short in the marble, glass and dark wood foyer.
He skirted around her and walked into the main living area off the foyer.
Heavy dustcovers were draped over furniture, and heavier silence added to the empty atmosphere. People had lived here once and fled, leaving behind fragments of themselves in their haste. Why? And why did she want to fling off the covers and recapture some of the happiness someone had surely experienced here once upon a time?
“Well?” Lucas asked, his voice low in the stillness. “Do you want to keep looking? Or will it do?”
The quirk of his mouth said he already knew the answer. She didn’t like being predictable. Especially not to him. “How did you find this place?”
He studied her, and, inexplicably, she wished he’d flash that predatory smile she hated. At least then his thoughts would be obvious and she’d easily deflect his charm. This seriousness freaked her out a little.
“Vacant properties are my specialty,” he said. “Hazard of the job. The owner was willing to rent for six months, so it’s a no-brainer. Would you like to see the kitchen? It’s this way.”
He gestured to the back of the house, but she didn’t budge.
“I don’t have to see the kitchen to recognize a setup. You’re in commercial real estate, not residential. Why did you bring me here?”
“I’m throwing down my hand.” He lifted his chin. In the dim light, his eyes glinted, opening up a whole other dimension to his appeal, and it stalled her breath. What was wrong with her? Maybe she needed to eat.
“Great,” she squeaked and sucked in a lungful of air. “What’s in it?”
In a move worthy of a professional magician, he twirled his hand and produced a small black box. “Your engagement ring.”
Her heart fluttered.
Romance didn’t play a part in her life. Reality did. Before this moment, marrying Lucas had only been an idea, a nebulous concept invented to help them reach their individual goals. Now it was a fact.
And the sight of a man like Lucas with a ring box gripped in his strong fingers shouldn’t make her throat ache because this was the one and only proposal she’d ever get.
“We haven’t talked about any of this.” She hadn’t been expecting a ring. Or a house. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Do you want me to pay half?”
“Nah.” He waved away several thousand dollars with a flick of his hand. “Consider the ring a gift. Give it back at the end if it makes you feel better.”
“It’s not even noon, Wheeler. So far, you’ve presented me with contracts, a house and a ring. Either you already planned to ask someone else to marry you or you have a heck of a personal assistant.” She crossed her arms as she again took in the fatigue around his eyes.
Oh. That’s why he was tired. He’d spent the hours since she’d sprung this divorce deal on him getting all this arranged, yet he still managed to look delicious in a freshly pressed suit.
She refused to be impressed. Refused to reorganize her assumptions about the slick pretty boy standing in the middle of the house he’d picked out for them.
So he hadn’t been tearing up the sheets with his lawyer all night. So he’d rearranged his appointments to bring her here. So what?
“Last night, you proposed a partnership,” he said. “That means we both bring our strengths to the table, and that’s what I’m doing. Fact of the matter is you need me and for more than a signature on a piece of paper. You want everyone to believe this marriage is real, but you don’t seem to have any concept of how to go about it.”
“Oh, and you do?” she shot back and cursed the quaver in her voice.
Of course she didn’t know how to be married, for real or otherwise. How could she? Every day, she helped women leave their husbands and boyfriends, then taught them to build new, independent lives.
Every day, she reminded herself that love was for other people, for those who could figure out how to do it without glomming on to a man, expecting him to fix all those emotionally bereft places inside, like she’d done in college right after her parents’ deaths.
“Yeah. I’ve been around my parents for thirty years. My brother was married. My grandfather is married. The name of the company isn’t Wheeler Family Partners because we like the sound of it. I work with married men every day.”
Somehow he’d moved back into the foyer, where she’d remained. He was close. Too close. When he reached out to sweep hair from her cheek, she jumped.
“Whoa there, darlin’. See, that’s not how married people act. They touch each other. A lot.” There was that killer smile, and it communicated all the scandalous images doubtlessly swimming through his head. “And, honey, they like to touch each other. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
Right. She unclenched her fists.
They’d have to pretend to be lovey-dovey in public, and they’d have to practice in private. But she didn’t have to start this very minute.
She stepped back, away from the electricity sparking between her and this man she’d deny to her grave being attracted to. The second she gave in, it was all over. Feelings would start to creep in and heartbreak would follow. “The house will do. I’ll split the rent with you.”
With a raised eyebrow, he said, “What about the ring? You haven’t even looked at it.”
“As long as it’s round, it’s fine, too.”
“I might have to get it sized. Here, try it.” He flipped open the lid and plucked out a whole lot of sparkle. When he slid it on her finger, she nearly bit her tongue to keep a stupid female noise of appreciation from slipping out. The ring fit perfectly and caught the sunlight from the open front door, igniting a blaze in the center of the marble-size diamond.
“Flashy. Exactly what I would have picked out.” She tilted her hand in the other direction to set off the fiery rainbow again.
“Is that your subtle way of demonstrating yet again how much you need me?” He chuckled. “Women don’t pick out their own engagement rings. Men do. This one says Lucas Wheeler in big letters.”
No, it said Lucas Wheeler’s Woman in big letters.
For better or worse, that’s what she’d asked to be for the next six months, and the ring would serve as a hefty reminder to her and everyone else. She had proposed a partnership; she just hadn’t expected it to be fifty-fifty. Furthermore, she’d royally screwed up by not thinking through how to present a fake marriage as real to the rest of the world.
Lucas had been right there, filling in the gaps, picking up the slack and doing his part. She should embrace what he brought to the table instead of fighting him, which meant she had to go all the way.
“I’ll take the contracts to my lawyer this afternoon. As is.”
Cia Wheeler. It made her skin crawl.
But
