by Penny Wylder
“But it must have been so expensive,” Melanie breathes.
I smirk and take her left hand in mind. This time, she lets me. “It’s going to take a while to spoil you, isn’t it? When are you going to realize that money isn’t an object here?” I select her left finger and hold the ring in front of it. “Besides, this will help convince everyone our marriage is the real deal. Not even my family would believe I’d be so callous as to get engaged to a woman without giving her a symbol of that engagement.” Still, I wait to slide the ring onto her digit. “So what do you say?” My eyes find hers, sparkling with amusement.
She holds my gaze. “You didn’t exactly ask yet,” she points out, a playful smile hanging on the edge of her mouth.
“Melanie. Will you marry me?”
Her breath stills. She presses her lips together. I watch her throat work tightly around a swallow. “Shouldn’t you say fake marry, or something?” she clarifies.
I laugh. Without waiting for more of an answer than that, I slide the ring onto her finger, where it settles easily. The size is perfect. I know, because I watched her try on a much less expensive ruby ring, clearly just for fun. Then, when she’d moved on, I made the jeweler tell me her size.
I stand again, but Melanie is too busy staring at the rock newly added to her finger to pay me much attention at first. I bend down to kiss her temple, and she startles, glancing back up at me.
“Thank you,” she breathes. “It’s beautiful. I’ll give it back as soon as the charade is done, I promise.”
I shake my head, chuckling under my breath. She really doesn’t get it yet, does she? “Consider it a part of your payment,” I tell her. “Really, you’ve earned it.” I take her left hand and tilt it up to the light, so we can both consider the diamond sparkling on her finger. “Besides, it looks much better on you than it would on me,” I add with a smirk.
She laughs, and I squeeze her fingertips, then lean in to kiss her, softer and slower, full on the mouth. Her lips part beneath mine, letting me in easily. My tongue twines with hers, and I taste her all over again, even more potent with her sex still on my lips.
She deepens the kiss, arches up to press against me and flings her arms around my neck. Fuck.
Many more kisses like that, and I’m going to have serious trouble remembering that this engagement is fake. That all of this, it has an expiration date.
No matter how much I’m starting to like Melanie, though, I need to remember that. This is business, nothing more. I break from the kiss and turn away from the sight of her in that gorgeous, drop-dead gown, before I do anything more insane. Before I pin her against the mirror and fuck her right here and now, until we’re both screaming each other’s names.
Before I start falling for her any harder than I fear I already might be.
9
Melanie
Dinner is even more awkward than I feared it would be.
The whole car ride over to the venue, Xander preps me on everything I’ll need to know about his family. His sister’s name is Patricia. His brother is Michael, but he goes by Marco for some unfathomable reason (no, it’s not his middle name, and yes, I asked. Rich people are strange, I guess).
Patricia is the oldest, and Xander’s the middle child. Both of his siblings are already married with growing broods of their own.
Both of Xander’s siblings sounded far too excited to meet me, to judge by the stream of texts I noticed them sending him throughout the car ride. I’m not sure what I expected, based off of Xander’s explanations, but it wasn’t the scene that greeted us when we stepped out of the elevator at the top of the high-rise building.
Marco and Patricia had reserved us a table at the corner of the rooftop, with a beautiful view out over the city. I noticed champagne in buckets beside the table already, not to mention a whole platter of oysters. Normally I love seafood, but my stomach turns at the thought of trying to eat right now.
I’m so nervous. I’ve never lied to anyone before. And although I’ve recited the story Xander wants me to tell again and again in my mind, part of me is terrified that I’ll slip up and mess up the story somehow, reveal us to be frauds.
“You must be Melanie.” Patricia reaches me first. I extend a hand, but she grabs my shoulders with both hands and pulls me into a hug instead, kissing both of my cheeks while she’s at it. “It’s so lovely to meet you. We’ve heard so many great things about you from Xander. I can’t believe someone’s finally tied my wayward brother down!” She releases me only with seeming reluctance, and her gaze travels over my body, up and down, before it shoots to the rock on my finger. It seems like she’s assessing me, although what she’s looking for, I can’t guess.
I don’t have too much time to worry about her appraisal, though, because Marco attacks me next, in a bear hug that I swear I can feel snapping a few vertebrae on my spine into place. “My future sister-in-law,” Marco exclaims as he sets me back on my feet. “Congratulations, you two. Xander, you didn’t warn me how gorgeous Melanie is.” He flashes his brother a wink, and I swear, my cheeks could start a small forest fire.
Patricia swats his arm. “Don’t embarrass her yet, you’ll scare her off. Come on, we’ve already ordered, but just a few little plates. Haven’t picked mains yet.”
With a sheepish smile, Xander gives me a half shrug and takes my hand, leading me toward the table we’ve reserved. A few little plates turn out to be a veritable army’s worth of appetizers, which trot out one after the next while we take our seats. Xander keeps a reassuring hand on my knee, for which I’m grateful. Without him, I don’t know if I could handle the nerves fluttering through my body.
Even in the gorgeous dress Xander bought me, not to mention the towering pair of heels and the glittery little clutch he insisted on buying to go with the outfit, I feel horribly out of place here. Like someone’s going to spot me at any moment and exclaim that there’s a poor woman in their midst, then have me escorted out by security.
It doesn’t help that Patricia keeps examining me with a narrowed eye. I wonder if she can tell that I painted by clumsy nude nails myself, or that my haircut cost $20 at the barbershop down the road from my house.
Her nails, I can’t help but notice, are perfect French manicures, complete with little sparkling diamond studs embedded in the pinkies. Her skin looks like it’s never seen sunlight a day in her life, and her perfectly curled hair falls down her back in ringlets despite the humidity.
“So, how did you two meet?” Patricia asks, with the air of one girlfriend asking the latest gossip from another. “Tell me everything, all the scandalous details.”
I laugh, and it comes out higher pitched than usual. I pray none of them notice. Under the table, Xander gently squeezes my thigh, just once, though whether it’s in warning or for reassurance, I can’t tell. “Oh, we actually met outside the city. In my hometown.” I dart a sideways glance at Xander. It’s easier to look at him than his siblings while I talk, so I do, trying my best to play the part of the besotted country girl struck dumb with love for this big city man.
It’s not hard. I’m already dangerously close to living that part. But I can’t think about that too closely right now.
“We fell in love out in the countryside,” I say, keeping my gaze fixed on Xander’s. “We just got engaged a week ago now, so it’s all still fairly fresh…” None of it, strictly, is really a lie. We just leave out the part where we also met only a week before that.
Still, the ring on my finger feels like it’s growing heavier with every word I speak. As if it’s one of those mood rings that will suddenly light up to reveal how I’m feeling. I wonder what color it would light up to indicate that I’m lying about everything.
Across the table, Marco chuckles. “We wondered what Xander was thinking, with all his sudden interest in farming and traveling around to these little country towns. I guess this explains it, huh Xan?” He winks, and Xander laughs.
I try to join in, but my voice feels too false and tinny
. I clear my throat once, hard, and reach for the glass of champagne that Patricia poured me in order to whet my lips. When I do, I find her staring at me harder than ever now, and it turns my veins to ice.
But all she does is smile and nod. “Well, however you managed it,” she says, “I’m just glad Xander will finally be putting down roots. My brother would never admit it, but he’s just as much the settling type as the rest of us. I know this is something he’s wanted for a long time, and I’m sure you two will make one another very happy.” Her teeth flash impossibly white and straight when she smiles.
My stomach churns even worse now. I swallow a bigger gulp of champagne than I intend, and the bubbles sit uneasily in my belly.
I wonder if she’s right. If Xander really does want a real wife, a real family. But surely, if so, he wouldn’t be going through all the trouble of hiring and paying me? A man like him, as hot as he is and with as much money as he has, not to mention with all his charm and intellect… he’d be swimming in women if he wanted them. He could have anyone in the world.
So why me?
I shake away the thoughts. This is fake, that’s why, I remind myself. He hired me to play a part. So I need to do just that, and more convincingly than I have been.
“I’m just happy to be here, and to get to meet both of you,” I tell Patricia, which isn’t a lie. I always find it illuminating to get to know people’s families. It tells you so much about a person. Who they come from, who they grew up around. Who they’re still close with or not, and why. “So what do you do for a living? Xander didn’t mention.”
“Let me guess.” Patricia smirks. “All he told you is that Marco and I are both baby crazy, right?”
I laugh and sneak a glance over at Xander. He rolls his eyes in answer. “It’s not my fault that your kids are all either of you ever talk about,” he responds.
“Don’t lie, you love all the niece and nephew pics,” Patricia teases.
“Though obviously mine are cuter,” Marco interrupts.
“You both have infuriatingly cute families,” Xander speaks up. “But sometimes I wonder if either of you even know what’s going on at the company anymore.”
“You both work at the same company?” I glance back and forth between them, then tense, nervous, when Xander prods my thigh.
But if Patricia finds it strange that I didn’t know this, she doesn’t let on. She just lets out an even louder laugh. “You didn’t think Xan was the only brains in the family, did you?” She shakes her head, clucking her tongue. “He works on the finance side of things with our father. I run the HR group, and Marco does most of our B to B corporate outreach programs.”
“And the social planning,” Marco adds.
Patricia rolls her eyes. “Marco’s very proud of the biweekly networking socials he throws for our employees.”
“It’s a great way to get to know people from every area of the company!” Marco protests.
“And the perfect excuse to get drunk on the company dime,” Patricia counters.
“How else am I going to get Xander to stop accusing me of being a boring old settled down family man now?” Marco responds, and all three of them chuckle.
I smile too, relaxing as I watch the siblings rib one another. It’s good to see that Xander has such an easy repertoire with his siblings. It makes me think that maybe I won’t have to be so worried about this whole thing after all. Maybe convincing his father we’re a real couple won’t be as difficult as I’ve feared.
But then Patricia leans across the table toward us, as if reading my mind. “You know Dad’s dying to meet her, right?” Her eyes sparkle with suppressed mirth. “He’s called me just about every single hour on the hour since you told us about her, Xan, asking for more details.” She rolls her eyes a little here. “Like I’m supposed to be psychic or something. I told him what night we’d be meeting you both for dinner.”
Worry settles back into my veins.
Patricia must notice it, because she glances toward me with an apologetic smile. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Dad can come across a little intimidating at first, but I swear, his bark is far worse than his bite. And he means well. He just likes to look out for his family, that’s all. He’s very, ah… involved in our day to day lives. Ever since Mom passed.”
I look up at Xander, startled. I can’t help it. His mom passed away? He didn’t mention that. Not even when I told him about my mother and her cancer.
I wonder what happened to her. What caused it. But Xander turns away from me and leans toward Marco, replying to something his brother said, even though I know he must have heard what Patricia just said.
“Anyway,” Patricia rambles on, luckily failing to notice my confusion over their mother’s passing, or rather, my lack of knowledge about it. “Once you get over the initial introduction to Dad, he’ll calm down, I swear. We’re all just really excited and happy for Xan.” She reaches over to pat my hand again, and I suck in a deep breath, concentrating on the way her palm feels against the back of my hand.
Her fingers bump the ring, and I gently withdraw my hand from the tabletop, managing a weak smile in return. “Well, if your father is anything like you three, I’m sure we’ll get along great,” I say, even though my stomach is churning again.
Maybe it’s the food. I barely managed to eat more than a few bites, what with all the questions Patricia and Marco have been firing my direction. But I had enough that the seafood might be unsettling me. Or it could have been that single gulp of champagne, even though it wasn’t a very big sip. Maybe the bubbles were getting to me.
I resolve not to drink anymore of it until I’m feeling better, and reach for a glass of water instead. If nothing else, at least the water soothes the guilty burn at the back of my throat, as talk around the table turns to wedding plans.
Xander luckily fields those questions for us, insisting that we don’t have any set plans for the wedding yet, and no, we don’t need to know what color schemes we’ll be using on the big day just yet. By the end of dinner, my stomach has finally settled back down, at least. We rise together and hug Patricia first, then Marco. The latter insists on squeezing me so tight he lifts me clean off the floor, which makes his sister swat his back and tell him to go easy on me.
“I keep telling you, we can’t scare this one off yet,” she says, and winks in my direction. “I actually like her. Which is a first for Xander’s girlfriends, I have to say—not that I’ve met many of them, mind you,” she adds quickly. “Xan never really dates seriously. Well, not since that terrible goth girl in high school, what was her name?”
“Goodbye, Patricia,” Xander interrupts with a pointed look that earns another laugh.
“Anyway. You’ll do just perfect in this family, Mel.” Patricia winks at me.
My cheeks flush, but I smile back, too. At least she seems nice. So does Marco. First pretend meet the family down, only one more member to go, I reassure myself. Xander takes my hand, then, and draws me toward the elevators. Before the doors even close behind us, my sheer exhaustion hits.
The day has been a whirlwind. Far more than I’m used to. First the flight, then the dress shopping. “I’m beat,” I say, leaning against the back of the elevator.
“I’ll drop you back at the house,” Xander promises. “I have a few things I should really stop by the office to attend to.”
I blink in surprise. But when I check the clock in the lobby, I realize it is only 8pm, after all. For some reason dinner felt so much longer. Maybe it was the champagne I drank. “I can catch a cab back or something, if you need the car,” I point out as Xander waves to our chauffer, idling out front with the other valets.
“Don’t be silly. The penthouse is right on the way. And I wouldn’t let you take a taxi in that dress or those shoes. Much less with that much bling on your finger,” he adds with a pointed look at my left hand.
My face flushes. I’m not used to having anything that anybody else covets. Even my phone is so old and battered th
at when someone broke into the back room at Bob’s to steal people’s purses, they left my phone right where it was. I guess I’m going to have to get used to having fancy things, at least for the duration of the time that I’ll be spending with Xander.
“Okay,” I relent, as Xander opens the backseat of the car for me, before he slides in himself. “But you know I’m not completely helpless,” I add. “It might be my first time in the big city, but I’m pretty sure I can figure out my way around a little bit.” I swallow. “After a couple days, maybe.”
“Of course you will.” Xander withdraws his wallet and passes me something. A credit card, I realize. It’s solid black and weighty. I’ve never felt a card this thick. It feels like I could use it to hit someone in the head if I needed to. “But in the future, if you need to go out, this will help.”
I gape at it.
“Buy anything you need,” he adds. “Just I ask that you ask Andrew to take you in the car. It’s the safest method of transportation. Besides, he knows his way around better than any taxi driver, isn’t that right Andrew?” Xander taps on the glass partition that separates us from the front half of the car, and we hear a faint chuckle through the tinted glass.
“All right,” I murmur, turning the card over in my hand. My mind races. “But… I feel sort of bad spending your money.”
“Don’t.” He reaches over to press a hand to my knee once more. “Melanie, look at me.” I meet his gaze. He smiles, and it reaches all the way into those warm, dark gray eyes of his. “I told you, money is no object to me. And I plan to spoil you. So, use it. However you want, enjoy anything you desire.”
I can’t help it. I smile in return, and feel is stretch at my cheeks. “Okay.” I clear my throat. “Though, tonight, all I really want to do is sleep.”
He bursts into laughter. “I’m fairly certain that can be arranged,” he murmurs as we speed off through the gathering city dusk.
I’m lying in bed—Xander’s enormous, bigger than king-size bed has the most incredible mattress, not to mention the fluffy down comforter that feels like a warm hug of air on top of me—when my phone rings. I roll toward it, expecting Xander. He only just kissed me goodbye ten minutes ago—well, kissed, and then stripped, and then kissed and fucked and licked and sucked and only just managed to drag himself with regret toward the office at long last—which is the only reason my tired as hell brain hasn’t shut off yet.
