Chapter Ten #2
Blowing out a breath, Lewis got up and retrieved a bathrobe from his closet.
He couldn’t have this conversation with her wrapped in a towel.
She looked too vulnerable. The rational part of him knew it was an accident.
That she hadn’t intentionally set out to ruin their plan, but he wasn’t ready to listen yet.
Not when everything he wanted was tumbling out of reach. “I need to go for a run,” he said.
“But you already went.”
He looked down at his damp running clothes. “Another one. I need to clear my head.”
“Don’t.” Her hand landed on his arm. Lewis turned around. His robe was oversize, the sleeves hanging several inches below her fingers. It was worse than seeing her in the towel.
“It’s only one article,” she said.
“Right now. You saw how the first one spread.” By tomorrow they would be dissecting it on the morning talk shows.
The shrill sound of a phone ringing cut through the tension. “Yours,” he said.
She rummaged through her bag. “It’s Thomas.”
He’d heard about the article, no doubt. “You better take it.”
“He can wait until we’re done talking.”
“What more do we have to talk about? The damage is done.”
“Not necessarily. We just need to get out ahead of things. We’ll tell people it was a vindictive ex-girlfriend or someone with a grudge. If we do it right, we can spin this in our favor.”
“How, when it’s the truth? We aren’t a real couple.”
Her lower lip started to quiver. Lewis had to look away.
“We both said it that night in front of your apartment. A casual hookup that doesn’t mean anything. We aren’t some grand romance.”
Why would she want to be with him now anyway? His chance at redemption was done. If he was untouchable before, because of his reputation, surely, he was doubly so now that the papers branded him a fraud.
He couldn’t see bouncing back. Not this time. Might as well walk away from Susan too, and end everything in one cut.
“You should go talk to your brother,” he said walking away. “Fix what you can.”
“What were you thinking?” Thomas asked. With the baby sleeping in the bassinet a few feet away, he kept his voice a whisper. That didn’t hide his frustration however. “A phony romance?”
He paced back and forth in front of the ornate giant tree the decorators had installed in his living room as Susan watched his progress from the couch.
“I knew something was odd from the start, but Linus convinced me that you were the real thing. I couldn’t believe when he told me last night. And now this?”
He pointed to the paper that lay on the cushion next to her.
“That,” Susan replied, “is not my fault. Gossip columnists have spies everywhere. All it takes for things to spiral out of control is for someone to overhear a single conversation.”
“If I find out one of my employees leaked the information, they’re going to be out the door.”
Susan kept quiet. As satisfying as it would be to toss Courtney and Ginger under the bus, she wouldn’t. If they were guilty, Thomas would find out easily enough and deal with the problem. Susan didn’t need to add fuel to the fire without proof.
“What did you and Lewis think you were going to gain by doing this?” The question came from Rosalind who, until she spoke, had been sitting quietly next to the bassinet watching.
“A new reputation,” Susan replied. Still pacing, Thomas let out a loud scoff. “He really is a different person,” she said. “About as far from Champagne Lewis as you can get. Only no one would believe him. Everyone was waiting for him to slip up.”
“So to prove he was reliable, he decided to lie to the press. Fabulous.” Her brother rolled his eyes.
“It’s called a contractual relationship and it’s done all the time by actors and athletes. Especially if they need a socially acceptable partner or have a project to promote. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother’s had one.”
“Oh, by all means, let’s copy your mother’s bad example.”
“Thomas,” Rosalind admonished.
“It’s all right,” Susan told her. Belinda certainly wasn’t the best role model. “My point is, this wasn’t some nutty scheme Lewis dreamed up. There’s precedence.”
“Let us get this straight,” said Rosalind calmly. “You’re saying that Lewis needed to be seen with someone like you to look respectable?”
“Precisely. I’m the complete opposite of the women people picture him dating. The idea was that being seen with me would prove he was no longer the same man. And he’s not.” Didn’t matter if he’d broken her heart a half hour ago. She would defend Lewis’s character until the end.
“He needed an image makeover and this seemed like the best and most subtle way to do it,” she said. “It almost worked too. Graham Montclark vouched for him to the network. They were talking about giving him a broadcast job.”
Until this morning. Susan couldn’t imagine Lewis’s despair. To be so close to what you wanted only to have it taken away.
Actually she could imagine. She wanted to curl up and cry her broken heart out for a week. Only thing stopping her was maintaining a front for Thomas’s inquisition.
Thing was, she couldn’t blame her brother for being angry.
“All right.” He sat down in a chair across from her. “I get what Lewis was trying to do. Why would you agree though? What could you possibly be getting? And don’t say publicity for the company, because we both know that couldn’t have been your main driver.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I needed an image makeover too.”
“What?” Thomas and Rosalind spoke together.
“Come on, there’s no need to act all shocked,” she said. “We all know I’m the unloved elf of the Collier family.”
“The what?” Thomas asked.
“The one who doesn’t fit in and who everyone would rather just went away.”
“No one wants you to go away,” Thomas said. “You’re our sister.”
“Half sister,” she reminded him. “And please, I know I drive everyone crazy. People at the company only tolerate me because I’m your sister.”
“I don’t believe that,” Thomas said. “Linus told me last night that you were the belle of the ball.”
“Because I had Lewis with me. When I’m with Lewis I feel different. Likable.” Wanted.
“Is that why you agreed to the idea?” Rosalind asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Kind of.” Close enough anyway. “I wanted people to see me as more than I am. I thought if people think someone like Lewis could fall for me, they would see there’s something likable about me after all and I wouldn’t…”
“Wouldn’t what?” Thomas asked. For the first time since the conversation began, his voice was gentle. The kindness threatened to dislodge her withheld tears.
“Be the loser outsider anymore.”
“What are you talking about? You’re not an outsider.” Thomas said. “You’re my sister.”
“Half sister,” she corrected again.
“Whatever,” he replied. “It’s not your fault who your mother is.”
“A woman who took off and stuck you with me,” Susan added.
He waved off the comment. “Linus and I always figured you dodged a bullet when that happened. You call yourself a loser outsider now. Imagine the damage if she’d stuck around and raised you. Imagine the kinds of issues you might have had to face.”
Susan didn’t know how to respond. He was right; she would have been worse off. The three of them sat quietly for a few minutes, listening to the baby’s gentle sleeping noises.
Eventually, Thomas leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Linus told me last night he didn’t believe you. About the relationship being fake. He said you two looked pretty into each other and he thinks you only said it because you wanted to get him off your back.”
He’d whispered something similar to her when they were on the dais. You don’t look like you’re faking to me.
“That was wishful thinking on his part.” On her part too. “We had to put on a show in order to make people think the relationship was the real deal.”
“By loving it up on the roof?” Susan looked up from her lap. “He told me on the phone.”
“I’ve got to say, that doesn’t sound too fake to me,” Rosalind said.
“It was nothing serious. We figured since we were going to spend the month together and were attracted to each other, we might as well enjoy ourselves. We weren’t some great romance,” she added, quoting Lewis.
“And how’d that arrangement work out for you?” Thomas asked.
Susan didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer really, without her voice cracking. She studied the wrinkles in last night’s dress.
“I’m sorry,” her brother said.
“Me too.” But hey, for a few glorious weeks, she’d felt special. “I’ve got no one to blame but myself. The whole point was to go against type, so I knew going in he wasn’t going to stick around. Caveat emptor or something like that.”
A tear escaped. The first of the day. Swiping it away, she looked over at Thomas. “I never meant for Collier’s to get stuck in the middle of this. I’ll step away from the company.”
“What? Why would you do that?” he asked. “No one is suggesting you step down from anything.”
“But the bad publicity. You’re going to need to do something.”
“It won’t be firing my sister. You’re a Collier. The company is as much a part of your legacy as it is mine and Linus’s. Was I the only one who listened to Grandfather when he brought us to the company museum?”
He crossed the room to sit next to her. “Bottom line is that family is what makes Collier’s. We’ve survived four hundred years. We’ll survive a few weeks of tabloid coverage. Might even help. We’re getting a lot of free advertising.”
Susan gave up trying to rein in the tears. Letting them escape, she hugged her brother tight. “Thank you.” It was the first time she’d ever truly felt like a Collier.
“You’re welcome. And you’re not an unloved elf. Just an annoying one.”
Annoying, she’d take.
“Now,” Thomas stood up and smoothed the front of his sweater. “I’m going to call the office and see what kind of statement they’re putting out before Rosalind and I go Christmas shopping.”
As she watched her brother head upstairs to his office, Susan felt moderately better. At least things were okay with her family.
Family. She repeated the word to herself with a sense of shame. Lewis had tried to tell her that she mattered to her brothers, but she hadn’t believed him. Turned out Lewis was right. Someday she’d have to thank him. If she ever saw him again.
Baby Noel was starting to fuss in his bassinet. Must be nearly feeding time.
“I’m sorry. I disrupted your morning,” she said to Rosalind, rising to leave. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“Hold it right there, unloved elf.” Wearing a very deliberate expression, her sister-in-law rose from her chair. “It’s high time you got a dose of the truth.”