“Ah,” Hunter said. “Do you have someone in mind?”
“Not really,” he said, but he knew that wasn’t true. His mind kept pushing one face forward. She had nicely tanned olive skin, thick long black hair and the deepest, darkest brown eyes he’d ever gazed into. She was also not looking for marriage and needed a break from her matchmaking mother. He could provide her cover. But she’d have to be crazy to go along with his idea.
And she wasn’t.
She was a single mom who needed her best friend to be there for her. Not come up with some scheme that would enable him to act out his long-held fantasies of calling Bianca Velasquez his.
Even if it was only for two months, three tops.
Damn.
Just then, Derek noticed her walk into the room with a guy who was a couple of years older than they were. She was smiling politely but he knew her routine. She’d brought him to the club for dinner so that when it was over she could politely bid him adieu and then walk the few blocks back to her parents’ house in a nearby subdivision.
She was elegant. Graceful. The kind of woman whom dashing A-listers fell for. Not the kind of woman who’d agree to a fake engagement.
“Uh-oh,” Ethan said.
“What-o?” Hunter said.
“That has never been funny,” Derek said.
“It’s a little funny,” Ethan pointed out.
“Not tonight,” Derek said.
“I’m still not caught up. Where is Nate?” Hunter asked. Nate was their eldest brother and the last of three of them to arrive. He had recently married the mother of his three-year-old daughter, Penny. Derek liked seeing his eldest brother take on the role of husband and father.
“He’s running late. Something to do with taking Penny on a ride before he could drive into town,” Ethan said. “Being a daddy has changed him.”
“It settled him down,” Hunter said. “You two should try it.”
“I am, sort of,” Derek said. The idea of really settling down and getting married wasn’t appealing. He was married to his job. It took a lot of focus and concentration to be a top surgeon and most women—even Marnie—didn’t really get that. They wanted a man who paid at least as much attention to them as the job.
“What you’re doing doesn’t count,” Hunter said. “Bianca deserves better than a fake proposal.”
“It’s probably as close as I’m going to get,” Derek admitted. He knew that Ethan was hung up on a woman who was married to one of his friends. So that was probably not going to happen, either. “You know we’re the ones who aren’t letting the gossips of Cole’s Hill down. They like to think of us as the Wild Carutherses, which we can’t be if we are all married up.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Ethan said.
Derek toasted his brother and when Nate joined them a few minutes later the conversation thankfully changed from his fake engagement. Derek ate and drank with his brothers and kept one eye on the bar area where Bianca and her date were. He was ready to help her out. Like a friend would. That was all. Hunter had been right: there was no decent woman who wanted a fake fiancé.
* * *
Bianca Velasquez wasn’t having the best year. She’d rung in New Year’s by herself on the balcony of a royal mansion in Seville while Jose was en route to meet her. His plane had crashed and that had been...well, devastating. She’d never had the opportunity to finish her business with Jose. She’d been mad at him and had said to herself she’d hated him but the truth was he’d been her first love. They had a child together and no matter how many women he slept with while traveling the world on the F1 racing circuit, she...well, she hadn’t been ready for him to leave her so abruptly.
She rubbed the back of her neck as what’s-his-name droned on about a hobby he’d recently taken up. To be honest she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d zoned out a long time ago. And the thing was, he seemed like a nice man. The kind of man who deserved a woman who would engage in conversation with him instead of marking time and eating her dinner and dessert so quickly she gave herself indigestion. But Bianca couldn’t be that woman.
“And I’ve lost you,” he said.
She smiled over at him. He was good-looking and charming, everything she’d normally like in a man. “I’m sorry. This is a case of it really not being you, but me. I’m just...”
He shook his head. “I get it. Your mom mentioned this was a long shot but I couldn’t resist seeing if you were as beautiful in person as you were in your photographs.”
She blushed. She’d been a full-time model by the time she was eighteen and had gotten a contract that had taken her to Paris and launched her career as a supermodel. It had been in Paris where she’d met Jose and fallen for him. But she was older now and no longer felt like that carefree girl. “Those photos were a long time ago.”
“Which photos? I’m talking about the one on your mom’s desk,” he said.
“Oh. This is embarrassing. I am totally not myself tonight,” she said. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“It wasn’t a waste and if you ever feel like trying this again,” he said, “give me a call.”
He got up and left and she sat there at the table, staring out the windows that led to the golf course. The sun had long since set. She should head home but her son was already in bed and her mom would probably want to grill her about the date. And that wasn’t going to go well.
So instead she signaled her waiter to clear away the dessert dishes and ordered herself a French martini.
“Want some company?”
She glanced up to see Derek Caruthers standing next to her table. He wore his hair short in the back and longer on top; it fell smoothly and neatly over his forehead. When they’d been kids his brownish blond hair had been unruly and wild, much like Derek himself. These days he was a surgeon renowned for his skills in the operating theater.
“I have it on good authority that I am not that charming tonight.”
He pulled out the chair that her date had recently vacated and sat down. “Surely not.”
“It’s true. I was the most awful date. I felt like the worst sort of mean girl.”
He signaled the waiter for a drink, and a moment later he had a highball glass filled with scotch and she had her martini.
“To old friends,” he said.
“To old friends,” she returned the toast, tapping the rim of her glass against his.
“How’d the meeting go today?” she asked. She envied Derek. He had his life together. He knew what he wanted, he always got it and unlike her he seemed happy with his single life.
“Not as I’d planned,” he said.
She took a sip of her drink and then frowned over at him. “That’s not like you. What happened?”
“An old frenemy showed up, making problems as is her habit and I had to shut her down,” Derek said, downing his drink in one long swallow.
“How?” Bianca asked. “Tell me your troubles and I’ll help you solve them.”
It was nice to be discussing a problem with Derek. A problem that didn’t involve her. The thirty-something who’d moved back in with her parents. She knew the gossips in Cole’s Hill had a lot to say about that. From jet-setter to loser in a few short months. She pushed her martini aside realizing she was getting melancholy.
“Actually you can help me out,” Derek said, leaning forward and taking one of her hands in his.
“Name it. You’re one of my closest friends and you know I would do anything for you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said.
She smiled. Of course she’d help Derek out. He’d always been her stalwart friend. When she’d dreamed of leaving Texas and going to Paris to model, he’d listened to her dreams and helped her make a plan to achieve them. When she’d been lonely that first
year, he’d emailed and texted with her every day.
“What do you need from me?”
“I need you to be my fiancée.”
Copyright © 2017 by Katherine Garbera
ISBN-13: 9781488011795
From Temptation to Twins
Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Dunlop
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