Just One Fake Date: A Contemporary Romance (Flatiron Five Fitness Book 1)

by Deborah Cooke

  “The story of Giselle itself is mercifully short, but it needs context. And it is not a love story in any way, shape or form.” Tyler was really definite about that.

  “It’s a sex story.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  That was surprising.

  Now Shannyn was curious.

  “Maybe you do need to hear it.” Tyler was stringing her along, keeping her on the phone, and Shannyn didn’t care. She liked having his voice rumbling in her ear, the sound of the rain against the windows, her apartment in darkness. Fitzwilliam was snoring on the keyboard.

  The trouble was that she knew she could get used to this.

  The good thing was that Tyler didn’t need to know it.

  Shannyn turned down the lights and spun in her chair. “Okay, I have popcorn now. Let the context flow.”

  Tyler laughed then cleared his throat. “Okay. I go on these trips for work, about twice a year. They’re tours arranged for various financial advisors, usually to highlight some industry or region that is seeking more investment. The last one featured all these emerging high tech companies in Bahrain. It was a week long, all expenses paid, all the perks. Five star hotel, all the meals, everything you could imagine.”

  Shannyn rolled her eyes. No wonder he was entitled. He lived a harsh life.

  “Because if you show a manager for a mutual fund a good time, under guise of educating him or her about your industry, the investment monies will flow into your project?” she said instead.

  “Something like that. The senior partner at Fleming doesn’t want to go anymore, so they slide onto my schedule.”

  He sounded so indifferent about free trips that Shannyn was intrigued. “Don’t you like going?”

  “Yes and no. The industry insight is sometimes really interesting, and travel is hardly ever a bad thing.”

  Shannyn guessed the reason. “But you have two jobs, so being away from both of them must leave you a lot to do when you get home.”

  “There is that,” he acknowledged easily. “And sometimes, it’s not that great to spend time with a bunch of people who are primarily interested in money.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I like money just fine, but there are other things in life.”

  “Like work.” Shannyn had to ask. “Have you ever considered that the other partners at the club might think that you staying at your day job means you think the club isn’t going to work out?”

  There was a beat of silence before Tyler answered. “At the beginning, they might have.”

  “I mean it is kind of a vote of no-confidence.”

  “No, it’s not!”

  “They know that you’re risk-averse by nature?”

  “I’m not risk-averse...”

  “Hmmm.” Shannyn threw him a bone because she actually didn’t want to argue. She wanted him to keep talking in the dark chocolate voice. “You met Giselle in Bahrain?”

  “Not quite. At the end of the tour, when I was getting into the limo to go to the airport, the hotel manager rushed out to give us each a complementary bathrobe. This huge fluffy robe was the last thing I needed, but I didn’t want to be rude.”

  “I don’t see you as a fluffy bathrobe kind of guy.”

  “Thank you for that. Plus I had my suit bag and briefcase and it was another thing to carry. There was no way I could get it into my luggage. But, I took it, thinking I’d forget it somewhere on the way home and make the day of some other traveller. I actually left it in the limo and in the lounge, but both the driver and the attendant ran after me.”

  Shannyn laughed. He sounded so rueful.

  “By the time I got on the plane, I realized that women loved it. They went out of their way to smile at me because I was carrying it, to admire it, to compliment me on being such a great guy.”

  “Because they thought it was a gift.” Shannyn remembered the robe in his bathroom, the one with the hotel logo embroidered on the front, the one wrapped in satin ribbon and sitting on the shelf, pristine.

  “Exactly. I still couldn’t get rid of it, though.” He sighed. “We changed flights in Paris and Giselle was one of the stewardesses on the flight home. She went crazy for that robe. She stowed it in with the crew luggage on the flight when I couldn’t find a place for it and was very attentive. She also made it clear that she had two days’ layover in Manhattan. My grandmother’s eightieth birthday was the night after I got home. I’d kind of forgotten about it in Bahrain, but my mom sent me another reminder—and she asked if I was bringing a date. I knew what that meant.”

  “Your Spidey sense was tingling.”

  “Absolutely. So, I invited Giselle. It was an act of desperation.”

  “Yet not Kyle’s idea?”

  “Not directly. He’s always telling me to be more impulsive and go with the moment, that I overthink things. Not my best trick, to be honest,” he admitted and Shannyn smiled. “We went out for dinner the first night in New York, she went back to her hotel, then I picked her up for the party, mostly because it was too late to change the plan.”

  “Wait. She didn’t even come to your place the first night?” She almost bit her tongue because she was asking too much, but the question was out there.

  Shannyn halfway expected him to shut her down, but he answered.

  “No.” Tyler was firm. “An hour at dinner and I didn’t want her to know where I lived. She was charming, but greedy.”

  “She ordered the most expensive thing on the menu?”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t have cared about that, if it had been what she wanted. She ran her fingertip down the list of prices, then followed the highest one back to the item. She thought I didn’t notice.”

  “Okay, that would irk me. Dessert, too?”

  “Yes. Aperatif, appetizer, wine and brandy. She took just a taste of each. Again, if she’d really wanted it and enjoyed it, that would have been fine.”

  “But it seemed like she was just trying to spend your money.” Shannyn could see the sense of targeting a business traveler in an expensive suit, but it seemed like a bad plan to take advantage of him.

  “We went to the party, my mom adored her, but I was regretting my impulse. I took her back to her hotel and that, to my thinking, was that.”

  “I’m going to guess that this is where Kyle comes in.”

  “You’d be right. I made the mistake of telling him about it, and after he had a good laugh, he suggested that I keep Giselle as a fictional girlfriend, at least as far as my mom knew.”

  Shannyn gasped. “Shut the front door. You did not lie to your mother!”

  “I did, “ Tyler admitted. “It was an act of self-defense and the results were glorious. I’ve had eight entire months of Friday nights with no one trying to fix me up with anyone’s daughter or sister or nurse practitioner or dog groomer.” He paused. “So, now you know my dark past. Go on. Give me the bad news.”

  Shannyn laughed despite herself. “It was kind of a jerk thing to do, but I wouldn’t call you an asshole for it.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Your mom seems pretty intense about this matchmaking thing.”

  “It is, unfortunately, her reason for living.” Tyler sounded resigned to that. “My mom and her sisters are competitive about the grandchildren count.”

  Shannyn wasn’t going there. “Is that the robe in your bathroom?”

  “Yes, waiting for the right woman to come along.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t had any contenders yet.”

  “I’m not. They say you only find the right person when you’re ready to settle down.”

  “And you’re not ready.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “You keep saying that. You could quit one job and make time.”

  Tyler caught his breath, making a joke out of it. “Perish the thought.”

  “All work and no play makes Tyler a dull boy.”

  “Is that why you’re talking to me in the middle of the night?” h
e teased.

  “Point to you,” Shannyn ceded. “Thanks for the story of Giselle and the bathrobe. I feel like I’ve become your confessor or something.”

  “Or something,” he mused. “Turnabout is fair play.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You could tell me a story.”

  “I don’t have one to tell,” Shannyn said quickly.

  “I doubt that,” Tyler said. “Although I can believe that you don’t want to share any story you have.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you’re a lot more prickly than you used to be, and that makes me curious about whatever has happened to you since that class.”

  There was no way Shannyn was stepping into that. “Well, thanks for the details on the wedding. I’ll see you there.”

  “Maybe I could give you a ride.”

  Here it came. The slippery slope was suddenly beneath her feet. “Don’t worry. I’ll solve it.”

  Tyler made a little growl of disagreement that she liked too much. “We have a deal.”

  “And I’m keeping to the terms,” she reminded him.

  He didn’t end the call. She could hear him, just thinking, on the other end of the line, and that kept her from signing off. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low and seductive that she wanted to listen to him all night long. “So, what do you want, Shannyn Hawke?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said that to amend our deal, I’d have to offer something you want.” Tyler spoke with that beguiling confidence, as if there was nothing more unavoidable in the world than the two of them making another deal. Shannyn’s mouth went dry. “I don’t know what you want—in fact, I can’t even begin to guess, so I’m asking.”

  There was an easy and obvious answer. Shannyn was going to her best friend’s wedding the weekend before the wedding of Tyler’s sister. But she was doing Kirsten and Lukas’ photographs as her gift and would be busy—and she didn’t need a date to go to a wedding. No one was going to fix her up. Her friends were too smart for that.

  “You must have something in mind,” Tyler said, guessing why she didn’t answer. “Go on. Say it. I don’t scare that easily.”

  “A new roof,” Shannyn said impulsively, then wished she hadn’t.

  “You have a house?” There was surprise in his tone.

  “Spoils of war,” she said under her breath then hurried on, hoping he hadn’t heard. “It would be strange to want a roof otherwise. Where would I put it?”

  Tyler laughed and she felt a little glow of satisfaction that she’d surprised him. “Point to you. Tell me about the roof.”

  “What do you know about roofs?” She paused and frowned. “Rooves?”

  “I think roofs, but I’m not positive.”

  “Me neither.” It was too easy to talk to this man. “What difference does it make what kind I need?”

  “I don’t know much about roofs, but I do know about money, and different roofs must cost different amounts of money.”

  There was that.

  “Okay,” Shannyn said. “It’s not optional at this point. It’s more of an ASAP issue.”

  “It’s leaking,” he guessed.

  She closed her eyes again, picturing him in that chair. If he was misleading her about his evening’s interaction with Giselle, Shannyn told herself she didn’t care. Instead, she guessed the city was sparkling in all its nocturnal splendor beyond his windows and that the lights in his apartment were low. One of those books would be discarded on the coffee table. Maybe he’d have a drink poured, a finger of Scotch in a crystal glass, the glass catching the light from the crackling fire. Just for fun, she imagined Tyler in his briefs.

  Nice view all around.

  “Hello?” he said, making her realize she’d been quiet too long.

  “Yes, it’s leaking. Quite spectacularly. I have a quote for the roof replacement but it’s more money than I have saved. If they sold lottery tickets for new roofs, I’d have a roll of them.”

  “Thereby diminishing your ability to actually pay for the roof,” he noted, which was fair. “Give me an idea of how much money. I’ve never bought a roof. Well, not true. We had the roof redone on the building here, but it can’t be the same.”

  Shannyn told him the estimate.

  “No way.” His surprise was satisfying. “For a house?”

  “Yes way. And yes for a house. I had another estimate that was higher but I shredded it and burned it to cinders.”

  He seemed to be surprised still. “Is it a big house?”

  “Not particularly.” She chose not to mention the turret, which had made the roofer guy shake his head. “I think installing a new roof is a labor-intensive process.”

  “Where’s the house?”

  Shannyn wrinkled her nose, knowing this was a variable, but reluctant to share anyway. What the hell. She took a breath and told him. “Flatbush.”

  “All right, then.” Tyler exhaled. “The obvious answer is to add it to the mortgage.”

  Shannyn shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “Not possible.”

  “Don’t you have any equity in the property?”

  “Not much. And I don’t want the bank to take a closer look at the mortgage right now.”

  He caught his breath and she knew he’d figured something out. “Spoils of war,” he echoed softly. “You’re divorced, separated or otherwise no longer living with a partner.”

  Damn. This was the hazard of arranging a fake date with a perceptive money guy. Shannyn’s secrets didn’t have a chance.

  Tyler was getting his wish about knowing more about her in a hurry.

  But then, what did it matter? Cole was ancient history and not exactly a secret.

  “Point to you,” Shannyn said, as if it didn’t matter.

  Because it didn’t. Not anymore.

  “And he had the better job or at least a steady paycheck,” Tyler guessed with startling accuracy. His voice changed and she could imagine him holding up a hand against an anticipated attack. She smiled, thinking of the training his sisters had given him. “Not because you necessarily don’t have the skills or connections to make good money, but you wouldn’t be worried about the bank and the mortgage unless he was the one with the regular paycheck. I mean, you are freelance—unless you have a day job, too.”

  “No, I don’t. Just a whole array of side hustles.” Shannyn spun in her chair, feeling inexplicably lighter now that the truth was out. She might be secretive but she wasn’t dishonest. It felt better for Tyler to know the truth.

  “Side hustles?” he echoed with obvious confusion.

  “Things that generate some revenue but not enough individually to be my sole income. I’m freelance. There are gaps to fill.”

  To Shannyn’s relief, he didn’t linger over that or make any pompous suggestions that she should get a ‘real’ job. He just accepted her financial reality, which was refreshing. “When does the mortgage come up for renewal?”

  “In three years.”

  “Have you missed any payments since things...changed?” His voice sharpened a little, but then, he was a money guy.

  “No.” Shannyn was glad to be able to admit that, although it had been a feat. “I managed to pay an extra one last year...”

  “No!” Tyler said with heat. “Don’t do that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your mortgage is comparatively new.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “It has to be. You must have graduated ten or eleven years ago. Which means that you’re still in the phase when most of your payment is interest and not affecting the principle. It takes a good fifteen years to start paying down the principle.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I am. The bank is counting on you for interest, which is revenue on their side, so don’t make any early payments. Make every single payment exactly on time, not one hour late or one day early. If you have extra money, save it until the mortgage r
enews and have it applied to the principle as a lump sum then. That’ll directly reduce the outstanding principle. In the interim, you can invest it somewhere so it earns some interest until the renewal date.”

  “Damn,” Shannyn was impressed despite herself. “I never thought about that.”

  “You don’t want to spook a bank. Slow and steady is the way. There’s an old trick of building a good credit rating by borrowing money you don’t actually need, then paying it back right on time.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense to a bank. It means they get their interest on time and proves that you’re a reliable borrower.”

  “Okay.”

  “In your case, by the time your mortgage comes up for renewal, you want them to just look at your payment history and rubber-stamp the renewal without reviewing your income qualifications. The proof that you can pay the mortgage will be that you have been paying it. If you put ten thousand dollars against the principle then, for example, they’re not losing any interest they expected, and it makes you look like even more of a sure bet.”

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  “So, you don’t want to add the roof to the mortgage, which is fair. If you don’t have a lot of equity, then a second mortgage isn’t likely. You don’t have a car, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Because that would be too easy if you had one that was paid off. Any other assets?”

  “My sparkling wit.”

  “Point to you,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Sadly, the bank might not put a dollar value on that.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’d put a premium on your ability to surprise,” he said, which made Shannyn sit up straighter. “Is there anyone who could lend you the money?”

  “No and I wouldn’t ask.”

  “How much do you have?”

  “Two-thirds of the quote.” She could hear something tapping, maybe his fingers. Should she add a calculator or a pen to her mental image of him? Once again, she could almost hear him thinking.

  “What if I can solve this?” he asked abruptly and Shannyn’s thoughts stilled.

  “How on earth could you solve this?” There was only one way she could imagine and she was outraged that Tyler would even suggest it. If he thought he could pay for her roof and put her in his debt, he could think again. “I will not let you pay for my roof or lend me any money to have it done...”