The December Deception
Page 9
“Magnets?”
“I collect them when I travel and write the dates on the back.”
“How long were you over there?”
“About twelve months.”
“Why didn’t you stay longer?”
“Wanted to come back to see my family. I missed them.”
Family values. Good. There was a chance she was going to get along with his family.
“Are you from Casper?”
He nodded. “Same as you. I love Wyoming as my home base, but traveling is always high on my priority list.”
“Good. Glad that’s settled.” She chuckled, and he could hear her nerves.
This was foreign for him too. It was nice to know she wasn’t completely comfortable with this wild plan.
He checked his watch—he had a meeting with a general contractor in fifteen minutes. “So . . . what do you think?” A proposal had never been finer.
“I still need the payment first.” She sat forward, set down her cup, and clasped his folded hands in hers on the table. “We are basically strangers”—her brown eyes intensified—“but I promise you, I will stick to the deal and fulfill my end. No matter what. I can’t do that, though, without the payment, in full, up front. That’s the whole reason I’d do this.”
Her eyes bore into him, and he sensed her seriousness and desperation. Her soft hands continued to try to cover his on the table, and he glanced down.
“Fine.” Normally he played business close to the vest, but there was no other way to close this deal.
He was going to have to give her his mother’s ring to sell the union. But first he had to make sure to get her down the aisle and past the hurdle of asking but not actually following through with the “I do.” His gaze met hers again, but not before they rested on her lips for a moment—so pink and shiny and kissable.
This was fake. All fake.
Yep, he was out of his damn mind. And then there were her eyes. Beautiful brown eyes that stirred a sense of adventure he’d lost lately.
“Thank you.”
“We’ll live in my house,” he blurted out. “I don’t know what you have, and we’ll take care of the payments, but my house is big and I like it.”
She nodded, and her fingers slid away from his as she sat up. Her warmth was gone. It figured that he’d felt nothing for the slew of women who would have made great wives, but now that he was paying a gypsy-type woman for a fake marriage, his body was primed and ready to go.
“Will your family know this isn’t real?” she asked.
“They’ll probably guess—I’m really close to the deadline. How about yours?”
Her eyes darted around the room again, and four of her fingers ran back and forth over her thumb. “It would be best if they thought it was real. I don’t want them to know about the money.”
“Okay, then we tell no one. To everyone else, this is totally real.”
She reached out her hand and they shook.
• • •
The little voice in the back of Lilia’s head wasn’t so little anymore. Or quiet. The name change had really set her off. Marrying a stranger wasn’t a good idea—buying in so far as to change her name made her skin damp, her hands a little shaky, and her mouth dry. This is the right thing to do. This is the only way to give Dad a fighting chance. A chance she’d never regret giving him and one she wouldn’t tell anyone what she had to do to make happen. Unless her current last-ditch effort paid off, literally, and she could still call herself a moral person in the mirror.
She walked through the open door to Zack King’s office and sat down in a semi-comfortable, standard-issue, North Platte River Bank chair.
“I didn’t know you were back.” Zack wrinkled his forehead to look over his thin-rimmed glasses without turning from his screen.
“Couple of weeks ago. How’ve you been?” She clutched her bag on her lap, trying to get rid of her nervous energy. She wasn’t one for begging. But desperate times and all.
“Darla and I broke up. But other than that, all right.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
She’d known Zack from high school, and he was probably the unluckiest person in love she’d ever met.
“What brings you in?”
“Well,” she said and cleared her throat, “I need a loan.”
“Great. For how much?”
“One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.” She’d take far less money, an amount that would still get her dad the treatment he needed, if it meant the next year of her own life wouldn’t get highjacked.
“Are you buying a house?”
“No. I need the money for something else.”
“A business?”
“Not exactly.”
“What kind of collateral do you have?”
She’d always known that one day her drifter lifestyle would bite her in the butt. It’s why she hadn’t turned to Zack first. But miracles could happen at Christmas. Couldn’t they? “Hmm. Clothes?”
“Lilia, you know I’d love to help you out. But I can’t just hand out loans. I have to go through a process—one that involves collateral.”
She took a deep breath and slumped into her chair. “I knew it was a long shot.”
Perfect, she was so totally screwed. There was only one other thing to do. “What do you know about Morgenstern Fabrication?” The least she could do was ask one person in town about her future husband before she said her I dos.
“Oh, I know Vinny.”
“Vinny?” She scrunched her face, and her nose wrinkled. No. Absolutely not. She’d be calling him Vincent.
“Ya, he owns the place. Good guy. We golf together in the summer.”
Okay, that wasn’t bad news. Zack was a good judge of character—male character, that is. He still sucked when it came to the women he chose to date.
She let Zack get back to his numbers and tried not to cry as she walked out of the bank. She was really going to have to make this commitment—something she’d never wanted to do even with Zenzo. And she’d loved him. Still did love him? She felt a lot of emotions for him, but more of the live-together kind than the forever type.
She angled into her car and couldn’t breathe. She liked her last name it was nice and strong and held her family ties. Lilia Morgenstern? That sounded like she should be a character in an Addams Family episode. Starting her car to turn on the heat, she reached for her cell phone. The seven-hour time difference made it evening in Italy.
She dialed, and with each ring, her heart beat louder in her ears. Why was she even calling him? They’d agreed breaking up was the best. Or rather, he’d suggested so. She hadn’t said much.
“Lilia?” His familiar Italian accent caused the ends of her lips to curve.
“Hey there.”
Music played in the background, and she could picture the little restaurant he was probably at with a gaggle of friends, wine, and a live band. Life seemed simpler over there.
“It’s nice to hear from you.” The music softly disappeared from his end.
“How are you?” She really didn’t know what else to say. She’d never told him why she’d had to leave in such a hurry.
“Doing well. Is it nice to be back home?”
“Yeah, it’s been a busy couple of weeks.” She picked at her steering wheel with her finger. “How’s business?” His custom sandal business was how they’d met four months ago.
“Baby, come back inside.” A woman’s voice that she didn’t recognize was clear on the other end of the line. There was a sensual laugh and what sounded like kissing.
Lilia froze, and chills zoomed down her spine. Baby? What the hell? Did their time together mean so little he’d moved on after only two weeks? Men. Pigs, the lot of them.
“I see you’re busy,” Lilia managed between gritted teeth. “I was just calling to tell you I’m getting married.” Whoa. Yep, she’d said it.
“You’re what?”
Oh, now she had his attention.
“Yep. So . . . ” This could possibly be the only satisfying thing about her upcoming nuptials.
“To who? Is this why you didn’t say yes to me?”
“No one you know.” Or she knew. Zenzo didn’t need the details. She hadn’t said yes to him because committing the rest of her life to a person was terrifying—what if their love didn’t last and she was stuck with someone she hated? Divorce meant absolute failure, and she hated failing. “Anyway. Take care.”
She hung up and threw her phone on the passenger seat as if it were diseased. Before she could control her emotions, tears trailed down her cheeks. She’d left a wonderful life to come home because her dad was sick, Zenzo had moved on, and now she was going to get married and change her last name to make sure her dad got treatment. A treatment none of them knew would even work on his horrible cancer with a less-than-stellar survival rate. Was this really what she wanted to do? She stared at the bleak afternoon—the sun was gone and the sky threatened more snow.
No. But it was exactly what she had to do.
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Crimson Romance
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Copyright © 2017 by Dana Volney.
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First Crimson Romance e-book edition DECEMBER 2017.
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ISBN 978-1-5072-0734-5 (ebook)
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