How would that work if… if Liam had been my boyfriend for the previous nine months? That made no sense at all.
Surely, he must have thought about this already?
“I’ve thought about this already,” he said coolly. “It’s plausible you wanted to catch up with me before I gave the speech. I’d just got off my flight, of course, and you were grabbing me because—” He stopped. My ears started to burn. The last thing I wanted to do was relive this.
“You grabbed me”—his eyes seemed to soften. Did I imagine that?—“becauseI was your boyfriend. And you wanted to talk to me. Not because you thought I was someone else.”
“So our story is, I figured your inaugural speech at Novexia was so unimportant thatthe entire companycould wait for me to have a little boyfriend-girlfriendchatwith you?” I could hardly think of anything more entitled. “What kind of spoiled little princess would do that?”
“I’ve seen worse,” he said casually. “Besides. Of course you’d missed me.” He pursed his lips like he was trying not to smile.Washe?
“Imissed you? Since I’d seen you the day before?”
“I’m very missable.” His face was deadpan. “Anyway, nobody knows that. I got into the country the day before, so it’s entirely feasible we hadn’t yet caught up. Regardless. We don’t have a lot of choice. Do you have a better idea?”
I wasn’t comfortable about the idea of slotting me into the role of needy girlfriend in this narrative. “No, but… this is… just, no.”
“Is it any worse than what actually happened? You did throw yourself at me in front of the whole company. Wouldn’t it be better if they thought we had some history?”
Shit. I’d thought the whole accosting the boss thing was the pinnacle of my mortification. But maybe itwouldbe betterif the story were adapted to suit this new angle? Certifiable lunatic with no respect for boundaries, or Crown Princess of Neediness?
Tough call.
“I guess… we could say that. But wouldn’t it be preferable if we let people at Novexia assume we’d only just started dating? Since you got here, I mean. And then… if someone asks, or finds out about… you know—”
“How we fell in love at Comic Con?” His smile was dry.
“Yes. If they hear it’s been nine months, not a couple of weeks—” Crap. Monish and Kelly would never buy this. They’d been across the entire von Roth dick-swinging drama from the start. They knew exactly why I’d jumped on Liam.
“Can’t we just keep the whole wedding-dating thing a secret from the office?” I asked. “Why does anyone at Novexia even have to know?”
Liam was appraising me calmly, like I wasn’t really a person, just a problem he had to process. I preferred the version of him I’d met in the lift—the Liam who’d cracked stupid jokes about douches and donkeys. What the hell had happened tothatguy? He was… funny. Was it really possible he’d been a figment of my imagination? How was it he was so… detached, now?
“Too risky, I’m afraid. Nick and Juliette are extremely well connected. The wedding will be… Well. It won’t be a small affair, put it that way. We can’t have one story at the wedding and another at the office.”
“Okay. But my friends at work… they already know I haven’t been dating you for months and months. Gerald introduced us at the bar that night. On the rooftop—remember?” I couldn’t believe Liam—or at least Bonnie—hadn’t considered this.
“Yes. I do recall.” He placed a finger on his lips like he was thinking through the best approach.
“So… what do we… I mean…” Shit. This was getting more complicated by the minute.
Liam looked down at his knees. It was very silent in my living room, just the sound of Mr. Darcy scratching at something under the sofa, the fridge humming in the kitchen.
“Okay,” he said after a minute. “We proceed with the nine-month Comic Con story with Hugo and co., as well as anyone else at the wedding. As for your work friends, it’s up to you whether you tell them we’ve been dating since then and that you’ve been keeping it a secret, or that we started dating more recently. What seems more workable?”
I was surprised he didn’t whip out a whiteboard and startideating.
“I… I don’t know.” But I did know. There was no way I could tell Monish and Kelly that I’d known Liam all along. I’d just have to say Liam and I connected after that first hookup, and things had just… flowed. And even that seemed like a long shot after what we’d said about him.A walking redflag.
Fuck. They’d never buy it.
“What do we do if it gets out at the wedding that I reallydidn’tknow you when you showed up at Novexia, though?” I asked. “Won’t that cause a problem for your… thing? With Hugo?”
“It will, yes. So if that happens, I’ll need you to tell your friends we’d been dating in secret all that time. No matter how awkward.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “I need to know you’ll see this through. You’re either in, or you’re out. And if you’re out, I’ll tear up the NDA. There’s no halfway option with this.”
I hadn’t foreseen something like this. It all seemed a lotmore real than I was imagining, and a lot less fun. Liam wasn’t squirming anymore—the tension had shifted in his favor. I didn’t want to lose the safety net he’d offered against redundancy, and I certainly didn’t want to relinquish the £10,000 either.
I hesitated, just enough for him to pick up on my uncertainty.
