Wait a minute.
Part of Ethan’s bargain was that he would pay her. She would be able to afford to rent studio space. A New York artist with her own studio... If that wasn’t a dream come true!
But on the other hand...
And she needed to consider...
She couldn’t really...
And then what...?
When Holly opened her eyes, a drizzly morning sky crept in through the window. At some point she had finally dozed off, her mind twirling about the past and what the future could hold. Now, with morning’s dawn in Ethan Benton’s bedroom, certainty hit her like a ton of bricks.
If something seemed too good to be true, it was.
Not cut out to be anyone’s pretend anything, Holly was only who she was. Ethan was kidding himself. It could only end in disaster. She would do him a favor by acknowledging the impossibility of his proposal, even though he wasn’t able to see it for himself.
His judgment was clouded by his deep love for his aunt Louise. How touching was his concern for her welfare, for her reputation and her happiness. Blood ran thick. A good man took his family responsibilities seriously...
She had to call her brother. She wouldn’t tell him about Ethan’s offer. But she did need his help sorting out this confusion about her staying in the apartment. It would be good to hear his voice. In the end, he was the only one she really had in her corner.
He’d be working out in the garage of the little house he rented in Miami. Lifting weights. Bench pressing and hoisting dumbbells before showering and getting to work at Benton.
“Vinz.” She pictured him, no doubt in a muscle shirt drenched in sweat. His close-cropped blond hair so unlike her black. The round blue eyes marking him as her kin.
“Holz! How’s the Big Apple so far?”
She explained the mix-up with the apartment.
Vince promised to make some calls as soon as he got into the office. “I’ll get it fixed,” he assured her.
“I don’t know if you can.”
“Listen to me, big sis. We’re going to sniff out opportunities for you and you’re going take them. You’ll grab everything that’s thrown your way.”
“Yeah.”
“Remember—straight up or fall down!” He chanted their lifelong rally call—the desperate bravado of two kids with no one but each other to root for them.
After hanging up, Holly held the phone in her hand and stared absently out the window for a while. Thick clouds in the sky moved horizontally across her vision.
There had always been rainy days. No one knew how many more were ahead. It would be such a gift to have an umbrella.
Finally she tossed the phone onto the bed and opened the door.
Ethan was in the kitchen. She watched him start a pot of coffee before he noticed she was there. When he did, she leaned against the doorway. Her hair was probably a mess. Surely she had bags under her eyes from her fitful night. She lifted her hand and looked at her fingers with their perpetual paint around the cuticles and under the nails. She was who she was.
“Okay, Ethan. I’ll marry you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE SAID YES! Ethan wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She said yes!
His blood coursed. His muscles tingled.
She said yes!
And then he caught himself. Good heavens. There was no cause for fireworks to be launched from his heart. There was no reason to announce his undying devotion in front of the citizens of Manhattan. He was not a giddy groom filled with bliss and anticipation.
A woman he’d met yesterday had agreed to a jointly beneficial contract. He signed deals every day. This was just another one.
With a flick on the switch of the coffeepot he shook his head, trying to dislodge the obvious cobwebs in his skull.
He’d gotten a bit carried away.
Truthfully, he hadn’t been alone with a woman in a long time—and certainly not in the close quarters of a small apartment. Perhaps that had stirred up a primal reaction in him. While the mating ritual wasn’t part of his daily life, it was a natural phenomenon.
Although Ethan employed thousands of women in all aspects of his business, he shunned intimate social situations with them as much as possible. Keeping a clear and level head was what he did best. Women were distracting. Distractions were to be avoided. Problem—solution.
This was the first lesson he needed in order to carry off his plan. He was going to be spending a lot of time with an attractive woman. He’d need to guard and defend himself against her feminine charms. It wasn’t personal. It didn’t matter whether it was Holly, pregnant Penelope Perkins or another actress he’d picked from a photograph.
In three measured breaths, with his face toward the coffeepot, he set his focus. Guard and defend.
Then he turned to Holly, still standing in the doorway. Dark cascades of hair fell around her pretty face, which had a just-woken flush in her cheeks. Her tee shirt was definitely not concealing a bra.
Involuntarily, his body began to lean toward hers. A kiss pushed forward from his lips.
Guard and defend!
In the nick of time, he pulled himself back. Her allure was something he’d need to get accustomed to. His body’s involuntary response to her worried him...told him that might be difficult.
But he would be triumphant. For the sake of Aunt Louise he could conquer anything.
Ethan directed himself to talk, since he couldn’t kiss. “How did you sleep?”
“Great,” she lied.
Her eyes looked tired. He hadn’t got much sleep, either. He was far too tall to stretch out comfortably on that sofa. Plus, his mind had taunted him with replays of the evening.
“That coffee smells good,” she said as she massaged the back of her neck.
“It does. How do you take it?”
“Lots of milk or cream. No sugar.”
Ethan opened one of the cabinets to look for cups. It held only drinking glasses. He hadn’t spent enough time in this apartment to know where everything was kept. His second try yielded large white mugs. Setting them on the black granite countertop, he poured the steaming coffee.
The kitchen was Manhattan Minimal. Pint-size efficiency. Cabinets, sink and dishwasher on one side. Stove and refrigerator on the other. A one-person kitchen. Too cramped for two people to work in.
Which was why when Holly stepped in to open the fridge he felt her hips brush past him. In turn, his hips reacted of their own volition—which, fortunately, she didn’t notice.
“What are we eating for breakfast?’ she asked as she peered into the refrigerator.
“What do we have?” He’d only had bottles of water when he’d got in yesterday, and beer last night with the pizza.
“Eggs, butter and cheese. And the bread and fruit.” She pointed to the baskets on the counter. “We can work with this.”
The way she said we made Ethan’s ears prick up. He wasn’t used to we. He’d worked very hard at avoiding we. This was no time to start. Although for the first time he was curious about we. He reasoned that this fake engagement was a perfect way of safely pretending to experience we, with both parties knowing fully well that the truth was me and me achieving individual goals.
Right. However, now it felt somewhat confusing.
Holly pulled the carton of milk out of the fridge and handed it to him. Ethan was keenly aware of their fingertips touching during the exchange.
She laid ingredients on the counter. “How does cheese omelets, toasted bagels and sliced fruit sound?”
“What do you generally eat for breakfast?”
Holly giggled. A bit of blush rose in her cheeks. How adorable. “Was that a get-to-know-each-other question?”
“It was. If we are going to be convin
cing as an engaged couple, we have to know those sorts of things about each other.”
He handed her a mug. She took a slow sip and exhaled her satisfaction.
“You put the perfect amount of milk in my cup, so we must be off to a good start.”
Ethan felt ridiculously proud that she liked her coffee.
“How do you take yours?” she went up.
“Also without sugar. But not as much milk.”
“I’ll eat anything...” She went back to his question. “If we hadn’t polished off that pizza, that’s great cold in the morning.”
“Cold pizza? Noted.”
“Do you know how to cook?”
“I could probably manage to broil a steak without ruining it.”
“Eggs?”
“Not really,” he confessed.
“Today you learn, then.”
“Is that so?”
“I’ll put on a show for your aunt Louise, but surely you don’t think I’m going to be cooking and cleaning for you.” Her face stilled in a moment of earnest uncertainty. “Do you?”
“Of course not, phony fiancée.”
“It’s just that I’ve done plenty of taking care of people in my life. I just want to take care of myself.”
Holly had been through a lot. He’d been able to tell that about her from the start—had seen it right through her spunky attitude. She was no fresh-faced hopeful, arriving in New York full of delusions and fantasies. There was a past. A past that he suspected included hardship and pain.
Another one of those innate urges told him to wrap his arms around her and promise that he’d make up for all her hurts. That now she would be the one taken care of. That he’d quite like to make it his life’s mission to take care of her in every possible way.
Once again he had to chastise himself sternly. He had merely hired her to perform a service. For which she would be paid very well. With that opportunity she would be able to find whatever she’d come to New York to get. She didn’t need him.
The agony of that shocked him. A reminder to guard and defend.
Holly handed him the carton of eggs. She gave him a bowl. “Four.”
Finding a cutting board and a knife, Holly sliced cheese while Ethan cracked eggs. They stood side by side at their tasks, each dependent on the other in order to get the job done. Ethan appreciated teamwork. That was what made Benton Worldwide, and every other successful venture work. It must be the same in a marriage.
Two bagels were halved and popped into the toaster.
“Frying pan?” she mused to herself, and quickly moved to his other side to find one.
His mind flipped back to the past. To Aunt Louise and Uncle Melvin. It had been almost ten years since they’d done the normal things that married couples did. Mel had died over five years ago. Before that recurrences of his cancer had often had him bedridden. But they’d had moments like these. Hundreds, even thousands of cozy day-to-day moments like preparing breakfast.
Those moments strung together added up to a life shared between two people.
In reality, with their success and privilege it was not as if Aunt Louise and Uncle Mel had often been in the kitchen frying up eggs. But they had always cooked Sunday supper together whenever they could. It had been one of their signatures.
Ethan had potent memories of the two of them together as a couple. The way they’d been with each other. Even if it they had just been at the front door on the way out, helping each other layer on coats, scarves and hats to brave the Boston winter. How they’d maneuvered around each other. With effortless choreography. Totally at ease with each other, aware of each other’s moves, each other’s needs, each other’s comforts.
He understood why Aunt Louise so wanted that same security for him. Why she was concerned with the way he jetted around the globe, working all the time, never stopping, never settling. The wisdom of age had shown her what might happen to a man who didn’t balance power and labor with the other things that made life worth living. Family. Love.
But his aunt should accept that after all Ethan had been through love wasn’t an option for him. He would never open his heart. Her destiny wasn’t his. Yet he couldn’t blame her for wishing things were different. That his past hadn’t defined his future.
In reflection, Aunt Louise had valued her relationship with Uncle Mel above everything else in her life. She’d had a love so true it had never let her down.
Unlike him.
This ruse was the best solution. If the knowledge that Ethan was engaged to be married made Aunt Louise happy, and put her mind at ease, then he’d have taken good care of her. Ethan was in charge of all decisions now, and he wanted them to be in his aunt’s best interests.
He and Holly sat down at the table with their breakfast. Just as she had with the pizza last night, she dug in like a hungry animal. She took big bites and didn’t try to disguise her obvious pleasure.
Ethan asked if maybe she had gone hungry as a child.
“My mother was...unpredictable.”
Something he himself knew more than a little about. Anger burned his throat.
A bittersweet smile crossed her mouth as she cut circular slices of an orange and handed one to him. “Vince and I used to call these rings of sunshine. There were always oranges in Florida.”
He wanted to know how she’d been wronged. But he wasn’t going to walk on that common ground.
“Aunt Louise and Fernando are coming for dinner on Wednesday.” He cut to the matter at hand. “We need to prepare. Our first order of business is making this apartment look like we truly live here. We will start with...”
“The artwork!” they chimed in unison.
“We will visit my favorite galleries in Soho. You can make the final selection.”
Outside, stormy skies had given way to more hard rain.
“Dress accordingly.”
He plucked his phone from his pocket and began tapping.
* * *
Half an hour later, a stocky man in a suit and chauffeur’s cap held a car door open for Holly.
“This is my driver, Leonard,” Ethan introduced.
“Ma’am.”
Holly darted into the black car without getting too wet from the downpour. Sliding across the tan leather backseat, she made room for Ethan beside her. Leonard shut the passenger door and hurried around to the driver’s seat.
As they pulled away from the apartment building, Ethan activated the privacy glass that separated the front seat from the back.
Holly didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into. Fear and excitement rattled her at the same time.
Soho galleries and shareholders’ galas... She didn’t really know how she was going to fake her way through a life so different from hers. Being ferried around New York in a town car with a privacy glass.
Ethan had clearly noticed her discomfort at his shielding his driver from any conversation they were going to have. “Obviously we need complete discretion to pull off our little enterprise, do we not?”
“Yup.”
“Off we go, then. Yes?”
As crazy as it was, she’d already said yes to this wild ride with him. “Yes.”
She watched New York though the car window. The city was gorgeous in the rain. Buildings seemed even taller and grander beneath the turbulent skies. People in dark clothes with umbrellas hurried along the sidewalks. To her eyes, they looked as if they were from a bygone era. Her mind snapped mental pictures. She wanted to paint all of it.
While Ethan checked messages on his phone Holly was aware of every breath he took. Her lungs couldn’t help synchronizing each of his inhales and exhales with her own. They were so near each other on the seat her leg rested along his. She detected a faint smell of his woodsy shampoo.
Y
ou’ll get used to him, she told herself. Soon enough, he won’t be so enchanting.
Ethan touched his phone and brought the device to his ear.
“Nathan. Did you receive my text? Have you made all of the appointments for today?”
He nodded once as he listened.
“Diane—got it. Jeremy—got it. Thank you. Set me up for meetings next week with Con East and the Jersey City contractors.”
He looked toward Holly and licked his top lip, although she was sure he didn’t realize he had.
“I will be in New York for a while this time. As a matter of fact I have quite the announcement to make at the shareholders’ gala.”
A squiggle shot up Holly’s back. No one had ever looked at her the way he did.
Ethan sent a sincere laugh into the phone. “All right, Nathan. I suppose I can spare you your beheading. This time.”
He clicked off the call. “That explains the mystery about the apartment. Nathan had me booked in for the same dates but next month. You were right—it was meant to be yours. But now, to everyone concerned, the apartment is ours.”
Holly pulled up the collar on her leather jacket as Leonard shuttled them downtown.
Curbside at the first gallery, Leonard helped them out of the car. And then back in as they made their way to the second. And then to the third.
Naturally the staff at each were overjoyed to see Ethan. They reminisced about art openings and museum dedications. Holly felt completely out of place, with nothing to add to the conversations. But she held her own, making intelligent comments about the art on display.
Ethan didn’t mention anything about their upcoming nuptials. That announcement was for the gala. Instead he introduced Holly as a friend and painter from Florida whom he had been lucky enough to enlist for an upcoming commission.
Back in the town car again, they munched on the fancy sandwiches Ethan had had Leonard pick up from a gourmet shop. They discussed the paintings they had seen. Holly wanted two, and explained why she’d chosen them.
Her New York Billionaire Page 5
