by Caro LaFever
Turning around, she marched toward her office. “I’ve wasted enough time with you. Goodbye.”
“Sophia.”
Something in his voice stopped her. Good. At least he didn’t have to deal with a woman who didn’t know what was in her best interests. There was something to be said for dealing with a sharp cookie.
She jerked back to scowl at him. “I’m done playing games.”
“No games.” Dropping his arms, he strolled around the table to stand right in front of her. “You’re going to be my fiancée for the foreseeable future.”
She made the same ugly sound in her throat. A grunt. Not ladylike at all. But she’d learn under his tutelage.
She’d learn.
“I’ll spell it out.” He lifted a finger. “One. You’re moving in with me as my new fiancée.”
“Not on the last day of my life,” she spat at him. “Or any day before that.”
Another of his fingers rose. “Two. In a couple of weeks, you’re going to attend my wedding ball at my side. The ball my mother and sisters worked hard to organize.”
“Good God.” Her face lost all color. “You cannot be serious.”
“No, no.” A startled laugh escaped him. The thought of living with this woman’s stinging tongue for the rest of his life made him shudder. “You misunderstand me. The last thing I want to do is get married to you.”
“You haven’t gotten rid of all your brains yet.” She stared at him, her dark eyes blistering with revulsion. “I’m still not doing anything with you, though.”
“You’ll attend as my fiancée. We’ll call it an engagement party instead.” He pushed away the thought of what his family was going to think of Sophia after they’d known Melanie. One problem at a time. “My mother worked hard on this party and she’ll be relieved when all of the arrangements won’t go to waste.”
“Not a chance.”
A third finger rose. “Finally, you’re going to be my loving fiancée, right by my side, as Henry and I travel to Paris to sign a deal to build the tallest building in Zhani. You’ll be cordial to the emir and his wife. We’ll entertain them.”
“Until they sign on the dotted line.” Sarcasm lined her tone.
“Correct.” He dropped his hand, the three fingers curling into his hot palm. “Once that’s been completed, you’ll come back with me to New York and stand by my side as we execute the IPO.”
“Wait.” A frown furrowed her brow. “I remember Melanie said something about meeting someone on your honeymoon.”
“Yes.” His gaze was snagged when her nose crinkled in apparent disgust. For a moment, he was distracted by the smatter of freckles ruining the cream of her skin.
Then she opened her mouth and did her usual reliable job of focusing his anger. “You were going to use your honeymoon to make a business deal?” Outrage laced every word.
She made it sound as if he’d planned on taking her best friend to Siberia to negotiate with terrorists. “Paris. City of Lights. Romantic.”
“But…but…but…”
“A few short meetings wouldn’t have ruined the honeymoon.”
“I can’t believe you.” She gaped at him in horror.
A stray strand of guilt whispered inside him. Melanie had seemed a bit…disconcerted when he’d told her of the meetings with the emir. Then memory crushed the whisper. “Let’s be clear—” he used his height to loom over her short figure “—on who ruined my honeymoon.”
“Wait.” The termagant frowned, her quick mind connecting dots that weren’t even there. “I remember. Melanie said something about this sheik guy being old-fashioned. He likes to work with people who are married.”
“That has nothing—”
“Jorge read something in the newspaper the other day.”
He could practically see the dots popping in her head, forming in a line to declare him a bastard. “I’m not following you,” he snarled. As if anyone could.
“The whole thing all makes sense now.” She folded her arms around her, small pudgy fingers tightening on her skin as if she were holding herself back from hitting him.
“What are you talking about?” Not that he wanted to know what Jorge had read, but rather he wondered when this conversation had strayed from his initial intent. Still, this always happened with Sophia. She never stuck to his script.
A script everyone else always happily endorsed.
“The IPO.” Her head rose to stare at him with those eyes. Those dark eyes that never failed to look at him as if it were all his fault. “The public offering. If you didn’t get the contract from this emir guy, then your precious IPO might be a bust.”
As usual, she put the pieces of his life together in exactly the wrong way and in the process, jumped to all the wrong conclusions. “Do you believe everything that is printed?”
“Good grief.” The tiny fingers fluttered on her plump arms. “I was entirely right about you.”
“Sophia.” He took one more step forward, close enough to catch a whiff of vanilla. The contrast between the sweet, welcoming smell and this acerbic, tart-tongued woman could not have been greater. “You know nothing about me.”
“No?” Her brown eyes shot up to meet his, the disgust in them making the color turn dull. “That’s why you wanted to marry Melanie so quickly.”
Indignation at this conclusion mingled with the anger he’d held onto for one long month. “I was not marrying Melanie—”
“Ha!” She went to her tiptoes to get in his face. “You are a slimy, nasty man.”
He’d expected his height to intimidate her, but instead he found himself fighting an impulse to retreat. Retreat from her warm, comforting smell and heated eyes filled with accusation. “I planned on marrying Melanie because she was the perfect—”
“Don’t try to sell me your crap.” Her eyes flashed with righteous anger. Again, she’d drawn her conclusions and was running full steam ahead, ready to mow him down. “Leave before I squash you like a bug.”
The thought of this pipsqueak doing any kind of squashing at all should have made him laugh. In any other case, with any other person, he would have. Eventually, they would have joined in. As always, charmed out of their anger.
But he didn’t feel like laughing. He felt like shouting. Yelling. Taking her in his big hand and squishing her.
“There will be no squashing.” He gave her his smile as a present. A poison present. “And no more yelling.”
His completely calm reaction, exactly as it had a month ago, made the woman even more spiteful. “You are a miserable human being.”
“Who is going to be your fiancé for several months.” His smile held.
“No.”
Sighing, he turned and walked back to the steel table. The dusting of flour mixed with sugar gave the table a glistening sheen. Once more, it astounded him this woman baked sweets. How ironic.
With his back to her, he slipped his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the antique silver box his grandmother had given him when he’d turned eighteen.
He placed it right in the middle of a small mound of sugar.
Then turned to meet her glare.
“You know where I live, don’t you?” He propped himself on the table, his hands gripping the edge. “Of course you do. You dropped Melanie off a time or two.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ll give you until tomorrow night.”
“Give me?” Her round face went rigid with rejection.
“I’ll expect you at my apartment when I get home from work.” He ignored her gasp of umbrage and strolled to the door. There wasn’t much more to say. Sophia was nothing if not smart, and after she got over her fit and called her lawyer, she’d figure it out.
She was stuck being his fiancée. For as long as he demanded.
“I’ll send out a press release on our engagement so the news will hit the papers the morning after you move in.” He opened the door and the cold October wind whipped into
the room. He glanced back to see she hadn’t moved. “That will give you time to alert Melanie.”
“You know what?” Her short, stout body tightened with frustration, and her stubby little hands fisted at her side. “I’m going to tell Melanie—”
“You will tell Melanie—” he stopped in the doorway and turned “—we are in love.”
That same undignified sound erupted from her throat.
“You will tell everyone we’re in love.”
“You are a rotten human being.”
“And Sophia…” He let his gaze roll over her in clear male dismissal, something he’d never done and would never do to another woman. “Even when I decide to dispose of you—”
“You are beyond despicable.” Her arms wrapped around her pudgy body in an attempt to protect herself from his inspection, yet her eyes shot fiery darts of rebellion.
“You’re never going to let on about our deal.”
“I don’t do deals with rotten, despicable men.”
He didn’t care what she thought of him. What he did care about was that she was put properly into her place. The place he wanted her to be. “One. Two. Three. Three promises I expect you to keep.”
She glanced at the long fingers he held up and grimaced as if there was something disgusting about his hand. More likely it was his demands, but he didn’t care.
“Wear the ring, Sophia.” He gestured to the shiny silver box sitting on the shiny silver table. “All the time.”
Chapter 3
Sophie stared at her three friends, buddies since college. Jade was laughing, the beads in her cornrows sparkling in the overhead light. Samantha grinned back at her, the soft suede of her usual fashionista dress falling off one shoulder. Melanie, perched on one of the cushioned chairs surrounding their table, scrolled through her texts. All of them, of course, had responded to her MUST meet request.
No one missed a MUST meeting unless they were dead.
This particular MUST meet invitation had been issued by text at three a.m. this morning. A long conversation with her lawyer had been followed by a long glare out her apartment window before she’d plopped into bed to stew over her options.
Sure, she could go to the tabloids, her lawyer had said, and make Mr. Stravoudas even angrier. And yes, certainly, she could try and reach the emir herself, but the likelihood of reaching him was slim and his believing her story even slimmer. Possibly she could win an outright battle in front of the zoning board, yet why take the chance?
After rolling around, sleepless for hours, she’d finally capitulated to the obvious. The manipulative, slimy, horrible, pompous, arrogant, sneaky jackass was going to get his way.
She had no choice.
Thus the three a.m. text.
Which, of course, had set off a series of reply texting that had gone on most of the day until they’d all arrived here at the bar a few minutes ago.
No, she wasn’t in the hospital. No, no one had died. No, she just needed to meet.
To tell them that—
“Here you are, ladies.” The tall, lanky waiter swung a tray filled with tall, ornate glasses in front of him. “Four buttercups. Your usual.”
“Yum,” Sam hummed.
“Precisely what I need after a long day fighting off the rest of the traders.” Jade grinned as she took her first sip, leaving red lipstick in her wake.
“Okay, Soph.” Melanie set her slim cell phone down by the frosted candle sitting in the middle of the gleaming rosewood table they’d managed to snag at their favorite hangout, Ghee. The basement bar was dark and snug, paneled wood delicately painted with tree trunks lined the walls, making a girl feel like she’d wandered into a magic forest. “What’s going on?”
“Whatever it is, it has to be something huuuuge.” Sam’s blonde brows drew in. “When was the last time she called a MUST meet?”
“Eons.” Mel’s gaze never wavered from Sophie’s face.
“Eons for you, maybe.” Jade waved her hand, brilliant red fingernails flashing. “Admit it, Mel. You’ve called more MUST meetings in the last year than—”
“I had a lot going on.” The blonde beauty smiled as if it had been a dance in the park.
Samantha chuckled. “All of it cleaned up very efficiently by Sophie.”
“That’s what she does best for her friends.”
“I’m not the clean-up crew.”
Her three friends looked at her and then laughed.
“Do you remember when our little friend ran off my Derek?” Jade snorted.
“He was, what?” Mel tapped a finger on her elegant chin. “Six-foot-five?”
“He was a professional basketball player.” Jade eyed a chip on her fingernail. “Try over seven feet.”
“He was a jerk.”
“Yes, yes, Soph.” Her friend turned and gave her a blinding smile. “He was and you made me realize that.”
“You’re my friend.” She’d do anything for any of them. Including running off myriad asshats. Her dad claimed she’d inherited her mother’s Irish radar. The radar that buzzed every time a jerk entered its vicinity.
“Thank God I found Antony.” Jade signaled the waiter for another round.
“Antony is perfect for you.”
“Yes.” Her friend laughed. “You said that the first moment you met him, Soph.”
“I remember the last time.” Sam broke into the conversation, her crisp, piping voice cutting through the noisy crowd surrounding them. “When she split with that guy about a year and a half ago, Soph called a MUST meet. What was his name?”
“Chad.” Her hand curled into a fist and the movement made her remember what she had been forced to put on her finger and what she’d been hiding under the table since she’d gotten here. “His name was Chad.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jade made a face. “The guy who complained about your bedtimes. As if you could dance all night and then bake early in the morning. The loser.”
“He wasn’t a loser.”
“He was a loser for you.” Melanie swung her long, curly hair over one shoulder as if whisking every one of Sophie’s previous loser boyfriends away. “He was a great guy, but for someone else. You need someone stronger.”
Her three girlfriends nodded in concert. As if this was some new news flying through their conversation.
It wasn’t.
She hadn’t agreed the first time it was said and she didn’t agree now. The men she chose to date were the men she liked. Quiet, thoughtful men. Men who listened to her opinions. Men who didn’t get in her way.
The ring around her finger seemed to tighten on her skin like a knot of weeds cutting into her circulation.
“At this point, girlfriends,” Jade pursed her lips in mock distress, “I’d be happy to see Miss S with any man at all.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’ve always been busy,” her friend retorted. “I have never known you not to be busy.”
“I’m super busy.” She pressed her other hand on her finger, trying to relieve the tight pressure. She was busy, yes, and soon she was going to be even busier. Wouldn’t you know Mr. Suave-and-Smug would pick the busiest time of her year to demand his due.
“All work and no play make for a very unhappy girl,” Sam chimed in. “Even if I have one hundred book proposals to go through at the end of the day, I always find the time to be with my guy.”
Her guy being Tom, the nicest, sweetest, most patient man on earth. Who didn’t mind that Sam’s job as a junior editor meant he often climbed into bed with her—and her books. They’d met at a bookstore. Since Sam spent a lot of her spare time at bookstores, this came as no surprise.
Perhaps she should hang out at bookstores more often. Maybe she might find a nice, amiable guy who wouldn’t mind that she had to go to bed at nine p.m. every night and had to rise before the crack of dawn. She should look into bookstores as soon as she had some spare time.
The tip of her ring finger began to throb as if something was stopping the blood
from arriving.
“I did try to arrange a date for Sophie with Alex’s best friend,” Mel said. Her voice didn’t hitch over his name and the realization gave Soph a moment of happiness. She’d done the right thing. However, was Mel going to continue to agree with that after she spilled her ugly news? “But Sophie thought he was a workaholic.”
Jade’s white teeth flashed. “Sophie is a workaholic.”
“I am not.” Well, kinda, for now. Still, her business was just taking off. So she had to be.
“What was his name?” Sam slid her finger along her glass, her gaze focused. “Henry.”
“Right, Henry,” Mel confirmed.
This was all decidedly horrible. Every one of her friends had been drawn into Alexander the Great’s orbit. He’d invited them to his city-famous happy hours. Introducing them to his staff, he’d managed to fashion a little tribe of devotees to the Perfect Couple. Even Antony and Tom, after being wined and dined at his Hampton estate this August, had announced Mr. Suave-and-Slick was a fantastic guy. It was as if he’d spun a web of lies and deceit and slinky charm around her life. Just by itself, having to play his stupid game, would have been bad enough. But having to play his pawn in front of every one of her best friends made her heart burn.
Come to think of it…
Her middle knuckle on her fourth finger burned as if it were blistering. She was absolutely positive it had swollen to the size of a donut. She didn’t dare glance down, though. The movement might draw her friends’ attention to what she definitely didn’t want to show them.
Maybe she was allergic to his ring.
Maybe she’d have to take it off and keep it off for good.
Maybe she’d have to get a doctor to sign off on this strange allergic reaction so Mr. Suave-and-Snotty couldn’t object.
Maybe—
“S?” Melanie leaned over and put a long-fingered, gentle hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
Immediately, her other two friends frowned in concern.
“Sophie!” Sam cried. “You look as white as death.”
“Here we’ve been rattling on,” Jade crossed her arms in self-disgust, “and our poor Soph is obviously in distress.”
