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She was beautiful, candid, and a wildcat in bed. In addition to his sexual and intellectual attraction to her, Cole genuinely liked her. He linked his hands behind her back, pulling her close. “Why don’t we go to bed so I can pamper and patronize you myself?”

  She shook her head no and smiled seductively into his eyes.

  “In that case,” he countered in a husky, sensual voice, “we’ll go to bed and I’ll let you pamper and patronize me.” Michelle never turned down a chance to go to bed with him, under any circumstances, and so he was surprised when she declined again. “Why don’t you marry me instead?”

  Cole’s expression didn’t change. He whispered one word, then bent his head and silenced her protests with his mouth. “No,” he said.

  “I could give you children,” she said shakily when he lifted his head. “I’d like to have children.”

  Cole tightened his arms and seized her lips with a steamy passion that was in complete contrast to the icy finality of words. “I do not want children, Michelle.”

  Chapter 13

  THE TELEPHONE AT THE RECEPTIONIST’S desk rang, and Tina Frederick picked it up. “Foster’s Beautiful Living,” she said with a bright, energetic voice that reflected the general attitude of all Foster’s employees.

  “Tina, this is Cindy Bertrillo. Has Diana Foster come back from lunch?”

  The magazine’s publicist sounded so tense and desperate that Tina automatically looked over her shoulder to double-check that the lobby’s revolving doors weren’t moving. “No, not yet.”

  “As soon as you see her, tell her I have to talk to her. It’s urgent.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  “You’re the first person she’ll pass when she enters the building. Don’t leave your desk for any reason until you’ve given her my message.”

  “I won’t.” When she hung up the phone, Tina tried to imagine what sort of urgent matter might have come up, but she was positive that whatever it was, Diana would handle it with ease and not show any of the anxiety that had permeated Cindy’s voice.

  Diana Foster’s tranquility and humor were admired by all 260 of the Foster Enterprises’ employees who worked in the downtown Houston offices. From the mail room to the executive suite, Diana was famous among the staff for the courtesy and respect she showed to everyone who worked for her and with her. No matter how much stress she was under or how long the hours she worked, she rarely passed an employee without a smile or some gesture of acknowledgment.

  Given all that, it was little wonder that Tina rose from her chair in shock when Diana blasted through the revolving doors several minutes later with a folded newspaper under her elbow and stalked right past Tina’s desk. “Miss Foster—” she called, but her normally gracious employer didn’t so much as glance her way.

  Diana stalked down aisles lined with secretarial cubicles and executive offices without a word or glance in any direction, her face pale and rigid. She walked past the art department without saying a word about the next issue, pressed the button for the elevator, and, when the doors opened, disappeared into it.

  Diana’s secretary, Sally, saw her get off the elevator, and she automatically gathered up her phone messages because Diana always asked about messages the moment she came back to her office. Instead, Diana walked around Sally’s cubicle as if it were invisible and vanished into her office. Sally stood up with the message slips in her hand and, as she moved around her desk, noticed several other secretaries peering curiosly toward Diana’s office.

  Preoccupied with the desire to give Diana her messages so that she wouldn’t have to ask for them, Sally doggedly followed Diana into her office. “Mrs. Paul Underwood called about the White Orchid Ball,” Sally began, reading the first of the three slips of paper. “She said to tell you that the amethyst-and-diamond necklace you’ll be modeling at the charity auction is spectacular and that if it weren’t understood that Dan Penworth will buy the necklace for you, she’d insist her husband buy it for her.” Sally paused and glanced up. “I think she was sort of, well, joking a little.”

  She waited, expecting some sort of humorous reaction to this, but Diana only nodded stiffly as she flung the newspaper on her desk and pulled off the jacket of her cherry woolcrepe suit, dropping it haphazardly on the back of the suede swivel chair behind her desk. “Any other calls?” she asked, her head down, her voice strained.

  “Yes. The bridal salon called to say they have several new gowns in from Paris, which they think you’ll love.”

  Diana seemed to freeze; then she turned away from her desk and walked over to the glass wall that looked out across a sunny Houston skyline. In silence, Sally watched Diana cross her arms over her chest, rubbing the sleeves of her white silk blouse as if her arms were cold. “Anything else?” she asked in a voice so low that Sally moved a little closer, trying to hear her.

  “Bert Peters called. There was a problem with two of the photo layouts in the next issue, and his group is scrambling to get it fixed. Bert asked if you’d let him reschedule the production meeting you wanted from three o’clock today to four.”

  Diana’s voice dropped lower, but it was filled with resolution. “Cancel it.”

  “Cancel it?” Sally repeated in disbelief.

  Diana swallowed. “Reschedule it for eight A.M. tomorrow.” After a moment, she added, “If my sister’s in the building, ask her to come here.”

  Sally nodded and reached for the phone on Diana’s desk, calling the extension where she knew Corey Foster could be reached. “Corey’s downstairs with the production staff, helping with the layouts,” she explained to Diana’s back. “Bert said she had a solution that will work.”

  Sally repeated Diana’s request to Corey on the telephone; then she hung up and stared worriedly at Diana’s still form and stiff shoulders. People who didn’t know Diana were normally so dazzled and disarmed by her classic features, vivid coloring, soft voice, and quiet elegance that they were misled into thinking of her as a languid young socialite who spent her days dabbling in charity work or dropping by her office for an occasional board meeting and spent her evenings being pampered in order to keep worry lines from marring her fragile beauty. However, those people who worked closely with her, as did Sally, knew that Diana was a tireless worker with seemingly endless supplies of energy and enthusiasm.

  When the magazine’s monthly deadlines drew near, it was not unusual for the staff to work each night until midnight. When everyone was too exhausted or too stressed out to do more than droop in their chairs, Diana—whose administrative duties often kept her working late in her office on the top floor—would frequently appear in the production department with an encouraging smile on her face and a tray of coffee and sandwiches in her arms.

  The following morning, the production staff would stagger in a little late, their eyes bleary and their brains foggy, while Diana would look fresh and rested and be filled with sympathetic appreciation for the long hours they’d worked. The wide difference between the effect of stress and lack of sleep on Diana versus its effect on others almost always evoked some sort of good-natured grumbling comment from someone who’d worked late the night before. Diana would bear it with a smile or laugh it off with some remark about it all catching up with her someday, then turn the discussion to the next issue and the next set of problems they would invariably face.

  Considering the fact that she never showed the slightest pessimism about even the largest problems, and considering her ability to juggle a dozen different projects and a hundred different details without ever seeming to be rattled, Sally had found it both amazing and endearing when she discovered that Diana actually had two weaknesses: she required a basic framework of routine within which to operate, and she required a state of absolute orderliness in her office. The lack of either of these could throw her into a state of confusion and dismay like nothing else could.

  Diana could stand serenely in the chaos and disorder of the production department, the floors and drawing boards littered with proposed