Page 22
The contact between us lingers for a moment, and I stare down at my smaller hand held lightly in his larger one.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs.
I look up, only to find myself meeting his gaze. My heart immediately kicks against my ribs, and I feel caught, trapped in time, as if the seconds have stopped ticking by.
Then Ford lets go of my hand. “Shall we?”
He turns to head for the door, but I can’t resist turning back to Bianca quickly and whispering, “Um, can I ask how much this was?”
“Nine hundred,” she replies.
Oh, thank god. That’s not so— I blink as reality catches up to me. “Wait. Nine hundred thousand?”
“Yes.” She sounds nonplussed, as if she’s completely used to jewelry costing this much. And I’m sure she is, but she didn’t have her billionaire boss just buy that nine hundred-thousand-dollar ring for her.
“Thank you,” I stutter out, then hurry to catch up with Ford.
He paid for that without even batting an eye. I know he can afford it. It’s a drop in the bucket for him. But it’s not about that. It’s the fact that he bought me something that costs this much.
I don’t even know where to begin processing that, so I shove down all the questions and worries floating around in my head and let Ford get the door for me on my way out.
I already thought this whole fake fiancée plan was a bit crazy, but now, I’m not sure I’ll even survive it.
11
HAYDEN
I stand before the clothes neatly laid out on my bed, contemplating them.
There isn’t anything to actually contemplate. The selections are precise, the packing a familiar, methodical ritual born of a life lived out of a suitcase. My thoughts are not on wool or cashmere. They are on her.
Today, I join Gabriel and we head for Colorado to Ford’s family estate. An annual pilgrimage I typically endure with detached indifference. But this time, Ford is bringing Maeve. As his fake fiancée.
A muscle in my jaw clenches. The entire ridiculous premise is a raw nerve, and I can’t stop probing it. Get a grip. I take my clothes and place them into the luggage, my movements sharp and economical.
Everything is set for while we’re gone. I have a housekeeper coming by to clean the penthouse right before I get back, although I don’t expect much dust to have gathered. I don’t have a lot of furniture so there’s not much to clean, and I’m rarely here, always at the office. When I moved in, I hired a premier interior designer to make my condo look good in case I ever had to host a party—pick out some tasteful modern art as statement pieces, that kind of thing. The designer had left everything white and chrome, told me that it made the space seem larger than it was. It’s a sterile, impersonal fortress, which is exactly how I like it.
I’m distracting myself from thoughts of Maeve with thoughts about my apartment. This has to be a new low.
Zipping up my luggage, I make my way down the private elevator to the lobby of my apartment building, where a car is waiting to take me to the airport. Gerry smiles at me as I get in, but doesn’t say anything.
That’s why I keep the man around. He knows when I need silence, which is often. I hate to admit it, but I also enjoy the quiet friendship he struck up with Maeve behind my back. He’d do anything she asked if she gave him some of her homemade lemon bars.
Not that I’ll ever let either of them know that it amuses me. I give Maeve an inch, she takes a mile.
Which is why I have no idea how this whole scheme Ford came up with is going to go.
“Maeve’s place,” I tell Gerry, my thumb hovering over my phone before texting Maeve that we’re on our way. Me being the one to pick her up means that someone’s laughing at me, somewhere. Probably my parents, wherever the hell they are now.
Maeve is efficient and punctual, and she’s never failed to be on time for something we need from her, so I’m surprised when I text her that the car is downstairs and I don’t get a response.
I text her again a few minutes later and get the reply that she’ll be down in a second.
Five more minutes pass. An unfamiliar irritation coils in my gut. I am not a man who is kept waiting.
New Yorkers are not the type of people who are afraid of getting into fisticuffs over parking and traffic, so I get out of the car and tell Gerry to just circle, so that we stop taking up the street. Maeve’s apartment building doesn’t have a doorman or even require a key or code to get into the lobby, which is barely big enough for me to stand in.
Ford didn’t mention that she was living in a place like this. I climb the ancient stairs, frowning as the banister wobbles when I put my hand on it. We pay Maeve enough to live in a better place than this. The knowledge that she comes home to this decrepit building every night settles like a stone in my stomach.
