Chapter 7
A FAMILY MAN DOESN’T DO DRUGS ON AIRPLANES
DECLAN
What the fuck was she doing here?
Sarah hadn’t bothered with this trip since we’d broken up four years ago.
We met at Yale where we lived in the same dorm our freshman year. We dated toward the end of college and into our twenties. I unfortunately had to give her credit for some of my success in this field. She was the reason I even got a job at Driscoff and Pugh when I was a new grad.
When we broke up, I was nervous I would get black listed or fired, but truly her father didn’t care. We kept it professional and ended things amicably. By the end, we’d grown in different directions—she wanted a ring and I wanted a career.
Marriage wasn’t my priority and she wanted more.
Now, she was standing in front of me on the arm of my biggest competition for the Denver position in the Spring.
Fucking fantastic.
“Sarah,” I said in a stern tone. I didn’t know what she was up to in all of this, but it didn’t seem like a coincidence.
It was no secret that her and I had a past, but yet, Tom never mentioned her by name during any of our conversations.
“Dex. So good to see you.” Her eyes trailed to Claire and she put on a smile that I knew was fake, if not a little venomous. “Sarah Driscoff. And you are?”
My arm tightened around Claire as I pulled her closer to my body like I could protect her from these vultures.
“This is Claire.”
“Lovely to meet you, Claire.” Sarah’s eyes snapped back to mine. “It’s funny, I didn’t think you were bringing a date.”
“I was always bringing a date.” I had no patience for this. I already had to keep myself from punching Tom in the face for implying that Claire was anything but stunning. I couldn’t handle this spoiled brat’s assessment of her on top of that.
“My mistake,” she cooed.
“Right, well, if you’ll excuse us.” I pulled Claire toward the bar, not so politely cutting off our conversation.
“Are they always like that?” Claire asked as we approached the bar.
“Yes,” I gritted out. I held up a hand to the bartender. “Two classes of champagne please.”
Two glasses were placed in front of us. I handed Claire one and took the other before guiding us to our seats. Hopefully we could get through the rest of the night by avoiding most of my peers.
Wishful thinking since we were surrounded.
A few hours later, we’d eaten dinner and made a lap around the room. There was more than one comment implying that Claire was my date and not my assistant, and I didn’t go out of my way to correct them—neither did she.
I wasn’t sure why I was letting the rumor fly. It felt good to be looked at like a man in love rather than a man who just got dumped and was forced to bring his assistant as his plus one.
There was no one else here from the Austin office, so it wasn’t common knowledge that Claire was technically my employee.
When Claire excused herself to the bathroom, I ventured to refill our drinks. I had almost made it back to the table when Tom flagged me down.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you all night,” Tom said as I placed Claire’s drink on the table and took a sip of the whiskey in my hand.
“Funny how that works. I’ve been pulled in a lot of directions.”
Plus, I’ve been avoiding you.
“I’m happy I finally got to meet your girl. I feel like you’ve been hiding her, but at least now I know why,” he said in a snarky tone.
His smile told me that he didn’t realize what he just said was highly insulting—again. He didn’t mean he knew that she was my assistant and we were keeping our relationship on the down low. His words were a direct shot at Claire’s appearance.
“And what do you think you know?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that you know how Driscoff loves the family image. It’s a good play to bring someone so… sweet.”
I literally didn’t know how to respond to that without causing a scene.
“Claire and I kept things private because that's how we like it. We didn’t feel the need to showboat.”
Tom smirked at me, his eyes trailing toward Sarah and her father at the head table.
“I get that. Sometimes it’s just beneficial to showboat when it gets you want you want.”
I furrowed my brow, trying to understand what Tom was getting at. “And what do you want?”
Tom exhaled. “Let’s just say Paul Driscoff loves a family man and his daughter is ready to be a mother.”
I stilled. He was using Sarah to get this promotion. Paul Driscoff had talked on record about how he preferred his company leadership to have a strong sense of morals and family connections. What better way to get promoted then to prove that quality with the CEO’s own daughter.
Fuck.
It was risky but, if played right, could get Tom very far in this company. Even I had a history with Sarah that gave me an advantage at times.
Claire and I weren’t actually dating. People seemed to believe we were, but we hadn’t been cozied up together or putting on public displays of affection like Tom and Sarah had. To anyone else, Claire and I were a superficial couple that no one knew.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This was very bad. I had no hope of getting this promotion over Tom if I couldn’t prove that I was more of a family man than he was.
Tom started droning on about some rumor he’d heard about the executive team in Philadelphia getting an overhaul but I couldn’t hear him over the panic-inducing roaring in my ears. He was going into excruciating detail about the people getting fired when an idea struck me like lightning.
I clapped Tom on the shoulder and smiled. “Sorry to cut you off,”—I wasn’t—“but I forgot something in our chalet. I’ll be right back.”
I turned and bolted for the door. I made it back to the chalet in two minutes flat, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached my room. I popped open my briefcase and palmed the red velvet box sitting on the bottom.
In bad form, I’d forgotten it was even in there but maybe it was just meant to be. I tucked it into my suit jacket pocket and quickly made my way back to the party.
When I stepped into the ballroom, Claire’s eyes found mine immediately. She offered me a soft smile as I crossed the room toward her in only a few strides. As I reached her, I looped an arm around her waist and pulled her into me.
Her bright blue eyes blinked at me in surprise at the sudden contact.
“Dance with me.”
It wasn’t a question, but she still whispered “okay” in a wispy tone that I liked way too much.
We walked to the center of the crowded dance floor and I rested my hands on her hips as she placed hers on my chest. Being this close should have felt weird. Alarm bells should have been going off that Claire and I were very different people who had different goals in life but they weren’t.
For some reason, I was drawn to this girl. She was a total wild card in my life.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She asked in a low tone.
“Like what?” I asked, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear.
“Like you’ve never seen me before.”
Because I wasn’t sure I had.
“I’m about to do something really stupid, Claire. And I need you to go with it.”
She tilted her head, confused. “Okay?”
“Just say yes.”
She let out a small gasp as I fell to one knee in the middle of the crowd and held up the opened ring box. The people surrounding us started cheering immediately, catching the attention of the entire room.
“Claire Bridelli. You’ve amazed me since the day we met. You’re attentive and sweet and care about other people. You excel at the work you do and it’s admirable. I was going to wait until later in the trip to do this, but tonight just felt right. Claire Bear, will you marry me?”
Claire looked absolutely stunned—or disgusted, I wasn’t exactly sure which emotion was more prominent. I took her left hand and squeezed it hard enough to make her blink, indicating she was still breathing.
The crowd was silent, hanging on the moment and waiting for Claire’s answer.
“Say yes, Claire,” I gritted out.
Her eyes went wide but she nodded and whispered, “yes.” The crowd erupted before the word was even out of her mouth. I slipped the ring onto her finger and scooped her off of the ground. She laughed and threw her head back as I marched us right toward the exit.
Before we reached the door, I turned toward Tom and Sarah who looked even more in shock than Claire did for my unplanned proposal. I threw them a wink and then turned to leave.
When we reached the lobby, I placed Claire on her feet and helped slip her jacket on. She didn’t look me in the eyes as we walked into the cold night air. In fact, she was completely silent.
At least, until the front door of the chalet closed behind me. Claire whirled on me and shoved my chest.
“What the fuck, Declan? What was that?”
I raised my hands defensively and took a step back. “Hear me out.”
She snorted and started up the stairs. “I need a drink if I’m going to hear you out about why you just proposed to be in front of the entire company when I didn’t even think you knew my first name until yesterday.”
“I always knew your name, Bear—Claire,” I corrected, hoping she missed the slip of the nickname.
“Not my point. Explain.” Claire opened a bottle of red wine and poured a healthy amount into a glass.
“You know Sarah and I dated.”
“Yes, I’ve seen you on page six.”
“Okay, so we broke up because she wanted to get married and I didn’t. Now she’s here with Tom and he made a few comments about Paul Driscoff wanting to promote a family man to the headquarters position in Denver. Tom is using Sarah, and I panicked.”
“So you proposed to look like a family man?”
“Yes.”
It sounded stupid when she said it out loud.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly sure that family men don’t do drugs on airplanes.”
“Technically, you did drugs on an airplane.”
“You brought them.”
“Fair.”
She crossed her arms. “You expect me to do what? Pretend to be your fiancée for the next month?”
“Uh, yes?”
She arched a brow like my request was ludicrous.
“I’ll do anything. If this gets me this promotion, I can set you up for when I leave. I promise.”
Her face perked up. “Can you write me a letter of recommendation?”
“For?”
“A job,” she said as if it was obvious.
“You have a job,” I pointed out.
“A marketing job.” She rolled her eyes. “My degree is in digital marketing.”
Of course, it wasn’t like she wanted to be my assistant forever.
“Done.”
“Not done.”
I grabbed the bottle of red and poured some into my own glass.
“What else?”
“I’m just confused about what this will entail.”
“Just act like the other girls. Enjoy this vacation. You’re no longer working so you can go shopping, go to the spa, hangout.
I can give you one of my cards to use so you don’t have to worry about it.
Attend the events on my arm. Act like you like me.
” The last part made her laugh—a little too hard for the gesture to not bruise my ego.
“What about PDA? It’ll be weird if we literally never act in love.” She sounded nervous to ask.
I shrugged. “If the moment strikes right, then we go with it. I’m not going to force you to kiss me. That feels weirdly not consensual.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a sip from her glass.
“Really?”
She nodded. “I’ll pretend to be your fiancée, Dex, if you promise me a letter of recommendation.”
“Absolutely. Done deal.”
She let out a breath and grabbed her clutch, abandoning her glass on the quartz countertop. As she passed me, I wrapped my fingers around her elbow to stop her. We were shoulder to shoulder, facing in opposite directions.
I reached up and hooked my finger under her chin, tilting it in my direction. When I leaned in, my lips brushed her cheek.
“Don’t call me Dex,” I said as a little gasp escaped her.
“Why?”
It would be so easy to kiss her right now. Until yesterday, I’d barely exchanged a few words with this girl and now I wanted to know what she tasted like.
“Because Declan sounds good coming out of your mouth.” My hand cupped her jaw as my thumb dusted over her bottom lip, dragging it down lightly.
Claire opened her mouth just enough for the pad of my thumb to slip into her mouth. She closed her lips around it as I slowly dragged it out. I had to hold in the groan as my cock stiffened.
“Declan it is, then.” She stepped away and started down the stairs. “Good night, Mr. Alexander.”
“Goodnight, Bear,” I said into the open space once she disappeared.
Who the fuck was this girl?