Match Me If You Can

Chapter Twenty

Construction had clogged Denver's midday traffic, dampening Heath's already foul mood. For six weeks, he'd shown Delaney nothing but respect. This was his future wife, after all, and he didn't want her to think he was only after her for sex. An image of Annabelle naked sprang into his mind. He gritted his teeth and laid on the horn of the rental car. The only reason he kept thinking about Annabelle was because he was worried. No matter how much he nosed around, he couldn't find out for sure if she and Dean were sleeping together.

The distinct possibility that Dean was taking advantage of Annabelle made him crazy, but he forced his thoughts back to Delaney where they belonged. During their last couple of dates, she'd started sending strong signals that she was ready for sex, which meant he had to make plans, but that wasn't as simple as it seemed. For one thing, she had roommates, so he'd have to take her to his house, and how could he do that until he'd moved his workout equipment to the basement? He wanted her to like his house, but he'd already discovered that she didn't care much for contemporary architecture, so he'd probably have to sell it. A couple of months ago, that would have been fine, but something about seeing it through Annabelle's eyes had made him start to look at the place differently. He hoped he could talk Delaney into changing her mind.

He flipped the bird at the jerk who'd just cut him off and pondered a bigger problem. He couldn't shake the old-fashioned notion that he should propose to Delaney before they slept together. She was Delaney Lightfield, not some football groupie. True, they'd only dated for six weeks, but it was obvious to everybody except Bodie that they were perfect for each other, so why wait?

Except how could he propose without a ring?

For a brief moment, he considered asking Annabelle to pick one out, but even he knew he could only delegate so much. Traffic ground to a stop. He'd be late for his eleven o'clock meeting. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The difficulty of trying to propose to Delaney without mentioning the love word flashed through his mind, but he'd work that out later. For now, he had to figure out what to do about the ring. She'd have lots of opinions about diamonds, and he suspected his philosophy of "the bigger the better" might not be in line with her upper-crust way of thinking. She'd want something discreet with a perfect cut. Then there was that color crap people talked about. Frankly, one diamond looked pretty much like another to him.

The traffic still wasn't moving. Heath thought it over. What the hell. He reached for his cell and made the call.

For once, Annabelle answered instead of her voice mail.

He kept it brief, but she was in one of her uncooperative moods, and even with horns blaring around him, she shouted so loud he had to hold the phone away from his ear.

"You want me to do what?"

Annabelle stormed around the house, slamming cupboard doors and kicking over her office wastebasket. She couldn't believe she'd let herself fall for such a complete and utter idiot.

Heath wanted her to check out engagement rings for Delaney! What a shitty day. And with her family birthday party coming up in a couple of weeks, the future didn't look any cheerier.

She grabbed her jacket and headed out for a walk. Maybe the sunny October afternoon would brighten her spirits. The truth was, she should be on top of the world. Mr. Bronicki and Mrs. Valerio were moving in together. "We'd like to get married," they'd explained to Annabelle, "but we can't afford it, so we're doing the next best thing." Even more exciting, Annabelle might have made her first permanent match. Janine and Ray Fiedler seemed to be falling in love.

She couldn't have been happier for her friend, and she finally smiled. Once Ray had gotten rid of his comb-over, his attitude had also improved, and he'd turned out to be a decent guy. Janine had been afraid he'd be repulsed by her mastectomy, but he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Annabelle had other reasons to be happy. Things were looking serious between Ernie Marks, her shy elementary school principal, and Wendy, the bubbly architect. She'd talked Melanie out of her infatuation with John Nager. And thanks to the publicity from Heath's match with Delaney, her business had been growing like crazy. Finally, she had enough money in the bank to start thinking about buying a new car.

Instead, she thought about Heath and Delaney. How could he be so blind? Despite everything Annabelle had once believed, Delaney wasn't the right woman for him. She was too contained, too polished. Too perfect.

Heath had the ring in his pocket, but his tongue kept sticking to the roof of his mouth. This was stupid. He never let pressure get to him, yet here he was with a bad case of flop sweat. This afternoon he'd sent his secretary to pick up the ring he'd chosen as soon as he'd gotten back from Denver two weeks ago. He and Delaney had just finished a five-hundred-dollar dinner at Charlie Trotter's. The lighting was muted, the music soft, the atmosphere perfect. All he had to do was take her hand and say the magic words. Would you do me the honor of being my wife?

He'd decided to dodge the whole "I love you" thing by keeping it specific. He'd tell her he loved her intelligence; he loved the way she looked. He definitely loved playing golf with her. Most of all, he loved her polish, the sense that she'd finish him. If she pressed him on the love thing, he could always tell her he was fairly sure he would love her at some time in the future, after they'd been married for a while and he was certain she'd stick, but somehow he didn't think she'd see his reassurance in the same positive light he did, so best to deflect.

He wondered if she'd get teary-eyed when he gave her the ring. Probably not. She wasn't too emotional, which was another positive. Afterward, they'd go back to his place and celebrate their engagement in bed. He'd make sure he took it slow. He sure as hell wouldn't rush her like he'd rushed Annabelle.

Damn, that had been fun.

Fun, but not serious. Making love with Annabelle had been exciting, crazy, definitely hot, but it hadn't been important. The only reason he thought about it so often was because he couldn't repeat the experience, so it had taken on the lure of the forbidden.

He fingered the robin's egg blue jewelry box in his pocket. He didn't much care for the ring he'd chosen. It was only a little over a carat because Delaney didn't like anything ostentatious. But he liked a little ostentation, especially when it came to the ring he'd be putting on his future wife's finger. Still, he wasn't the one who'd have to wear the puny son of a bitch, so he'd keep his opinions to himself.

Okay… Time to get to work here. Steer a careful path around the love discussion, give her the fucking ring, and propose. Then take her back to his place and seal the deal.

His cell vibrated in his pocket, right next to the ring box. Annabelle had given him strict orders not to take calls when he was with Delaney, but wouldn't she have to get used to this if they were going to get married? "Champion." He shot his future wife an apologetic look.

Annabelle's voice hissed through the receiver like a leaky radiator. "Get over here right now."

"I'm kind of in the middle."

"I don't care if you're in Antarctica. Get your sorry ass over here."

He heard a male voice in the background. Make that male voices. He sat straighter in his chair. "Are you okay?"

"Does it sound like I'm okay?"

"It sounds like you're pissed."

But she'd already hung up.

Half an hour later, he and Delaney were rushing up the sidewalk toward Annabelle's front porch. "It's not like her to get hysterical," Delaney said for the second time. "Something must really be wrong."

He'd already explained that Annabelle had been more enraged than hysterical, but the concept of rage seemed foreign to Delaney, which didn't bode well for the times when he had to watch the Sox lose another close one.

"It sounds like some kind of party." She pressed the bell, but nobody was going to hear anything over the hip-hop music blaring from inside, and he reached in front of her to push the door open.

As they stepped inside, he saw Sean Palmer and half a dozen of his Bears teammates draped around Annabelle's reception room, which wasn't alarming in itself, but through the door leading to the kitchen, he spotted another batch of players, all of them Chicago Stars. Annabelle's office seemed to be neutral territory with five or six players not exactly mingling, but scoping one another out from opposite corners while Annabelle stood in the middle of the archway. Heath could see why she might be nervous. Neither team had forgotten last year's controversial call that had given the Stars a narrow and highly disputed victory over their rivals. He couldn't help wondering what part of her brain had been on vacation when she'd let all of these guys in at the same time.

"Hey, everybody, Jerry Maguire's here."

Heath responded to Sean Palmer's greeting with a wave. Delaney moved a little closer to his side.

"How come you ain't got no cable, Annabelle?" Eddie Skinner protested over the top of the music. "You got cable upstairs?"

"No," Annabelle retorted, pushing her way into the reception room. "And get your big-ass shoes off my sofa cushions this minute." She did a one-eighty, her finger pointed like a gun at Tremaine Russell, the best running back the Bears had seen in a decade. "Use a freakin' coaster under your glass, Tremaine!"

Heath stood back and grinned. She looked like a harried Cub Scout den mother, hands on hips, red hair flying, eyes shooting firecrackers.

Tremaine snatched up his glass and wiped the end table with the sleeve of his designer sweater. "Sorry, Annabelle."

Annabelle caught Heath's grin and marched forward, pinning her wrath on him. "This is all your fault. You have at least four clients here, none of whom I knew personally a year ago. If it weren't for you, I'd be just another fan watching them destroy each other from a safe distance."

Her hissy fit was getting everybody's attention, and someone turned the music down so they could all listen in. She jerked her head toward the kitchen. "They've drunk everything in the house, including a pitcher of African violet plant food I'd just mixed up and was stupid enough to leave on the counter."

Tremaine punched Eddie in the shoulder. "I told you it tasted weird."

Eddie shrugged. "Tasted okay to me."

"They've also ordered hundreds of dollars' worth of Chinese food, which I do not intend to see all over this rug, so everybody is going to… eat in the kitchen!'

"And pizza." Jason Kent, a Stars second stringer, called out from someplace near the refrigerator. "Don't forget we ordered pizzas, too."

"When did my house turn into a hangout for every grossly overpaid, terminally pampered professional football player in northern Illinois?"

"We like it here," Jason said. "It reminds us of home."

"Plus, no women around." Leandro Collins, the Bears' first-string tight end emerged from the office munching on a bag of chips. "There's times when you need a rest from the ladies."

Annabelle shot out her arm and smacked him in the side of the head. "Don't forget who you're talking to."

Leandro had a short fuse, and he'd been known to take out a ref here and there when he didn't like a call, but the tight end merely rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. "Just like my mama."

"Mine, too," Tremaine said with happy nod.

Annabelle spun on Heath. "Their mother! I'm thirty-one years old, and I remind them of their mothers."

"You act like my mother," Sean pointed out, unwisely as it transpired, because he got a swat in the head next.

Heath exchanged sympathetic looks with the boys, then gave Annabelle his full attention, speaking softly and patiently. "Tell me how this happened, sweetheart."

Annabelle threw up her hands. "I have no idea. In the summer it was just Dean dropping in. Then he brought Jason and Dewitt with him. Then Arte asked me to keep my eye on Sean, so I invited him over-just once, mind you-and he showed up with Leandro and Matt. A Star here, a Bear there… One thing led to another. And now I have a potentially deadly riot on my hands, right in the middle of my living room."

"I told you not to worry about that," Jason said. "This is neutral territory."

"Yeah, right." Her nostrils flared. "Neutral territory until somebody gets mad, and then you guys'll be all, 'We're sorry, Annabelle, but you seem to be missing your front windows and half the second floor.'"

"Only person's been mad since we got here is you," Sean muttered.

Annabelle's expression turned so hilariously murderous that Eddie snorted beer-or maybe African violet fertilizer-right out through his nose, which cracked everybody up.

Annabelle lunged for Heath, grabbing his shirtfront in her fists, pulling herself up on her toes, and hissing at him through clenched teeth. "They're going to get drunk, and then one of these idiots is going to plow his Mercedes into a car full of nuns. And I'll be liable. This is Illinois. We have host laws in this state."

For the first time Heath was disappointed in her. "Didn't you get their keys?"

"Of course I got their keys. Do you think I'm nuts? But-"

The front door blew open, and Mr. Hot Shit Robillard waltzed in all decked out in Oakleys, diamonds, and cowboy boots. He gave a two-finger wave like the fucking king of England.

"Oh, shit. Kill me now." Annabelle's grip on his shirt tightened. "Somebody's going to take him out tonight. I can feel it. He'll end up with a broken arm or crippled, and then I'll have to deal with Phoebe."

Heath gently pried her fingers loose. "Relax. Lover Boy can take care of himself."

"All I wanted was to be a matchmaker. Is that so hard to understand? A simple matchmaker." She slumped back on her heels. "My life is crap."

Leandro frowned. "Annabelle, you're starting to get on my nerves."

Three long strides brought Robillard to her side. He gave Heath a long look, then looped his arm around Annabelle and kissed her hard on the lips. Fury exploded behind Heath's eyelids. His right hand curled into a fist, but this was Annabelle's house, and she'd never forgive him if he did what he wanted to.

"Annabelle's my woman," Dean announced as he broke the kiss and gazed into her eyes. "Anybody gives her trouble has to deal with me… and my offensive line."

Annabelle looked annoyed, which made Heath feel a hell of a lot better. "I can take care of myself. What I can't deal with is a house full of drunken morons."

"That is so harsh," Eddie said, looking injured.

Dean stroked her shoulder. "You guys know how irrational pregnant women can get."

Way too many heads started nodding.

"Did you take that test like I told you, baby doll?" Dean slipped his arm around her again. "Do you know yet if you're carryin' my love child?"

Apparently that was too much for Annabelle, because she started to laugh. "I need a beer." She grabbed Tremaine's bottle and drained what was left.

"You shouldn't drink if you're pregnant," Eddie Skinner said with a frown.

Leandro swatted him in the head.

Heath realized he was having the best time he'd had in weeks.

Which reminded him of Delaney.

Annabelle had been too preoccupied to spot her through the crowd, and Delaney hadn't moved from her place inside the front door. She stood with her back to the wall and that ever-pleasant smile frozen on her face, but her eyes were glazed and just a little wild. Delaney Lightfield, horsewoman, champion trapshooter, golfer, and expert skier, had just glimpsed her future, and she didn't like what she saw.

"Don't anybody let me eat more than one egg roll."

Annabelle set her empty bottle on a stack of magazines. "I can hardly zip my jeans now." She rolled her eyes at Eddie, who was frowning at her. "And I'm not pregnant."

Robillard still wanted to make trouble. "Only because I haven't been trying hard enough. We'll take care of that tonight, baby doll."

Annabelle rolled her eyes and looked around for a place to sit, but every chair was occupied, so she ended up in Sean's lap. She sat there primly, but comfortably. "And I can only have one slice of pizza."

Heath needed to do something about Delaney, and he made his way over to her. "Sorry about this."

"I should mix," Delaney said determinedly.

"Not if you don't want to."

"It's just… It's a little overwhelming. The house is so small. And there are so many of them."

"Let's go outside."

"Yes, that's probably the best idea."

Heath drew her onto the front porch. For a few moments, they didn't speak. Delaney gazed at the house across the street, wrapping her arms around herself. He rested his shoulder against a post, the ring box heavy against his hip. "I can't leave her," he said.

"Oh, no, no. I wouldn't expect you to."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I guess you needed to see my life for what it is. This is a pretty good sample."

"Yes. It was silly of me. I didn't…" She gave a tight, self-deprecating laugh. "I like the skybox better."

He understood, and he smiled. "The skybox does keep reality at a distance."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I imagined it differently."

"I know you did."

Somebody turned the music up again. She slipped her thumbs under the collar of her jacket and gazed around. "It's only a matter of time before the neighbors call the police."

The cops tended to look the other way when the city's top athletes misbehaved, but he doubted that would reassure her.

Her fingers crept to her pearls. "I don't understand how Annabelle can be so comfortable with all that chaos."

He settled on the simplest explanation. "She has brothers."

"So do I."

"Annabelle is one of those people who gets bored easily. I guess you could say she creates her own excitement." Just like him.

She shook her head. "But it's so… disruptive."

Which was exactly why Annabelle got herself into this sort of thing.

"My life's pretty disruptive," he said.

"Yes. Yes, I see that now."

A few moments of silence ticked by. "Would you like me to call you a cab?" he asked quietly.

She hesitated, then nodded. "That might be for the best."

While they waited, they apologized to each other, both of them saying pretty much the same thing, that they'd thought it would work out, but it was better they'd found out now that it wouldn't. The ten minutes it took for the cab to arrive lasted forever. Heath gave the driver a fifty and helped Delaney in. She smiled up at him, more thoughtful than sad. She was a terrific person, and he experienced a fleeting moment of regret that he wasn't the kind of man who could be satisfied with beauty, brains, intelligence, and athletic ability. No, it took the Tinker Bell factor to suck him in. As the cab drove away, he felt himself relax for the first time since the night they'd met.

The food had arrived while they'd waited outside, but when he reentered the house, nobody was eating. Instead, they were all jammed into the living room, the music turned down, their attention focused on an upturned NASCAR cap sitting in the general vicinity of Annabelle's feet. As he moved closer, he saw an assortment of diamond studs shining in the bottom.

Annabelle spotted him and grinned. "I'm supposed to close my eyes, pick a stud, and sleep with whoever it belongs to. A stud for a stud. How fun is that?"

Dean raised his head from across the room. "Just so you know, Heathcliff, both of mine are still in my ears."

"That's because you cheap, bitch." Dewitt Gilbert, Dean's favorite wide receiver, slapped him on the back.

Annabelle smiled at Heath. "They're just goofing around. They know I won't do it."

"You might," Gary Sweeney said. "There's a good fifteen carats in that hat."

"Damn. I've always wanted to sleep with a natural redhead." Reggie O'Shea whipped the jewel-encrusted crucifix from around his neck and dropped it in the hat.

The men gazed down at it.

"That's just wrong," Leandro said.

There were enough mutters of agreement that Reggie retrieved his necklace.

Annabelle sighed, and Heath heard honest-to-God regret in her voice. "This has been fun, but the food's getting cold. Sean, that is a gorgeous set of studs, but your mother would kill me."

Not to mention what Heath would do.

Sometime around two in the morning, the beer supply a couple of the guys had been secretly replenishing finally ran out, and the crowd began to thin. Annabelle put Heath in charge of conducting field sobriety tests. He called cabs and shoved drunks into the few cars with sober drives. Just one fight had erupted all evening, and it wasn't over car keys. Dean took exception to his teammate Dewitt's statement that the only reason a guy would buy a Porsche instead of a kick-ass car like an Escalade was to match the color of his lace panties. Two Bears players had to pull them apart.

"So tell me the truth," Annabelle had said to Heath at the time. "Did they really go to college?"

"Yeah, but not necessarily to their classes."

By two-thirty, Annabelle had fallen asleep at one end of the couch with Leandro on the other, while Heath and Dean cleaned up the worst of the mess in the kitchen. Heath tossed Dean a plastic trash bag. "Hide those empty whiskey bottles."

"Since nobody got killed, she probably won't care."

"No sense in taking chances. She was pretty riled up tonight."

They shoved the worst of the food mess into trash bags and carried them out to the alley. Dean gazed at Sherman in disgust. "She actually tried to talk me into trading cars with her. She said driving that heap for a couple of days would help me stay in touch with the real world."

"Not to mention giving her a shot at your Porsche."

"I do believe I pointed that out." They headed toward the house. "So how's come you haven't tried to shove a contract under my nose tonight?"

"Losing interest." Heath held the back door open for him. "I'm used to guys who are more decisive."

"I'm decisive as hell. I'll have you know the only reason I haven't signed with anybody yet is because I'm having too much fun being courted. You wouldn't believe the shit agents'll send you, and I'm not just talking about front-row concert tickets. The Zagorskis bought me a Segway."

"Yeah, well, while you're enjoying yourself, remember that Nike's forgetting all the reasons they need your candy-ass face smiling down on the homeless from their billboards."

"Speaking of presents…" Dean leaned against the counter, his expression cagey. "I've been admiring that new Rolex Submariner watch I've seen in the stores. Those folks sure do know how to make a great timepiece."

"How about I send you a flower arrangement that matches your pretty blue eyes instead?"

"That's cold, man." He dredged his keys from Annabelle's

Hello Kitty cookie jar along with an Oreo. "It's hard to see how you got to be such a hotshot agent with that kind of attitude."

Heath smiled. "It looks like you'll never find out. Your loss."

Robillard snapped the Oreo in two with his teeth, gave him a cocky grin, and sauntered from the kitchen. "Later, Heathcliff."

Heath sent Leandro off in a cab. He couldn't stop grinning. There wasn't one thing between Dean and Annabelle except mischief. Annabelle didn't love him. She treated him exactly the same way she treated the other players, like they were overgrown kids. All that crap she'd fed Heath was totally bogus. And if Dean had been in love with her, he sure as hell wouldn't have left her alone with another man tonight.

She lay on her side, little puffs of air stirring the lock of hair that had fallen over her mouth. He fetched a blanket, and she didn't stir as he covered her with it. He found himself wondering how bad it would be to reach under that blanket and slip off her jeans so she could sleep more comfortably?

Bad.

Try as he might, he could only come up with one reason Annabelle had set up her charade with Dean. Because she was in love with Heath, and she wanted to save her pride. Funny, feisty, glorious Annabelle Granger loved him. His grin grew broader, and he felt lighthearted for the first time in months. Amazing what clarity could do for a man's peace of mind.

The phone awakened him. He reached across the nightstand for it and muttered into the mouthpiece. "Champion." There was a long silence. He turned his face deeper into the pillow and drifted. "Heath?"

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. "Yeah?" "Heath?"

"Phoebe?"

He heard an angry, in-drawn breath and then the crack of a broken connection. His eyes shot open. Another few seconds passed before he confirmed what he feared. This wasn't his bedroom, the phone he'd answered didn't belong to him, and it was-he gazed at the clock-not quite eight in the morning.

Great. Now Phoebe knew he'd spent the night at Annabelle's. He was screwed. Double screwed, once Phoebe heard that he'd broken up with Delaney.

Wide awake, he climbed out of Annabelle's bed, which unfortunately didn't contain Annabelle. Despite the career implications of what had just happened, his good mood from last night wouldn't go away. He headed downstairs from the attic to shower, then shaved with Annabelle's Gillette Daisy. He didn't have a change of clothes, which meant he could either pull on yesterday's boxers or go commando. He opted for the latter, then slipped into last night's dress shirt, badly wrinkled from Annabelle's fists.

When he got downstairs, he found her still curled into a ball on the couch, the blanket pulled up to her chin, one bare foot sticking out. He'd never had a foot fetish, but there was something about that sweet little arch that made him want to do all kinds of semiobscene things with it. But then most parts of Annabelle's body seemed to have that effect on him, which should have been a big clue. He pulled his eyes away from her toes and headed for the kitchen.

He and Dean hadn't done the best job of cleaning, and the morning light revealed remnants of Chinese food stuck to the counters. While the coffee brewed, he grabbed some paper towels and got up the worst of it. By the time he looked into the other room again, Annabelle had made it into a sitting position. Her hair draped most of her face except for the tip of her nose and one cheekbone.

"Where are my jeans?" she muttered. "Never mind. We'll talk about it later." She pulled the blanket around her and staggered toward the stairs.

He went back into the kitchen and poured himself coffee. As he was about to take the first sip, he noticed that a big pot of African violets had been shoved under the table. He didn't know much about plants, but the foliage on this one looked a lot the worse for wear. He couldn't actually prove anybody had peed in it, but why take the chance? He took it outside and hid it under the back steps.

He'd just finished reading the motivational messages on Annabelle's refrigerator when he heard a rustling noise. He turned to enjoy the sight of Annabelle shuffling into the kitchen. She hadn't made it as far as the shower, but she'd twisted her hair up and washed her face, leaving her eyelashes spiky and her cheeks flushed. A pair of plaid cotton sleeping boxers stuck out from beneath an oversize purple sweatshirt. He followed the line of her bare legs down to her feet, which were tucked into ratty chartreuse running shoes. All in all, she looked sleepy, rumpled, and sexy.

He handed her a mug of coffee. She waited until she'd had her first sip before she acknowledged him, a little gravel still in her voice. "Do I want to know who took off my jeans?"

He thought it over. "Robillard. Guy's a sleaze."

She glowered at him. "I wasn't that out of it. You copped a feel when you unzipped them."

He couldn't have looked repentant if he tried. "Hand slipped."

She sank down at the kitchen table. "Did I imagine it, or was Delaney here last night?"

"She was here."

"Why didn't she stay and help out?"

Now came the tricky part. He made a play of rooting around in the cupboard for something to eat, even though he knew she'd been cleaned out. After he'd shuffled around a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes, he closed the door. "The whole thing was a little too much for her."

She sat up straighter. "What do you mean?".

Too late, he realized he should have been figuring out how he wanted to spin this instead of hiding African violets and standing in front of the refrigerator reading inspiring quotes from Oprah. Maybe a shrug would help stave off this particular discussion until she was wide awake. He gave it a try.

It didn't work.

"I don't understand." Annabelle untucked the leg she'd crooked under her hip and started looking worried. "She told me she was starting to like football."

"As it turns out, not when it's quite so up close and personal."

The lilies on her forehead deepened. "I'll coach her through it. They're only intimidating if you let them get the upper hand."

He shouldn't smile, but wasn't this exactly why his new plan would work so much better than the old one? From the very beginning, Annabelle had made him happy, but he'd been so focused in the wrong direction that he hadn't understood what that meant. Annabelle wasn't the woman of his dreams. Far from it. His dreams had been the product of insecurity, immaturity, and misdirected ambition. No, Annabelle was the woman of his future… the woman of his happiness.

His clearer vision told him she wouldn't take his news about Delaney well, especially when he couldn't quite rein in his smile. "The thing is… Delaney and I are over."

Annabelle's coffee mug dropped to the table with a thud, and she rose from the chair. "No. You're not over. This is just a bump in the road."

"I'm afraid not. Last night she got a good look at my life, and what she saw didn't make her happy."

"I'll fix it. Once she understands-"

"No, Annabelle," he said firmly. "This one can't be fixed. I don't want to marry her."

She exploded. "You don't want to marry anyone!"

"That's not… exactly true."

"It is true. And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of you." Her arms started to flail. "You're making me crazy, and I can't take it anymore. You're fired, Mr. Champion. This time I'm firing you."

It was an impressive display of temper, so he proceeded cautiously. "I'm a client," he pointed out. "You can't fire me."

She bored into him with those honey eyes. "I just did."

"In my defense, I had good intentions." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jeweler's box. "I was planning to propose last night. We were at Charlie Trotter's. The food was great, the mood perfect, and I had the ring. But just as I got ready to give it to her… you called."

He paused and let her draw her own conclusions, which she, being female, was quick to do.

"Oh, my God. It was me. I'm responsible."

A good agent always shifted the blame, but as her consternation grew, he knew he had to come clean. "Your phone call wasn't the real problem. I'd been trying to give her the ring all evening, but I couldn't seem to get it out of my pocket. That's got to tell you something right there."

By putting the blame where it belonged, he set her off again. "Nobody's right for you! I swear, you'd find something wrong with the Virgin Mary." She snatched the ring box from him, flipped it open, and curled her lip. "This was the best you could do? You're a multimillionaire!"

"Exactly!" If he'd needed any more proof that Annabelle Granger was a woman in a million, this was it. "Don't you see? She likes everything subtle. If I'd chosen anything bigger, she'd have been embarrassed. I hate that ring. Imagine how the guys would react if they saw a puny rock like that on my wife's finger."

She snapped the lid shut and shoved the box back into his hand. "You're still fired."

"I understand." He slipped it into his pocket, took a last swig of coffee, and headed for the door.

"I think it'll be better for both of us if we cut if off right here."

He hoped that tremor he heard in her voice wasn't all in his imagination. "Do you now?" The urge to kiss away her outrage nearly overwhelmed him. But while short-term gratification was tempting, he needed to focus on the long term, so he merely smiled and left her alone.

Outside, the morning air held the crisp smoky scent of autumn. He breathed it in and, with a light step, headed down the street to his car. Watching her with the men last night had opened his eyes to something he should have realized weeks ago. Annabelle Granger was his perfect match.