by Susan Meier
If Mitch had done either of those, she probably would have swooned at his touch. Because it was all-business Riccardo, she spun around and gaped at him. “What are you doing?”
He turned her head to face front. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Mitch blinked. “Oh, my God. Yes.”
“Sí. She is perfect.”
Mitch rose and rounded his desk to lean against it, in front of her. “Pale and delicate to Julia’s dark features.”
“Short and petite where Julia’s a little taller.”
“Smart,” Mitch added.
Riccardo laughed. “I won’t insult Julia by making the obvious comparison.”
Lila looked from Mitch to Riccardo and back to Mitch again. “What comparison? And could I have my glasses back so I can see?”
Riccardo said, “You can’t see without your glasses?”
She took her thick glasses from his hand. “Why else would anyone wear them?”
“Do you have contacts?” Mitch asked quietly, seriously.
Their gazes met and she swallowed hard. For the first time in a year, he wasn’t looking at her as an assistant but as a woman. She wasn’t sure how she knew the difference, except something in his eyes had shifted, changed, and a million fireflies glowed in her stomach.
“Yes. I have contacts. But I only wear them for special occasions.”
Riccardo said, “We have a very special occasion for you.”
“You’re sending me somewhere?”
“I’m taking you somewhere.”
Oh, wow. The only thing she’d heard in that sentence was I’m taking you. Her heart about popped out of her chest, and she knew she was in more trouble than she’d even believed the night before. She had to get away from this man or she’d be knitting sweaters for him when he was eighty as he dated twenty-year-old starlets.
“Mitch’s brother is getting married,” Riccardo said. “In Spain.”
She frowned. “I know. I reserved the family jet for you guys.”
“Yeah, well, Mitch needs more help than reserving the jet.”
Mitch pushed away from the desk. “You know what? I think Lila and I should talk about this privately.”
Riccardo’s eyebrows rose in question.
Mitch said, “Think it through, Riccardo. The less you know, the better the ruse will work.”
Riccardo laughed. “Okay. I get it.” He scooped up his copy of the income statement. “I’ll be in my office, but just remember I’m your detail guy. You won’t want to leave me out of the loop completely.”
He left the room, but in the last second, reached in, grabbed the knob on the door to the office and closed it.
The oddest feeling snaked through Lila. She’d been alone with Mitch a million times, behind closed doors lots of those times. But suddenly it felt like everything had changed.
“I really do need a favor. A big favor,” Mitch said, walking around his desk and dropping into his black leather chair.
“How big?” Seriously? Had her voice just shivered? The man was not the Big Bad Wolf and she certainly wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood. She’d been a foster child until she was eighteen. She’d fended for herself forever. Even in some ugly situations. How could a man she’d known a year, a man she loved and respected, send that kind of fear skittering through her?
“Riccardo already mentioned that my brother is getting married.”
“Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair. “What you don’t know is that Alonzo’s fiancée had been my girlfriend.” He glanced up, caught her gaze. “I cut a business trip short, sneaked into our apartment to surprise her with an engagement ring and caught them together in our bedroom.”
Her eyes widened. “Yikes.”
He waved his hands. “They were fully clothed. But, really? What reason did my brother have being so comfortable in my bedroom with the woman I’d come home to propose to?”
“None.”
“Exactly. They had the good graces not to even try to deny that they’d taken advantage of my many trips for our family’s vineyard to...get to know each other.”
She couldn’t help it. She giggled. He had such a sense of humor. And he seemed fine with his brother’s betrayal—or was it his girlfriend’s betrayal? Oh, God. It was both. How had he gotten over that? Maybe she shouldn’t have laughed?
He sat up. “That’s exactly the attitude I’d want you to have. That my brother marrying my former girlfriend is no big deal. Funny even. Because I couldn’t be happier for them. Alonzo truly loves Julia. She truly loves him. Theirs is the match that should have been made all along.”
Putting some of this together in her analytical brain, she said, “So you want me to come to Spain with you?”
“Sí.”
“As your date for the wedding.” The very thought made her nerve endings do a happy dance, but she told them to settle down. There was no way she could agree to that.
“No. Actually, I’d want you to pretend to be my fiancée.”
Her breathing stopped. “What?”
“My mom is okay. She has a lot of duties with the wedding to keep her busy. But my grandmother? She’s got way too much free time. I swear to God,” he said, raising his hands and opening them in supplication, “it won’t matter what I say. She’ll treat me like a wounded puppy the entire celebration.”
“And everybody will feel sorry for you.”
“It’s not just about pride. It’s about Julia and Alonzo’s special celebration. I don’t want the focus to be on me. I want it on them.”
“True.”
He leaned a little farther back in his chair. “I turned this arm of my family’s enterprise into our company’s biggest moneymaker. I’m branching out on my own. I don’t want to spend two weeks with my dad looking at me as if I’m emotionally unstable and wondering if he should replace me, even though I’m making tons of money for him and even more money for myself.”
“Never thought of that.”
“Then you don’t know how stubborn and thickheaded Spanish men can be.”
Oh, she had a pretty good idea.
“Your presence alone will satisfy everybody’s curiosity about how I dealt with my brother moving in on my girlfriend while I was traveling.” He laughed. “Or maybe I should say just your presence will prove that I easily handled my brother and girlfriend falling in love. And there will be no talk, no questions. Discussions with my dad will go smoothly. My grandmother will chat you up about our future wedding plans and probably take you shopping for china patterns, not smother me with unwanted, unnecessary sympathy.”
He took a breath, then added, “I’m not going to lie. This will be a long two weeks of acting for you. But I’ll compensate you. In fact, right now I’m so sure this is the best way to go that I’m willing to give you anything you want.”
What she wanted was him.
But that was actually what made this favor impossible. “I can’t.” She’d get stars in her eyes. She’d read into things and when she came home she’d be even more in love with him than she was now. So, no. She couldn’t do it.
“Okay, let me be frank. The family jet leaves tomorrow. I can’t go out and hunt up a woman to do this for me. Not someone whose discretion I trust. Because you truly have to keep this secret. If my family even suspects this is a ruse, it will backfire.” He held her gaze. “I trust you in a way I’ve never trusted anyone. And I need you. I honestly don’t think anybody but you could pull this off.”
She said nothing, torn between agreeing simply because she was an employee who believed it was her job to do whatever her boss wanted, and recognizing this wasn’t a normal boss/assistant request. It was above and beyond her duties. And potentially heartbreaking for her.
“Isn’t there anything you
want?”
She said nothing.
“Anything you need?”
That’s when it hit her. She did have something she needed. She could ask him to use his considerable resources to find her mom, but then she’d still be working for him. She’d spend two weeks pretending to be his fiancée and come home to being his assistant again. That was a heartbreak waiting to happen.
But a new job would not only provide money for a private investigator to locate her mom, it would get her away from Mitch and her pointless crush. She really would be getting a fresh start.
“I need a new job.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I want a new job.” Assistant jobs, though a dime a dozen, didn’t always pay well. With his connections he could find her one of those gems of a job that didn’t get advertised in any of the job search websites. Plus, if she handled this right, going to Spain could be the end of her association with him. She wouldn’t have to come home and pretend they hadn’t kissed—albeit for the benefit of his family. She would be gone. Off to start a new job. A new life. The life she wanted.
“You have lots of friends and connections. I’d need to get a job that would pay me more than this salary. And the job would have to lead to promotions.”
“You don’t like your job here?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I could raise your salary.”
“Mitch, if you want me to do this, today has to be my last day with Ochoa Online.”
He didn’t even blink. “Okay.”
CHAPTER TWO
LILA WALKED OUT of the office building that housed Ochoa Online and toward Mitch’s black limo, which awaited her on the busy New York City street.
Opening the back door, his driver, Pete, said, “Good morning, Lila.”
“Morning, Pete. We’ll be stopping two blocks up on the right to pick up my friend Sally.”
“Very good.”
She slid onto the seat. He closed the door, and she made herself comfortable as he took his position behind the wheel and eased into traffic. Two blocks up, he stopped, jumped out and opened the door for Sally.
When Pete pulled out into traffic again, pretty blonde Sally turned to Lila and said, “All right. Spill. What did you agree to?”
She sucked in a breath. “Two weeks of pretending to be my boss’s fiancée. In return, he’s going to find me a new job and I’m going to use the extra money I earn to find my mom.”
The expression on Sally’s face showed that she was trying to understand, but in the end she shook her head. “You are certifiable. Your motives are good, but pretending to be the fiancée of a man you actually like? That’s nothing but trouble.”
“That’s why I couldn’t just have him hire a PI to find my mom. Because then I’d still be working for him. I had to ask for a new job so that no matter what happens in Spain it wouldn’t follow me home. Once I leave Spain, I’ll never see him again. Plus, he assured me that most of the time I’d be on my own while he and his brother, father, uncle and cousin talked business.”
“On your own?”
“After I agreed to do this, he told me that I’d spend most of the two weeks with his nanna shopping or running errands, or helping his mom organize the house for a ball a few days after we get there that opens two weeks of celebrations, a second ball the following week to greet latecomers, a reception the night before his brother’s wedding and a party the day after.”
“You are going to have to be one hell of an actress.”
“Or I can just look at it as an extension of my job. I plan Mitch’s yearly Christmas party. I plan the business dinners he hosts at his penthouse.” She shrugged. “I’m just going to look at it like another Ochoa party.”
Sally sighed. “And the other?”
“What other?”
“When you have to be his date?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be pee-your-pants nervous.”
Lila laughed. “Maybe at first. But I’ve also decided to look at that as an extension of my job.”
“Kissing your boss?”
“I’ll pigeonhole it somehow.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No. I’m getting a new job out of it. A new life.” She angled her thumb to point behind them. “Me walking out of that office building a few minutes ago was me walking out forever. I told him the two weeks we spend in Spain are my two-week notice and when we get back I will expect him to have gotten me a new job, one that pays more than what I make with him.”
“Wow. You’re really leaving.”
“I have to. He was surprised when I said I wanted a new job, but when I pushed he didn’t seem at all upset to see me go.” And that had hurt more than she cared to think about. But it also proved he absolutely had no feelings for her. “He might as well have come right out and said that he desperately needed this favor, or that he just doesn’t give a damn that I want another job. Either way, it sort of proves doing this was the right thing. If he needs a fiancée this badly, I have to help him. And if he doesn’t care that I want a new job, then it really is time for me to go. It’s win/win.”
“Are you sure you’re not going to be sorry?”
“I’ve had a crush on this man since the day I met him. He’s never noticed me. Only an idiot hangs around forever.”
“True.”
“And this way I don’t merely have a new job that pays enough that I can find my mom.” She waved two credit cards. “I get a new wardrobe out of it.”
Sally grabbed the cards. “Seriously?”
“Yep. That’s why I need your help this morning. I have a hundred-thousand-dollar credit limit on each. Riccardo said use it all. Get everything, including fancy luggage. He said the wedding is formal and I’ll also need a gown for the reception the night before. Not to mention the opening ball and a few cocktail parties. He said I’ll need enough jeans and shorts and dresses and bathing suits never to be seen in the same thing twice.”
Sally gaped at her. “You have hit the jackpot.”
“Nope. Believe it or not, Riccardo and Mitch see this as absolutely necessary. I have to look like somebody Mitch would want to marry. To them it’s like wardrobe for a play. So, all I have to do is endure two weeks of pretending to be in love with the man I actually do love, and I’ll walk away with my freedom, a new job that hopefully pays enough that I can find my mom and enough clothes to be a whole new person.”
She also had to not take any of it seriously, keep her wits about her and not end up with a broken heart.
But she didn’t tell Sally that. She’d had enough trouble convincing herself she could do it. Sally would never let her go if she thought there was even an inkling of a doubt—and she desperately wanted to find her mom. She wanted the life they’d missed out on.
Oddly, pretending to be in love with the man she actually loved was her ticket away from him and to that life.
* * *
Mitch paced the tarmac at ten o’clock the next morning, nervous about this plan. Yesterday, it had seemed like a good idea. Today, thinking about Lila’s unruly hair, glasses and frumpy clothes, he found it hard to believe he actually thought they could pull this off. He liked her as an assistant—No. He loved her as an assistant. She was smart and thorough and always at his side, ready to do whatever needed to be done. But in the entire time they’d worked together they’d never even had a good enough conversation to tip over into becoming friends.
How in the hell could he have been so desperate to imagine they could pretend to be lovers for two weeks?
His limo suddenly appeared around the corner of the hangar. He’d bought a cab to the airport, leaving Pete and the limo for Lila to make sure she got to the correct place. Seeing them pull up, though, only added to his apprehension. H
ow was he going to pretend to love somebody he barely knew?
The limo stopped. Pete jumped out and opened the back door. One pale pink strappy sandal appeared, then a long length of leg, then the pink hem of a skirt, then Lila stepped out completely. Chestnut-brown hair had been thinned into a sleek, shoulder-length hairdo and now had blond highlights. Her lips were painted a shimmery pink. The little pink dress hugged her curves.
Holy hell.
Big black sunglasses covering half her face, she strolled up to him, a smile curving a lush mouth that he’d never noticed before.
“Do I pass?”
He fought the urge to stutter. “You look—” Unbelievable. Amazing. So different that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Very good. Perfect.”
“I took you for the sunglasses and miniskirt type.”
And who knew her legs were so long, so shapely?
He covered his shock at her perception of his taste in women with a nervous laugh. “You maxed out Riccardo’s credit cards, didn’t you?”
She glanced back at Pete, who pulled suitcase after suitcase out of the car. “He told me to, but I didn’t. You don’t grow up a foster child without getting some mad skills with money. It would have killed me to pay full price for some of these things. Besides, clearance racks sometimes have the best clothes.”
She made a little motion with her fingers for Pete to bring her luggage to the plane, then she headed for the steps. Mitch watched her walk up the short stack and duck into the fuselage, vaguely aware when Pete walked up beside him.
“Who knew, huh?”
“Yeah.” Mitch didn’t have to ask what Pete was talking about. His Plain Jane assistant looked like she’d stepped off the cover of a magazine. Her high-heeled sandals added a sway to her hips. Sunglasses made her look like someone who summered in the Mediterranean.
Pete said, “Better get going.”
Realizing he was standing there gaping like an idiot, he walked to the steps and climbed into the plane. Lila sat on one of the four plush, white leather seats that swiveled and looked like recliners. He stopped.
