The Engagement Project

by Brenda Harlen

  He would bet his first week’s salary that Warren Caldwell had hit on her before the week was out. The senior lab tech had started hanging around her at the beginning of the trial, and Megan had honestly believed it was because he was interested in the study.

  But Gage knew Warren was checking out more than numbers and patterns, even while Megan was wearing his ring on her finger. Of course, she probably wasn’t wearing it anymore, and the absence of the diamond would be a clear signal that Gage was no longer in the picture.

  He scowled as he tried to decide whether or not Megan would really go out with someone like Warren. But of course she would. Warren was exactly the kind of mature, responsible man that a woman like Megan would want to settle down with. The thought irritated the hell out of him. Knowing that his irritation was irrational didn’t make it any less real.

  He was still scowling when the intercom buzzer announced that he had a visitor. A few minutes later, his sister-in-law was at the door.

  Tess wasn’t in the habit of stopping by unannounced or uninvited and he was understandably wary of her reasons for doing so early on a Saturday morning.

  “Let me guess,” he said, “you’re here to tell me what a mistake I made with Megan?”

  “Actually, I came to see how the new job was going.”

  Though he wasn’t sure he believed her, he took the statement at face value and responded. “The job’s good. It’s a challenge, sometimes even more than I anticipated, and the pay is lousy, but the perks are great.”

  “Free beer?” she guessed, following him into the kitchen.

  “It’s a heck of a lot better than a dental plan.”

  “You obviously don’t have a kid who needs braces.”

  “No kids at all,” he reminded her, holding up the coffeepot in silent question.

  She nodded. “No kids, no wife, no fiancée.”

  “And I like it that way.”

  Tess shook her head as she accepted the mug he gave to her. “And to think that I believed you could actually appreciate a smart, together woman.”

  Gage slammed his mug onto the counter. “I knew that’s what this visit was really about, that you came here to give me grief for breaking up with Megan.”

  “I’m not here to give you grief,” she denied. “But since you mentioned it, I’ll tell you that I think you did the right thing, even if you did it for the wrong reasons.”

  “I don’t even want to know.”

  Of course, she ignored him. “You needed to end your relationship with Megan because your desire for her was tied up with your desire for the promotion. Now that you’ve left the company, it should be easy for you to determine exactly what your feelings are.”

  “I’m relieved,” he said.

  “Relieved?”

  He nodded. “That it ended before anyone developed expectations.”

  “Hmm.” Tess considered this as she lifted her cup, but her tone had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up in a way that warned something big was coming.

  “Whose expectations were you worried about? Your parents’? Megan’s?” She eyed him over the rim of her mug. “Or your own?”

  He laughed. “Come on, Tess. You’ve known me forever. When have you ever known me to have expectations?”

  “Never,” she admitted. “Until Megan.”

  “And what kind of expectations do you think I had?”

  She took another sip of her coffee, considering. “I think you started to believe that you and Megan could really make things work. Maybe the engagement was a sham, but as you slipped into the role of soon-to-be groom, you realized it wasn’t so bad, and you didn’t want it to end.”

  “You’re saying I put an end to the charade because I didn’t want it to end?”

  “Because you wanted it to be real,” she clarified. “Because you fell in love with Meg and didn’t want to lose her.”

  “If that was true,” Gage said, playing along. “Why wouldn’t I say ‘I love you, Meg, let’s make this fake engagement real’?”

  “Because you didn’t believe that she would stay,” she said. Then, more gently, “Because the women in your life never do. Do they, Gage? Not even your mother.”

  He scowled, no longer amused.

  “And since then, anytime someone gets a little too close, you push her away.”

  “You’re reading far too much into this,” he said. “Megan and I both knew from the beginning that the arrangement was only temporary.”

  “I’m telling you what I see,” his sister-in-law said. “Because I’ve seen it before. Because I went through the same thing with your brother.”

  He remembered, vaguely, that Craig and Tess had gone through some rocky times early in their marriage, but he wasn’t privy to all of the details—nor did he want to be.

  She finished her coffee and looked him in the eye. “And because I know that if you let her go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Almost three weeks after Gage had ended their engagement, and a week after the unexpected heart-to-heart with her mother, Megan finally had a plan. It wasn’t a particularly complicated or innovative plan, she was simply going to face Gage and confess her true feelings.

  If he didn’t feel the same way about her, well, there was nothing she could do about that. But she couldn’t let everything they’d started to build together just fall apart because she was too cowardly to put her heart on the line.

  Gage wasn’t Darrin Walsh or Sam Meyer or Bill Penske. He was his own person, something he’d proved to everyone by walking away from the security of Richmond Pharmaceuticals to follow his own dreams. And he was an incredible man, a man who had made her believe she was worthy of being loved. The only question now was—could he love her?

  Once she’d made up her mind to find that out, she didn’t let herself vacillate but went directly to his condo after work on Wednesday.

  She caught the door as one of the tenants was leaving so Gage didn’t have to buzz her into the building. And since he didn’t know she was there, she could still change her mind and walk out again. A distinct possibility as she was having serious doubts about whether she could go through with her plan.

  It’s long past time you stopped underestimating yourself.

  Bolstered by her mother’s words, Megan lifted her hand to knock.

  Before she even had a chance to catch her breath, the door opened and he was there. He hadn’t changed at all in the three weeks they’d been apart, nor had his effect on her diminished. Her pulse pounded and her heart ached.

  “Megan.”

  Was it longing she heard in his voice—or was she just imagining it?

  “Hi,” she said. “I know I should have called—”

  “No,” he interrupted quickly. “You didn’t need to call. It’s good to see you.”

  His eyes roamed over her, skimming from head to toe, as if maybe he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure.” He stepped away from the door so that she could enter.

  She went down the hall to the kitchen, more out of habit than purpose. She didn’t sit down but stood behind one of the high-back chairs, her fingers curled around the wood.

  “Can I get you anything? Coffee? A glass of wine?”

  She shook her head. “No, thanks. I really didn’t plan on staying long, I just wanted to clear up a few things.”

  “What things?”

  He hadn’t swept her into his arms and declared his undying love, and maybe she’d been foolish enough to hope the scene would play out that way so that she didn’t have to be the one to put her heart on the line. But she wouldn’t have come here if she hadn’t been prepared to risk everything, if she hadn’t believed the potential reward was worth everything.

  “For starters, I wanted to return this.” She took the ring out of her pocket and set it on the table.

  He stared at the diamond cluster for a long
moment. “It’s yours,” he finally said. “Remember—you were going to hock it and pay off your mortgage?”

  She managed a smile. “Well, things didn’t quite go according to plan, did they?”

  He held her gaze for a long moment. “No, they didn’t.”

  “I also want to apologize.”

  “What do you have to apologize for?”

  “The last time I was here, I jumped all over you for lying to me about the reasons for our fake engagement. But I lied to you, too,” she admitted. “When I told you that I wanted to learn how to talk to and flirt with other men, it was a lie—even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Because from the first moment I walked into Richmond Pharmaceuticals, I only wanted you. And the more I got to know you, the more I wanted you.

  “But you didn’t even seem to know I existed until that day at the mall. And then I found out that the only reason you noticed me then was because I was completely different from every other woman you’d ever dated.”

  “You are different,” he told her. “But in all the very best ways.”

  “You made me believe that. You helped me believe in me…and to believe in us.” She took a deep breath, then forged ahead. “I didn’t go into this expecting to fall in love with you. In fact, it was the absolute last thing I wanted to happen. But it happened anyway. I love you, Gage.”

  She was looking at him when she said it, and though she wasn’t surprised by the panic that came into his eyes, she was disappointed.

  He swallowed. “Don’t you think you’re jumping ahead here a little?”

  “No, I don’t. But I am taking a leap of faith, trusting that I wouldn’t have fallen so completely for a man who isn’t capable of feeling the same way.

  “When you ended our phony engagement, I thought it was because you didn’t need me,” she told him. “Because you’d figured out what you wanted and you no longer needed to be with me to help you get it.

  “It was only after you’d gone, after I’d had some time to get over the shock of everything ending so abruptly, that I really thought about what you’d said. And I realized that you needed me a lot more than you were willing to admit, even to yourself.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” he said. “But I’m not sure it’s anything more than that.”

  His words, and the dismissal inherent in them, hurt, but she knew that was his intent, his way of distracting her because she was getting too close to the truth. Because she’d gotten too close to the barriers he’d carefully erected around his heart. She still didn’t know why they were there, what had happened to make him so reluctant to open up to anyone, but she wasn’t ready to give up on him yet.

  “You told me that you weren’t self-sacrificing enough to give up something you really want for someone else,” she reminded him. “But I think you would give up something you wanted rather than admit how much you wanted it. Because somewhere along the line you lost someone who really mattered, and you decided not to let anyone else ever matter that much again.”

  “You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t,” she denied softly. “But I think we could figure it out together.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t have a clue.”

  She heard the pain in his voice now, the raw edge he wasn’t quite able to bury beneath the scorn.

  “Maybe not. But I do know what I’m asking. I’m asking you to put your heart on the line and trust me. To give us a real chance to make this work.”

  But Gage didn’t say anything else, and Megan finally left his condo with her heart and her hopes in pieces.

  Three days after Megan’s visit, the ring she’d left was still sitting in the center of his kitchen table. The platinum glinted in the sunlight that streamed through the window, the cluster of diamonds dazzled. But Gage knew it was nothing more than a band of metal and some hunks of carbon. Surely it shouldn’t have had the power to change his life.

  And it hadn’t, not at first. When he’d bought the ring for Megan, when he’d put it on her finger, there had been no promises of love or dreams of happily ever after. It had been a symbol to the rest of the world. It hadn’t really meant anything to him.

  But somehow putting the ring on Megan’s finger, even under false pretenses, had changed his life. Because the action had made her a part of it.

  And then she’d taken the ring off, and he’d watched her walk away. He’d wanted so desperately to hold on to her, but he’d let her go because he was afraid to risk his heart, to lose someone he loved all over again. And yet that was exactly what had happened.

  Now the ring that had once meant nothing to him meant everything, because it was a symbol of everything he’d had and lost.

  You would give up something you wanted rather than admit how much you wanted it.

  Maybe there had been some truth in her words, but not anymore.

  He snatched the ring off of the table and headed for the door.

  Sunday brunch with Ashley and Paige promised to be the one bright light in what had been an otherwise dismal and depressing week for Megan.

  She’d thought it would get easier. She’d honestly believed that with each day that passed, she would miss Gage a little bit less until she stopped thinking about him altogether. Instead, the aching emptiness inside seemed to grow a little bit bigger each day.

  But she looked forward to brunch because it was time with her sister and her cousin, and because she was sure they could keep her from thinking about Gage, at least for a while. And that seemed cause enough for a celebration, so she ordered the mimosas this time.

  “I’m not in the mood for champagne,” Ashley said.

  Though her sister had traded in the yoga pants and T-shirts that had become her household attire for a simple sheath-style dress in a pretty sage-green color, the recent loss of ten pounds was apparent in the way the garment hung on her frame, and no amount of makeup could disguise the shadows under her eyes.

  “You should be jumping for joy,” Paige told her.

  “Why?” Ashley asked the question that was expected, though her tone revealed a distinct lack of interest in the response.

  “Because you found out your fiancé was screwing around before you made the mistake of marrying him.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better—knowing the man who claimed to love me was bored with me even before the wedding?” Ashley’s eyes filled with tears. “Because it doesn’t. And even if he was a two-timing snake, he was going to be the father of my children. Now I’ll never have a baby of my own.”

  Megan touched her sister’s hand. “You will. You just have to be patient.”

  “How can I be patient when I know my time is running out?”

  “If you really think your time is running out, go to a sperm bank,” Paige suggested. “An injection is more dependable than a man.”

  “A sperm bank?” Apparently Ashley had never considered the possibility. Of course, there had been no reason to consider such an option while she’d been planning to marry Trevor, but she was obviously giving it some thought now.

  Megan shot Paige a look, silently reproaching her for dangling the possibility in front of her sister like a baited fish hook, especially when Ashley was feeling so vulnerable and desperate.

  “Can we forget about Trevor for now?” Megan suggested. “In fact, let’s not talk about men at all today.”

  “We can definitely forget about Trevor,” Ashley said.

  “And we can not talk about men,” Paige agreed. “As soon as we find out why you returned that big hunk of rock.”

  “Because the ring was never really mine any more than Gage was mine.”

  “But I thought it was part of the agreement that you got to keep the diamonds.”

  She shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “It was, but after all was said and done, it just didn’t feel right.”

  Ashley tossed back the champagne she claimed she hadn’t wanted. “Like
the scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts walks out of Richard Gere’s hotel room without the money he tossed on the bed.”

  “Thanks for comparing me to a prostitute,” Megan said.

  Paige chuckled.

  “She left the money because she cared about him, because she didn’t want to be a prostitute to him,” her sister said staunchly. “And you gave back Gage’s ring because you didn’t want to be his fiancée-for-hire. You only wanted it if it was for real.”

  Megan picked up her champagne glass and studied the rising bubbles. “I never had any illusions that it could be real.”

  “I did.” Paige’s admission surprised both of her cousins; she shrugged. “I know you think I’m the cynical one—”

  “You are the cynical one,” Ashley asserted, then sighed. “But more often than not, you’re the right one, too.”

  Paige waved off her comment. “But the first time I saw Megan and Gage together, they just seemed to fit. And I hoped—regardless of their own reasons for agreeing to the fake engagement—they would both realize they belonged together.”

  “I thought they belonged together, too,” Ashley said.

  “I thought we were not talking about men today,” Megan reminded them both.

  “Okay, we can stop talking about Gage. But not talking about him isn’t going to help you stop thinking about him,” Paige warned.

  Of course, Megan knew that already.

  After brunch, when she pulled into her driveway at home, Megan worried that it was the prevalence of Gage in her thoughts that made her imagine he was standing on her porch.

  But when she got out of her car, he was still there.

  She kept her pace steady as she made her way up the walk, even while her heart was pounding against her ribs and her eyes were devouring him.

  He was casually dressed in a pair of khakis and a short-sleeved, Henley-style shirt, and there was a light shadow of stubble on his jaw because he didn’t shave on Sundays. She’d only once complained about the roughness of his unshaven cheeks, and then he’d shown her that the contrast of his rough beard against her tender skin could be incredibly erotic.