All I have to do is to pretend to be his fiancée long enough for him to gain control of the corporation. Then we stage a breakup, call the wedding off, and I walk away with an all expenses paid trip around the world.
A fake engagement comes with some definite perks. Ethan was born to wear custom-made Italian suits. He can make me laugh one moment and make my panties melt the next. In a few short weeks, I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.
But to him, this is a just business transaction. Only a fool would fall in love with a fake fiancé, right? Luckily, I’m no fool. Or at least I wasn’t before I met Ethan...
* * *
Chapter One:
“How do you think it went, Ethan?”
Striding through the lobby of Grant Industries, I paused to look at my right-hand man, Robert Tremont. “It went great and you fucking know it.”
Rob grinned. “Yeah, it did. I was just being modest.”
I clapped him on the back. “Sharks who close a deal like that aren’t modest. They’re badass.”
Rob nodded, but with his baby face, he looked more like an overeager Boy Scout than a cut-throat wheeler and dealer. However, he was learning. He’d been with my company for five years, and I doubted I could get through a day without him to keep me organized.
“Are you coming up?” Rob paused by the elevator, but I shook my head. For a moment he looked confused, but then he glanced at the massive clock on the west wall of the spacious entryway. “Oh, right. It’s almost 10:30. Enjoy your stalking.”
“Piss off,” I said, good-naturedly. He wasn’t so much of a Boy Scout that he couldn’t give me shit from time to time. Waving him off, I walked back past some security guards and made my way toward the front entrance.
With so many people coming in and out of the trio of revolving doors, I’d be less conspicuous here. Of course, it didn’t help that half of them said, “Good morning, Mr. Grant,” when they passed by.
I glanced at my Rolex; it was 10:28. Two minutes to go. My phone rang as I kept my eyes trained on the elevator doors. I put it to my ear without looking at it. Only a half-dozen people had my private number, so it was either Robert, my secretary, the head of security, or one of my grandparents.
“Ethan, m’boy. How’s my company doing today?”
“Just fine, Grandpa.” My grandfather, Walter Grant, founded this company when he was just twenty-one. He ran it for over fifty years and wasn’t entirely ready to give up the reins even now, a fact I was painfully aware of. “Rob got the Wrights on board.”
“He did?” My grandfather sounded surprised. “I didn’t think he had it in him. You had good instincts when you hired that young man.”
I nodded, my eyes scanning people moving throughout the lobby. Good instincts—but not good enough, in my grandfather’s opinion. I’d been Chief Executive Officer for three years now. Three years in which Grant Industries had made great financial gains. I was the leader of our family corporation in every way except by title—my grandfather still retained that for himself. “And how’s the president of the company doing today?
“Can’t complain, can’t complain. Except your grandmother’s making me get up at six every morning for a walk.”
“Six? Ouch.” I hit the gym every morning at 5:30, but I was thirty-one, not seventy-three.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about the delay at the Springfield facility…” My grandfather continued on, but I lost track of the conversation because the elevator doors had just opened and there she was. 10:30 sharp—just like clockwork. If clockwork involved a gorgeous brunette in a tight pencil skirt.
She walked to the coffee cart on the far side of the lobby, her gorgeous bronze waves swirling around her shoulders as she moved gracefully across the room. Today she wore a thin white short-sleeved blouse with colorful beaded bracelets gracing her slender wrists. Her shirt was tucked into a caramel-colored skirt that hugged her curves from her waist to just above her knees.
Her tight skirts were my favorite—they made the sway of her hips more pronounced as she walked across the room in three-inch heels.
She was lucky today. There were only two people in front of her at the coffee cart, which meant she wouldn’t have to wait long for her chai tea latte. I’d asked the barista once what her order was, but that was the extent of my snooping. I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know what department she was in. I’d purposefully avoided finding out so I wouldn’t be tempted. Whoever she was, she worked in this building, so she therefore worked for me. Which made her off limits, at least in my book.
Even if I had time for a relationship, it wouldn’t be with someone who worked for me. That was asking for trouble. Still, I couldn’t help wondering what her name was. What her voice sounded like. What it would be like to take her to a five-star restaurant.
“Ethan?” My grandfather’s deep-throated rasp brought me back to reality.
“Yes, Grandpa?”
“What’s the status on the—”
“Don’t ask him that!” The new voice in my ear meant my grandmother had joined the conversation. Though my grandparents lived in a mansion with an elevator, a humidor, and a wine cellar, they still had a landline in every room. Apparently, my grandmother had picked up an extension. “Ask him about the girl.”
As silently as possible, I groaned. This again.
“That’s right m’boy. You’ve been pretty tight-lipped. We want to know everything about the most important person in your life.”
And there it was. The fundamental difference between my grandfather and me. By all outward standards, my life was a complete success. I was CEO of a multi-billion-dollar corporation. I was steering that corporation into the future. Stocks had risen substantially during my time at the helm. But to my grandfather, the man who founded the company from scratch, it wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.
To him, success was measured in having a wife. And children to carry on the Grant family name. He and my grandmother had been married for nearly fifty years, and it pained them that I was single. Never mind that most of my friends were. Never mind that some people never married at all. To my grandparents, I wouldn’t be a true success until I fell in love and got married.
And until that time occurred, my grandfather would remain president of the company.
That should’ve been damn good motivation to find a bride, but I’d yet to meet the right woman. Rob, in his capacity as my go-to guy for everything, had sought out a variety of socialites, and I’d dutifully gone out with them, but I hadn’t clicked with any. And Grandma seemed to have an endless amount of friends who had an endless amount of available granddaughters, but I didn’t have an endless amount of time. Or patience. Most of the women in my social circles bored me senseless.
To get my grandparents off my back, I’d told them I was dating someone. It was a harmless lie that I hoped would keep them happy for a while. Unfortunately, it had become their favorite topic of conversation lately.
“Come on, Ethan. Tell us something,” Grandma said. “We bought you your first bike. And your first computer. And we still feed you dinner every Sunday night.”
“And made you CEO of the company,” Grandpa added. They were each capable of guilt trips on their own, but they worked best in tandem.
While trying to think up something vague to say, I idly watched the brunette as she answered her own phone. Whoever was on the other end of the call said something that made her smile. Even from here it was a gorgeous smile. Her lips were full, pink perfection. I wondered if she was speaking to a man. Did she have a boyfriend?
“At least tell us her name,” Grandma said.
“I don’t know her name,” I said without thinking, then realized my error. “I mean, I’m not going to tell you her name. It’s too much pressure on a new relationship.”
“New? You said you were thinking of proposing!” Grandma’s normally pleasant voice had jumped an octave higher than usual.
Hastily, I backtracked. “New as in she�
�s never met my family. Isn’t it normal for women to be nervous about that kind of thing? We’re taking it slow, but yes, it’s understood that we’re going to get married. It’s definitely being discussed.”
“That’s great, son. What’s she look like?”
“Walter!” My grandmother’s tone was both exasperated and amused.
“What, Bridget? The woman’s going to be the mother of my great-grandchildren. Isn’t it natural to wonder what she looks like?”
“No,” my grandmother and I both answered at the same time, but Grandpa was adamant.
“Tell us just one thing.”
I sighed. The brunette had finished her call and was paying the barista. In another few moments, she’d head back to the elevator and back to her department—whichever one she worked at. I was tempted to walk down the hall to a quieter spot so that I could focus on getting my lies straight for my grandparents, but that would mean not seeing her walk away. And no way was I going to miss that. Not when she was wearing that tight pencil skirt.
She was smiling at the barista now, chatting with her. I sighed again. “She’s got light brown hair. It’s wavy, and it… it bounces when she walks, swirling around her shoulders.” The brunette stepped away from the cart, and for a moment, the light from the three-story high glass windows hit her fully. “In the sun, her hair looks almost bronze.”
“She sounds beautiful,” Grandma said.
“She is. She’s gorgeous.” There. I’d told them something. I shouldn’t have, but at least it would get them off my back for a while. And if somewhere down the road I got serious with a woman who wasn’t a brunette, I could always say she’d dyed her hair for a while.
That was the safest kind of lie—simple and straightforward.
Then the brunette lifted her hand to her chest in a familiar gesture, and for some reason, I opened my mouth again. “She wears this necklace with a blue pendant. And every so often she touches it, almost as if she’s just making sure it’s there. I don’t think she knows she’s doing it, but she does it quite a lot.” For some reason, it had always struck me as rather endearing that she did that. I didn’t know her name, her age, or pretty much anything else about her, but I knew that she clutched her necklace a lot. I knew her drink order. I knew her ring finger was bare—one day I’d ventured close enough to make sure. It wasn’t a lot to know about someone, but it wasn’t nothing, either.
My grandmother’s voice startled me out of my reflections. “Did you give her that necklace?”
Shit. What was I doing? I hadn’t meant to tell them anything about the made-up woman I was supposedly dating, and here’s I’d been describing a very real, very specific person. Which was very stupid, and it made me mad at myself. Plus… my grandmother’s question also made me wonder who had bought the necklace for the brunette. A boyfriend? A lover? I supposed it was naïve to hope that she’d bought it for herself.
“I’ve got to go, Grandma. There’s a meeting in a few minutes.”
“Make ’em wait,” Grandpa barked. “You’re the CEO.”
I chuckled because I knew my grandfather didn’t mean it. He was all about courtly, old-world charm. Old-world. Old-school. Those phrases described my grandfather quite well, but there was nothing old about his mind. My grandparents weren’t idiots. Far from it. They’d worked tirelessly to make this company what it was. I just wished they could see that I was leading it in the right direction, something that required brains, skill, hard work, and talent—not a marriage certificate.
The brunette was walking away now, and that inspiring view made me pause. She moved confidently, even though she had on heels. Being a red-blooded male, that made me wonder how well she’d move if she were underneath me. It was fun to speculate about.
“How old is she?”
Grandpa’s question snapped me back to reality. As I watched, the woman of my dreams entered the elevator, which signaled the end of my daily obsession. Time to get back to work. “I’m not sure she’d like me telling you that, Grandpa. You can find out when you meet her someday.” We both could. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“You do that, son.”
I was about to say good-bye but then Grandma’s closing words reached me. “And Ethan… I’m really happy for you.”
Her sincere words hit me in the gut, but all I said was, “Thanks.”
Pocketing the phone, I strode across the lobby. I hated lying to them, but they were the ones who’d tied becoming president of the company to getting married. They’d brought this on themselves.
But I still felt like a piece of shit when I climbed onto the elevator and headed up to my office.
* * *
That’s the end of the sneak peek! You’ll have to buy the book to see what happens when Ethan meets Kate after his grandparents have already gotten the mistaken idea that he’s engaged to her. It’s quite the scene. Most fake engagement stories feature one character ambushing the other and begging them to go along with it. But in this book, the news that they’re supposedly engaged is a complete surprise to both Ethan and Kate. Please check out Shameless Boss on Amazon.
Dashing: A Royal Cinderella Billionaire Story Page 29