He nodded.
She pulled her hand away and then sat back, linking her hands together in her lap. Her palm was still tingling. She knew that saying yes would be the easy choice. But what about her son? Benito wouldn’t understand that they were just pretending. Though given that he was only two years old he might not understand much of anything that was going on. He was good friends with Kinley’s daughter...so he had been asking about his papa lately. He really didn’t remember Jose at all.
“That sounds like it would be ideal but we live in the real world.”
“Really? I hadn’t realized that when I was operating on two different patients today,” Derek said.
She recognized the sarcasm as one of his defense mechanisms and she didn’t blame him. She was scared. The last time she trusted a man it had been Jose and his word hadn’t been worth much.
“I’m not bringing this up to be difficult. I have a son. He’s not going to understand why you are in our lives for a short time and then gone,” she said. “We aren’t twenty anymore, Derek, it’s not like when you came to Monaco and we were wild. I’m a mom. You’re in line to be chief of cardiology. We’re...we are adults.”
“Dammit. We can be adults and still be ourselves. You know me, Bi. You always have. I’m not going to disappear from your life when this is over. We’re still going to be friends and I’d never cut Benito out. He’s your son and just as important to me as you are.”
Derek stood up. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk where we can talk without worrying who might hear us.”
She looked around and noticed they were gathering attention. She should have realized it sooner. “What about the pool game?”
“The boys can make do without me,” Derek said. “This is more important.”
There was a sincerity in his eyes; she wanted to believe in him. Well, that stunk, she thought. She’d thought she’d somehow become immune to the charm of handsome men. Of course, this was Derek and not some playboy whose parents she didn’t know.
But still she’d like to think that her heart beat a little faster when he said she was important. She’d always liked Derek. He’d been one of her closest friends in middle school. He’d had the classic Caruthers good looks, but he’d been supersmart and once he’d graduated high school early and gone off to college and then medical school, they’d kept in touch first on AOL messenger, then on the different social media apps.
Years had passed before she’d seen him as an adult and she’d been blown away by how attractive her old friend had become. Of course, she had a different life by then, but there were times when it still surprised her. She never grew tired of the strong, hard line of jaw, his piercing eyes and the way his hair curled over this forehead. There was something about him that made her want to keep looking at him.
Dangerous.
As dangerous as listening to his idea for this fake engagement. Was there ever an idea that sounded dumber?
Maybe her mom setting her up with young men she knew in the South Texas area.
“What would this entail?” she asked.
* * *
Derek didn’t allow himself to relax. This was Bianca. Bianca Velasquez. She’d been the prettiest girl at the Five Families Middle School. Though he’d taken an accelerated course in Houston so he’d be able to leave Cole’s Hill and go to college early, they’d always kept in touch. At first he’d thought it was because of their families. Growing up there had been a lot of cotillion dances and Junior League events where their moms had thrown them together. But then as they’d both become adults, he’d thought the crush would fade.
It hadn’t.
He knew that she wasn’t the girl he’d dreamed about in middle school and high school anymore, but there was another part of him that wanted to claim her. That wanted to know that he had won over the prettiest girl from the Five Families neighborhood. That she was his.
Even just temporarily.
She was watching him cautiously. Almost as if she were afraid to trust him. That hurt.
More than it should have.
Granted, he was coming to her with a harebrained scheme, the kind that make his dad laugh his ass off at him. But she did need a break from the blind dates. And he did need a fiancée. He wasn’t about to get involved with Marnie again and she would be relentless if he didn’t provide a distraction.
“The hospital board has promised to make a decision in two months’ time. So I’d need you to be my fiancée for about three months just so that you can attend the gala after I’m announced chief and the wing is opened,” he said. Three months. That should be enough to convince him that any crush he’d had on her was well and truly dead. He could go back to being her friend and stop having hot dreams about her.
“Three months? Would we live together?” she asked. “I’ve been looking for a job and have some modeling gigs set up so I won’t be in town continuously during that time. Would that be a problem?”
Derek leaned back in his chair trying to stay cautiously optimistic, but it seemed to him that she was almost on board with the idea. “I don’t think so. In fact, I might be able to swing some time off and go with you. It would probably enhance the entire engagement story.”
“Fair enough. What about the bachelor auction? I see you’re already on the list. Would an engaged guy be on there?” she asked.
“Yes, because we were hiding our engagement. You can bid on me and win me now,” he said with a wink.
“If we’re engaged why do I have to bid on you?” she asked with a wink back. “My brother is already into me for a month of babysitting if I win him.”
Derek had to laugh. The bachelor auction might have been one of the Five Families Women’s League’s largest fund-raisers but the men were always trying to get out of it. He just didn’t like the idea of being at the mercy of someone who’d “won” him.
“I’m offering you three months of no blind dates,” he said.
“That’s something that Diego can’t match.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure people would not believe you were dating your brother.”
“Thank God,” she said, laughing. This time there wasn’t the manic edge to her tone that had been there earlier when he’d first mentioned the whole engagement scheme.
“Yes. So what do you say? Are we going to do this?” he asked.
“Where would I live?” she asked.
“With me or not. Your choice,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
He hadn’t thought of anything beyond finding a woman who’d agree and then telling Marnie about her. But now that Bianca had mentioned living with him he knew he wanted her in his house.
Then he immediately had a vision of her in his bed. That thick ebony hair of hers spread out on his pillow, her chocolaty
