’s gaze bored through her from behind.
“Is this Cole?” She lifted a frame off the mantel, brought it over to the sofa, and sat down beside him.
He flicked a glance at the p
icture and then pinned her with a look that was disturbing and was meant to be. “Why don’t you and I have a little talk about something besides pictures,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that proved two things very clearly: Calvin Downing was far more astute than he seemed, and he was no pushover.
“What,” Diana said warily, “do you want to talk about?”
“You and Cole. That all right with you?”
She nodded, and he said, “Good, because we were going to do it anyway.”
Diana was not a pushover either. “Mr. Downing, maybe we’ll wait until Cole comes back.”
Oddly her tart retort did not offend him. “You got more than looks. You got spunk, too, and that’s good. Now, do you have a heart?”
“What!”
“And if you do have one, who does it belong to?”
Diana stared at him, riveted by the topic if not his tone. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, I’ll grant you, it’s a little complicated to me, too. Because less than two weeks ago, I picked up the Enquirer, and there was your picture, smack dab on the front page, with a story that says you got jilted by your fancy beau. A week later, you’re married to my nephew, Cole.”
Five days ago, she’d have been humiliated by the mere mention of that article. Instead a wayward smile curved her lips. “Well, yes,” she admitted, “I can see how that would look a little odd.”
“That’s the only part makes sense,” he contradicted bluntly. “Cole was mad and I showed him the picture to make a point, and I figured he made a point right back by marrying you to get his stock back. But then he told me you’re the little girl he used to talk about when he was in college, and I remembered your name was Diana Foster, so I know it’s really you. Are you following me?”
“So far, yes.”
“Okay. So I figured the two of you are old friends, and you just got jilted, and Cole needed a wife to get his stock back—so you two struck a deal. How am I doing so far?”
Diana eyed him askance. “Pretty well,” she admitted with a trembling smile.