earlier. “You got what?”
“An idea on how to best Nana and Ms. Laverne. And I think it just might work.”
She had him curious. “What is it?”
“It means there has to be a lot of pretending on our part.”
He lifted a brow. “Pretending about what?”
“In order for the plan to work we need to pretend to be lovers.”
“I THINK YOU need to explain just what you mean, Ivy.”
Good Lord, Ivy was certain he thought she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had, but the one certain thing was that something had to be done to stop Nana and Ms. Laverne. While repacking, the idea had come to her as clear as glass. Her grandmother and his great-grandmother wouldn’t let up until they thought they’d accomplished their goal. In that case, let them believe that.
“Ivy?”
“Yes?” She couldn’t help noticing how his voice sounded even deeper and huskier and how nice her name sounded off his lips.
“I think you need to explain what you meant.”
Yes, she did need to explain. Otherwise, he would think she was stone crazy. First of all, she knew that she didn’t have the look or style of a woman he would take on as a lover. But she would worry about that later. It would be a work in progress. “Okay. But you need to promise you’ll keep an open mind.”
He didn’t reply and the look he gave her at that moment all but said he wouldn’t be promising anything but she couldn’t let that look deter her. “I suggest that we sit down and share a glass of wine while I tell you. I really could use something to relax me right now.”
She really could. Normally she didn’t get this excited unless it had to do with a project she’d been working on and had discovered a technological breakthrough.
“Okay. I’ll get the glasses,” he said, moving toward the kitchen cabinet.
Nerves suddenly tightened her stomach. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t too bad of an idea. At least she’d come up with something. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She hoped that he believed that. “And I’ll grab the wine.”
She left the kitchen to grab a bottle from the welcome basket. By the time she returned, he had placed two wineglasses on the table. In his hand was the wine opener. “Let me,” he said, reaching for the bottle.
She gave it to him and then sat down at the table. She watched as he filled both their glasses. “Not too much,” she said when she thought he’d poured enough. “I still need to drive.”
He put the wine bottle down before easing into the chair across from her. “So...?”
She took a sip of her wine. He was staring at her expectantly, waiting to hear what she had to say. What if he thought her idea was the stupidest, most insane thing he’d ever heard? “We already know that once Nana and Ms. Laverne get wind their plot failed again, they’ll put their heads together to come up with another plan, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I suggest we be one step ahead of them. Let them assume their plan worked. That when we got here, although we were upset about it, we discovered we’d give it a try anyway. Trust their judgment so to speak.”
He kept staring at her and she wondered what he was thinking. “Go on,” he finally said.
“Our job is to do everything in our power to convince them their plan worked for this week and we decided to begin dating. That means that we will need to do what regular people who are dating do while getting to know each other. Going to dinner. A movie. Walks in the park. Those sorts of things.”
He didn’t say anything and the room got quiet. He just sat there and stared into his drink. She wondered if already he saw her plan as a failure because it was quite obvious she wasn’t the type of woman he dated and no one would believe that he would. He liked flashy women and she didn’t have a flashy bone in her body.
Men found her too techie to be desirable. Even Damien had admitted that. Most men saw her brain and passion for her work as turnoffs rather than turn-ons. Boring instead of interesting.
“And how exactly is that besting them? Sounds like we’ll be giving in to them,” he said, lifting his gaze to stare over at her.
“We won’t be giving in to them. We’ll just let them assume that we are and that’s the beauty of the idea. Let them think what they want, but we will know the truth. Then when they think we should be planning for a wedding, we will tell them we tried to develop a relationship but discovered we weren’t compatible.”
She paused to give her words time to sink in before saying, “What we’re dealing with are two women determined to marry us off. As long as we fight them on that, they will continue to come up with these crazy ideas to get us together. And from what I can see they will stop at nothing. However, if they think we gave in to what they see as their best-laid plans, and then ultimately reached the conclusion that there’s no way we can spend the rest of our lives together, then I think they will accept our decision.”
When he didn’t say anything, Ivy asked, “So, what do you think?”
* * *
IN TRUTH, NOLAN didn’t know what to think. He knew any further talks with Mama Laverne were out of the question. He’d tried it and she had completely ignored what he’d said. He’d thought about calling a family meeting when he discovered her matchmaking schemes that involved Victoria. However, after talking with his sister, who welcomed their great-grandmother’s interference into her life, he knew calling such a meeting was pointless. He had to figure out a way to handle her himself. Fight his own battles. He was on his own. He looked at Ivy. Or was he?
He knew Ivy was waiting for him to say something, so he told her the truth. “I’m thinking.”
And he was thinking, considering her plan. At least it was a plan, something he had refused to implement himself. Instead he had dated a lot of women to give Ivy the impression that he wasn’t husband material. That ploy had worked at least, but from what Ivy had shared with him, she didn’t intend to get married. Ever. So unbeknownst to him, the strategy hadn’t been needed.
“Tell me again what we have to do,” he said. Already he could see problems arising. Mama Laverne could see through mud, so there was a good chance she would see through this ploy.
“We’ll hang out together on occasion. Pretend we’re dating. And to make things believable you’ll have to stop dating other women for a while.”
She’d spoken as if she assumed him doing so would be a hardship. Little did she know how wrong she was about that. “For how long?” he wanted to know.
“It will depend on us and when we think we’ve had enough time to convince them. This is the end of March, so I think breaking up before the summer would work. By then they should be convinced that we really gave a relationship between us a try and things didn’t work out the way
