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“You are bored at your job,” he countered. Bre never spoke of her work, but that night at the gallery, he watched her eyes light up as she talked about art. He knew running his social media presence did not fulfill her.
“I’m not bored,” she told him, even as her eyes darted away from his quickly. “Besides, what type of job would you even be able to give me. If I recall, you barely have a job at the moment.” Her words would have stung a lesser man, but to Henry, they indicated her willingness to hear him out.
“When I met with Sienna, I talked with her about beginning an offshoot charity. One connected to my family in name but operating outside of my mother’s spear. A charity that would bring art programs to disadvantaged youth in London and the surrounding areas.”
Bre looked shocked, but Henry noticed the spark in her eye right away. She was intrigued by his words.
“What does this have to do with me?” she questioned, uncrossing her arms from her chest. Henry knew he had her.
“Stay engaged to me, and I’ll make you head of the charity. You’ll have full creative and business control, and with the Rochester name attached, enough funds generated to help a lot of people. I know you haven’t felt fulfilled here, Bre, so this is your chance to do something about it,” he told her honestly.
Bre said nothing for a moment, but Henry could practically hear the gears grinding in her head. Her brow furrowed when she was in deep thought.
“How long would we stay engaged? What would being your financée entail?” she questioned. Harry managed to maintain his relaxed demeanor even as his heart jumped for joy at his words.
“We stay engaged for as long as we’d like, and nothing will be required of you. If it makes you feel more at ease, you can think of us as dating rather than engaged, since we aren’t really,” he told Bre as he took her into his arms.
“This is insane,” she told him her marvelous eyes locking on his. “Next time you speak to your mother, keep your mouth in check. I have no plans of procreating with you,” she told him saucily her anger fleeing as rapidly as it started. He laughed before kissing her deeply. Though Henry did not plan to marry any woman, he did intend to pretend with Bre.
“How about we pretend to procreate,” he whispered against her mouth as her body melted into his.
“You promised me a picnic,” Bre said, pulling away. Henry groaned at the loss of contact, his cock painfully hard at their brief encounter.
“I supposed I can’t allow my fiancee to starve,” he said. His possessive side enjoyed the claim of that title. He ignored that implication in favor of partaking in a delicious spread with Bre.
“To the future,” he said, pouring them both a glass of wine.
“To not screwing this up,” she said before clinking her glass against his.
Chapter Eighteen
They’d “announced” their engagement a month ago with a press release and photo, and things had been a whirlwind since then. Bre still questioned her sanity every day. Lying to the press felt easy, but lying to the people in her life made Bre’s stomach ache. It appeared as though everyone from Bre’s parents to her flatmate was in someway pissed off at Bre for getting engaged to a Duke. Everything felt like it was moving so fast, especially considering their engagement was fake.
The only perk to the situation was the charity. When Henry first pitched it to Bre, she’d nearly laughed in his face. Sure, she enjoyed art, but she had not done much with her art degree outside of some freelance graphic design when she lived at home in Pennsylvania. The idea of heading a charity didn’t feel like any sort of bonus, but it turned out, Bre enjoyed the work. It fulfilled a passion inside of her that she didn’t know was missing. Once again, Henry read her like a book.
His attentiveness made it more difficult to delineate between what felt real between them, and what they did to convince everyone of their ruse. The lines blurred, and at times Bre considered what it might be like to actually marry Henry. Those were dangerous thoughts.
“Are you ready for tonight?” Henry asked, kissing the side of her neck as he helped her slip into her dress. Though Bre maintained her flat, she spent most of her time at Rochester House with Henry. The past weeks proved so blissful, which made the weight in her chest balloon even further. Henry’s reputation was hardly cleaned up. The papers often ran headlines disparaging her background, claiming how terrible of a match the two made, but by keeping his own destructive behaviors out of the papers, slowly, but surely, he managed to gain more confidence from his colleagues. They did not seem to care about her appropriateness in the same way everyone else did.
“I’m nervous,” she admitted. “I’ve never been in charge of something like this, and I don’t want to screw it up. More donors mean more money, which means more opportunities. I’ve already reached out to several schools who are willing to partner with us.” Excitement flooded through her at the possibilities.
“Don’t be nervous,” Henry told her zipping up the designer dress she’d purchased for the evening. Her wardrobe grew more expensive by the day, and Henry’s insistence on paying for it made her uncomfortable. “One of your most admirable qualities is your ability to complete a task.”
Bre snorted at his words, “How romantic,” she said sarcastically.
“Consider it a compliment,” he told her as he resumed kissing her softly. “Your shrewdness turns me on.” He ran his hands up the length of her dress, causing Bre to moan at the implications. They spent the past month having more sex than Bre’d experienced in her whole life, but no matter how often Henry spent inside of her, she always wanted more, and so did he.
“We have to go soon,” she breathed out before knocking his hands away. “We can’t be late to our own party.”
“Of course we can,” Henry chuckled resuming his journey. “You’ll find that being titled gives you the ability to do whatever you please.” His words affected her like cold water, and she reminded herself to wake up from this delicious dream.
Untangling herself from him under the guise of not wanting to be late, Bre considered the fact that despite how well things went between them, they’d never be married, and she’d never become Duchess. Henry made it clear that day in the garden that while he enjoyed Bre’s company, and wanted to see where their relationship went, he had no intention of marrying her or anyone else. They’d never gotten around to discussing why, and Bre didn’t push, content to continue the farce.
“What’s wrong?” Henry asked as Bre went back to getting herself ready for tonight’s event. The playfulness between the two of them vanished at his words, and Bre’s feelings felt hurt.
“Nothing,” she told Henry. “Like I said, just nervous.”
The more time Bre spent around Henry, the deeper she fell into his web, and she knew without a doubt she’d end up hurt by the end of all of this, but Bre wasn’t sure she could extract herself from the tangle. Sometimes she worried that if she spent any longer with her dastardly Duke, she’d find herself hopelessly in love and willing to do anything he wanted. That balloon in her chest swelled just a tab more inside her chest.
