by Erika Rhys
“The party will be here—in the oceanside room,” he said to me, before turning left and leading us into a smaller sitting room.
Before following him, I paused to glance inside the space where the party would be held, and caught a glimpse of tall, arched windows overlooking the ocean. Veronica stood before the windows, speaking with a group of black-suited caterers, no doubt giving them their instructions for the evening.
When I stepped into the sitting room, it turned out to be a smaller, more intimate cousin of the oceanside room, with high ceilings and a single arched window overlooking the water.
“Sit here,” Carter said to Ronan and me, indicating a couch that faced the window. “Can I get either of you a drink?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a Scotch,” Ronan said. “Are you still drinking Laphroaig?”
“The eighteen-year?” Carter said. “It’s my evening tipple. Alfred orders it for me by the case.”
“I’ll have a glass of that,” Ronan said as the two of us sat down on the couch.
Carter pressed a button on the wall before sitting in an armchair across from us.
“What would you like to drink, Ava?” he said.
“Just a glass of water, thank you,” I said. If I was going to survive this party, I needed to keep my wits about me.
Carter gave me a flirtatious look. “Shouldn’t we raise a glass to your engagement?”
Ronan took my hand and squeezed it. “Have a glass of Laphroaig,” he said. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”
Maybe a sip of liquid courage would help me relax. So far, Ronan’s father had been pleasant enough, but the way he looked at me had a distinctly sexual undertone, which turned my stomach. How could he look at his son’s fiancée in that way?
“OK,” I said. “I’ll try it.”
Just then, a young man in a dark suit entered the room.
“What can I get for you, Mr. Kingsley?” he said.
“Three glasses of Laphroaig on the rocks,” Carter said. “Thank you, James.” The young man nodded in acknowledgment before exiting the room.
I glanced around the space, taking in the panes of the arched window and the elaborate molding that traced the line between walls and ceiling. Both confirmed my initial impression, based on the house’s traditional exterior, that it had been built in the early twentieth century. But the interior had been completely redone in a modernist style, with white walls and furniture; dark hardwood floors; and flowing, translucent white drapes. The only color in the room came from several floor vases that looked like they belonged in a museum. In a minimal, antiseptic way, the room was beautiful—but it felt more like a posh hotel than a home. Footsteps and voices echoed from the hallway outside, reminding me that the engagement party I dreaded was only minutes away.
“So, Ava,” Carter said, “before our guests arrive, tell me a little about yourself. Ronan and Cara have told me that you were Cara’s roommate at Harvard, but I don’t recall meeting you.”
“That’s because you haven’t, Mr. Kingsley,” I said. “Today is the first time we’ve met.”
“Call me Carter,” he said smoothly. “And we must have met, because I met all of Cara’s roommates during her graduation week at Harvard.”
“I didn’t attend most of the graduation events,” I said. “My grandparents—the last of my family—died during my college years, and graduations are family affairs.”
“That explains it,” Carter said with an air of satisfaction. “I never forget a pretty face—and I would certainly remember yours. But I apologize for accidentally touching on a sad topic. Tonight is supposed to be a night of celebration.”
“And it will be,” I said. “I may not have any close family, but Cara’s like a sister to me.” I reached for Ronan’s hand. “With our upcoming marriage, I look forward to having a family again.”
Ronan gave me an encouraging look, before moving forward with our script. “We plan to enjoy a year or two as newlyweds,” he said. “But after that, we want children.”
“A good plan,” Carter said. “It’s high time for a new generation of Kingsleys, and I hope that Ava will soon provide you with a son and heir.”
In that moment, I grasped what kind of man Ronan’s father was and struggled to conceal my distaste. For Carter Kingsley, women were objects. Beneath his charming smile and polished manners, he was an old-school male chauvinist—a selfish man who believed that women existed solely to serve men’s needs through sex and producing children, who were in turn expected to toe the line and do as they were told. As I looked at Carter, I felt sad for Ronan, who’d grown up with a stepmother who took every opportunity to put him down and a father who showed little interest in him, beyond demanding that he play the role of obedient son and heir. Maybe my family had never had much money, but at least I’d grown up surrounded by love.
Just then, James returned with a silver tray carrying our drinks. After he served us and left the room, Carter raised his glass.
“To your marriage,” he said. “And to the next generation.”
As I sipped my Scotch, I glanced at Ronan. His piercing blue gaze was fixed on Carter, and as he raised his glass to his lips, a muscle twitched in his jaw. Although, when it came to his revolving door of women, Ronan had followed in his father’s footsteps, Carter’s last statement had clearly angered him.
Once again, I asked myself the question that was fast becoming my obsession. How could I reconcile my husband-to-be’s history as a Manhattan playboy with moments like this, when his reactions were nothing if not protective?
Who was Ronan Kingsley?
19
RONAN
By the time Veronica reappeared and ordered us to the oceanside room that she and my father used for entertaining, my mood had darkened. Half an hour of watching my father ogle Ava had irritated me, and when he insulted her by implying that her sole purpose in marrying me was to provide the Kingsley family with its next male heir, I barely managed to contain my fury.
Not that my father’s behavior was out of character. In the past, when he’d summoned me to attend one or another of Veronica’s events, my father had often annoyed me and amused himself by flirting with my dates—but this time was different.
Because Ava was different.
She wasn’t anything like the women I usually brought to my father’s events, and she deserved better than to be undressed by his gaze, not to mention listening to him talk about her as if she was a brood mare.
As Ava and I worked our way through what felt like an endless series of introductions to Dad and Veronica’s guests, my jaw ached with the effort of keeping a smile on my face. But in order to carry off our fake marriage, tonight was only act one of the gauntlet Ava and I needed to run. I couldn’t afford to fuck things up by losing my temper.
On the second floor of the house and lined with tall, arched windows overlooking the water, there was a space that had originally been the estate’s ballroom and could comfortably hold over two hundred people.
By six thirty, the party was in full swing. Beneath tall, arched windows that overlooked the water, well-dressed Hamptonites filled the oceanside room, which had originally been the estate’s ballroom and could comfortably hold over two hundred people. In a corner of the space, a ten-person band played jazz standards, while black-suited servers circulated between clusters of smiling, chattering guests, offering platters of champagne and canapés. Despite this party taking place on short notice, the Southampton elite had turned out in full force to witness the engagement of Carter Kingsley’s eldest son.
But it had been nearly twenty years since I’d spent more than an occasional weekend in Southampton, and I avoided my stepmother’s Manhattan set as much as possible, which meant that I didn’t know many of Dad and Veronica’s guests. I’d invited Jack, but he’d had a previous commitment, and Ava’s friend Mimi was out of state doing a jewelry show, so she hadn’t been able to be here tonight, either.
Which was why when I glimpsed my sister
, Cara, heading toward us, I was grateful to see a friendly face. Cara’s sleeveless, turquoise-blue dress brought out her bright-blue eyes, and her blond hair shimmered and bounced around her shoulders as she approached.
“Sorry to be late,” she said as she embraced Ava and then me. “My Uber driver and I sat on the highway for almost thirty minutes.”
“An accident?” Ava asked.
“A fish-truck accident,” Cara said, wrinkling her nose. “When we finally got moving again and crawled past the accident site, there were piles of dead fish along the roadside and fish slime all over the road. Fortunately, it didn’t appear that anyone was injured—but that stretch of road is never going to smell the same again.”
A server approached with a tray of champagne glasses, and Cara seized one. “To your engagement,” she said, her eyes twinkling with merriment. “The two of you couldn’t look more fabulous together. The perfect Hamptons couple.”
I gave my sister a warning look, just as I spotted Portia Hammersley approaching. One of the few Hamptonites who I actually liked, Portia had been friends with our mother. Before her retirement, Portia had run one of Manhattan’s most successful art galleries, and despite her age—she had to be at least eighty—she remained vibrant and active. Well-respected in the New York art world, she’d gone out of her way to help Cara with her painting career. But Portia was also one of the sharpest people I knew, and if anyone could suss out that Ava and I weren’t truly a couple, Portia would be the one.
I steeled myself and put a smile on my face as the petite, birdlike woman greeted Cara with kisses on both cheeks, before turning to me. Dressed in a winter white gown, with ropes of pearls around her neck, Portia retained the style and manner of the classic beauty that she had been in her youth. I felt bad about lying to her, but it couldn’t be helped. Beyond Cara, Jack, and Mimi, I had decided not to broaden the circle of friends who knew the truth about our fake-marriage arrangement. It was simply too risky.
“Well, well,” Portia said with an exuberant smile that deepened the network of tiny lines that crisscrossed her face. “The news of your engagement took me by surprise, but now that I see your lovely fiancée, I understand everything.”
I introduced Ava, to whom Portia extended a slender, veined hand. “Delighted to meet you,” she said to Ava. “I was beginning to fear that Ronan would never meet his match. He’s always been a driven young man, and like his father, he works too hard for his own good.”
“As Ronan can tell you, I can be a bit of a workaholic myself,” Ava said, taking my arm. “But meeting him shifted my priorities. These days, I try to find a balance between spending time with him and taking care of my business, and he does the same for me.”
“Ronan and Ava are great together,” Cara said with a smile. “I take full credit for introducing them.”
“Matchmaking is a risky business,” Portia said. “But given the way these two look at each other, I have to congratulate you on your success.”
My estimation of Ava’s acting ability went up a few more notches, and I relaxed a little. Even Portia had fallen for our act.
“We’re very happy together,” Ava said. “I feel very fortunate.”
“That makes two of us,” I said, smiling at my fiancée as our eyes met. I’d never been cut out for marriage, and I might not have gotten lucky in the conventional way, but Ava was playing her role perfectly, and our arrangement was saving me from the toughest spot I’d ever had the misfortune to find myself in. My one regret was that our partnership couldn’t extend into the bedroom. For the first time in my life, I was fighting my attraction to a beautiful woman instead of pursuing it.
But that was probably for the best. Like my father, I wasn’t the relationship type. Sex was what I had to offer, and Ava had shown no sign of sexual interest in me. Under the circumstances, I was fortunate to have her friendship and loyalty, which was allowing me to save my business.
Which was why, when I spoke, I truly meant what I said.
“I’m the luckiest man on earth.”
20
AVA
During a lull in the introductions and congratulations that had occupied the first hour of the party, Ronan seized the opportunity to suggest that we slip away so that he could introduce me to the Mortons. Knowing how close Ronan was to Alfred and Evelyn Morton, I had suggested that he might want to tell them the truth about our relationship, but he had refused, saying that while he trusted them completely, given their positions as his father’s employees, it would be stressful and unfair to burden them with that knowledge, and the worry for him that would accompany it.
But as we took a flight of stairs down to the first floor, Ronan was silent, and I sensed him steeling himself for what had to be difficult for him.
At the foot of the stairs, we turned right before entering a spacious kitchen, which was completely modern, with state-of-the-art stainless-steel stoves and a bank of matching refrigerators.
“That’s Evelyn,” Ronan said, gesturing toward a petite, efficient-looking woman in her sixties with attractively cropped gray hair, who stood at the far end of the kitchen, giving instructions to several black-coated servers.
When she spotted us, Evelyn waved, and with a final word to the servers, she hurried over to us. Ronan beamed at her, before sweeping her off her feet in an enthusiastic hug.
“Put me down, you big lug!” she said, laughing. “Introduce me to your fiancée.”
When Evelyn referred to me as his fiancée, Ronan paused for a moment, and the fleeting shadow in his eyes told me how hard lying to her was for him. After he put her down, and she regained her footing, she shook my hand with a firm grip. “Delighted to meet you,” she said in a crisp British accent. “This one always told me he’d never marry, but he just needed to find the right woman—one who could stand up to him.”
“Ava’s all that,” Ronan said, grinning. “She stands up to me on a daily basis.”
“For your own good, I’m sure,” Evelyn said. “Ava, you’ve picked yourself a stubborn man but a good one. Keep that in mind when he gets on your nerves, which he’s certain to do on a regular basis.”
Ronan looked amused. “Am I really that bad?”
“The baddest of the bad,” she said, shooting me a roguish look. “But I love you anyway—and as proof, I’ve made a batch of your favorite peanut-butter cookies.” She stepped to a nearby cupboard, removed a glass cookie jar, and handed it to him.
Ronan beamed at her as he opened the container and held it out to me. “You have to try one. They’re addictive.”
I took one, tasted it, and had to agree. “Would you consider giving me your recipe?” I asked Evelyn. “I’m not much of a cook, but I enjoy baking.”
“I’ll copy it out and mail it to you,” she said, looking pleased.
“Where’s Alfred?” Ronan asked, glancing around as he bit into his cookie. “I want Ava to meet him.”
“Upstairs,” she said. “Working harder than he should be, after his heart attack last year. But you know Alfred. He refuses to admit that he’s no longer a young man.”
Ronan’s gaze met Evelyn’s. “He has standards,” they said together, before breaking into laughter.
“It’s one of Alfred’s lines,” Ronan explained. “Whenever anyone suggests anything that might make his life easier, he always says that he has standards.”
“That he does,” Evelyn said, her hazel eyes twinkling. “But he’s also the kindest man on earth, which is why he generally lets me have my way in the end.”
A stocky, gray-haired man with blunt features emerged from behind a cluster of caterers. “Plotting against me, love?” he said, winking at me and Ronan. Like his wife, he had a British accent.
“After forty years of marriage, I’ve no need to plot,” she said, giving her husband an affectionate look. “I know you as well as I know myself.”
Alfred stepped forward and embraced Ronan, before extending a broad hand to me. “I’ve been looking forward to me
eting you,” he said with a smile so genuine that it made his plain, solid face handsome.
I shook his hand. “Likewise. Ronan and Cara have told me so much about you and Evelyn, I feel as if I already know you.”
“Where have the years gone?” Alfred said to Evelyn. “It seems only yesterday that our Ronan was a boy, and here he is tonight, engaged to be married.”
“I know,” she said, looking at Ronan with pride. “It hardly seems possible. But the older I get, the faster time flies.”
As I watched Ronan interact with Alfred and Evelyn, I understood him better. With his businesslike manner and quick temper, Ronan held most people at a distance, but beneath that facade, he had a big heart. Growing up with an indifferent father and a hostile stepmother could have made him cold and indifferent, but the man before me, now querying Alfred about his health, was nothing if not warm and caring.
Just then, the young man who had served us whiskey earlier appeared behind Alfred’s right shoulder and spoke to him in a low voice before stepping away.
Alfred looked at Ronan. “You and Ava had best get yourself upstairs,” he said. “Mrs. Kingsley’s looking for the two of you, and according to James, she’s on the warpath.”
21
RONAN
After saying our farewells to Alfred and Evelyn, I led Ava out of the kitchen and toward the back staircase, the route that gave us the best chance of dodging Veronica and disappearing back into the party without anyone knowing we had ever left. I didn’t want Ava to suffer Veronica’s displeasure on my account.
“That was harder than I expected,” I whispered to Ava as we entered the stairwell. “Lying to Alfred and Evelyn feels so wrong.”
“I feel terrible about it, too,” Ava said quietly. “They were so kind and welcoming. Are you sure we can’t tell them the truth?”