A Pretend Proposal. Jackie Braun
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Good. Excellent. It was the center of her life, what she poured most of her time and effort into, which meant it would be easy to talk about. And that would help take her mind off how sexy Thomas looked in that herringbone blazer and crisp blue oxford shirt sans necktie.
“Let me show you around,” she suggested.
She started in the main meeting room, which resembled a classroom, with the letters of the alphabet posted on the walls along with pictures that corresponded to the sounds those letters made. Instead of rows of desks, however, there was a large conference table. Elizabeth had found that adults responded better to that setting than the more traditional one. Some of them had had bad experiences with school. Others were embarrassed by their situation. A conference table made it seem more like a workplace. Even though they were students in the true sense of the word, her clients also felt more like respected adults here. She explained that to Thomas.
He glanced around, nodding in appreciation. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“It’s not an issue for some people, but when we realized it was for a lot of our clients …” She shrugged. “The goal is to make them as comfortable as possible so they can focus all of their attention on learning to read.”
“How exactly do you do that? The teaching, I mean.”
“There are a variety of different methods. For instance, the Barton Reading and Spelling System has proved a good fit for a number of our clients. It focuses on phonics and recognizing the sounds letters make.”
Thomas’s nod was perfunctory. He found her work interesting, but the woman even more so. His gaze kept straying to her mouth. He’d hoped to find he was wrong, but the fact remained that last night’s attempt to quell any nerves over upcoming physical contact had backfired miserably. One kiss, and now he kept imagining a second and a third. His gaze strayed to her open collar. With only the top button left undone, he could only make out the hollow of her throat. Since when did he find that part of a woman’s body so arousing? He watched her swallow and other sorts of intimate activities an engaged couple—or any consenting couple—would enjoy popped into his mind. Activities that would take place in a bedroom with the door closed and without the barrier of clothes or the bother of inhibitions.
Disturbed and aroused at the direction his thoughts kept taking, he had to exhale slowly between his teeth. Even then, a portion of his pent-up groan escaped.
“Am I boring you yet?” Elizabeth inquired.
“Sorry. Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m fascinated,” he admitted truthfully. He forced his gaze from her lips again. “That is, with what you do here. It’s … fascinating.”
If only he’d left it at that. But he lifted his hand to her face, and brushed his fingers over the slope of her cheek before tucking some hair behind her ear. He’d done something similar while they’d stood next to her car the previous evening. Though her hair was back to being stick-straight today, it was just as soft, and blessedly free of the sticky hairspray and comb teasing the women of his acquaintance tended to use in abundance.
“Thomas?”
He lowered his hand. “I was wondering.” He let the thought go unfinished since it was heading to boggy territory. He needed to keep their interaction professional, even if everything about their agreement was rooted in being personal. He cleared his throat. “Will it be possible to meet again this evening? We have a lot yet to learn about one another.”
“I suppose so.”
“Maybe I could come by your place, bring some Chinese food? Do you like Chinese?”
“M-my place?”
It sounded so much more damning when she said it, especially since her eyebrows were raised in alarm. So, he amended with an easy smile, “I’m eager to meet Howie.”
The door had barely closed behind Thomas when Mel grabbed Elizabeth by the arm and began peppering her with questions.
“Okay, what exactly is going on? He looked like he was really into you. Not that I was spying or anything. I mean, the door to the main meeting room has a glass panel in it after all.”
“Nothing is going on.” Elizabeth wasn’t trying to lie or be evasive with her friend. The truth was, she was having a hard time processing the events of the past twenty-four hours.
“He caressed your cheek.”
A simple touch to which Elizabeth’s entire body had overreacted foolishly. Indeed, just recalling it caused gooseflesh to prick her arms now.
For her benefit even more than Mel’s she said flatly, “It’s not what it seems. Nothing about it is.”
“Really? It seemed pretty romantic to me.” Mel crossed her arms. “Men don’t touch women like that unless they’re interested in more than making some sort of charitable contribution, worthy cause notwithstanding, sweetie. If you don’t get that you’ve been off the dating circuit for far too long.”
“They do in this instance,” Elizabeth noted wryly. She glanced at her wrist again.
“Your watch still isn’t there,” Mel pointed out. “Now you’ve got me really curious. You’re acting all air-headed. That’s not like you at all.”
“It’s a long story, one you’ll want to dissect, and we have clients coming in a few minutes.” Besides, Elizabeth wanted to dissect it first.
“Fine.” Mel sighed. “We’ll talk about this at length over lunch, but for now, give me the abridged version.”
Elizabeth sucked in a breath. “Thomas has agreed to make a personal donation to our campaign, a large one that will match the one coming from Waverly Enterprises.”
Mel’s expression barely flickered. “And?”
“You could at least act excited about that. We’ll be meeting our goal.”
“I am glad. Yay, us.” Mel flashed a grin that was gone almost as fast as it appeared. Then she cocked her head to one side. “And?”
“He needs a favor. Yes, that’s all it is. He needs a favor.”
“You do realize that when I said to give me the abridged version, I didn’t mean for you to speak in some sort of code,” Mel replied dryly.
Elizabeth took another deep breath. “Okay, here’s the long and the short of it. He needs a fiancée. More precisely, he needs a woman to act as his fiancée, just for this weekend when he goes to visit his grandmother.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “Did you say fiancée?”
“Act is the key word here,” Elizabeth stressed. “He’s asked me to act as his fiancée. He’s not interested in me in that way at all.”
Despite that bit of clarification, her friend grabbed her wrist none too gently and pulled her toward the office. “Our clients can wait. I need you to start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
The closer it came to the time to meet Elizabeth, the more unsettled Thomas became. It didn’t make sense, yet it did. While he never was nervous before a date, when it came to an important business deal? Yes, occasionally. So that part fit. But he didn’t slap on cologne before business meetings, no matter how vital they were. Nor did he change his clothes—twice—and even then worry about his appearance and what signals it might send to the other party. Too casual? Too formal? In the end, he wound up back in the same herringbone jacket, shirt and pants he’d worn to her office.
In the right front pocket, he’d tucked the box holding the engagement ring his father had given his mother more than three decades before. It was a pretty ring, more old-fashioned than timeless because of its carved white-gold setting. The diamond was a half-carat, round brilliant cut. It had come to be in Thomas’s possession only after his father had pawned it to buy more liquor during one of his mad binges when Thomas