Billionaire’s Missing Baby Page 18

  “Besides my art, how can I help that?” she asked, cutting to the point.

  Andrew had been stalling, but it was time to go all in. He took one last gulp of his cappuccino and plunged forward.

  “There’s a company—Westcorp—that we’ve been trying to sign deals with for years. They’re extremely picky about who they support, and honestly, I wasn’t even expecting them to take the bait on this proposition, I just sent it and hoped for the best… Anyway, they contacted my office today and want to see a presentation on the community center the day after tomorrow.”

  Dana raised her eyebrows. “That’s great! I… I’m still… not seeing my part, though.”

  Andrew grit his teeth, getting closer now. “The only person who can give the presentation is me. There isn’t time to brief anyone else.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do great. You really believe in this, and you’re an excellent speaker. They’d be silly not to sign on with you.”

  “That’s just the thing,” Andrew chuckled dryly, not really a humorous sound at all. It was anxious and strained, and he sucked in his breath through his teeth before dragging out the next sentence. “This company—especially the representative I’ll be speaking to—they have a certain… reputation. They have a very specific set of criteria that they like in a partner. They have a heavy emphasis on family values, you see. That might be why they were interested in this project, but it’s causing a bit of a problem, because, like I said, I’m the only person who can give the presentation. I know the details better than anyone… but they’re known to pass on reps that aren’t married. It doesn’t mesh with their mission statement, I guess.”

  To her credit, Dana didn’t stand up and walk out. She was sharp enough to understand immediately. Andrew watched all the pieces fall into place and knew the moment she saw where this was going. She looked at him and her eyebrows drew together in a frown.

  “You can’t mean…”

  “Just for a few weeks,” he said quickly. “I don’t want you to really marry me, but if you could just act like my fiancée while the specifics of this deal are being hammered out—”

  “Are we on camera?” Dana’s frown melted a little, and she looked around as if she expected a reality TV crew to swarm in.

  Andrew sighed. Well, at least she hadn’t started yelling. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Look, Andrew, this sounds a little nuts,” Dana told him. She sighed and shook her head. “I… I don’t even really know what to say. I mean, I’m flattered you asked—I guess?” She paused and set a hand to her head, eyes wide. “So you want me to pretend to be engaged to you for—what—a few weeks?”

  “Two weeks will probably be enough,” Andrew said quickly. “Unless Marcel wants to draw out negotiations, but I doubt it.” Then again, he’ll be the one calling the shots until his signature is on the contract. He could string us all along for months, if he wanted…

  Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Andrew waited in anticipation, in flat-out nerves, watching Dana’s stunned face. Her hands around her coffee cup (nails manicured in bright orange and gold) were frozen as she sat there, thinking.

  “I…” She shook her head a little, as if trying to shake off the madness of it. “This… it’s kind of… well… immoral, don’t you think?”

  Andrew’s heart sank. “Lying is immoral, yes,” he agreed. “But it’s not for personal gain or just to be malicious. To lose out on this opportunity just because I’m not married—it’s ridiculous!”

  “And you want to partner with someone who makes such ridiculous demands?” Dana asked, raising her eyebrows again.

  He sat back, stunned. For a moment, he wasn’t sure how to respond. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he disagreed. “Well, we’re not selling the company to them,” he replied. “It’s not a merger—we’re just talking about an agreement on a mutual project.”

  “What if they throw something even stranger at you down the line? Where will you stop and say no?” She wasn’t just grilling him. Dana actually seemed curious. And to be honest, Andrew didn’t have an answer to give to her.

  “I suppose I’m just planning on crossing that bridge when I get there,” he admitted. “I don’t expect to have to meet any further strange demands. We’ve just been trending their past behavior, and… well, I’m afraid I’m going to screw this up for my team, just because I’m unmarried.”

  “What will I have to do? Will I… meet them?”

  Andrew’s heart leapt hopefully. Was she considering? “Briefly. I’m expecting to have a couple dinner parties, at least. There’ll be an announcement of the project at some point, probably at the Autumn Ball. Maybe a ceremony when the center itself is completed, but that’ll be after the deal is made, so you probably won’t have to be there for that, at all. Pretty much just a couple appearances to convince them I’m buying into the nuclear family situation.”

  Puzzled, Dana frowned. “Nuclear family…?”

  “It’s… it’s a term coined after World Was II… it means working Dad, stay-at-home Mom, kids, station wagon, picket fence, so on. It’s not really relevant these days…” Andrew waved it off. “That’s not really the point. Mostly it will just be me and Marcel meeting together, so you’ll really only have to make a couple appearances.”

  “And I’ll have to lie?”

  Andrew swallowed a lump in his throat. The look on her face was not promising. “Yes. Only when they ask if we’re engaged, and about our relationship. How we met. Where we go out… so on.”

  Averting her gaze and taking another sip of her mocha, Dana didn’t offer an immediate answer. Her brows were drawn together again as she thought, such an unusual expression for someone who spent so much time seeing the glass half full. Andrew was holding his breath, waiting, as she mulled it over.

  She sighed and looked up at him sadly. “Look, Andrew… I see where you’re coming from, and I understand it would only be for a couple weeks, but I don’t think I could do this. I don’t think I could pretend like that. It… could you? Could you make believe that we’re engaged all that time?”

  “For myself, no. For the good we could accomplish, yes.”

  For a long time, Dana sat there looking at him, tapping her bright fingernails against the paper coffee cup. Andrew would have given much to know exactly what she saw in all this.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “I’ll think about it tonight. But this makes me feel very uncomfortable, Andrew, I just want you to know that. I think you’re a great guy, but this is… it’s unusual. I can’t possibly say yes or no on the spot.”

  In fact, Andrew had been hoping she would do exactly that. It would have made it easier for him to prepare, knowing what he was working with. But she looked quite determined, and it felt like a bad move to try and push the issue here and now.

  “That’s fine. Please, think on it.”

  They stood together and headed out into the New York night. The train station was several blocks away, and it was a long, silent, awkward walk together down the streets. Andrew thought briefly about diving into a store or making excuses to get away, but then he’d leave her alone to get home through the city. He’d kept her out late. He could see to it that she at least made it onto the train safely.

  There was a twenty-minute wait for the next one, as they arrived at the station just as their line was leaving. The two of them waited without a word, Andrew trying not to twitch nervously. Dana seemed lost in thought.

  Twenty minutes passed like two hours, but finally they were boarding, then riding away. On the ride home, Dana’s stop came first, and when the door opened, she gave him a tiny, worried smile.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and disembarked. The train doors slid shut, and Andrew breathed again.

  When her platform was out of sight, Andrew sighed and hit his head solidly against the rail he clung to. Dana probably thought he was a lunatic. That had not gone well.

  Chapter 5

  Her head buzzed the enti
re ride home. When her stop arrived, Dana said a polite farewell and climbed out, only to find the station practically deserted and far too quiet to distract her from her thoughts. Had all of that just happened? Dana walked out of the subway almost in a trance.

  She only lived four blocks from the station, and it was a well-lighted, busy walk. This was good, because if anyone had thought to mug her that night, Dana probably would have dizzily wandered into their arms. Andrew’s plan bounced back and forth across her mind crazily.

  Her first instinct was to be furious. Pretend to be his fiancée? What kind of man asked such a thing? And what kind of woman did he think she was, for him to make such an outrageous request? A woman who would agree to such an arrangement would have to be vile, dishonest, and willing to lie to someone’s face just to get her way.

  But that was her pride speaking. It was somehow offensive to think that she , who’d had more than one real marriage proposal in her life, should somehow be a last resort for Andrew Poole. But then, the proposals she remembered had been silly teenage passion-promises, which had burned out quickly and without consequence. No more real than what Andrew suggested, really, and for a much less worthy cause.

  It had been such a long day, even before this last hour. She needed some water and to put her feet up. Maybe even a glass of wine—it was only Monday, but a nice merlot was chilling in her fridge, and no one was going to tattle to Mom and Dad if she and Maya tapped into it…

  Now that she didn’t have Andrew watching her, she was at least able to think with a little clarity. The cold night air was helping her pounding head, even if it was fogged with car exhaust. Maybe her first instinct was off-base. He didn’t want her to pretend to be his fiancée to appease nagging parents or win a bet or something silly out of a Lifetime movie. He really thought his being single would harm his chances of securing the partnership—and Dana was confident that he was sincere, if only because of how terribly awkward and uncomfortable he’d been from the moment he caught up to her in the Seven Diamonds lobby. Dana’ s mom had always told her to trust her intuition, and it told her that Andrew’s story was true.

  Her building was coming into sight. She could see the windows of her and Maya’s apartment lit against the dark. She tried to imagine accepting Andrew’s offer. There were so many uncertainties! Would he want her to stay at his place? Would he want to come meet Maya? What about parents? Surely he wouldn’t want to bring their parents into the charade? The very thought sent a chill down Dana’s spine—if he thought she was going to tell her Mom and Dad about this arrangement, he had another thing coming!

  And then there was the obvious problem: she’d have to lie right to this representative’s face. She couldn’t remember outright lying to someone since she was teenager trying to sneak out after curfew. Dana wasn’t sure she could even lie well enough to fake her way through this. She let out an empty chuckle as she punched in the code for her building and started climbing the stairs.

  And what about their physical relationship? Dana’s keys slipped through her gloved hands at the thought, and she bent to scoop them up off the welcome mat. She hadn’t even thought of that! Would they have to kiss? Hug? Heat rose up in Dana’s face at the thought, and she unlocked the door quickly to let herself in to her condo.

  “I’m home,” she called. Not that she needed to yell. When Maya had moved to New York, Dana had left her previous living arrangement with two other roommates and taken on a lease in a two-bedroom closer to work. It was a little older and smaller (and draftier!) than the last house, but much quieter. Dana paid most of the rent—Maya pitched in a quarter every month, which was all she could contribute with her waitressing job. That was alright. Dana had been there, and she made enough to cover the rent alone, anyway, if only by a hairsbreadth.

  “You’re a lot later than I thought you’d be!” Maya answered from the kitchen. Wonderful smells closed in on Dana as she removed her cold-weather clothes. Cooking meat, bell peppers, onions. And then it hit her—she was over an hour late for Sister’s Night.

  “Oh my God, Maya, I’m sorry!” Dana grimaced and crossed into the kitchen sheepishly. She half-hid behind a cupboard and peered over it until Maya’s frown split and she laughed.

  Maya, at eighteen, couldn’t have been more different than her older sister. Starting from her plain, dark clothes, to her tightly braided hair (“How can you wear yours natural, Dana? It’s such a hassle!”) and continuing to her perpetually suspicious expression, Maya was the opposite to Dana’s bright, sunny coin. Where Dana had been born with a dreaming nature, Maya needed to see facts and evidence and she’d had an even less enthusiastic response to their mother’s speeches on intuition than Dana herself.

  “Where have you been, you brat? I thought you were kidnapped,” she splashed some water from the sink at Dana, who ducked behind the cupboard.

  Oh, Maya wasn’t going to like this at all. How to even begin to explain? “I got a marriage proposal today,” Dana said airily.

  Maya twisted her mouth and raised an eyebrow. The peppers were sizzling, giving off the most delicious aroma, and Maye pushed them around the skillet with a wooden spoon.

  “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of, but it’s only half a lie.” Dana shrugged and opened the fridge. Out came the wine, and she poured two glasses. “I got an engagement proposal today.” Maya took the wineglass from her. Before she let go, Dana raised her eyebrows. “Remember what I said.”

  “You never let me drink. I’m too busy to drink, anyway, and I’m still underage.”

  Dana nodded. Their mom wouldn’t mind, but their father would throw a fit.

  Maya took a sip. “Isn’t an engagement proposal and a marriage proposal the same thing?”

  “That’s just the thing. A man asked me to just be his fiancée for a couple weeks. Two, he thinks.”

  Maya looked at her like she was crazy. “What? What’s the point of that? So you can flood Facebook with engagement announcements? I swear, if I see another engagement photoshoot on my wall, I’m going to flip a table.”

  That was another thing she hadn’t thought of. Dana groaned. “It’s not even that simple. You know that cute guy on the train I told you about?”

  Maya’s mouth dropped open. “Andrew? Get out! I thought you said he was a nice guy?”

  “He is a nice guy!” Dana insisted. “He’s a very nice guy! It’s just—he has this business deal at work, and he thinks he’s going to lose out on it if he’s not married—”

  “Wait, now he wants you to get married?” Maya put a hand on her hip.

  Dana laughed. “No, no! I swear, you’re going to turn into Mom! No, he doesn’t want us to get married, he just wants me to act like his fiancée for this guy who’s supposed to hear his presentation.”

  “Why doesn’t he just say that he’s married?”

  Dana shrugged. That was a good question. “He’s expecting to have a couple dinner parties, the sort of thing you bring a spouse to. I guess this company is known to turn its nose up at reps who aren’t married? I don’t know. It’s all very strange. I could tell he didn’t want to ask me, but he really felt it was necessary.”

  “Hmm. And why shouldn’t he want to ask you? It’s not like he’s going to find anyone better than my sister,” Maya teased with a small smile. She turned the stove off. “Actually, it’s good you’re late. These took longer to cook than I expected.”

  “He didn’t want to ask me because it’s an uncomfortable situation all around,” Dana answered. She and Maya filled up plates with fried peppers and chicken stir-fry over rice. Each with a plate in one hand and a wineglass in the other, they moved into the living room. Maya brought up Netflix, but didn’t start the movie yet.

  “You told him no, right?” Maya asked.

  Dana didn’t answer. Instead, she took a long drink of wine, avoiding her sister’s gaze. Maya raised both eyebrows.

  “Oh, no. You have to be kidding. You didn’t tell him yes?�
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  “I told him I’d think about it.”

  “Well, you thought about it,” Maya insisted. “There. That’s settled, you’re not doing it. It’s ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.”

  “It’s not totally ridiculous,” Dana protested. “If he makes this deal, his company will get to build this big community center for the people in our neighborhood.”

  “And what about when these people ask him for a wedding invitation? Are you going to hire a couple kids to play house with, too?”

  In horror, Dana sat there for almost a full minute before she shook her head. “No! Of course not! We—we would only be pretending to be engaged!”

  Maya rolled her eyes and pulled a blanket over her lap. “Besides the fact that it would be completely offensive—degrading, even—for you to pretend to be some rich guy’s fiancée. Can’t he just hire someone to do that? Why should he have you do it? I’m sure he has an intern somewhere who’ll take a promotion to play wife for the boss. Especially if he’s as good-looking as you say.”

  “No, I don’t think he does,” Dana snapped. It annoyed her, for some reason, to think of Andrew paying someone to be his fiancée. Although, now that she thought of it, why didn’t he just take that route? It would be much less complicated. Quid pro quo, as Hannibal Lecter would say.

  “Why would he ask you, anyway?”

  To that, Dana didn’t have an explanation, either. To be honest, until Maya had brought it up, it had never occurred to her why Andrew would ask her such an outrageous favor. This wasn’t something that people usually did for one another. It was a little different than borrowing fishing gear or giving someone a lift when they missed the subway.

  “I think paying one of his employees to do it would be too much,” Dana said finally. “You should have seen him, Maya. He was really uncomfortable with this arrangement, too. I meant what I said. I don’t think he would have asked this if he thought there was any other choice in the world.”