Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Tristan
I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face as I turned the key in the lock and opened my front door. “Hi honey, I’m home,” I called.
It was Parker’s third night at my place, and I planned to tell her tonight that I agreed to her marriage scheme.
I wasn’t quite sure how exactly. Obviously, I’d never fake-proposed to anyone in my life.
It wasn’t usually difficult for me to ask for what I wanted—and I definitely did want to marry Parker.
It was just that, even though our marriage would be fake, I liked her.
I found her attractive. If she wasn’t Arthur’s daughter, I’d certainly have tried to seduce her by now. And that complicated things. Slightly.
“Hey, I’m in the kitchen.” Of course she was. She loved my kitchen. When the time came for her to move out, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to drag her away.
“I hope my dinner’s on the table.”
I set down my messenger bag and headed to the kitchen, following the smell of home-cooked food. Marrying Parker just for her cooking ability wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
She bounced up and down on her tiptoes as I came in, her hands behind her back, grinning at me like it was my birthday. “I cooked again. This kitchen is my spiritual home. I may never leave.”
I glanced up. The lights were dimmed and the table was set for two.
“This looks cozy.”
“Doesn’t it though?” she said. “Did you even know you had candles in your uber-tidy drawers?”
“I didn’t,” I confessed, selecting a bottle from the wine fridge. “But they look good.” I pulled two glasses from the cabinet and uncorked the wine. And then I caught sight of what Parker was wearing.
A shorter-than-short red skirt, matching lipstick, and what looked suspiciously like one of my white business shirts.
Whatever she was heating up on the hob, she looked like a mighty fine main course. I wanted to stalk over to her, circle my hands around her waist, and bury my face in her neck. I wanted to knee her legs wide and reach up under her skirt and rip off her underwear.
I needed to muster a little self-control.
I wasn’t a horny teenager. Typically, I loved to charm and flatter women.
A good bit of flirting made a woman feel sexy, and that confidence was my catnip.
It felt unnatural for me to hold back with Parker, but I’d resisted so far.
Still, there was something about her that just drew me in, made me want to listen to what she had to say, and watch as she tucked her hair around her ear, enjoy the blush that crept up her cheeks when I made the most innocent of remarks.
I’d always seen flirting as a way of creating a connection, but maybe all this time, I’d been putting up a barrier. Although I couldn’t understand why I would want to.
“I like your outfit,” I said, skirting dangerously close to being flirtatious.
She spun around from where she was facing the hob and grinned at me. “You don’t mind?” She tugged on the collar of my shirt that she was wearing. “It was hanging in my wardrobe.”
I could see a corner of her white lace bra, where she hadn’t done the buttons up high enough. My cock twitched.
Shit. Arthur’s daughter, you creep.
“You don’t have to pretend you haven’t snooped,” I teased. I knew she hadn’t. I had a security system in my house that told me when each room of the house had been accessed.
“What are you talking about? Of course I haven’t snooped. Granted, only because I assume the place is full of hidden cameras. You’re so paranoid, Tristan.”
I chuckled. “Maybe. Better to be safe than sorry. Speaking of, I noticed you haven’t had any more unauthorized payments leave your account for the last couple of days.”
“Nope. Maybe whoever they are have gone to bother someone else. Does that mean I can go back to my flat?”
I hadn’t managed to find details on either of the companies that had been filtering funds from the charity bank account, but neither had I found anything concrete that I could point to and say, “See, that makes me uncomfortable.” There were just a few things that lay like sludge in my gut and told me that I should say no.
I should say anything that would keep her here. Safe with me.
“Let’s talk about it over dinner.” Hopefully she’d get distracted by the emerald I had burning in my pocket and she wouldn’t mention it again. “What are you making?”
“Man food,” she said brightly. “Beef bourguignon.”
My stomach rumbled. “Smells good. You’re a great cook.” I was terrible unless I set aside the entire day, and even then I had to carefully follow a recipe. Cooking for myself at the end of the day was just time out of my working day that I resented. It was why I ate out a lot.
“Thanks. I enjoy it.”
“It isn’t a real strength of mine.”
“Why is it that when you say it like that, I can’t help but think of what isn’t a strength of mine? Like . . . I’m really not into home organization.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.” Her flat was stuffed full of things like it was some hoarder museum. “At least you’re small so you don’t need much room among your junk.”
“Hey. That junk is my junk.” She grinned at me. “It’s all sentimental stuff.” She glanced around. “Can you hand me some dishes?”
I handed her the white bowls my interior designer had picked out for me.
“Your china is really nice,” she said as she ladled in the stew.
“I can’t take any credit,” I said. “The woman who designed the interior picked them.”
She turned to me. “I guess it makes sense you didn’t pick everything out. You’re busy and I’m sure it’s not top of your priority list, but it’s all so you. It fits you perfectly.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” So me? I liked that it was important to her that things people surrounded themselves with reflected who they were. I hoped she thought the same thing about the ring I’d picked out. It was how I saw her: simply beautiful. I hoped it was how she saw herself.
We finished dishing up dinner and took our now almost-familiar positions opposite each other around my dining table.
“This feels . . . nice,” she said. “Unless you want me to turn the light up?”
The candlelight was romantic. Perfect for a proposal, even if it was a fake one.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day about your trust fund,” I said. “And how you want access so you can use the money for your charities.”
Her eyes brightened and it was like sunshine through stained glass. It lit her up. “You have an idea? I’ve spoken to lawyers but they always tell me the same thing—the rules can’t be changed.”
“I think we should get married.”
Her fork was midway between her bowl and her mouth and she froze, staring at me as if she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard me right.
“You know,” I said. “So you can get access to your trust.” In my head, I knew that she knew this wasn’t a real proposal. But I just wanted to make doubly sure.
She was knocked out of her suspended animation like a stuck record that had been freed, and she grinned. “Really? Tristan? You’ll marry me for ninety days?”
Warmth burrowed into my stomach at seeing her so happy.
“Sure. No big deal, right?”
“What about you not wanting to upset Arthur?”
I shrugged. “Like you said, I’m going to be his son-in-law. How will that upset him?” To distract her from any potential pitfalls, I pulled out the ring box from my pocket and slid it onto the table between us. “I figured you’re going to need a ring if we’re going to pull this off.”
“You got a ring?” Her eyes grew large. She seemed momentarily hypnotized by the box. “I could have gotten a ring.”
“I think that’s normally the groom’s job.”
She pulled in a big breath and shook her head. “I can’t believe it. All that money—just think of all the things we’re going to be able to do, Tristan. It’s going to be amazing for all those families.”
She hadn’t asked to see the ring and I had a twinge of regret that it wasn’t important to her. But of course she was focused on her charity. After all, that was the reason we were getting married.
“I hope so,” I said.
“I guarantee it. There’s going to be so much good I can do.” She glanced at the box. “I know it’s not real and everything, but can I see the ring?”
A tightness in my chest loosened. “Of course. I bought it for you.”
She smiled and I opened the box for her to see.
She flattened her palm against her cheek and sighed.
“It’s beautiful, Tristan. Really beautiful.
And . . .” She glanced at me. “If I was going to pick out an engagement ring, this would be the exact ring that I would choose. It’s .
. . it’s perfect. It’s completely believable that this is something I’d wear. ”
I bloody knew it.
“Try it on,” I said.
“I suppose I could. To see if it fits at least.”
Tentatively, she reached for the ring and slid it on. This was a fake proposal—she knew it and I knew it—but there was an unexpected gravity to the moment that took me by surprise. Whether or not we were in love, the woman opposite was going to be my wife.
“It looks beautiful on you,” I said.
A sweep of red tinged her cheeks. “I suppose we should start to discuss logistics,” she said as she slipped the ring off her finger and put it back in the box.
I frowned. “You should keep it on. We’re engaged now.”
The corners of her mouth twitched like she wasn’t sure whether I was joking, but she put the ring back on. “As far as I’m concerned, the sooner we can sign those papers, the better.”
“You’re thinking we should elope?” I asked, turning my attention back to the stew.
She sighed. “I wish. But we can’t. My mother and father eloped and it caused shockwaves in the family. My grandmother didn’t speak to my mother for years after their wedding. My mother made me promise that I’d never do anything like that again.”
“Okay. No elopement. But we can say we don’t want a big wedding, right? Your parents don’t get to choose that.”
“Absolutely. And I agree that the fewer people we lie to, the better.”
“I’m going to have to figure out what to do with my parents. I don’t think they would be understanding about our ruse, which means I’m going to have to lie to them. I don’t feel great about it but I don’t see another way.”
“Okay,” she said. “That makes sense. The fewer people who know, the better. The key people we need to convince are my parents and the trustees. But it needs to look like a real wedding.”
“It’s going to be a real wedding,” I said. “Which means you’re going to have to move in here. Seeing as you’re here already, and we’re going to get married as soon as possible, you might as well stay.”
Her back straightened and she pulled her eyebrows together. “Why would you assume we’re going to move into your place? Maybe I want us both to live—”
I fixed her with a look. “You don’t need me to tell you why we’re going to live at my place. It’s ten times the size, and doesn’t look like it’s a museum of holiday mementos. If you think I’m going to squeeze myself into your flat, I’ll have that ring back.”
She rolled her eyes and I fought my grin at her faux indignation.
There was no way she imagined I’d agree to move into her place.
“I suppose. It’s going to be weird being a lodger in someone else’s house for months on end.
I’m going to get far too used to this kitchen.
” She looked over at my kitchen wistfully.
“We might have to agree on visitation rights when all this is over.”
“Visitation rights for my kitchen?” I chuckled.
“It’s a great kitchen.”
I couldn’t argue with that. And if she could produce meals like this in here, she was welcome any time she wanted.