“How about a suite at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin? It’s gorgeous—fantastic dining, great location. It’s right next to the Brandenburg Gate.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Several times. You and your friends will love it.”
I gulped. I’d looked at the hotel prices in that area of Berlin—they were pretty steep. “Thanks, but I don’t think we can afford it.”
“Actually, you can.”
I almost laughed. “What, are there coupons?”
He grinned at that. “Not exactly. But you can definitely afford it because it’s free. If you postpone your trip to be my pretend fiancée, the whole thing is on me. First class, all the way. Flights, trains, hotels, dining.”
Part of the blood drained from my face, and for a moment, I couldn’t gather my thoughts. Was it possible he was serious? He couldn’t be… could he? That would cost a fortune. Well, the Grant family had a fortune, I knew that, but it was insane to spend so much of it on three strangers. “Everything?”
“Everything. Just think of it. Flying across the Atlantic in first class—no cramped seats where you can’t move. Private cars from the airport—no being cheated by local cab drivers. Suites in five-star hotels—no shared bathrooms down the hall. World class restaurants—no eating baguettes and hunks of cheese to keep the costs down. It would be the trip of a lifetime, Kate. What do you say?”
My brain reeled at the picture he was painting. It did sound fantastic. If someone had offered us an all-expense paid trip our freshman year, we would’ve thought we’d died and gone to heaven. But the option of first class had been so out of reach that it wasn’t even part of the dream.
Our dream included spending time with Natalia’s family in Rome. Staying at a small bed and breakfast run by a ninety-year-old great grandmother outside of Madrid. Renting a small cottage for a few days in County Clare where Ethan’s grandmother was from.
We’d researched, saved for, argued over, and agreed upon every single aspect of the trip. We’d had five years' worth of discussions. Five years’ worth of dreams. And none of them had included a limo from the airport to a five-star hotel. Not that there was anything wrong with that. What Ethan was offering was amazing. We could tour Europe in style and keep the money we’d saved up. We could each make a down payment on a house. Or put the money toward graduate school.
Ethan’s way was a dream come true—but it just wasn’t our dream. Part of my mind was telling me to just say yes and call Dan and Julie to tell them the good news. But it wouldn’t be the same trip. Not just the accommodations and first class travel, but we’d also timed our visits to coincide with local festivals. If we postponed the trip, all that would be lost.
I tried to explain that to him. It wasn’t easy. My best friends and I talked about this trip every day. It felt real to me in a way that a first class vacation didn’t. “It’s just… this trip is ours. From the beginning to the end. We know how much money we’ve saved, and we’ve talked endlessly about how best to use it. Sure, for a while we thought about going for a shorter period of time and staying only at hotels, not hostels and couch surfing and all that. We debated for weeks. Months, even. And this is what we decided on. This trip is exactly the way we want it to be. If we we’re taking limos between first class hotels, it would be a completely different trip. We want to learn about new cultures from the people on the street, not the concierges.”
Did that sound insane to him? Should I check with Julie and Dan? Maybe one of them would prefer first class travel? But somehow, I didn’t think so. And even if that was what they wanted, I wasn’t prepared to trade the very real vacation of my dreams for a fake engagement. “I’m sorry, Ethan, but we want to stick with our trip.”
He was silent for a moment, looking down. Then there was a slight shift, a setting of his shoulders or some other subtle body language. At first, I thought it meant that he’d given in. Accepted that this wouldn’t work.
But then he looked up and into my eyes, and I knew I was wrong. He hadn’t given in.
“How about you go on your trip—only better?”
“I told you—we don’t need five-star hotels to make it better.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Ethan had a gleam in his eyes. “I meant your trip only longer.”
I stared at him, unsure of what he was saying, but pretty damn certain it was going to be game-changing.
He smiled at me. “Here’s the deal. Whatever money you and your friends have saved up, I’ll quadruple it. Forget three months… you can travel the world for an entire year.”
Seven
Ethan
Kate’s mouth dropped open, and for a moment, I was mesmerized, staring at how soft her bottom lip looked. But this wasn’t the time for fantasizing. This was the hard sell, and it was time to close the deal. I could tell my offer definitely had her attention. But like any reluctant client, she was going to have questions. And more than likely a few objections. But I was ready. This was what I did.
“A—a year? A year in Europe? You can’t be serious.” Her voice quavered slightly in a way that it hadn’t when I’d offered to upgrade her trip to first class. Most women—hell, most people—I knew would’ve jumped at that chance, but she hadn’t. Clearly, I had a lot to learn about what made her tick.
“It doesn’t have to be just Europe. You could take three months there, as planned, and then spend a couple of months in Asia. Then South America or Africa. You can cover a lot of ground in a year.”
“A year,” she repeated. She still looked stunned. Without seeming to realize it, her fingers rose to her neckline and she clutched at her blue pendant.
“It’s the trip of a lifetime, Kate.”
“But… would you really… I mean, we’ve saved up $50,000. Would you really… give us four times that?”
“Absolutely. Fifty thousand a piece times four is—”
“No,” she interrupted. “All together we’ve saved $50,000.”
For a moment, it was my turn to be shocked. $50,000 for three of them for three months? My grandparents probably spent more than that on Christmas decorations each year. But Kate had said they were planning on staying in cheap hotels and hostels and shit. I guess they would’ve made it work—but now they didn’t have to.
“So, now you’ve got $200,000 for your trip.” It still didn’t sound like much to me, but she said she and her friends had been saving for years. I didn’t want to do anything to insult their hard work.
“Two hundred thousand dollars.” Her tone held a touch of wonder in addition to surprise.
“And all you have to do is to postpone your trip by a couple of months. Then you get the trip of a lifetime with your best friends. And you can travel your way—no inauthentic five-star restaurants to taint your cultural experience.”
She smiled faintly at that, but I heard her repeat two hundred thousand under her breath.
I smiled at her, my most charming smile. The one I reserve for the big-time investors in my company. Or for visiting royalty. “This is a win-win. I get my company. You get an amazing trip around the world. Everyone’s happy.”
The stars in her green eyes vanished. “Except your grandparents.”
“Are you kidding? They love you already.”
“No, I mean when we break up.”
Oh. Fuck. She had a point. “Okay, that part will suck. But we can pretend to be one of those mature couples who remain friends in the end. That way they can see that we’re both okay afterwards.”
Kate nodded, but she still looked troubled.
“They worked so hard to build up this business—and I’ll keep it going strong. I’ll make it stronger. This is the right thing for the company and for them, too. I promise, Kate.”
She looked down for a long moment, one of the longest of my life. She chewed on her lower lip a little, and though I didn’t know her well, I got the feeling that wasn’t routine for her. She was giving some serious thought to this. Was there anything e
lse I could do to sway her?
Gently, I placed my hand over hers. Her fingers were long and delicate, with painted pink nails. Hopefully, she’d soon be wearing my grandmother’s engagement ring. I waited until she looked me in the eye, and then I said a word I rarely used. “Please.”
For a moment, she stared back at me and I felt a jolt of electricity as our eyes met. Would she agree to this? Everything was riding on it.
At long last, she broke the eye contact and nodded. “Okay.”
Releasing a huge breath I hadn’t been aware of holding, I squeezed her hand hard. “You’re in?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding again. “I’m probably going to regret this, but yeah, I’m in.”
I couldn’t help it—I jumped to my feet and pulled her up with me. “I’ll make sure you won’t,” I said as I hugged her. And then that wasn’t enough, so I spun her around.
“Put me down,” she cried, but she was laughing, clinging to my neck. She felt wonderful in my arms, her body soft and lean. I lowered her to the floor. Her face was inches below mine, and for one crazy moment, I felt like kissing her. I wanted to. So badly. But then reason came back. This young woman didn’t know me at all. She’d only laid eyes on me for the first time today. I’d been aware of her for so long that it felt like I knew her, but I didn’t really.
Therefore, it was entirely inappropriate for me to be holding her like this. But… she didn’t seem in a hurry to move away, either. Her green eyes met mine, and I forced myself to look into them rather than at her pink lips. God, she was gorgeous. People might be suspicious of the suddenness of our engagement, but no one who met Kate would ever doubt what a man would see in her. She was incredibly beautiful. And though I didn’t know her well—yet—I suspected that her personality was as exceptional as her looks.
After a long moment, I reached up and smoothed a strand of wavy bronze hair back behind her ear. “Thank you, Kate.”
“Thank you,” she insisted. “A trip around the world. That’s… that’s incredible. I can’t wait to tell my friends. Thank you, Mr. Gr—I mean Ethan.”
I chuckled. “Probably best not to call me Mr. Grant in front of my grandparents.” Reluctantly, I released her and opened the door.
“We’re going back in there?” She smoothed down her blouse and skirt which had gotten a little crushed during our embrace.
“Of course. We were in the middle of lunch. They’re probably wondering where the hell we are.” I held out my hand, reaching for hers, but she stayed where she was.
“But how are we going to convince them we’re engaged? I don’t know the first thing about you.”
“Let’s just get through lunch, and then we’ll figure it out. I’ve got a full bio up at LinkedIn, so that’ll help you get started.”
Kate gaped at me, her mouth open.
“Kidding,” I said. “Don’t worry, we’ll have time to learn more about each other.”
“But what if they ask about—”
“We can get through one lunch, Kate. If they ask you anything about me, I’ll jump in. And you can do the same. It’ll be an hour, tops. It’ll be fine.”
Finally, my fake fiancée moved toward me. “Okay.” Her voice was anything but certain.
I took her hand and led her down the hallway. “Let’s hope Newton’s kept the roast beef warm.” Just before we got to door, a thought hit me. “Wait, you’re not vegetarian, are you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because that seems like something I should know.” I reached for the door handle and then stopped again. “And is Kate short for Katherine?”
“Katelyn,” she said, and surprisingly, she laughed. “What happened to not worrying about that stuff right now?”
I shrugged. Perhaps I should learn a few more things about her before we stepped through that door.
But then she squeezed my hand tightly in her own. “It’ll be an hour, tops. It’ll be fine.” She smiled up at me as she repeated my words to me. “Let’s do this.”
Clasping her hand firmly, I opened the door.
Eight
Kate
“This feels so amazing,” Julie moaned from the table next to mine. Her masseuse was a hulking brute with enough muscles for two normal-sized men. The other two masseuses were female. I’d let Julie have the hot guy. After all, I was an engaged woman. Sort of.
A half-hysterical giggle almost escaped my lips. Engaged! Me! Even though the engagement was fake, it was still hard for me to wrap my head around. And I still had no idea how to tell Dan and Julie. Hopefully, they would soon be relaxed enough that my news wouldn’t come as that much of a shock. Hopefully.
A groan from the last table told me that Dan was thoroughly enjoying himself. I was, too. Hannah, the woman rubbing my shoulders and upper back, was wonderful. But I was still worried. I’d spent the last twenty-four hours trying to figure out how to tell my best friends about the change of circumstances.
“Are you still alive over there, Dan?” Julie wanted to know.
“No. I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“Well, at least you died a happy man.” Julie was in the middle, lying on her stomach. She shifted her head to look over at me. “I still can’t believe that your boss set up a spa day for you and your best buds.”
I gulped. Soon she’d have much bigger things to be surprised by.
Dan spoke up from his stupor. “Why would Florence Henderson send us to a spa?”
I laughed. “My boss is Abigail Henderson. Florence Henderson was the mom from The Brady Bunch.”
“Don’t laugh. I thought she was hot when I was a kid,” Dan said. “I have a thing for blondes.”
“We know,” Julie and I said together. And we’d made sure he got the blonde masseuse, Lindsey. He knew we had his back—though the pretty woman with the sandy hair was currently digging her elbows into it.
I took a deep breath. “But it wasn’t her. It was the CEO of the company.”
“Why does a billionaire like Walter Grant care about how tense our muscles are?” Julie wanted to know.
I chuckled again. “The CEO is his grandson, Ethan.”
“Ooo, is he cute?”
Glancing over at Julie, I saw the two masseuses seemed to be interested in my answer as well. “Let’s talk about this later. I have a couple of things I need to tell you both.”
“Don’t leave us hanging! Tell us now,” Julie said, and then her masseuse asked her to keep still.
“You too,” Dan’s masseuse said, smacking him playfully on the arm.
“Don’t do that, Lindsey,” Julie informed her. “He’ll think you’re flirting with him.”
Dan responded in kind, and soon they were bantering like children. Which they did all the time. I was grateful that it gave me a few more minutes to enjoy the fantastic massage before I had to tell them that I’d unilaterally changed the plan.
They were my best friends in the whole world, but I still wasn’t entirely sure if they’d approve of what I’d done.
“Okay, we’re alone, take those cucumber slices off your eyes and tell us what’s going on.”
Dutifully, I did what Julie said, blinking. We were in a little room, sitting back in reclining chairs, all of us covered in some kind of detoxifying mud or whatever they called it. Except for the towel around her torso and hair, all I could see of Julie was the round circles around her eyes. Dan was almost completely smeared with mud. I could barely make out the towel around his waist. Looking too relaxed to bother lifting his arms, he scrunched his nose several times until the cucumber slices fell off his face.
Unfortunately, the odd sensation of being covered in goo was nothing compared to the discomfort I felt about what I had to say next. I took a deep breath. “Mr. Grant… Ethan, I mean, knew that I needed to talk to you guys, and he thought it might be easier to do it at a spa.” I forced myself to chuckle. “I mentioned that I had two best friends, and I think he assumed you were both female.”
“You’re stalling,
” Julie said. Damnit—she knew me too well. Dan did too, but he seemed to be entirely too into his first spa day to call me out.
“Okay, okay. You see… Ethan wants me to help him with something. And for me to do that, we’d need to postpone the trip.”
“What?” Julie and Dan spoke at the same time.
“Just for a few months.”
“I hope you told him to take that idea and shove it,” Dan said.
“Well, you see…”
“Of course she did,” Julie said, defending me. “We’ve been planning this trip for ages.”
“The thing is…”
“What an asshole. Rich people think they can do whatever the hell they want. What does he need you to help him with, Kate? Shining his shoes? Polishing his silver?” Dan’s voice was no longer relaxed.
“No, he—”
“Whatever it is, he’s got a hell of a lot of nerve to ask you to change your plans. Our plans.” Julie was indignant. “He can’t just—”
“He asked me to marry him!”
“What?” Dan said in disbelief.
Julie stared at me in shock. “But… but… how do you even know him? Have you been dating? Why didn’t you tell me?” The hurt on her mud-splattered face was more important to me than Dan’s shock.
“No, I don’t. If I were seeing anyone, trust me, you’d know.”
A small frown still graced Julie’s face, but she nodded.
“It was kind of a misunderstanding. The Grants, his grandparents, got the mistaken idea that I was his fiancée. Which is ridiculous, I know.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I echoed. “If you’d seen Ethan you wouldn’t be asking that. He looks like a Greek god. He’s the most perfect man I’ve ever seen.”
“Hey!”
“Except for you, of course,” I said to Dan. It was part of a long running joke that Julie and I claimed that all men paled in comparison to him. Truth be told, Dan was good looking. Tall, with auburn hair. He swam every morning at the YMCA and had the body to show for it. But to me, he felt like a brother, and I imagined Julie felt the same way.
Mr Right Stuff Page 5