Falling For Her Fake Fiancé

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He grinned again. “I’m merely proposing an...arrangement, if you will. Open to negotiation. I already know a job in management is not for you.” He sat back, trying to look casual. “I’m a man of considerable influence and power. Is there something you need that I can help you with?”

“Are you trying to buy me?” Her fingertips curled around the stem of her wineglass. He kept one hand on the napkin in his lap, just in case he found himself wearing the wine.

“As I said, this isn’t a proposal based on love. It’s based on need. You’re already fully aware of how much I need you. I’m just trying to ascertain what you need to make this arrangement worth your time. Above and beyond making sure that your Brewery family is well taken care of, that is.” He leaned forward again. He enjoyed negotiations like this—probing and prodding to find the other party’s breaking point. And a little bit of guilt never hurt anything.

“What if I don’t want to marry you? Surely you can’t think you’re the first man who’s ever proposed to me out of the blue.” The dismissal was slight, but it carried weight. She was doing her level best to toy with him.

And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it. “I have no doubt you’ve been fending off men for years. But this proposal isn’t based on want.” However, that didn’t stop his gaze from briefly drifting down to her chest. She had such an amazing body.

Her lips tightened, and she fiddled with the button on her jacket. “Then what’s it based on?”

“I’m proposing a short-term arrangement. A marriage of convenience. Love doesn’t need to play a role.”

“Love?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. “There’s more to a marriage than that.”

“Point. Lust also is not a part of my proposal. A one-year marriage. We don’t have to live together. We don’t have to sleep together. We need to occasionally be seen in public together. That’s it.”

She blinked at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you? What kind of marriage would that be?”

Now it was Ethan’s turn to fidget with his wineglass. He didn’t want to get into the particulars of his parents’ marriage at the moment. “Suffice it to say, I’ve seen long-distance marriages work out quite well for all parties involved.”

“How delightful,” she responded, disbelief dripping off every word. “Are you gay?”

“What? No!” He jolted so hard that he almost knocked his glass over. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I’m not.”

“Pity. I might consider a loveless, sexless marriage to a gay man. Sadly,” she went on in a not-sad voice, “I don’t trust you to hold up your sexless end of the bargain.”

“I’m not saying we couldn’t have sex.” In fact, given the way she’d pressed her lips to his cheek earlier, the way she’d held his hand—he’d be perfectly fine with sex with her. “I’m merely saying it’s not expected. It’s not a deal breaker.”

She regarded him with open curiosity. “So let me see if I understand this proposal, such as it is. You’d like me to marry you and lend the weight of the Beaumont name to your destruction of the Beaumont Brewery—”

“Reconstruction, not destruction,” he interrupted.

She ignored him. “In a starter marriage that has a built-in sunset at one year, no other strings attached?”

“That sums it up.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t stab you in the hand with my knife.”

He flinched. “Actually, I was waiting for you to give me a good reason.” She looked at him flatly. “I read online that your digital art gallery recently failed.” He said it gently. He could sympathize with a well-thought-out project going sideways—or backward.

She rested her hand on her knife. But she didn’t say anything. Her eyes—beautiful light eyes that walked the line between blue and green—bore into him.

“If there was something that I—as an investor—could help you with,” he went on, keeping his voice quiet, “well, that could be part of our negotiation. It’d be venture capital—not an attempt to buy you,” he added. She took her hand off her knife and put it in her lap, which Ethan took as a sign that he’d hit the correct nerve. He went on, “I wouldn’t—and couldn’t—cut you a personal check. But as an angel investor, I’m sure we could come to terms you’d find satisfactory.”

“Interesting use of the word angel there,” she said. Her voice was quiet. None of the seduction or coquettishness that she’d wielded like a weapon remained.

Finally, he was talking to the real Frances Beaumont. No more artifice, no more layers. Just a beautiful, intelligent woman. A woman he’d just proposed to.

This was for the job, he reminded himself. He was only proposing because he needed to get control of the Beaumont Brewery, and Frances Beaumont was the shortest, straightest line between where he was today and where he needed to be. It had nothing to do with the actual woman.

“Do you do this often? Propose marriage to women connected with the businesses you’re stripping?”

“No, actually. This would be a first for me.”

She picked up her knife, and he unwittingly tensed. One corner of her perfect rosebud mouth quirked into a smile before she began to cut into her lobster tail. “Really? I suppose I should be flattered.”

He began to eat his steak. It had cooled past the optimal temperature, but he figured that was the price one paid for negotiating before the main course arrived. “I’m never in one city for more than a year, usually only for a few months. I have, on occasion, made the acquaintance of a woman with whom I enjoy doing things such as this—dining out, seeing the sights.”

“Having sex?” she asked bluntly.

She was trying to unnerve him again. It might be working. “Yes, when we’re both so inclined. But those were short-term, no-commitment relationships, as agreed upon by both parties.”

“Just a way to pass the time?”

“That might sound harsh, but yes. If you agree to the arrangement, we could dine out like this, maybe attend the theater or whatever it is you do for fun here in Denver.”

“This isn’t exactly a one-horse town anymore, you know. We have theaters and gala benefits and art openings and a football team. Maybe you’ve heard of them?” Her gaze drifted down to his shoulders. “You might consider trying out for the front four.”

Ethan straightened his shoulders. He wasn’t a particularly vain man, but he kept himself in shape, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t flattered that she’d noticed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

They ate in silence. He decided it was her play. She hadn’t stabbed him, and she hadn’t thrown a drink in his face. He put the odds of getting her to go along with this plan at fifty-fifty.

And if she didn’t... Well, he’d need a new plan.

Her lobster tail was maybe half-eaten when she set her cutlery aside. “I’ve never fielded a marriage proposal like yours before.”

“How many have you fielded?”

She waved the question away. “I’ve lost count. A quickie wedding, a one-year marriage with no sex, an irreconcilable-differences, uncontested divorce—all in exchange for an investment into a property or project of my choice?”

“Basically.” He’d never proposed before. He couldn’t tell if her no-nonsense tone was a good sign or not. “We’d need a prenup.”

“Obviously.” She took a much longer pull on her wine. “I want five million.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I have a friend who wants to launch a new art gallery, with me as the co-owner. She has a business plan worked up and a space selected. All we need is the capital.” She pointed a long, red-tipped nail at him. “And you did offer to invest, did you not?”

She had him there. “I did. Do we have a deal?” He stuck out his hand and waited.

* * *

She must be out of her ever-loving mind.

As Frances regarded the hand Ethan had extended toward her, she was sure she had crossed some line from desperation into insanity to even consider his offer.

Would she really agree to marry the living embodiment of her family’s downfall for what, essentially, was the promise of job security after he was gone? With five million—a too-large number she’d pulled out of thin air—she and Becky could open that gallery in grand style, complete with all the exhibitions and parties it took to wine and dine wealthy art patrons.

This time, it’d be different. It was Becky’s business plan, after all. Not Frances’s. But even that thought stung a bit. Becky’s plan had a chance of working. Unlike all of Frances’s grand plans.

She needed this. She needed something to go her way, something to work out right for once. With a five-million-dollar investment, she and Becky could get the gallery operational and Frances could move out of the Beaumont mansion. Even if she only lived in the apartment over the gallery, it’d still be hers. She could go back to being Frances Beaumont. She could feel like a grown-up in control of her own life.

All it’d take would be giving up that control for a year. Not just giving it up, but giving it to Ethan.