Chapter 5
ADRIAN
Elizabeth sat perfectly still in the chair across from my desk, hands folded in her lap. I wasn’t entirely sure she was breathing. The poor thing looked terrified. Did she really say yes? I wasn’t entirely sure she understood what she was agreeing to.
“Yes?” I repeated. “Yes, you’ll pretend to be engaged to me?”
She nodded, but she wouldn’t look me directly in the eyes.
I studied her as she sat there. Chris had mentioned she was pretty, but that was an understatement. Elizabeth Laramie was stunning in a way that snuck up on you—not the obvious, polished beauty I was used to seeing in my world, but something more natural. More real.
A few strands had escaped her bun to frame her face, softening the sharp lines of her cheekbones. Her green eyes were wide with what looked like barely contained panic, but they were striking.
She was wearing a cream blouse that was slightly too big in the shoulders, black pants that had seen better days, and a blazer that was actually well made.
I recognized quality stitching when I saw it, and whoever had made that blazer knew what they were doing.
Given what Chris had told me about her background, she’d probably made it herself.
She looked like someone who understood style but was working with a limited budget. She would do. She would definitely do.
“I need to grab some paperwork for you to sign,” I said with my mind made up. “Standard NDA outlining the terms of our arrangement. I’ll just be a minute.”
She nodded again, silent.
I stepped outside and took a second to fully grasp what I was doing. But there was one thought that was dominant. Fuck, that woman is hot.
I hadn’t asked Chris for a picture. Hadn’t cared what she looked like because this was supposed to be purely business.
A transactional arrangement where physical attraction was irrelevant.
If anything, I’d assumed she’d be perfectly average.
Cute enough to be believable as my fiancée, but not so stunning that it would complicate things between us.
Elizabeth Laramie was not average. She had curves that her conservative outfit couldn’t quite hide. The kind of figure that would photograph beautifully.
And her mouth. Full lips that would look so good wrapped around my cock.
I pressed my palm against my forehead, trying to regain some semblance of professional composure.
Was it better or worse that I was attracted to my fake fiancée?
Better, I decided. Definitely better. We would have to be physically close, holding hands, posing for photos, maybe even kissing if the situation demanded it.
If I found her unattractive, that would have been a much harder sell for both of us.
At least this way, pretending to be into her wouldn’t require any actual pretending.
But it also meant I would have to be very, very careful not to let this arrangement blur into something it wasn’t supposed to be.
I could absolutely work with an attractive woman without losing my mind.
Fake fiancée or not, this was just another show for the cameras.
I had done some modeling for the company over the years, so I just needed to think of this arrangement as an extension of that.
I knocked on Briggs’s office door and walked in without waiting for him to answer. “Got a minute?”
He looked up, removing his reading glasses. “What’s up?”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. “I found myself a fiancée. Do you have all the paperwork ready?”
Briggs’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Already? I thought we were waiting to hear back from that talent agency Carol contacted.”
“Change of plans. I’m going a different route.” I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms. “Found someone I can trust. My friend Chris’s sister. She’s into fashion, she needs work, and she won’t leak any of this to the press.”
“And his sister just agreed to this? Out of nowhere?” Briggs looked at me with his lawyer eyes, sizing me up like a witness on the stand.
“Not out of nowhere. She’s a designer who needs a job in the industry. I’m offering her one after Love Week ends. Plus I’ll offer fifty thousand for her time. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
He frowned, absorbing the information. “Have you met her?”
“She’s in my office right now.”
“And? What’s she like?”
I hesitated, trying to figure out how to describe Elizabeth without revealing that I’d spent the last five minutes trying not to think about her curves. “She’s quiet. Shy.”
“That could be a problem. You need someone who can handle the spotlight, not freeze up when cameras are pointed at her.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure about this? Going with someone who isn’t a stranger? It could get complicated.”
“How?”
“What if you catch real feelings for this girl?”
I actually laughed. “Briggs, I haven’t fallen in love in all my years. I seriously doubt she’s going to be my soulmate just because we spend a month pretending to be engaged.”
“You’re also spending a month in close proximity to an attractive woman who you have to act affectionate with. That’s a recipe for things getting messy.” Briggs looked unconvinced, but he handed me the folder anyway. “Everything you need is in here. Standard NDA.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“This could blow up in our faces if it goes wrong.”
“It won’t go wrong.”
“You seem very confident about a woman you just met five minutes ago.”
I met his eyes. “I trust Chris. That means I can trust her. And honestly, what choice do we have? Love Week starts in less than two weeks. This is a great option.”
Briggs sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright. Just try not to make things more complicated than they need to be.”
“When have I ever complicated things?”
“Do you want the chronological list or the alphabetical one?”
I flipped him off and headed back toward my office.
Elizabeth was exactly where I’d left her, sitting in the same position, staring at her hands. For a second, I wondered if she’d moved at all or if she’d been frozen in place by sheer terror.
She looked up, fear in her eyes. Like I was a lion, and she was trying to figure out if I’d already eaten or if I was still hungry.
I sat down and spread the documents across the desk.
“This is straightforward stuff. The first document is a nondisclosure agreement. You can’t discuss the nature of our arrangement with anyone—not friends, not family beyond Chris, not anyone.
If you breach the NDA, there are significant financial penalties. ”
She leaned forward slightly, looking at the papers but not touching them. “So Chris can know?”
“Chris already knows. But he’s bound by the same rules. He can’t discuss it with anyone else either. I’ll have him sign his own NDA.”
“Okay.”
“The second document is the contract itself. It outlines the expectations.”
“Like what?” she asked quietly.
“Well, you’ll attend all Fashion of Love Week events with me, do press appearances, post on social media, essentially play the role of my fiancée in all public settings.
In exchange, you’ll receive fifty thousand, paid in full after the final show in New York, plus a guaranteed position at Blackwell Couture starting the Monday after Love Week concludes. ”
Her eyes widened at the number. “Fifty thousand? Dollars?”
“Is that not enough?”
“No, that’s a lot of money.”
“It’s compensation for your time. And this is important.”
She was reading through the documents now. I watched her eyes move across the pages, occasionally lingering on certain clauses. She was actually reading it, not just skimming. Smart.
But watching her read was also making me aware of how quiet she was. How she had barely asked any questions. How she seemed almost afraid.
Maybe Briggs was right to be concerned.
If Elizabeth couldn’t handle a private conversation in my office, how was she going to handle a press conference? A photo shoot? Standing on stage in front of thousands of people?
I pushed the doubts away. She’d be fine. She just needed time to adjust.
“Do you have any questions?” I asked.
She looked up from the papers. “What if people don’t believe us?”
“They will.”
“But what if they don’t? What if I’m not convincing enough?”
There was something vulnerable in the question.
“Elizabeth.” I waited until she met my eyes. “If you agree to this, I’m trusting you to make it work. Can you do that?”
She swallowed. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
She picked up the pen I’d set out and signed the documents. I signed where I needed to, then gathered the papers and put them back in the folder.
“Welcome to the team,” I said, and immediately regretted how corporate it sounded. This wasn’t a new hire. This was a woman who’d just agreed to lie to the world for me.
But Elizabeth gave me a tentative smile, the first real smile I’d seen from her. Heat rushed through me.
Yeah. I was definitely going to have to be careful.
“Come on,” I said, standing abruptly. “I want to show you something.”
She stood too, grabbing her bag and following me to the door. We walked to the elevators in silence. I could feel the tension radiating off her in waves. In the elevator, she stood as far from me as the small space would allow, her eyes fixed on the floor numbers ticking by.
“You can relax,” I said. “I don’t bite.”
“Sorry.” But she didn’t look any more relaxed.
The elevator opened on the forty-eighth floor. I led her through a set of double doors into the workshop.
The space was massive, the entire floor dedicated to the creative heart of Blackwell Couture. Fabric bolts lined one wall in every color imaginable, organized by shade and texture. Dress forms stood throughout the space draped in half-finished garments.
Elizabeth transformed.
The nervousness didn’t disappear completely, but it dimmed, replaced by something else. Wonder. Or hunger. Excitement, for sure. She stepped forward slowly, her eyes moving over everything. She looked like a kid in a candy store.
“This is…” She trailed off, moving toward a table where someone had laid out a pattern. “This is like heaven.”
There it was. A glimpse of who Elizabeth actually was beneath all that anxiety. She touched the edge of the fabric gently, reverently, like it was something precious.
“This is where you’ll work after Love Week ends,” I said. “If you want to.”
She looked at me and, for the first time, held my gaze for more than a second. “Really?”
“Really. Let’s find Annika.”