by L A Pepper
He bit his lip to hide a smile, and I wanted to smack him but everyone was watching while pretending not to be watching. “So you want to get me alone?” He leaned in for another fake kiss and I held him off.
“Nick. We need to talk about this. I need to know what’s going on.”
He laughed again, but this time I could hear the tension underneath the mask.
“Nick,” I said. “We need to talk.”
He ran his hand down my bare arm and I shivered, I couldn’t even attempt to hide it, but when he linked his fingers with mine and then brought them up to his lips to kiss, I had no words. There was no way I could resist. He bent his head over mine. “Thanks for playing along. I think I’ve been here long enough and made a big enough impression that we can make our escape before my parents come and find me.”
“Your parents!” I peered through the crowd that was pretending not to look at us and failing miserably to see if I could find them. I’d done the expose on Nick. I knew what they looked like. And I didn’t want to confront them face to face. Especially not as their supposed soon-to-be daughter-in-law!
“Sorry,” he whispered, brushing my hair back from me ear. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He let his fingers trail down my neck to my collarbone and I tried not to shiver. I tried not to melt under the perfection of his touch but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know if it was all for show, just part of this game he was playing. I didn’t know if the game was with me or I was just some sort of pawn in a larger game that had nothing to do with me, but I knew I wanted him to keep touching me. I was finally releasing the breath that I’d been holding since that night in the elevator. Nothing had felt right since then, until now, back in his arms. Whatever was happening now, I didn’t know, but I wanted it.
He put his hand on the small of my back and led me back out through the crowd, out the arched doors, where he collected my coat and led me down the wide steps where the valet went to get his car.
It was quiet out there. The cool air felt good on my heated cheeks. “What’s going on, Nick, I’m really confused.”
“Not yet,” he said and darted his eyes around the street. I thought it was empty but when I looked again, I saw shadows, people standing around for no reason.
I leaned in to him. “Are they stalkers?” I said quietly.
“Paparazzi. We don’t call them stalkers.”
“So yes.”
“Yes.”
I snorted. “So this is what I’m marrying into?”
He laughed and his arm snuck around my waist. “I’m afraid so.” I had not forgotten how much I liked the way his arm felt around me, so I just revelled in the warmth and strength of him until his car pulled around. It was a lot less flashy a car than I thought he’d drive. A black jeep. Nothing special.
“Nice car,” I said.
“It suits my needs.”
He opened the door for me and shut it and then we were off, driving on the streets of Manhattan, the lights of the city passing by, as we sat in silence. “Where are you taking me?” I finally asked.
“To my house. Don’t worry. I’m not going to ravish you, I just need a place out of the public eye. We could go to your place, if you’d prefer.”
I thought about my crowded apartment with three roommates. “Don’t you own a brownstone in Greenwich Village? Overlooking the Hudson River?”
He smiled but didn’t look at me and navigated the city traffic. “Are you one of my stalkers, Chloe?”
“I wrote the expose on your scandalous life, remember?”
“Ah yes, how could I forget?”
“You never did forget, did you? Is this your revenge on me? I know my article ended up breaking you and your teen paramour up.”
He scoffed, still not looking at her. “Not at all. We were just having fun. She was, as you noted, far too young for me, and it would have ended sooner or later.”
“But I ended it sooner. So now you’re dragging me into your sordid love life— alleged sordid love life with this ridiculous fake engagement. This feels like a soap opera, Nick. I do not have time for a soap opera. I have real things to concern myself with.”
“Like your career?”
“Yes, like with my career!” He said it like it was an accusation, his eyes slanted with a calculating look. He had a plan. And it made me nervous. Nick Meryton might have been an infamous playboy millionaire with the kind of sex appeal that had women falling at his feet, myself included, but behind that pretty boy mask was a sharp mind with goals that had always been opaque to me.
It occurred to me that part of the reason I had always been entranced by the myth of Nick Meryton because I sensed there were layers underneath that he hid from everyone. And I loved to dig out the stories beneath the surface. With him looking at me now, I felt the stirring of that story, I felt I might get lost in it, and a jolt of… fear? nerves? excitement? I wasn’t sure what, but it went through me.
“Eyes front, Nick! You’re going to crash us and then the headlines in the morning will be about how our epic romance was cut short in a tragic blaze of death.”
“Poetry,” he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm, but then he was pulling over, off to a side street where he parked, turned off the engine and turned to me.
My heart beat so loud I was surprised he couldn’t hear it in the suddenly quiet interior of the jeep.
“You want to know what your expose did to me, Chloe?”
I should not answer that question, it could lead nowhere good. “Yes,” I answered.
He took off his seat belt and leaned across the console towards me. I leaned back until I was pressing up against the cold glass of the windshield. He pointed a finger at me. “Your expose broke me and my junior girlfriend up, fine. You’re right. But it also put a public spotlight on my personal life and all the patterns that even I didn’t know I had. This wasn’t just paparazzi trying to sell pictures of me with the latest girl. This was one person analyzing my entire life and pointing out all my flaws for the entire world to see. That’s what you did.”
“I—I didn’t mean to.”
“You did mean to. You worked at that terrible gossip rag that never cared if their stories were true, and you dug into MY story and dissected it, and laid me on the table bare. And ever since then, I haven’t been able to go anywhere without a dozen women trying to be the one who to save me from my sad and lonesome life, searching for love.”
“I was just trying to tell the truth. To understand.”
“But I’m a person, Chloe, not a story. And you used your talent, and intelligence, and insight, and integrity, and whatever else; you held me up as an object to be examined.”
I couldn’t see his face, not in the darkness of the car, with just the streetlights shining in slantwise. I couldn’t see his eyes, and I wanted to. I wanted break down those defenses and know, really know what I had done. I could hear it in his voice: the pain I’d caused. I was just trying to be clever, to make my name as a writer. These people were shallow and used to gossip. I wanted to expose a truth, and I forgot. I forgot that it wasn’t just about me. “Nick,” I couldn’t erase the emotion from my voice, maybe I didn’t deserve to feel above this situation. “I’m sorry. That was not my intention. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Will you accept my apology?”
He grunted and turned back, without the focus on me, the intensity faded. It was just a dark car. He shrugged casually. “Well, let’s say you made it harder to do my job, because now I’m not only fighting off paparazzi but women who have decided I’m a big game prize.”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have called you a big game prize.”
“Too late now. But you can do something to make up for it.”
His voice had gone back to being that charming shallow celebrity. I shook myself out of the spell he’d put me under. “I suppose you think my pretending to be your fiance will make up for the article I wrote?”
“I think,” he said slowly, as if he were measuring his words, “that
pretending to be my fiance will allow me to get back to work and hold off the predatory women who are trying to hunt the next big game prize.”
“I’m sorry I called you that.”
“Yes, you said that,” he twisted around to face me and draped his arm over the back of my seat. I was still pressed back against the window, but it felt almost like a cage. “But if you’re really sorry, you can be my shield against these women and we can just get our work done without harassment. And it will get my parents off my back, to boot.” The streetlight caught his crooked grin and my breath whooshed out. “Because of course they read your article and decided that the only thing that could fix me would be to get married. That’s why my brother jumped on your little joke so quickly. Because he thought he could beat me in something finally.”
“My joke.”
“About wearing my engagement ring. So you could say that this whole mess is your fault.”
I found myself shaking my head, even though some of this was my fault, no it wasn’t, not the whole thing and I didn’t want to take that on. I didn’t do this all on my own and he had the perfect opportunity to tell David we weren’t engaged. “You could have told him we weren’t engaged, and it was a joke. I mean. Come on Nick, you hate me.”
That set him back in his seat. “I don’t hate you.” His voice was open in the darkness.
All I could do was remember how he had avoided me since the elevator. “That’s not the way it felt.” I did not like how vulnerable I sounded. There was something about sitting in the darkness like this, with the city going on around us, but just us too, right here, together. It reminded me of the way we were in the elevator, and despite my panic, how he treated me like I meant something, like I was important.
“Chloe. I’m your boss. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I was trying to just…” his words faded off.
“You didn’t kiss me, Nick. I kissed you. You were just trying to help me through my panic attack. I’m the one who shouldn’t have done it.”
He let his breath out hard. The force of it making clear some emotion that was going through him, but not clear which one. “I should have talked to you about it instead of avoiding you.”
Yes, he should have. “Well, we’re talking about it now.” I wanted to tell him that I wanted to kiss him again. But wanting him was not something I should do. He was my boss, and it was all a bad idea.
“It isn’t something that should have happened between us.”
“I’ll get the reputation of sleeping my way to the top.”
He laughed. “I can’t imagine you ever taking the easy way out. I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as you. And you never play games.”
“Isn’t that what this is, Nick? A game?”
“Chloe, no,” he said almost disappointed.
I shook my head. This was impossible. “I don’t even know how I would go about pretending to be your fiance. And I am not someone who the paparazzi are going to love. I mean look at me!”
His eyes travelled up and down my body. He cocked his head. “Believe me. I have been looking at you. You look…” the pause was heavy. “Amazing.”
“Well, Rachel forced this dress on me and made me go to her dumb spa. Do you think I look like this every day?”
“I like the way you look.”
The words shocked me. “Are you making fun of me? I know perfectly well I’m not poised or elegant or fashionable.”
“No, I actually do. You’re adorable. So earnest. You work so hard. You can never keep your hair up, or your shirt tucked in. And you chew your lipstick off by ten every morning because you’re thinking so hard.”
“How—how did you know that?” I brushed my hand over my hair self consciously. Had he been watching me?
“But okay, I understand it’s different being in the public eye. I’ve been doing this practically my whole life. This has just been thrust upon you.” A light came to his eye. “Give me one second, and I’ll figure this out.
He took out his phone, and I barely had a chance to think about how I could possibly pretend to be engaged to Nick, before he was off the phone.
“All done,” he said. “Tomorrow before work, you’ll go see my stylist, and she will get you a new camera ready wardrobe.”
“You have a stylist?”
“Of course I have a stylist. Do you think I can manage as the pretty boy face of Worldly Magazine without someone in charge of my styling? Chloe, this is a business, and this is part of my business.”
“And I would be part of your business. I mean. As your fiance. As part of this role.”
He nodded. “Yes. The secret is out at work.”
“It’s not a secret. It’s a lie.”
“Nevertheless, it’s out. So we don’t have to hide there.”
“We have to lie. We’re not engaged.”
He pressed his lips together in annoyance. “Look at it this way. You and I have an agreement in which we are allied in a personal and economic partnership in order to further both of our needs. That’s quite like an engagement, if you look at it the right way.”
“No it’s not. Not unless you turn it inside out.”
“Then let’s turn it inside out. We get to make our own story, Chloe. That’s the thing about playing this game that you don’t understand. Everyone plays it. And you’re so busy trying to earn your place at the table by being better and smarter than everyone else that you don’t notice that no one else is trying to be better or smarter, they’re just trying to take advantage of whatever advantage they have. This is your chance to take advantage. Now. This isn’t just good for me. This is good for you.”
“I don’t think I’m better than everyone else.”
“You should, dammit!” he snapped. “You are better. And smarter. And more talented. And so damn gorgeous.” He stopped for a second and stared at me, his breathing heavy. “Listen Chloe. You’ve been clear that you don’t think I earned my place, that I was born into it. Given it. So, let me give you some of it.”
“I think you’ve earned it,” I said, chastened. I had said he hadn’t earned it but I knew him better now.
“It doesn’t matter, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. We do this, this fake engagement, and I’ll make sure your career is advanced. You’ll get to do what you want to do. You’ll get to leave your mark on the world. I’ll give you that section in Worldly Magazine. The one you wanted, about domestic travel, indigenous concerns, and ecological interests.”
I was shocked. We had been fighting about it for months. Well not months if I was honest. Only weeks. He stopped fighting with me after he elevator. He stopped arguing with me and Rachel had started giving me assignments that fit my requests better. “But isn’t that cheating?
“Aren’t listening? Everyone cheats. Everyone takes the advantage when they get it. Take it. You’ve earned it. You are brilliant, Chloe, and I want your voice at my magazine, not just features. I want you to take charge of the entire section. I’ll give you a staff. I’ll make you domestic editor.”
I couldn’t breathe. “You can’t. I’ve just started working there. Everyone would hate me.”
“No one hates you. They all love you. Did you know that? They’re rooting for you. And, if you’re engaged to me, no one will think you’re using your body to get ahead. Nepotism is a time honored tradition. We’ll pace your advancement. It will seem natural. They might grumble, but they’ll also think better you than some twit model who fancies herself a writer. If you’re my wife, it will be seen as your right.”
“Your wife!”
“Fiance. Same difference. Look. It’s fake. We can have an engagement as long as you want. We don’t have to get married, but the heat will be off of me, and your career will be started with opportunities you’d never get without being engaged to me.”
“Nick…” this seemed like such a bad idea. It went against everything I’d ever thought about myself, and yet… and yet. I wanted more of him. His very presence next to me had me spiraling
tighter and tighter. I just wanted to be in his presence and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him when he wasn’t talking to me. I looked at him steadily, trying to figure him out in the shadows cast by the night. If I didn’t do this, would he cut me off again? Would I lose… him?
Oh this was a dangerous game. I was worried that not only was my career at stake, it was quite likely that my heart was at stake too.
He didn’t look at this arrangement as a romantic proposal. He wasn’t looking at me like he wanted me, and that hurt, although it was hard to admit it. He looked at me like this was entirely a business proposition. This was something that would make his life easier, his business easier, and simplify the complications that I’d added to his life with my expose. And my joke.
“This is a terrible idea, Nick.”
He glanced at me, cool as a cucumber, and shrugged. “It’s not real, Chloe. We put on an act. Pretend to go out. Say we’re engaged, and then when it doesn’t work any longer, we say we broke up. An amicable split. We go on our merry ways. You to your career and me, back to being the most eligible bachelor in New York City. What could go wrong?” There was that devastating smile that made anyone want to do what Nick wanted them to.
“All right,” I said, and I couldn’t believe I was saying it. “I’ll do it.” What could go wrong? I was afraid those would be the famous last words.
Chapter Nine: Setting Up
I couldn’t believe she actually agreed. I could not believe I’d suggested it, but the more I tried to convince her, the more it seemed like the best, most logical solution to a multitude of problems.
Of course, there was just one part of the equation I’d kept out of the argument and that was that this fake engagement was exactly the tactic I thought would work to get Chloe into my bed. Were the hordes of manhunters really that much of a problem for me? No not really. Were my parents nagging me to get married? It was annoying, but I was an expert at avoiding and ignoring my parents. Did I resent her expose and want to change her mind about who I was? Yeah, I did. And I didn’t want to do it as revenge, I wanted to do it because I didn’t like the insights she’d come to and I didn’t like the picture of me that she painted but I did like her and I was stubborn enough and egotistical enough that I wanted to make her like me.
