At least she hadn’t used her finger. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone bypass the bowl and go straight for the carton.” And she and his sister thought he’d actually consider living with her?

“For goodness’ sake, relax. It’s only a pint. It’ll be gone in no time. Now a half gallon would’ve been another story. Unless you wanted some.” She offered the open carton. “Do you want some?”

She stood before him, a cross between a pixie and Medusa on a bad hair day and, out of nowhere, his libido kicked into overdrive. He reminded himself they were talking about ice cream. He reminded himself she’d concocted a nutty scheme to marry him and bear his child.

“No, thanks.” To all of it. The ice cream. Her. Her plan.

“You’re sure?” She still held the carton toward him.

“Positive.”

Kat shrugged and spooned up another mouthful. “So, do you just not like ice cream, or is it Chunky Monkey you object to?”

“I didn’t say I objected to it, I simply said I didn’t want any.”

She nibbled at a walnut. “Let me guess, your favorite flavor is…vanilla. With the little bean specks in it, of course.”

Had she trailed him to the grocery store? Slipped in behind him at an ice-cream kiosk? And what if he did like vanilla? She made it sound criminal.

“Vanilla’s a good basic.” This was ridiculous! Getting defensive over ice cream. “But enough about ice cream. Why me? Don’t you know any eligible men?”

She ran her tongue catlike over the spoon and Andrew felt a totally unwelcome and unexpected stab of want.

Kat looked at him as if she were dealing with a child who couldn’t grasp a simple concept. “Of course I do. I have quite a few male friends.”

“So, what’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing’s wrong with them. That’s the problem. I like them. Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good friendship by marrying someone I like? And they’d want to stick around or at least be involved with the baby afterward. On the other hand, you and I would make a perfect match.”

“You’ve lost me on that one.”

Once again she waved the carton in front of him.

“Chunky Monkey. Vanilla. Carlotta. Gertrude.” She said, and went back to eating, as if no further clarification were necessary.

Lost. He was definitely lost. “Gertrude? Who in the hell is Gertrude?”

She brandished her spoon toward the front of the house. “Your car. I named her Gertrude. She looks like a Gertrude.”

She’d named his car now! “Gertrude?”

“Sorry, it just seemed to fit. But you could call her Trudy.”

“I won’t be calling it anything. But please explain.”

She spoke slowly as if he might have trouble following her. “You’re vanilla. I’m Chunky Monkey. You’re Gertrude. I’m Carlotta. You’re not my type. I’m not your type. We have nothing to worry about if we get married.”

He had to agree with her on that one. They had nothing to worry about because they wouldn’t be getting married.

“Pardon me for being so crass as to bring up such a minor point, but exactly why would I want to marry you?”

“Ah, that’s my point exactly. You don’t want a wife, do you?”

“No.” He’d give her points for that one.

“Exactly. And I don’t want a husband. Or, I should say, I only want one for a while.”

He was beginning to follow her thought process, which alarmed him in and of itself. His father had been adamant concerning a wife. Good old dad considered it part and parcel of his partnership. “Go ahead,” he said, now intrigued.

“Let’s take that skinny blonde you’ve been tooling around town with, Claudine…”

“Claudia.”

“There’re two?”

“No, one. Her name is Claudia.”

“Oh, okay. Anyway, let’s marry you off to her, hypothetically. How likely is Claudette-”

“Claudia.”

“Okay, okay. Claudia. Will she sign a prenuptial agreement? And what happens two years or five years from now when the marriage hits the rocks?” Kat made a slicing motion in midair. “Half of everything that’s yours walks out the door with her.”

He’d have to give her credit for her read on Claudia. No way she’d sign a prenup. Especially not with the proverbial ball in Claudia’s court-it had never been a secret how important a partnership was to Andrew. Andrew harbored no illusions about marriage and divorce. It formed the basis for his cynical view. Perversely, he found himself a little piqued Kat had so readily written him off as a failure at marriage. “Who says we’d wind up divorced?”

Kat arched a skeptical brow in his direction. “To begin with, the national average isn’t running in your favor and don’t forget to factor in you’re not exactly frothing at the bit to enter the esteemed state of matrimony.”

Andrew crossed his arms over his chest. “Sorry, Ms. Devereaux, but you’ve got to build a stronger case than that.”

“Well, aside from the fact that I have no personal interest in you…”

Andrew’s brows shot up to his hairline.

“I suppose bearing your child might be considered personal, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I’ve got one other thing in my favor that Claudia doesn’t.”

His look both challenged and invited her to continue.

“Claudia is beautiful, sophisticated. She attends all the right functions. She has beautiful nails.” At his incredulous look, she defended herself. “I noticed…women notice these things. And then you have me. I’m not beautiful or glamorous and there’s not a sophisticated bone in my body. I loathe cocktail parties and I’d rather shovel manure for my garden than have a manicure any day.”

Andrew assessed her from her riot of red hair to the tips of her canvas sneakers. She’d accurately assessed herself. She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t glamorous. She wasn’t sophisticated. The chivalrous thing to do would be to deny it, but he wasn’t chivalrous. Instead he inclined his head in understanding.

“You and I both know Claudine is exactly the kind of woman your father wants you to marry. On the other hand, I met your father briefly once before. We both know he’ll dislike me intensely.” She leaned in closer and dropped her voice. “Wouldn’t that be sort of poetic justice, since he’s the one making you get married?”

He couldn’t suppress a smile at the Machiavellian beauty of her thought. Kat Devereaux was right. The old man would turn inside out if he married her. With her unorthodox, brash manner she was a far cry from what he knew his father had in mind in the way of a daughter-in-law.

Also, she’d hit the nail on the head. He didn’t want a wife. But he sure as hell wanted this partnership. That was an understatement. It had been his driving goal since boyhood. Or as his sister Bitsy summed it up-that partnership slot was his spot in the cosmic universe. And he was ready to take his place except for that small matter of a wife. This business with Kat Devereaux might prove a bit messy but perhaps not nearly as sloppy as a nasty divorce settlement.

Frighteningly, she was beginning to make sense.

2

KAT DRUMMED HER FINGERS on the countertop as she awaited a reaction other than Andrew’s smile, which hadn’t been a smile at all. Although he kept his expression shuttered, she hadn’t lived with a lawyer through her formative years without picking up subtle nuances. He was beginning to buy into her plan.

“What about a sperm bank?” he fired at her.

“No way.” She had seriously looked into that alternative and long ago dismissed it. She’d exhausted every remote possibility and alternative. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be proposing to Andrew.

“Why not?”

“The school board wouldn’t be happy with an artificially inseminated unwed mother, whether that’s fair or not. Also, I don’t trust the screening process. There are too many loose ends medically if some inherited genes proved a problem later on. And from a genetics standpoint you’re great material.”

A glimmer of humor warmed the chill in his eyes. “I know your father professionally, and I’ve met your mother once or twice. Except for the fact that you have your father’s eyes, I’d say genetics aren’t apparent.”

Little did he know she also had her father’s drive and determination to make things happen once she’d set a goal. And right now her goal was Andrew Martin Winthrop III. Or his genetic contribution, to be exact. “Recessive genes. I’m just like my maternal grandmother. And that would’ve been my stepmother you met.”

“Did she stalk your grandfather?”

“My stepmother?”

“Your grandmother. Did she stalk her potential husband?”

Kat glared at him indignantly. “I haven’t stalked you, I was investigating. You can’t expect me to marry a virtual stranger.”

His black brows etched up a notch as he slipped his hands into his pockets and crossed his ankles. “Exactly my point. Who in their right mind would expect someone to marry a ‘virtual stranger’?”

She caught his subtle dig. “That’s what this is all about. Getting to know each other. Go ahead, ask me anything you want to know.”

“Devereaux, not Hamilton. Divorced or widowed?”

“Sort of divorced. I guess actually divorced.”

“You don’t seem too sure on that point. I hate to break it to you, but you can’t marry me if you’re already married to someone else. Our legal system considers it bigamy, and they tend to frown on it.”

“Our legal system also takes a dim view of embezzlement, which is why I came home to an empty house one day.” He was a Harvard brain, let him figure it out. Six years and counting and the humiliation still stuck with her like stink.

Andrew didn’t disappoint her. She watched realization dawn on him. Nick had made national news in absentia.

“You were married to the guy who disappeared several years ago with about twenty-five million of his investment clients’ money?”

“One and the same. It was six years ago and twenty-five-and-a-half million. No, I haven’t heard from him. No, I don’t know where he is. The courts granted me a divorce on grounds of desertion. Next topic. What else do you want to know about me?”

“Adoption?”

“On the waiting list for three years. I came close.” Kat studied the linoleum pattern on the kitchen floor. She could barely stand to think about Daphne, the bright-eyed two-year-old who’d come so close to being her daughter until the teenage birth mother changed her mind yet again and decided to keep the child. Kat couldn’t bear the emotional wrenching again. Resolute, she shifted her attention back to Andrew. “I can’t go through it again.”

A brief nod acknowledged that closed door. “Which are you more interested in, my genetics or my bank account?”

Kat got the impression Andrew was deliberately trying to goad her. In fact, she considered his question more than fair. He and his family were worth a small fortune. Plus there’d been that magazine article a couple of months ago naming him one of Florida’s most eligible bachelors. She wanted his genetic contribution, not a financial portfolio.

“Of course, there’ll be a prenuptial agreement. I’ll waive all rights to any of your money, as well as any future claims our child might make. In return, you’ll agree to forgo all parental rights. I want a sperm donor, not a dad.” That was important to her. As she’d explained to Bitsy, she refused to have her child bounced back and forth between parental households, subjected to stepparents who barely tolerated his or her presence. Kat had been down that road herself and wouldn’t send her child there. For a time, her son or daugher might wonder about the father’s apparent disinterest, but Kat planned to make his dedication to his career the culprit. It would also serve as a reason for their divorce. It might hurt for a time, but it would be less painful for the child than years of being the ball in a custodial tennis match.

“You’ve got this all worked out, don’t you?”

Kat knew she didn’t imagine the hint of admiration.

“Pretty much. We’d have to iron out a couple of details, but we’d both enter this agreement with everything laid out on the table.”

“You won’t object to me checking you out?”

“Oh, of course not. I checked you out.” His bare buns came to mind and ignited a slow heat. “Although there is one thing I’ll have to insist on.”

“Yes?”

“A physical showing a clean bill of health.”

“That’s understandable. Of course, I’d expect the same from you. If…and it’s a big if…I decide to consider this, when would you want to do it?”

Kat, still thinking about his bare butt, mentally slid between the sheets. “Not until after we’re married. That’s the whole point of getting married.”

“I meant get married.”

“Oh, of course. The sooner you make a decision the better.” Kat rummaged through her canvas bag and pulled out the only piece of paper she could find, a bank deposit slip. Where the heck was a pen when you needed one? She settled for an eyeliner pencil and scribbled out her number. “Think about it and give me a call.”