Page 27 of Texas-Sized Scandal

That was crazy. There was no way a man who looked at her sister the way Slade did was ever going to let her go. No matter what Slade was telling himself.

“I think if he asked you to marry him to protect you, then he’s not really thinking it’s just for a short time. He has been single all these years,” Angela said. “Something about you made him finally commit.”

Melinda shook her head. “He doesn’t want to disappoint his grandmother either, so I think the engagement is sort of a way to protect me, get the press off our backs and appease her.”

“Do you even hear what you’re saying? I can’t for a moment imagine that Slade Bartelli would give in to that kind of pressure. If I had to guess, I’d say he wants you to force him to make the engagement a real one. Seems to me that he’s done everything but say the words to show you that’s what he wants.”

“Angela, if you had to force Ryder to ask you to marry him, would you? Could you ever be happy, knowing that the only reason you were married was because you got pregnant? I want Slade to marry me because he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. Even when he was confronted with the fact that I knew he’d been influenced to ask me out, he still wouldn’t say that he wanted me.”

“No, I wouldn’t want that,” she said, hugging her sister again. This was one of those times when they needed their mom to give them advice, but it was only the two of them. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Are you sure?”

Melinda chewed her lower lip between her teeth and just shook her head. “No. There are times when I’m sure that Slade is the perfect man for me. But the truth is until he can come to me and say he wants this to be real, I’m not going to be able to believe it. I can’t just act like it’s real when it’s not. I do feel bad about lying to Philomena. I mean, I’m wearing her great-grandmother’s ring and I love it. I want to think it will always be on my hand, but it won’t be.”

Angela had no real words to comfort her sister. Her own love life, while happy, was still not perfect because their father hadn’t accepted Ryder, but hearing this pain in her sister’s voice made her heart break. How could Slade do this to her sister?

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“No. You’re not. I will figure this out,” Melinda said. “I appreciate that you would try to intervene for me, but this is my mess and I’m going to sort it out.”

“I don’t think you should refer to the father of your child as a mess,” Angela said with a smile, trying to tease her sister back into a better a mood.

“I agree, but it’s better than calling him an ass,” Melinda said with a tiny smile.

“Even if that is what he is,” Angela agreed.

“Who’s an ass?” their father asked from the doorway. “I hope it’s not me.”

Angela saw the look on Melinda’s face and realized her sister wasn’t even close to being able to carry off a temporary engagement. Slade was asking the impossible.

“You can be, Daddy,” Melinda said. “But today with both of your daughters engaged, I think we can agree that you’re not.”

Nothing made Sterling Perry happier than spending time with his children. Now that the fraud charges against him had been dropped, he was ready to get back to his normal life. Enough of being treated like a criminal.

He couldn’t be happier that Melinda had finally found a man who could keep up with her and wasn’t put off by the walls that his daughter tended to place around herself. Slade might not have been everyone’s first choice for a son-in-law, but Sterling knew the man to be shrewd in business and damn hard to intimidate. He was the perfect match for Melinda.

He remembered his own engagement and how happy he’d been. That had been a long time ago. Before things had fallen apart. Jealousy and pride had driven a wedge between them that Sterling had never figured out how to fix. He knew he had his share of the blame and he hoped his daughters fared better in marriage than he had. But both of them seemed to be making choices...that were going to make their situations harder.

“What do you think of this?” Melinda asked, smiling over at him with her blue eyes so full of happiness that he couldn’t help smiling back. He loved seeing that joy on her face. Slade did seem to genuinely care about his daughter and the man made her happy, what more could a father want?

“I’m sorry, Mels, I wasn’t paying attention. What is this for again?” he asked.

She laughed. “It’s for the table linens.”

He shook his head. “Why don’t I leave my credit card and let you two handle the rest of the details.”

“Sounds good, since you’ve never really cared about these kinds of details,” Angela said.

He wasn’t sure if there was an edge to her tone or if he was imagining it because she knew he didn’t like Ryder. He wanted his daughters to be happy, but Sterling could never trust Ryder.

He kissed both of his daughters on their foreheads and left them to sort out the party details. He gave his credit card information to the receptionist and then stepped out into the hot Houston afternoon. He glanced at his cell phone and saw that some of his longtime investors were still messaging him to be reassured that they hadn’t been set up in a Ponzi scheme.

Damn that Ryder Currin. He had made it look like all of Sterling’s legitimate investments were questionable. What would it take for Angela to be free of Ryder once and for all?

He walked to his car when the idea hit him. Perhaps Ryder needed a taste of his own medicine. If Ryder’s precious Currin Oil were to be engulfed in a cloud of suspicion, maybe Angela would wake up and find herself a better man.

All it had taken for the investigation to be started into Sterlings’s dealings was an anonymous tip. Something he had long suspected that Ryder Currin had a hand in. The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him. And while he knew he should be happy the charges were dropped, thanks to his lawyer son, Roarke, Sterling hadn’t enjoyed having the negative publicity surround him and his company. The Perrys had been in Texas for a long time and had always been upstanding citizens.

He couldn’t help but believe that Ryder was behind him being questioned in regard to Vincent Hamm’s murder too.

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