by Leslie North
“It’s real,” he promised.
“Then there’s only one thing to say.” Drew slipped the ring onto her finger. “I will.”
Epilogue
Logan was the first one down the aisle in their backyard wedding ceremony, and Drew thought his heart would burst. He looked so handsome and smart in his little tuxedo. Logan took his responsibility completely seriously, and Drew’s mother beamed with pride.
He reached the front of the rows of seats, and Logan hopped into one next to Collette.
She’d come around to the idea of him marrying Penny once she heard the whole story, and Drew was glad for it. The Preston family wasn’t as big as it had been before his father died, and he didn’t want a wedding that was nothing but business acquaintances. No—he wanted all of them together. Business. Personal friends. Family. It worked that way. It made sense.
The music changed and swelled, and Penny’s friend Tessa came down the aisle in a gorgeous orange dress. It was the color of the sunset, and for an instant he thought he’d never seen anything brighter.
Until Penny took her place at the end of the aisle. Penny, who now ran her own company, which was a sister company to Preston Logistics. Not entirely combined, but not entirely separate, either. She didn’t work for Drew. They worked together.
Her father stepped up next to her.
“Breathe,” Archer said into his ear, and Drew sucked in an enormous breath. Tears. He had tears in his eyes. The emotion pulsing in the center of his chest was so strong he had no other choice but to let the tears gather and brush them away.
She was beautiful.
She was more beautiful than the first day he’d seen her. Somehow, Penny’s beauty grew each day. She stood before him now in a white dress that hugged her curves—practically a princess. He fell in love all over again.
His Penelope.
Whip smart. Spirited. And endlessly forgiving.
Her own father was beside himself with pride. He’d been dabbing at his eyes all morning. And Penelope’s mother sat in the front row with her head held high.
Penny took her first step down the aisle on her father’s arm, and the rest of the world fell away.
There were certain moments in Drew’s life that he knew would be etched his memory forever. The roller coaster at Disneyland, poised at the top of a crest, just before it hurtled down, making him feel an intense glee for the first time. Really intense. The moment he shook his father’s hand and officially took over as the man in charge of Preston Logistics.
The moment he first saw Penelope Fox, there in his office, reading a book with his son as if she’d been born to do it.
And now.
She raised her eyes to his. Even from here, he could tell they were gleaming with tears. Penny laughed. Crying, she mouthed. Both of us. But she ended every phrase with a wide smile. He had never seen her so happy…except for yesterday, when he had never seen her so happy. Every day, more happiness.
Penny reached the end of the aisle and leaned in to kiss her father on his cheek. He held her tight in his arms, then turned to shake Drew’s hand. Rudy opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again and went with a solemn nod.
The ceremony was a blur of vows and readings and promises, and through it all, the only constant was Penny’s eyes on his.
“I do,” she said, and then again, just for good measure. A laugh rose up from the guests, and then…
“You may kiss the bride.” The officiant raised his hands and stepped aside, and it was all Drew and Penny. He dipped her back for the romance but found himself completely subsumed by the kiss. It wasn’t until Charlie let out a wolf-whistle that he realized he’d been kissing her for a little too long.
They both stood up, Penny putting her fingertips to her lips, and then it was on to the reception.
Drew found himself shaking hands with Rudy a second time—closing a deal. “I would be honored,” Rudy said with a trembling voice. “A Preston Logistics branch in Toronto? It’s a dream.”
“After the honeymoon, we’ll sit down, and I’ll give you a presentation with all the details. Or maybe during, if you have a few spare minutes.”
Penny elbowed him in the ribs. “You said we wouldn’t take any work with us on the honeymoon.” She rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “In fact, you promised. It’s a solemn wedding-day vow.”
Drew took both of her hands in his. “I vow that if you really don’t want me to take any work, I won’t even look at it.”
“It can wait,” Rudy said. “Of course it can wait.”
“Let’s be honest with each other,” Penny said, and even her voice alone struck a deep chord inside of him. “We both know that we won’t really be happy unless we Skype into the office at least once on our trip. Twice, maximum. And Dad, I have no interest in making you wait to hear this presentation. I helped Drew with it.”
“Did you really?” Rudy said. “You’ve always been amazing at presentations. Back at Fox Worldwide—” He cleared his throat abruptly. “I mean—”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Penny said. “That’s all behind us now. It’s a brand-new day.”
“A brand-new day,” her dad echoed. “I like the sound of that. Speaking of…” Rudy took a glance around, and his gaze settled on the uniformed waiters who were busy handing out glasses of champagne. “I think it’s about time for a toast to the happy couple. I have a few things to say about how wonderful my daughter is and how glad I am to see her happy.”
He leaned in to kiss Penny’s cheek, and then Drew and Penny were alone for a moment in the center of the crowd.
“Skyping into the office, huh?” He bent to nip at her earlobe with his teeth, enjoying the resulting shiver. “That would definitely be mixing business with pleasure.”
“I’m fine with that. Schedule the calls,” she said, leaning into the steadiness of his hands on her waist. “Schedule as many as you want. I only have one stipulation.”
“What’s that?” It felt like winning the lottery, to run his hands down the silky fabric of her wedding dress. She was his wife. It was official. No more hiding, no more pretending. They had taken the fantasy and made it the best reality possible.
“That we make all the calls together.”
End of The Billionaire’s Pretend Wife
Preston Brothers Book One
Blurb
To Stephanie Sugarman, Charlie Preston is just the bad boy billionaire who rejected his own son. Six years ago, she and Charlie had an admittedly hot one-night stand, which left her pregnant. When she tracked down his family, his mother offered her money to go away. Now, however, Stephanie’s forced to spend time with Charlie as her boss’s liaison while Charlie crunches the numbers for a potential acquisition. At first, she can’t stand to be in the same room as the charming, brilliant businessman. But as time goes on, she realizes the man she believed him to be and the man she sees now are completely different. This Charlie is honorable, charming, and—most importantly—would never abandon his son. And he seems determined to prove to her that he’s worthy of her heart.
Even though he and Stephanie only spent one incredible night together, Charlie has never been able to get her out of his mind. Now that he’s working with her, he has the chance to make things right, to prove he’s someone she and their son can trust. He’ll approach fatherhood the same way he approaches everything in life—with a detailed, meticulous plan. What he doesn’t anticipate is fiercely independent Stephanie, who gets a bit prickly when he tries to lay out a future for them. The problem is, planning is what Charlie does best, but he learns too late that all the planning in the world can’t make her stay with him. He’ll have to ditch his plan and follow his heart…no matter where it leads.
1
“We’re undergoing a bit of construction,” Charlie said, keeping his voice cheery, though he hated construction. You could plan it down to the minute, but the contractors would get in there and rearrange that plan with all the subtlety of a kid left alone
with finger paints. It didn’t surprise him at all that the renovations to his suite in the Preston building had gone on two weeks too long already. And yet, he’d tried. He always tried. “We’ll meet in my temporary office.” He ushered Allen Baldwin, owner of Baldwin Trucking, down the hall to where Charlie’s secretary, Joan, had done her best with the space available.
Allen looked over his shoulder. “No problem,” he boomed. “Absolutely no problem. The partnership is what matters, not the room.” He put a friendly hand on Charlie’s shoulder. The man radiated enough confidence to fill the entire Preston building. He must have been sure his company was flawless. Or maybe it was a front. Charlie couldn’t decide.
But that was the point of the meeting—to decide if Baldwin Trucking was as good a deal as it seemed on paper. Charlie itched to get into the financial documents. He felt most at home with numbers—floating gently in a sea of spreadsheets, moving nimbly between columns and rows.
They turned into the meeting room, and Charlie gestured Allen over to the table at one end. It took up half the room, with the other half dominated by two desks pressed against the walls. He hadn’t put a second chair between the two desks—he planned to mainly use the extra space for himself—but it was going to be a tight fit.
It was only temporary. He had to remember that.
Allen put a slim folder on the table and slipped into one of the seats at the table. “I’m certain you’ll be impressed with what Baldwin Trucking has to offer,” he said, tapping the folder with a too-wide smile on his face. “From what I’ve seen of Preston Logistics, it’ll be an excellent fit.”
“I’m excited to get into it,” Charlie said. “Is there anything you’d like to lead with?”
Allen glanced toward the door. “My assistant will be down in just a minute. She’s got the rest of the presentation with her.” He laughed. “To be honest, it’s a pleasure to finally meet face to face.”
“Likewise,” Charlie lied. Allen had a habit of talking at exactly this volume on the phone, which hadn’t made him want to sit in a too-small office with him. But if it meant bolstering the family business, Charlie would go along with it. The near miss with Drew’s latest acquisition earlier in the year had put him on high alert. Anything could go wrong.
He made a conscious effort to relax. Nothing was going to go wrong. This was a simple, straightforward meeting. Afterward, he’d go straight on to his audit of Baldwin Trucking. Nice and tidy.
“Well, I’m happy to look over your materials while we wait for—”
“There you are.” Allen leaped up from his seat and rushed for the door, his huge frame blocking his assistant from view. “Let me take that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Baldwin.”
The voice alone had the hairs on the back of Charlie’s neck reaching for the sky. He’d know that voice anywhere. He hadn’t heard it in a long time—years—but something about it scratched at the back of his mind with a kind of terrible familiarity.
Allen came back to the table, tipping a cardboard box filled with binders carefully to the surface. “This is my assistant, Stephanie Sugarman. She’ll be here as my primary liaison. Stephanie, this is Charlie Preston.”
Charlie got his legs under him, but it was a near thing. His heart pounded. Heat gathered at his temples. It was her. It was her.
Stephanie. The Stephanie he’d had a one-night stand with at a conference. How many years ago had it been? Five? Six? His mind bogged down in a sludge of shame and desire. He’d been a different person then. His face felt like he was staring into the barrel of a blowtorch. That was the conference he’d never forget, because he’d fallen hard off the wagon of sobriety. How had it started? An innocent drink at the bar, probably. A colleague he’d wanted to impress.
And it had ended with Stephanie.
She’d put her hand on his arm in that crowded hotel bar and offered him her fresh, untouched glass of water. She’d recited a poem to him right there in the bar, laughing the entire time. She never once gave him a business card. It hadn’t been like that—not with her. Her dark eyes had danced their way into the deepest parts of his brain, and he’d never forgotten them.
Now they looked back at him across the office, steely with determination, along with a hint of nervousness. He swallowed the papery dryness in his throat and stuck out his hand to her. “Call me Charlie.”
She hesitated, a painful heartbeat passing before she took his hand. “Stephanie,” she said slowly. “You can call me Stephanie.”
What was she doing here? The fact that she was still in this business, after all this time, made no sense to him. She hadn’t belonged in a business like this. He had a vivid memory of her perched on her knees in her hotel bed, wearing nothing but a lacy black bra, head tipped back, laughing. I majored in English, she’d said. I don’t know how I got here, but I’m glad I did. She had been a burst of light in a drab room. Nothing about her reminded him of the grasping crowds of people at the convention, their eyes narrowed, hunting down the next person to aggressively network with.
He’d been such an ass, leaving her without a backward glance. Shame scorched through him again. He would be lucky to get out of here without exploding into a rain of ashes.
Charlie opened his mouth to say something, anything—and at that moment registered the presence of another person. A smaller person. Stephanie wasn’t alone. She stood in the doorway with…a little boy.
“Who’s this?” Charlie said. “A member of your financial team?”
Her shoulders tensed, rose toward her ears, but an affectionate smile lit her face. She dropped a hand to the little boy’s head. He couldn’t be more than six. Five, maybe. “This is my son Jasper.” Charlie’s stomach clenched. Why? When Stephanie looked back up at him, her gaze was sharp. “This was a last-minute trip. No time to find a babysitter.” The remnants of her smile fled, leaving a frown in its place. “He won’t be any trouble.” Stephanie leaned back, as if she’d rather flee down the hallway and out the big double doors at the front of the Preston building. She clearly wasn’t thrilled to see Charlie. He couldn’t blame her, after what he’d done.
He won’t be any trouble.
The words sank into his mind. She’d brought him to the meeting. She’d brought him to the office. This office, which was three times smaller than his regular suite and not set up for a child at all.
“Of course not,” he said, the words tumbling from his mouth in a rush. “Come on in. Have a seat. I need to step out for a minute. Make yourselves comfortable.” Charlie stepped forward at the same moment Stephanie did. Could this be any more awkward? They shuffled around each other in the door, holding their bodies far apart, and at last Charlie was free to move down the hall.
“Joan.” His secretary sat behind her desk in an even smaller temporary office down from the meeting room they’d repurposed. The redhead looked up from her computer. “We have a problem.”
“What’s that?” She was on her feet in an instant. “I double-checked your list from before, but if something’s missing—”
“No. Mr. Baldwin’s assistant brought her son with her.” Something about the son made his heart pound in a sickening beat, but Charlie couldn’t put words to it. “We’ll need…toys, I guess. Enough to entertain him for at least the day.”
“All right,” Joan said briskly. “How old is he?”
“Five? Six?” He shrugged. “Get as much as you can carry. And be back as soon as you can.” A clock ticked loudly in the back of his mind. His nephew was almost four, and he could harness the destructive power of a tornado. Charlie couldn’t have that in his office. They needed distractions, stat.
“Back in five. I’ll run to the toy store down the street.” Joan was already lifting her cell phone to her face. “Hi, Candy,” she said, heading for the door. “I need some toys for a little boy who’s visiting the office. Can you put together a big bag? Yes…”
Charlie went down the hall in the opposite direction he’d come from. There was no way he
could conduct this meeting with racing thoughts and a pounding heart. He slipped into one of the newly renovated bathrooms and turned on the sink.
The rush of the water helped. He thought about splashing it onto his face, but decided against it. Too great a risk of soaking his shirt.
Stephanie Sugarman. He’d never known her last name. It hadn’t seemed important at the conference, but a better man would have asked for it. A better man wouldn’t have slept with her and snuck out before dawn to nurse a wicked hangover in private. His stomach lurched with another wave of shame. The conference was the one time he’d slipped up after the train wreck of his junior year of college, and here it was, coming back to haunt him.
Charlie didn’t want his brothers to know about this.
He definitely didn’t want Stephanie’s boss to know they’d slept together once upon a time.
In order to do anything about it, he had to get his butt out of the bathroom and get back to the meeting room, even if it meant standing in the fire of her gaze.
Joan was efficient—too efficient. When Charlie got back to the office, it had been transformed into a miniature version of the toy store. Jasper crouched in the space between the meeting table and the desks, surrounded by a stable of toy cars, a track for them to run on, and a small army of plastic dinosaurs. More toys took up the available space on the extra desk.
Stephanie sat at the meeting table, a binder in front of her and her eyes on her son.
Allen was nowhere to be seen.
“I see my secretary has already been by,” Charlie said. “Sorry for taking so long to get back.”
Stephanie’s eyes on his were tired, and more than a little exasperated. “Allen stepped out to make a phone call,” she said. “He should be back any minute.”