He had to think quickly and find that solution if he was going to persuade her to cooperate though. “I can’t marry Brenda. She’s like a sister to me, and I’m sure she found the idea equally reprehensible. My dad’s health is failing, and I’m afraid the stress of my accident, paired with his devastation if he actually goes through with signing over the company to someone else, would trigger a heart attack that might kill him. It’s clear Brenda came to the same conclusion, so she was willing to play along with the insanity to calm my father. That’s basically what I did too, so I told him I had a girlfriend.”
If possible, her expression closed further. “From what I’ve seen in the celebrity gossip magazines and rag papers from Europe and the United States, you have several girlfriends from which to choose, so that still doesn’t explain why I’m here.”
He winced at the bite in her tone, along with the faint hint of judgment underlying her words. She all but called him a man-whore, and while he would like to disagree with her, now wasn’t the time—and, to be honest, he couldn’t really defend that accusation, because it bordered on true.
“My lady friends aren’t the kind of ladies my father wants to see me settled with, and so I had to invent someone else. I ran out of creativity when he expected to meet you…that is her…tonight, and you were the first person who popped into my mind. You’re in the city and always do an excellent job of accomplishing any task.”
She rolled her eyes. “This is quite a bit different from ensuring your favorite bottled water is imported to a hotel in Bangkok, Mr. Blackwell.”
“I know, but I have a plan.” She looked surprised, but it could only match his own surprise as he said the words, because he had no plan and no clue. He opened his mouth, allowing words to spill from it that he hoped made some semblance of sense and sounded convincing.
“I just need you to go along with it for a little bit. Once Dad calms down, you and I can fake an argument and a spectacular breakup. You’ll be off the hook, and he’ll be content for a while that I’m not a complete reprobate incapable of commitment.” He didn’t think there was a chance that would actually work, but for the moment, he simply needed to secure her agreement. “It’s just for a few weeks. Will you do it?”
She frowned at him. “I distinctly remember you and your father setting our wedding date for a month from now, Connor, so how is that supposed to work?”
“Easy. We just go along with everything. We’ll pretend we’re setting up a wedding, and then you can dump me at the last minute, and Dad will be certain my heart is broken and give it a rest for a while. Anyone would need time to recover from devastation like that.” Enthusiastically, he added, “If you jilted me, he’d really feel sorry for me and let me live my own life while saving the company for my sister.”
She let out a sound of outrage. “Not only do you expect me to pretend to be your fake fiancée and ingratiate myself to your family, but you also expect me to be the bad guy who ends the relationship too?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “It wouldn’t do anything to soothe my dad, or calm his need for me to settle down right away, if I’m the one who ruins the relationship, would it?” At the shake of her head, he continued on. “It’s much easier for the relationship to disintegrate by your choice. I’ll give you a huge bonus, and when this is all over, we can go back to the way things were.”
She snorted. “I doubt that, but I don’t think there’s any going back to the way things were after tonight either way, so I guess I’ll help you.”
He beamed at her. “Excellent. Thank you, Angelina. Just keep the ring on for now, and we’ll figure out all the details of our implosion later. For now, we’ll just play along, right?”
She seemed perturbed, but she nodded. There was a hint of wary resignation about her when she waved to the door. “Fine, now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to bed. It’s been a long and strange day, and I don’t even want to think about what I just agreed to.”
It was unusual for a woman to rush him out of her house. Usually, she was busy rushing him in the opposite direction, toward her bedroom, but of course it wouldn’t be that way with Angelina. They were business associates, and perhaps they might form a tenuous friendship during their shared trial, but it wasn’t anything more to it than that.
There couldn’t possibly be, could there? Of course not. He was nowhere near ready to settle down, and she had the kind of responsibilities he didn’t want to think about. This was a short-term business deal for both of them, and though he hoped to retain her as assistant when it ended, he would sacrifice that relationship if necessary to keep his father’s health stable.
He was feeling considerably lighter—though he knew he wasn’t as close to a solution as he had presented to her—as he left Angelina’s house a few minutes later and got behind the wheel of his car to drive away. He’d made it seem cut and dried, basically a simple matter of staging a relationship that didn’t exist and turning it into a breakup from hell, with her cast as the villain, and that leading to his father easing up on the demand for marriage.
He had a feeling William wouldn’t be so easy to fool, and it wouldn’t be quite so easy to break up their fake relationship, but he wasn’t going to reveal that to Angelina until he absolutely had to. Why make things more complicated sooner than he had to?
***
Could things get more complicated? Despite her tiredness from a long day—which had been a rough one for Kevin, meaning it was a rough day for her—followed by the continuous shocks that had started from the moment she answered her boss’s call, she couldn’t seem to fall asleep.
Instead, she tossed and turned while fretting about the agreement she had reached with Connor, knowing it was wrong on so many levels, but also unable to coolly and firmly tell him no and refuse to help him. She tried to tell herself it was for his father’s sake, but she couldn’t fully embrace that lie, since she had barely known William Blackwell all of two hours, and they certainly hadn’t found time for a chat—a fact for which she was grateful.
She let out a small groan as she realized they would have to create the story of how their relationship had progressed at her next meeting with Connor. She was certain her grandmother would have been rolling in her grave right about then.
If Yvonne had still been alive, she wouldn’t have hesitated to show her disapproval of the arrangement, because she wasn’t a woman who had suffered dishonesty gladly. She had raised Angelina to be truthful, and it felt natural to her now to do so. It was completely against everything ingrained in her to carry on this kind of deception, particularly at this scale, but she couldn’t see much of an alternative, especially not after she had agreed to go through with it for another week or two.
It was obvious to her, at least, that she couldn’t maintain a working relationship with Connor after the events of the evening. If she refused to maintain the charade, he would fire her, or things would be strained between them, and his family would wonder why he kept her in his employment if she’d suddenly broken up with him.
That same outcome would occur in a week or two when they staged their breakup, but at least she would have the cushion of a large bonus to fall back on—a cushion she needed to ensure the best future for Kevin and herself. It was completely avaricious, but she could either resign now and force Connor to deal with the mess on his own, ending up with a fraction of what she could get if she maintained the charade a bit longer, or hang in a bit longer and get enough to live on after the disaster.
She hated regarding it in such a coldblooded and calculating manner, but she had to be practical. Without a job, she wouldn’t be able to keep a roof over their head for long. It was difficult to find a job she could do from home, and there was absolutely no way she could leave Kevin alone all day, especially in his current state. Without a well-paying job, she couldn’t afford to place him in even a public institution, let alone the nice facility surrounded by nature that his doctor recommended. An at-home aide was out, since the las
t time she had tried a companion, he had injured the other woman in one of his fits.
The kind of money Connor was talking about, the number he had whispered to her on his way out the door, was the kind that could potentially change her life. It would allow her to enroll her brother into the program while setting up a trust for Kevin’s care, and she could take time to find another job. She could even finish bachelor’s degree and do something different from personal assistant work.
In a way, she was lying to Connor’s family to benefit her family, and it was partially to benefit Connor’s as well. They were sure to be disappointed when they realized the relationship was over, but perhaps it would settle William’s need to see his son married off. She trusted Connor’s judgment on that, because he knew the other man and she didn’t.
Not exactly satisfied with her decision, she had at least settled the worst of her ethical dilemmas with her self-rationalization. As she finally drifted off to sleep, she assured herself continuing the farce had absolutely nothing to do with helping Connor himself, or being unable to resist his pleading gaze.
She dreamed about their wedding.
Chapter Four
The first thing she did the next morning was try to remove the ring, which stubbornly still refused to come off. It wasn’t uncomfortable or cutting off her circulation, so she reluctantly left it on.
The second thing she did was arrange an appointment with the Henderson Center at eleven a.m., wanting to tour the facility that she had only seen through brochures before committing to the idea of sending Kevin there to live. After that, she made a stop by the bank and had just returned home from depositing the fat stack of cash for last night’s charade, which would enable her to pay the exorbitant fees for Kevin’s facility if she signed the paperwork, when Connor showed up on her doorstep with an unfamiliar black woman in tow.
“Good morning, love.” He greeted her with a hug and a kiss that wasn’t…entirely unpleasant.