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Miss Lark presses her fingers to her mouth.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers slowly. “I wasn’t drunk. You were just helping me. You aren’t a villain. Why are they doing this?”
The hurt tone in her voice gives me pause. She may be twenty-three, but at the moment she sounds like a young girl meeting the ugliness of the real world for the first time.
Shame I have to be that ugliness.
“My reputation has caught up with you,” I say. “An unearned reputation, I promise. I’m not in the habit of preying on random women at all. But a certain business rival has a vested interest in spreading this dreck, and you’ve been caught in the crossfire. You came to Seattle seeking employment, correct?”
“Well ... yes,” she says faintly. “I mean, I’m also here to help out Gran, but I was going to take a few days to settle in and then start looking for jobs.”
She goes paler as the realization sinks in.
Somehow, her pallor only makes her look more unreal, bringing out shades of red in her eyelids, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and her lips, as if colored with natural makeup.
She’s pretty as hell, and I need a firm slap across the face to quit staring.
“Oh. Now I see. So I guess Twitter figured out who I am from the photos.” She swallows visibly. “And that means if any employer googles me, that’s what’s going to come up. That I’m some drunken ho-bag sleeping with—whoever you are.” She stares at me. “Who are you, August? Why are they saying all these crazy things about you?”
“Rumors. Just like I said. A little blackhearted business dispute. Again, I assure you there’s no trail of victims littered in my path. Not even one.” I sit back in the hard-backed chair, lacing my fingers together over my stomach.
That part is true.
Mostly.
Whatever guilt I carry doesn’t necessarily reflect the honest facts of the situation.
“I do, however, need to recover my reputation in some way, Miss Lark. My family runs a children’s publishing house, and it’s currently on the ropes. I’ve been called in to reverse its fortunes, but I can hardly take over Little Key Publishing when the tabloids are telling every bored bystander in the world that I’m a predator who takes advantage of vulnerable young women.” I incline my head. “Not exactly someone who should be selling books to kids.”
“Hold up,” Miss Joly cuts in. “How does getting married fix that? Like ... did you snap under the stress? Is this you having a psychotic break?”
I eye her. “Your sense of humor is interesting.” Then I turn my attention back to Miss Lark. “We don’t need to actually get married. An engagement is enough—and a temporary engagement at that. If we’re engaged, there’s a plausible explanation for why I was carrying you in the airport. Far more plausible than me helping a total stranger in medical distress.”
They all look at me like I’ve grown a second head. I’m not winning hearts and minds.
“Look, I have enough contacts in the mainstream press. If we do a joint press release, any searches for your name will return tons about the engagement. Far more than the tabloid mud trying to fabricate a scandal. In the meantime, I can announce my takeover of Little Key Publishing as a family man intending to make a fresh start with a lovely young woman at my side. After an appropriate period of time, we’ll stage an amicable breakup. Our relationship couldn’t survive the fact that I’m away for months, working on huge turnaround projects for global companies. You will be well compensated for your time, and in the end, I might have contacts who could assist with your career. Easy.”
It’s not, but I need to sell this.
I pause.
It hits me that I truly know absolutely nothing about Miss Lark or what she might want in life.
I wasn’t nosy enough to see what sort of jobs she was looking at on the flight, and I glanced away after noticing the logo of the career site at the top of the page.
“What exactly do you do, Miss Lark?”
She’s listened to my proposal in complete silence, just looking at me with the strangest expression on her face, but now she shakes herself, blinking through her daze.
“I’m an illustrator . . . ,” she says slowly.
Fuck me, I almost smile.
“Interesting coincidence,” I say. “Have you heard of illustrator and author Clara Marshall?”
“Oh no. Stop,” Miss Joly interrupts, dragging a hand over her face. “Now you’ve done it.”
Miss Lark brightens instantly. “Clara Marshall? The same one who did Inky the Penguin? Oh my God. I sent so many pen pal letters to Inky—I loved those books! They were the whole reason I wanted to be an illustrator in the first place. They made me so happy, and—wait.” Her lashes tremble as her eyes widen. “Marshall. You mean you’re—”
