“A partnership between us.”
He inwardly shuddered, wondering if that’s how he’d sounded that day he had offered Lena a business deal between them. If so, then he regretted every word he’d spoken. “What kind of a partnership?”
“Marriage. I’ll be thirty this time next year, and Daddy thinks it’s time I do something.”
Morgan crossed his arms over his chest. “Does he?”
“Yes. And I was bred and groomed to be a politician’s wife, someone who’s going places. And I want to become a mother one day, with a nanny of course.”
She shifted in the chair, and her smile widened and excitement shone in her eyes as she continued. “Everyone sees you as a top contender for Charlotte’s first black mayor in a few years, and who knows where that will lead? I could see you as the governor, even president one day. And I intend to be your First Lady all the way.”
Like hell you will. He cleared his throat. Evidently she had erroneously thought things through. “I appreciate your offer, Jamie, but I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I’ve asked someone else to marry me. In fact we’ll be announcing our engagement sometime this week.”
The spark in her eyes was replaced with a furious dart. “Really? Who?”
“Lena Spears.”
She blinked and then he watched a smile touch her lips before she waved her well-manicured, neatly polished hand in the air like his words had held no significant meaning. “Really? Morgan, Lena is not the woman you need, I am. In fact after our little talk last week with Lena, Cassandra and I were sure we had convinced her that if she cared anything for you she would get out of the picture.”
He straightened. “Excuse me?”
“I said we had a talk with Lena last week. We happened to run into her at McIntosh’s. She’s a very sensible woman who I believes loves you, but we made it quite clear that she wasn’t the woman for you. For a man of your caliber, you need a woman who possesses style, grace, pedigree, wealth and connections.”
Morgan shook his head. “Let me get this straight. You actually said those things to Lena?”
She smiled. “Of course. Someone needed to be honest and up front with her. And since the two of you hadn’t announced an engagement this weekend, I assumed she took our advice.”
Morgan nodded. She had. No wonder she had given him that garbage that night in her office about not being the appropriate woman for him. He walked over to the chair Jamie was sitting in and leaned over, placing his hands on the arms and pinning her in. Anger, the likes he’d never known before, flowed through him.
“Listen, Jamie, and listen well,” he said through gritted teeth. “There will never be a business partnership of any kind between us. When I marry, I will marry for love, and the woman I marry will be Lena Spears. And I will be marrying her for all the right reasons, and if I ever hear of you or anyone else spouting anything to her about not being good enough for me and my political future, you will have to deal with me. Do you understand?”
“Are you threatening me, Morgan?”
“No, I’m telling it like it is, and if you ever come back I will get on television and tell everyone about why it was necessary for you to take that trip to London for six months last year.”
She blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“You figure it out. But like you, I do have connections and mine talk and have all the proof we need. It would be an embarrassment not only for your father but also for the Tisdale family, who think so highly of their family name.”
He’d said enough. Cameron, who made it a point to keep tabs on people who could either be a menace or someone useful to him in the future, had picked up wind of the senator’s daughter’s pregnancy and how she’d gone to London to give the child up for adoption. He had found it interesting and had passed the information on to Morgan earlier that year.
He stepped back, more than certain she was ready to leave his office and wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. Before she walked out the door he said, “And if I were you I would try and find a way to convince Cassandra to keep her mouth shut, too. There’s a lot she doesn’t want taken out of her closet as well.”
He walked back to the window and didn’t even look around when he heard the door slam shut.
After lunch Morgan placed a call to a friend from college who happened to be the top anchorwoman at the city’s leading television station. When Gail Winston came on the line he said, “All right, Gail, I promised you first dibs when I decided to run for office.”