“So—can I start shopping you around again?”
Carlie had anticipated the question. Constance had been after her for years to resume her career. “I don’t think so.”
“For God’s sake, why not? You’re through with your soul-searching in Alaska, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“About time.” Constance leaned back in her desk chair until the leather creaked. “So you’re going back to that little town in California.”
“I have to. Even if it’s just to tie up a few loose ends....” she said, thinking of her father. Thinking of the studio in Coleville. Thinking of Ben.
“There’s a man out there, isn’t there?” Constance shook her head from side to side and didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s always a man.”
“I just think it’s time to stop wandering all over the planet.”
“Sure you do, honey, sure you do.”
The intercom buzzed and Constance picked up the phone. After a one-sided conversation, she set the receiver in the cradle and cast Carlie an I-told-you-so look. “That man who doesn’t exist?” she said picking up the conversation as if they’d never been interrupted. “He’s outside in the reception area, making a big scene, scaring poor Nina half out of her mind.”
Ben? Ben was here? In New York City?
“You’d better go on out there because as angry as he is, he’s still interesting. Nina mentioned something about signing him up as a male model.”
“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Carlie said, grabbing her purse and throwing her coat over her arm. She hurried out the door and had started down the short corridor to the reception area, when she saw Ben, arguing with the petite strawberry-blond receptionist as he turned the corner.
Her heart caught at the sight of him.
Ben hesitated when he saw her, then continued down the hallway and took hold of her arm. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Wait a minute—”
“Now, Carlie.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “You can’t push me around, Ben. Haven’t you learned that yet? I don’t know why you’re here or what you want, but you can’t come barging into my place of business, or my house for that matter, and start ordering me around like I’m some damned private in the army!”
By this time Nina and two leggy models sitting in the reception area were staring at them. The models had dropped their magazines and Nina was ignoring the phone that jangled incessantly.
Even Constance was watching from her office doorway.
“I just thought we could use some privacy.”
“Why?”
His gaze slid to the other women in the room, then landed with full force on Carlie’s face. “Because, damn it, I was going to ask you to marry me.”
The women behind her gasped and even the phone stopped ringing for a few heart-stopping seconds. “What?”
“You heard me. Now, let’s go.”
“You...you want to get married?”
“Yeah. Right now, if we can.”
“Oh, Ben, we can’t—”
“Carlie, I’m sorry. For everything. I was wrong.”
“But—”