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Amelia watched him, unsure about how it felt to have him in her space. He moved with a powerful sort of grace, and he took up a lot of room. He cast an eye around her apartment, and she suddenly felt exposed. She had pictures of Lucy and Camilla, her sister, and her parents displayed all around the apartment. The kitchen was tidy except for the three dirty mugs she’d just placed in the sink. The door to the office was open, and she could see the mess on her desk from across the room.
“You hungry?” Leo asked.
She suddenly realized she was starving. “Yes.”
That seemed to please him. He started hunting through the cupboards until he came out with two plates, then went searching for utensils, as comfortable in her space as if he lived here.
She couldn’t decide if she loved that thought or hated it, but she was drawn to the kitchen table by the scent of steaming food in Styrofoam containers. They ate in silence until their plates were cleared and Leo leaned back in his chair.
Amelia narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you really doing here?”
His gaze roamed over her face, and he lifted a shoulder. “Thought we should talk about tomorrow, and maybe attack another module of your syllabus. We only have a few days to find the love of your life, after all.”
“Hmm,” Amelia answered noncommittally. Then she nodded to her phone, which was on the arm of the sofa in the other room. “I got the schedule for the retreat you sent. It seems intense.”
“There are a lot of activities,” he agreed. “It’s a multi-day party that Fred throws for the top employees and their partners. It happens every year, and getting invited is a huge honor. It’s the one party a year that we don’t have to plan.”
“So, if they find out we’re not actually engaged, it’ll be a big deal.”
“Very.”
Amelia nodded. “Okay.” She watched Leo for a moment, then asked, “Why did you lie about having a fiancée?”
A sigh slipped through his lips as his gaze drifted from hers. He played with the edge of a Styrofoam container for a moment and finally shrugged. “Fred cares a lot about family. His company caters to all these A-list celebrities and wealthy people, and we plan all kinds of crazy events for them. But at its core, our team is pretty small. The business is built entirely on relationships and reputation. He’s built a name for Goodhew to the point that the waitlist to have a party organized by us is years long. When he says that the company is like family, it’s not just corporate bullshit. He really means it.”
“And you didn’t think being Mr. Pestilence would jive with that.”
A bitter laugh. “No. I didn’t.” He combed a hand through his hair and lifted his gaze to Amelia’s. “This job is important to me. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it weren’t.”
Amelia held his gaze, then nodded. She could respect that. Leo sometimes put on his charming smile and dazzled people into thinking he was a carefree guy, but Amelia had seen glimpses of something deeper. She’d seen it in his desperation in the parking lot, when he tried to convince her to pretend with him, and in the way he comforted her before they started the bridal procession down the aisle.
Their conversation at The Shed had shown her just how easily he slid on a mask for the benefit of others. To him, bedroom eyes weren’t a result of arousal; they were a means to an end.
It made her want to see the real Leo. In spite of his reputation, the fact that he could probably get any girl he chose, and his painful good looks, Amelia wondered if Leo felt as lonely as she did.
“Okay,” she finally replied. “I get it. I won’t mess this up for you.”
He blew out a breath. “Thanks.”
They spent a few minutes going over a backstory, which turned into talk about Leo’s work. Leo ended up telling her about a party he threw on a private island in the South Pacific, where they had to fly everyone in on helicopters and planned to get them out via boat, and then realized they hadn’t brought enough fuel, and some drunk partygoer had thrown the satellite phone in the pool and ruined it. He had her clutching her stomach with laughter as he explained the harrowing journey across the water in his tiny metal boat to get to the nearest island where he could contact the right people to get fuel to the island—all before the guests realized anything was wrong.
They’d moved to the sofa, and Amelia had one leg curled under the other, her elbow resting on the back of the couch as she listened. She huffed and shook her head. “I would have panicked. Everyone would have known there was a problem.”
“Your poker face needs work,” he conceded. “When I walked into the church on Saturday, you looked like you were ready to kill me.”
“That’s because I was.”
His warm chuckle wrapped around her, teasing her own lips into a smile. Then he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small ring box. “Here.”
She caught the box and flipped it open, brows arching. “Wow.” A glittering princess-cut diamond stared back at her from its bed of black velvet, the delicate white-gold band carved in a filigree pattern. It looked vintage and cool and very expensive, even though the stone didn’t look particularly large. It was beautiful. “Where did you get this?”
Leo shifted in his seat, then shrugged. “Rented it from a jeweler. I have to give it back next week.”
“A jeweler let you rent a ring like this?” She lifted it out of the box and watched the light play through the stone. “I didn’t even know you could rent jewelry.”
“We go way back,” Leo explained. “Try it on.”
She put the ring on. It was a little bit loose but still felt secure behind her knuckle. Her throat was suddenly tight. “It’s beautiful.”
