The Fiancée Fiasco

  How far will she go?

  Roseanne is determined to make partner at Covington March law firm. Such a position represents the security and independence she's craved all her life. But achieving such a goal won't be easy. She'll need to bring in a big client, a fish nobody else could have caught.

  As disgruntled former clients go, Winthrop Carruthers is as disgruntled as they come. The brainy Houston entrepreneur wants nothing to do with the law firm who'd botched his divorce. He wants even less to do with Roseanne, a prickly Yankee female who clearly thinks the worst of him. But then Roseanne promises to give him what he most desperately wants: a halt to the vexing rumors he's going to reconcile with his ex-wife. Winthrop recklessly agrees to sign on any dotted line Roseanne pleases.

  Little does he guess the exasperating female intends to douse the rumors by posing her irritating self as his loving fiancée.

  THE FIANCÉE FIASCO

  by Alyssa Kress

  Published by 4 Dolphins Press

  Copyright 2014 Alyssa Kress

  Originally copyright 1995 as Making Partner

  Cover Design Copyright 2013

  by http://coversbykaren.com

  Discover these and other titles by Alyssa Kress at her webpage, http://www.alyssakress.com

  Marriage by Mistake

  The Heart Heist

  The Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way

  Asking For It

  Love and the Millionairess

  Working on a Full House

  Your Scheming Heart

  I Gotta Feeling

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, then please visit http://www.alyssakress.com to find licensed retailers from whom you can purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious, even those referring to actual or well-known entities. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank everyone who has given immense support and help in creating this and other stories: Julie Woolley, Kathy Bennett, Jenna Ives, Leigh Court, Cathy Yardley, Rose Murray, John Lovelady, and to Ruth Barges of blessed memory.

  Author's Note on Chronology

  After some thought, I decided to leave details accurate as to the time period in which this book was written. This means you will see the characters have no access to the Internet or cell phones, but were privileged to enjoy greater freedom at the airport.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Other Books by Alyssa Kress

  Preview of If I Loved You

  CHAPTER ONE

  "What you really need, Win, is a wife."

  Hearing her boss say these words stopped Roseanne halfway through the door into his downtown Seattle office. Her long-fingered hand halted on the polished brass doorknob. Damn. George wasn't alone. She'd counted on discussing her plan with him this afternoon, her strategy for finally making partner at the Covington March law firm this year.

  Instead she was interrupting something clearly personal...if unquestionably intriguing. Who was Win, and why would he need a wife? The name sounded awfully familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

  Reluctantly, she backed out the door. Politeness did not come naturally to her, but for George she tried.

  Then she heard a different male voice, one with a deep Texas twang. "Surely you're joking, George. Members of the female sex are generally worse than a good dose of poison."

  Roseanne's disappointed retreat halted. Cracking the door open wider, she gazed boldly into the room. A tall, lean man stood poised by her boss's twelfth-floor window. He was several inches taller than herself, even in her high-heeled shoes. Dressed in off-white trousers and a white dress shirt, he was obviously Win, and the source of the statement she'd just heard.

  Tilting her head, Roseanne wondered if she could manage to push the fellow out the window and, if so, would the act be considered a crime.

  "Roseanne?" George queried, apparently catching sight of her.

  The man by the window saw her, too. He froze. "Ah..." He had the decency to blush. "Beggin' your pardon, ma'am."

  "Oh, Roseanne understands," George claimed, with complete inaccuracy. Heavyset and balding, Roseanne's boss sat genially behind his big office desk. "Come on in, Roz. I'd like you to meet my good friend, Winthrop Carruthers."

  Good friend? Oh, no. George couldn't have called him that. Because now Roseanne had placed the name, together with the Texas accent. Winthrop Carruthers was infamous at Covington March. He couldn't be friends with her likable boss.

  But she could hardly escape George's invitation now. Raising her eyebrows, she strode through the door. "Roseanne Archer." She paused and smiled dryly. "A pleasure."

  The tall man winced. "I do apologize. Probably not all women. But no wife," he added, turning back to George. "'Sakes, gettin' rid of the last one was no easy task." Carruthers pointed to the top of George's desk. "And it looks like I'm not done with her yet."

  So that was the problem. Winthrop Carruthers' ex-wife was giving him grief. From what Roseanne knew about the situation, the woman was acting perfectly reasonable.

  The only question was why George was giving Mr. Carruthers the time of day. Four years ago, Carruthers had abruptly fired Covington March. The loss of the corporate contract for his big aeronautical firm had been serious. George had been the one blamed.

  But George didn't look one speck pissed, irritated, or resentful. If Roseanne weren't mistaken, her softhearted boss actually looked concerned—on Carruthers' behalf. From his desktop, he picked up a newspaper clipping. "I understand your annoyance with this article, Win. But unfortunately, it's simply not actionable."

  Win glanced toward Roseanne, possibly implying she should leave them alone, but she wasn't budging. It sounded like George was handing out legal advice, for free, to a person who should be his worst enemy. If she could put a monkey wrench in these proceedings, she was doing it.

  Apparently giving up on Roseanne's departure, Win turned back to George. "Are you saying I can't sue?"

  George spread his hands. "There's nothing defamatory in the piece. All it says is that you and your ex-wife, Sylvia, are considering a reconciliation."

  "It isn't true."

  Roseanne, on her way to George's desk, paused at the vehemence in Mr. Carruthers' tone.

  George seemed struck by it, too. "Of course not," he said quietly, and set the news clipping down with a thoughtful expression.

  Roseanne didn't like that expression. Bad enough Mr. Carruthers was horning in on the hour she'd counted on spending with George. She wasn't letting him talk George into wasting even more time on some thankless project.

  "Defamation requires more than simply printing an untruth," she interjected. Reaching George's desk, she looked down at the article, though she obviously didn't have time to read it. She didn't need to. She knew the details. Carruthers hadn't merely divorced his wife, but callously ditched her on the eve of his success. The minute he'd made a go of his aeronautics company, his wife had become history.

  "To sue would require you to have
suffered monetary damage," Roseanne now informed him. "If all the article states is that you're getting back together with your ex-wife, it would be hard to prove you've lost any money by it."

  Carruthers ran a hand through his sandy-colored hair and turned to gaze out the window. "Damn."

  There, Roseanne thought. Now the crumb would leave.

  But George, unbelievably, continued handing out advice. "The best way to handle something like this is simply to call the newspaper." He leaned back in his seat and reached for a reassuring manner. "Explain they made a mistake and ask them to print a retraction. I'd be surprised if they didn't do it."

  "Yeah, sure, and they'll print it in small type on page sixty-five," Winthrop grumbled. He turned and pointed to the offending article. "That was printed on page two. With a photograph!"

  A photo? Roseanne took a closer look at the newspaper clipping. She now saw it included a formal wedding portrait, dated ten years before. Carruthers' bride had been a real stunner, blond, curvy and sensual—the exact opposite of Roseanne's own dark-haired, lanky self. The woman's smile was slight and coy.

  The groom, on the other hand, was grinning like an idiot. Roseanne had never seen a better portrait of sheer, unadulterated joy. The photograph gave him the appearance of an over-eager greyhound, what with that smile and his rather long nose.

  The man now standing by George's office window was thinner, and his lean face harsher, than the man in the photograph. Under his closely groomed hair, his expression was taciturn and far from joyful.

  Now he left his perch by the window and approached the desk. Scooping up the newspaper article, he stuffed it into the front pocket of his trousers. "Doesn't matter." He sighed. "By now the damage is done."

  He was giving up. Finally! Just a minute more, and he'd be out the door.

  But George stopped any departure once again, giving Win a strange, deep look. "Like I said to begin with, Win, if you didn't live like such a hermit these stories would die an early death. In fact, they'd have a hard time getting started in the first place."

  Win gave a noncommittal grunt, shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants, and turned away. Both men seemed to have forgotten Roseanne's existence.

  She, meanwhile, found herself frowning. Carruthers lived like a hermit? He hadn't made the classic move of a heartless wife-deserter and embarked on a life of decadent womanizing?

  "It's only natural for people to assume you're still in love with Sylvia," George went on. "You haven't dated a single woman since the divorce, have you?"

  Not one, Roseanne thought?

  Carruthers' shoulders stiffened. "That doesn't mean it follows I'm in love with Sylvia." He hesitated before adding, "I couldn't be. You know that."

  George opened his mouth, as if on the verge of adding his own two cents on the subject. Fortunately, before he could upset Roseanne with some fantasy about Winthrop Carruthers' sensitive nature, her boss remembered she was in the room. "Ah, Roseanne, I'm sorry. You came in— Did you need me for something?"

  Roseanne lowered her lashes. Oh, no. Nothing urgent. Only a magic elixir for convincing the dirty dozen, the current partners at Covington March, to recognize her talents and make her a partner this year. If she could only get that partnership she'd feel like she'd made it, by age thirty-one achieved the security and independence that had been her life goal. Coincidentally, she craved that independence because of a man who'd behaved a lot like Winthrop Carruthers.

  With a wry smile, Roseanne narrowed her eyes at her boss. "I was kinda thinking maybe you needed some help, George. You know, if you had something useful you wanted to accomplish this afternoon?"

  Instead of getting her hint—George wasn't getting anything out of helping the ungrateful Mr. Carruthers—her boss gave her a sweet smile. "No, I'm fine, just going to chat with Win for a while before he flies back home to Houston."

  Roseanne drew in a long breath. Her boss was much too nice. Didn't he care this was the very man who'd stopped his career midstream? After the loss of the Carruthers Engineering contract, George had never been treated with full respect by the other partners at the law firm.

  Besides that, George had to be Carruthers' complete opposite. Her boss was a devoted husband of twenty-five years and the loving father of three. George had gone far to restoring Roseanne's faith in the male of the species. Carruthers, on the other hand, confirmed everything she'd learned from her father.

  With her too-thin lips pressed even thinner, Roseanne turned toward George's 'old friend,' now standing next to her in front of George's desk. "Pleasure to meet you," she cooed in a tone clearly implying the opposite.

  "Likewise," Carruthers drawled, his eyes hooding.

  Roseanne stuck out her hand. Hell, if she couldn't plot her own career advance this afternoon, maybe she could do something for her boss's. "We all hope," she told him, "you'll consider rejoining us here at Covington March."

  In the process of surrounding her hand with his much larger one, Carruthers lifted his gaze. Roseanne received an intense hit of blue.

  "It sure would mean a lot to George," she added, hammering it in.

  Carruthers' eyes now flicked toward George, obviously puzzling it out.

  Was it possible, Roseanne wondered, the big gadoof didn't even realize what he'd done to George four years ago?

  "Much obliged for the sentiment," he murmured, and released her hand. But his eyes remained intent upon her face.

  She'd wanted to prick him, to rock his self-centered world a little bit, but instead she found it was a very odd sensation to be under the scrutiny of Carruthers' penetrating eyes. He almost seemed to be...questioning her sincerity.

  As if he had the right!

  Frowning, Roseanne glanced toward George. "I'll be in my office."

  Her boss gave her a why-did-you-do-that smile and waved her toward the door.

  Roseanne stepped into the hall, feeling oddly off balance. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought there was some integrity behind that gaze of Carruthers.' And even— But no. That couldn't be. Shaking her head at herself, Roseanne stepped across the carpeted hall. A man who'd deserted his wife had no integrity; he had no feelings. Roseanne knew. At the age of eleven she'd found that out.

  She pushed open her office door, the one with "Associate" written on it. Deliberately, she dismissed the lingering image in her mind of Winthrop Carruthers' deep blue eyes. The momentary impression of...pain.

  Roseanne shook her head. This was one man she was sure didn't deserve a moment's pity. In fact, for his sake, Roseanne hoped Mr. Texas Businessman-Slash-Engineer would be winging his way back down to Houston—or was it Dallas?—very soon. Because if he pestered George one more time she'd be tempted to do something drastic.

  ~~~

  "There must be someone we can call." Roseanne's anxious law clerk made this protest the following afternoon. She tried to peer over Roseanne's desk to see what her boss was doing.

  "There's no one to call." Roseanne had wrestled her desk chair to the ground and was on the knees of her expensive pantyhose, trying to examine what had gone wrong with the wheels at the base of the thing. "In this case, as in most of life, we're on our own, baby."

  "But surely building maintenance—"

  "Couldn't care less about private office chairs."

  Roseanne came to the conclusion that only by unfastening her smart wool jacket, swinging the buttons out of the way, and then lowering onto her belly could she get a decent look at the faulty wheel. The damn chair had nearly thrown her when she'd attempted sitting down a moment ago. It hadn't been a very dignified moment, not to mention the danger she'd face the next time she tried to sit down to get some legal work done. It wasn't often she got a chance to do real legal work, instead of wasting her time in court.

  Of course, the real obstacle to doing legal work wasn't her failed office chair. She needed the powers-that-be at Covington March to recognize her true talent and make her a partner this year. The decisions on the three openi
ngs would be made in July—less than two months away. It wasn't much time in which to pull off the kind of miracle that would convince them she had the right stuff, but Roseanne was determined.

  She'd find a way to show them she could do the most important job of all: bring in money.

  "The office janitor, then," her law clerk persisted, clearly dubious about Roseanne's mechanical abilities. She made the mistake of adding, "At least let's get a man to look at it."

  Roseanne's head came up so quickly she nearly bumped it into one of the airborne legs of the chair. "Oh, no!" She shook her silky black hair. "That isn't the proper attitude. Not at all."

  On the other side of the desk, the law clerk groaned.

  The poor girl had heard this lecture more than once, but that wasn't about to stop Roseanne. She made her voice stern as she lowered back down to the floor. "The problem with asking men for help is that one starts to depend upon them. The only reliable person to depend upon is oneself."

  Roseanne turned her attention back to the wheel. On her stomach with her knees bent, her feet dangled over her back. Perhaps that thingamabob was the problem. It looked different on this wheel from the others. Roseanne shoved an experimental fingernail at the object, hoping she could avoid breaking it. The fingernail, that was.

  "In reality, we women need men for very few things." Roseanne felt the heels of her black pumps pop off her feet. Considering how long she'd been on those feet this morning, the sensation was quite pleasant. She flapped the loose shoes happily against her bare heels.

  "So you say," her law clerk grumbled. "But I think you need help with that chair. I'm going to get somebody."

  "Not so fast. I'm not done yet." Roseanne didn't mind the argument with her law clerk. She enjoyed a good debate. That's why she'd chosen the law, after all, among the various professions. That some profession was her goal she'd known from a very early age. At eleven years old, Roseanne had resolved to be a career woman, a woman who could look out for herself in every possible way.