idea to tell lies—even little white ones—to the boss, but David was confident his reasoning was sound.
“A little sailing off Cape Cod. The weather was gorgeous.”
He led his boss and the CEO of the company into his office, where they settled around the small conference table. David kept his space uncluttered. The only personal touches were his framed MBA degree, his current insurance industry designations and on his desk a photo of him hugging a dark-haired woman. You could only see the back of her head, but David was laughing into the camera and they were clearly having a good time.
Piers gestured to the photograph. “How’s that lovely girl of yours?”
David had been talking about his fiancée for months, ever since he’d heard rumors of Macabee’s imminent retirement. He knew that Keppler, Van Horne had an unwritten rule. No one got promoted to VP who wasn’t married. The VPs were expected to entertain clients both at home and abroad, and for that reason, Piers and his brother who ran the company preferred that the VPs, both male and female, be part of a couple. David figured he’d fudged the lines on a few rule books and he was determined to do the same with this. So, he’d started talking about his fiancée. Casually. He’d come to work on a Monday and talk about the weekend he and his fiancée had spent in New York. Or the quick trip they’d taken to the Caribbean.
“She’s wonderful,” he answered. “Gives my life meaning. And Helen and the kids?”
They chatted about college decisions and braces and then Piers said, “We’d like to celebrate your engagement. We’re a family business and, let’s face it, we’re all involved in each other’s lives, especially at the executive level. We’ve got a board dinner coming up. I want you to come along and bring your fiancée with you.”
For him to be invited to a dinner with the members of the board was a huge honor. It meant he was being looked over by the board members before he was offered the VP spot.
Yes! It was really happening. He was going to be the youngest VP in Keppler, Van Horne’s history.
And that’s when David got it.
It wouldn’t be him under scrutiny. Piers and the board wanted to make sure he was marrying the right kind of woman to be a Keppler, Van Horne VP’s spouse.
David considered himself a glass-half-full kind of guy, but right now he felt like that glass had fallen off the table and smashed to pieces on the floor, spilling all his hard work and dreams of promotion with it.
“An engagement dinner?” His voice sounded a little higher-pitched than usual as he frantically tried to think of a way out. “I’m not sure, she’s got a pretty hectic schedule, I’ll—”
Piers rose and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Since you two are the guests of honor, we’ll work around your schedule. We’ve got plans for you, son. Big plans.”
“Thank you, Piers.”
After his boss left, he should have plunged into the day’s work. Instead, he tried not to panic and started to think.
He was staring out his office window, watching the pedestrians scurrying like so many ants way down on Arch Street. The hub of the city center was as busy as always as workers scuttled along hot sidewalks before diving into air-conditioned high rises.
Jane entered. “Here are the—” She stopped when she noticed he had his forehead pressed against his office window. It was possible he may have groaned. “What’s the matter with you?”
He turned. “Piers and the board want to have an engagement dinner for my fiancée and I. We get to set the date so I can’t pretend she’s not available.”
Jane dropped a stack of papers on his desk with a thump. “If you’re looking for sympathy, you came to the wrong person. Didn’t I warn you?” She shook her head. “What are you going to do? Break up with the love of your life before the dinner?”
He ignored the sarcasm and shook his head.
She crossed her arms and drilled him with her pissed-off gaze. “How long have you got?”
“Couple of weeks, tops.”
“No problem. I’m sure you can find some nice, respectable woman to agree to marry you in a couple of weeks. Should be easy as pie. There’s Gretchen, for instance, or … what was her name? Claire?”
“Look, the women I choose to spend time with are not the kind of women Piers and the board would approve of. We both know that.” He picked the first file off the desk, then put it back down. “I’m not the marrying kind.”
She snorted, but she didn’t know his past and he had no intention of sharing the most humiliating interlude in his life. If she wanted to peg him as a player who was having too much fun to get serious, which was essentially true anyway, then that was fine with him.
He made the decision then and there. “You’re half-right. I’m going to find a woman to pose as my fiancée for a couple of months. All I need is a nice, decent woman. She’ll meet the board and then after I get the promotion, we’ll break up, faster than you can say irreconcilable differences. If I’m up-front about it, nobody will get hurt. How difficult can it be?”
“Let me count the ways. David, this is a terrible idea.”
“It’s only for a couple of months. All I have to do is find a nice woman.”
“Do you know any nice women?”
He scratched his itchy nose again. “Yes. Lots. But none are corporate-spouse material.” He glanced at the woman who had almost as much riding on his promotion as he did. “I don’t suppose you know anyone?”
“All the women I know are too mature for you. And that includes my twenty-year-old nieces.”
He’d been charming women for more years than he could count. He hiked a hip onto his desk, certain he could pull this off. “Care to make a small wager on my chances?”
“What is a guy like you, who loves risk so much, doing working in insurance?”
“Insurance is all about odds, Jane, you know that. The client pays a small premium in case catastrophe hits, the insurance company essentially bets that it won’t and keeps the money. Risk, safety, reward—it’s all tied up. And this risk? I think I can safely take.”
Jane opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “You are so going to hell.”
CHELSEA HAMMOND WAS in the mother of bad moods when she met her friend Sarah Wolfe for a drink after work at a trendy restaurant in Old City. Usually, she loved being here near the river and in the center of the city’s history, but not today. It was all just too cute and seemed full of annoying people. Summertime tourists, mostly, she suspected, here to see the Liberty Bell and eat cheesesteak.
William Penn himself seemed to disapprove of her bringing her bad mood into his space. He hulked over her and his great statued hand seemed to be wagging reprovingly down at her.
She should have canceled her drink with Sarah and gone home to sulk. But Sarah was her oldest friend. They’d grown up in houses that faced each other and were the same age. Amazingly, in spite of the fact
