“It means I’m going to sit here and hear you out, though.”
“You’d be well remunerated for your time and trouble.”
She compressed her lips, her heart beating faster. “Meaning?”
“You won’t have to worry about the deposit for your Australian property purchase.”
Her jaw dropped again. She was getting used to that around Matthieu. “I see.”
“I’m thinking fifty thousand euros plus you’d get to keep the engagement ring.”
Skye jerked to her feet, narrowly avoiding slopping her wine over the edge of the glass. “I’m sorry. Did you just say—fifty thousand euros?”
“And the engagement ring, which will be worth five times that, at least.”
Skye squeezed her eyes shut, and drunk from the glass, several sips until it was almost empty. “Matthieu…that’s…I don’t…that’s an obscene amount of money.”
“It’s all relative.”
“So because you’re a billionaire, you think that’s good value?”
“I think it’s fair payment for what I’m asking of you.”
“You make it sound like a root canal. You’re just asking me to pretend to be your fiancé, right?”
“You’d be in the press.” His voice was gruff. “And that can be a brutal experience.”
Skye straightened her spine. “You think I care?” If only he knew how she’d felt all her life! Like a square peg in a round hole, the odd one out.
“I think they’re brutal,” he repeated.
“And I’m not exactly the kind of woman they’d expect you to be engaged to?”
“No,” he agreed after a pause that seemed somehow loaded.
“Well, they have a point there. Surely there are other women who’d be way better suited to you?”
He scowled, and didn’t answer at first, so she wondered what he was thinking and not saying—she was convinced there was more to this.
“I don’t want it to be the kind of woman they’d expect.”
“Okay. Even pretending that made sense, there would be tens of thousands of women who’d do this. You must know someone, someone you didn’t just meet…”
“Other women I know might have expectations. If I ask a friend, it could jeopardise that friendship, or they might feel a split loyalty to my grandparents.”
“Whereas you and I are nothing to each other, and your family is certainly nothing to me, so you think I’ll do this without any complications?”
“Exactly.”
She pulled her lips to the side, lost in thought. “I don’t love the idea of lying to your grandparents,” she said after a beat. “Or my family, come to think of it.”
“Which is why the price has to be right.”
“So for the right amount of money, you think my conscience can be overcome?”
“That’s a question for you to answer.”
She glowered at him, well aware she’d armed him with far too much information. The thought of being able to cover the deposit on her father’s beloved farm made it impossible to flat out decline his offer.