Ethan was not cute. He existed in the space between handsome and gorgeous. He wasn’t pretty enough to be gorgeous—his features were too rough, too masculine. But handsome—that wasn’t right, either. He exuded too much raw sexuality to be handsome.
“Well?” Becky demanded.
“He’s...nice.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“No, it’s not like that. In fact, sex isn’t even on the table.” Her mind oh so helpfully provided a mental picture that completely contradicted that statement. She could see it now—Ethan bending her over a table, yanking her skirt up and her panties down and—
Becky interrupted that thought. “Frannie, I just don’t want you to do something stupid.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “But I have a meeting with him tomorrow morning. How quickly can you revise the business plan to accommodate a five-million-dollar investment?”
“Uh... Let me call you back,” Becky said.
“Thanks, Becks.” Frances ended the call and fingered the fine wool of her suit. This wasn’t stupid, really. This was...marriage with a purpose. And that purpose went far beyond funding an art gallery, although that was one part of it.
This was about putting the Beaumonts back in control of their own destiny. Okay, this was about putting one Beaumont—Frances—back in control of her destiny. But that still counted for a lot. She needed to get over this slump she was in. She needed her name to mean something again. She needed to feel as if she’d done something for the family honor instead of being a deadweight.
Marrying Ethan was the means to a bunch of different ends. That was all.
Those other men who’d proposed, they’d wanted what she represented, too—the Beaumont name, the Beaumont fortune—but they’d never wanted her. Not the real her. They had wanted the illusion of perfection she projected. They wanted her to look good on their arm.
What was different about Ethan? Well, he got points for being up front about his motivations. Nothing couched in sweet words about how special she was or anything. Just a straight-up negotiation. It was refreshing. Really. She didn’t want anything sweet that was nothing but a lie. She didn’t want him to try and make her love him.
She had not lied. She would not love him.
That was how it had to be.
* * *
“Delores,” Frances said as she swept into the reception area. “Is Ethan—I mean, Mr. Logan—in?” She tried to blush at the calculated name screw-up, but she wasn’t sure she could pull it off.
Delores shot her an unreadable glance over the edge of her glasses. “Had a good weekend, did we?”
Well. That was all the confirmation Frances needed that the stunt she’d pulled back in the hotel had done exactly as she’d intended. People had noticed, and those people were talking. Of course, there’d been some online chatter, but Delores wasn’t the kind of woman who existed on social media. If she’d heard about the “date,” then it was a safe bet the whole company knew all the gritty details.
“It was lovely.” And that part was not calculated at all. Kissing Ethan had, in fact, been quite nice. “He’s not all bad, I don’t think.”
Delores snorted. “Just bad enough?”
“Delores!” This time, her blush was more unplanned. Who knew the older lady had it in her?
“Yes, he’s in.” Delores’s hand hovered near the intercom.
“Oh, don’t—I want to surprise him,” Frances said.
As she swept open the massive oak door, she heard Delores say, “Oh, we’re all surprised,” under her breath.
Ethan was sitting at her father’s desk, his head bent over his computer. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie loosened. When she flung the door open, his head popped up. But instead of looking surprised, he looked pleased to see her. “Ah, Frances,” he said, rising to his feet.
None of the strain that she’d inflicted on him two days ago showed on his face now. He smiled warmly as he came around the desk to greet her. He did not, she noticed, touch her. Not even a handshake. “I was expecting you at some point today.”
Despite the lack of physical contact, his eyes took in her hot-pink suit. She did a little twirl for him, as if she needed his approval when they both knew she didn’t. Still, when he murmured, “I’m beginning to think the black dress is the most conservative look you have,” she felt her cheeks warm.
For a second, she thought he was going to lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. He didn’t. “You would not be wrong.” She waltzed over to the leather love seats and spread herself out on one. “So? Heard any of the chatter?”
“I’ve been working. Is there chatter?”
Frances laughed. “You can be adorably naive. Of course there’s chatter. Or did Delores not give you the same look she gave me?”
“Well...” He tugged at his shirt collar, as if it’d suddenly grown a half size too small. “She was almost polite to me this morning. But I didn’t know if that was because of us or something else. Maybe she got lucky this weekend.”
Unlike some of us. It was the unspoken phrase on the end of that statement that was as loud as if he’d pronounced the words.
She grinned and crossed her legs as best she could in a skirt that tight. “Regardless of Delores’s private life, she’s aware that we had an intimate dinner. And if Delores is aware of it, the rest of the company is, as well. There were several mentions on the various social media sites and even a teaser in the Denver Post online.”
His eyes widened. “All of that from one dinner, huh? I am impressed.”
She shrugged, as if this were all just another day at the office. Well, for her, it sort of was. “Now we’re here.”
He notched an eyebrow at her. “And we should be doing...what?”
She slipped the computer out of her bag. “You have a choice. We can discuss art or we can discuss art galleries. I’ve worked up a prospectus for potential investors.”
Ethan let out a bark of laughter. “I’ve got to stop being surprised by you, don’t I?”
“You really do,” she agreed demurely. “In all honesty, I’m not that shocking. Not compared to some of my siblings.”
“Tell me about them,” he said, taking a perfectly safe seat to her right—not within touching distance. “Since we’ll be in-laws and all that. Will I get to meet them?”
“It does seem unavoidable.” She hadn’t really considered the scene where the Beaumonts welcomed Ethan into the family fold with open arms. “I have nine half siblings from my father’s four marriages. My older brothers are aware of other illegitimate siblings, but it’s not unreasonable that there are more out there.” She shrugged, as if that were normal.
Well, it was for her, anyway. Marriages, children, more children—and love had nothing to do with it.
Maybe there’d been a time, back when she was still a little girl who’d twirled in this office, when she’d been naive and innocent and had thought that her father loved her—and her brothers, their mother. That they were a family.
But then there’d been the day... She’d known her parents weren’t happy. It was impossible to miss, what with all the screaming, fights, thrown dishes and slammed doors.
And it’d been Donut Friday and she’d been driven to the office with all those boxes and had bounced into the office to see her daddy and found him kissing someone who wasn’t her mommy.
She’d stood there, afraid to yell, afraid to not yell—or cry or scream or do something that gave voice to the angry pain that started in her chest and threatened to leak out of her eyes. In the end, she’d done nothing, just like Owen, the driver who’d brought her and was carrying the donuts. Nothing to let her father know how much it hurt to see his betrayal. Nothing to let her mother know that Frances knew now what the fights were about.
But she knew. She c
ouldn’t un-know it, either. And if she called her daddy on it—asked why he was kissing the secretary who’d always been so nice to Frances—she knew her father might put her aside like he’d put her mother aside.
So she said nothing. She showed nothing. She handed out donuts on that day with the biggest, best smile she could manage. Because that’s what a Beaumont did. They went on, no matter what.
Just like now. So what if Ethan would eventually have to meet the family? So what if her siblings would react to this marriage with the same mix of shock and horror she’d felt when she’d walked in on her father that cold gray morning so long ago? She would go on—head up, shoulders back, a smile on her face. Her business failed? She couldn’t get a job? She’d lost her condo? She’d been reduced to accepting the proposal of a man who only wanted her for her last name?
Didn’t matter. Head up, shoulders back, a smile on her face. Just like right now. She called up the prospectus that Becky had put together yesterday in a flurry of excited phone calls and emails. Becky was the brains of the operation, after all—Frances was the one with the connections. And if she could deliver Ethan gift wrapped...
An image of him in nothing but a strategically placed bow popped before her. Christmas might be long gone, but there’d be something special about unwrapping him as a present.
She shook that image from her mind and handed the computer over to Ethan. “Our business plan.”
He scrolled through it, but she got the distinct feeling he was barely looking at it. “Four wives?”
“Indeed. As you can see, my partner, Rebecca Rosenthal, has mocked up the design for the space as well as a cost-benefit analysis.” She leaned over to click on the next tab. “Here’s a sampling of the promotion we have planned.”
“Ten siblings? Where do you fall in that?”
“I’m fifth.” For some reason, she didn’t want to talk about her family.
Detailing her father’s affairs and indiscretions in this, his former office, felt wrong. This was where he’d been a good father to her. Even after she’d walked in on him cheating with his secretary, when she hadn’t thrown a fit and hadn’t tattled on him, he’d still doted on her when she was here. The next Donut Friday, she remembered, he’d had a pretty necklace waiting for her, and once again she’d been Daddy’s girl for a few special minutes each week.
She didn’t want to sully those memories. “Chadwick and Phillip with my father’s first wife, Matthew and then Byron and me—we’re twins—with his second wife.” She hated referring to her mother by that number, as if that’s all Jeannie had contributed. Wife number two, children three, four and five.
“You have a twin?” Ethan cut in.
“Yes.” She gave him humorous look. “He’s very protective of me.” She did not mention that Byron was busy with his new wife and son. Better to let him worry about how her four older brothers would deal with him if he crossed a line.
Ethan’s eyebrows jumped up. “And there were five more?”
“Yup. Lucy and Harry with my father’s third wife. Johnny, Toni and Mark with his fourth. The younger ones are in their early twenties, for the most part. Toni and Mark are still in college and, along with Johnny, they all still live at the Beaumont mansion with Chadwick and his family.” She rattled off her younger siblings’ names as if they were items to be checked off a list.
“That must have been...interesting, growing up in that household.”
“You have no idea.” She made light of it, but interesting didn’t begin to cover it.
She and Byron had been in an odd position in the household, straddling the line between the first generation of Hardwick Beaumont’s sons and the last. Being five years older than she and Byron, Matthew was Chadwick and Phillip’s contemporary. And since Matthew was their full brother, Byron and Frances had grown closer to the two older Beaumont brothers.
But then, her first stepmother—May, the not-evil one—had harbored delusional fantasies about how Frances and May’s daughter, Lucy, would be the very best of friends, a period of time that painfully involved matching outfits for ten-year-old Frances and three-year-old Lucy. Which had done the exact opposite of what May intended—Lucy couldn’t stand the sight of Frances. The feeling was mutual.
And the youngest ones—well, they’d been practically babies when Frances was a teenager. She barely knew them.
They were all Beaumonts, and, by default, that meant they were all family.
“What about you? Any strings of siblings floating around?”
Ethan shook his head. “One younger brother. No stepparents. It was a pretty normal life.” Something in the way he said it didn’t ring true, though.
No stepparents? What an odd way to phrase it. “Are you close? With your family, I mean.” He didn’t answer right away, so she added, “Since they’ll be my in-laws, too.”
“We keep in touch. I imagine the worst-case scenario is that my mother shows up to visit.”
We keep in touch. What was it he’d said, about long-distance relationships working?
It was his turn to change the subject before she could drill for more information. “You weren’t kidding about an art gallery, were you?”
“I am highly qualified,” she repeated. This time, her smile was more genuine. “We envision a grand space with enough room to highlight sculpture and nontraditional media, as well as hosting parties. As you can see, a five-million-dollar investment will practically guarantee success. I think that, as a grand opening, it would be ideal to host a showing of the antiques in this room. I don’t want to auction off these pieces. Too impersonal.”
He ignored the last part and focused instead on the one part Frances would have preferred to gloss over. “Practically?” He glanced at her. “What kind of track record do you have with these types of ventures?”
Frances cleared her throat as she uncrossed and recrossed her legs before leaning toward Ethan. Her distraction didn’t work this time. At least, not as well. His gaze only lingered on her legs for a few seconds. “This is a more conservative investment than my last ventures,” she said smoothly. “Plus, Rebecca is going to be handling more of the business side of the gallery—that’s her strong suit.”
“You’re saying you won’t be in charge? That doesn’t seem like you.”
“Any good businesswoman knows her limitations and how to compensate for them.”
His lips quirked up into a smile. “Indeed.”
There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Ethan said. Frances didn’t change her position. She wasn’t exactly sitting in Ethan’s lap, but her posture indicated that they were engaged in a personal discussion.
The door opened and what looked like two-dozen red roses walked into the room. “The flowers you ordered, Mr. Logan.” Delores’s voice came from behind the blooms. “Where should I put them?”
“On the table here.” He motioned toward the coffee table, but Delores couldn’t see through that many blooms, so she put them on the conference table instead.
“That’s a lot of roses,” Frances said in shock.
Delores fished the card out of the arrangement and carried it over to her. “For you, dear,” she said with a knowing smile.
“That’ll be all, Delores. Thank you,” Ethan said. But he was looking at Frances as he said it.
Delores smirked and was gone. Ethan stood and carried the roses over to the coffee table while Frances read the note.
Fran—here’s to more beautiful evenings with a beautiful woman—E.
It hadn’t been in an envelope. Delores had read it, no doubt. It was thoughtful and sweet, and Frances hadn’t expected it at all.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Frances realized she might have underestimated Ethan.
“Well?” Ethan said. He sounded pleased with himself.
“Don’
t call me Fran,” she snapped. Or she tried to. It came out more as a breathless whisper.
“What should I call you? It seems like a pet name would be the thing. Snoogums?”
She shot him a look. “I thought I said you should send me flowers when I didn’t come to the office. Not when I was already here.”
“I always send flowers after a great first date with a beautiful woman,” he replied. He sounded sincere about it, which did not entirely jibe with the way he’d acted after she’d left him hanging.
In all honesty, it did sound sweet, as if the time they’d spent together had been a real date. But did that matter?
So what if this was a thoughtful gesture? So what if it meant he’d been paying attention to her when she’d said she liked flowers and she expected to be courted? So what if the roses were gorgeous? It didn’t change the fact that, at its core, this was still a business transaction. “It wasn’t a great date. You didn’t even get lucky.”
He didn’t look offended at this statement. “I’m going to marry you. Isn’t that lucky enough?”
“Save it for when we’re in public.” But as she said it, she buried her nose in the roses. The heady fragrance was her favorite.
It’d been a while since anyone had sent her flowers. There was a small part of her that was more than a little flattered. It was a grand gesture—or it would have been, if it’d been sincere.
Honest? Yes. Ethan was being honest with her. He’d been totally up front about the reasons behind his interest in her.
But his attention wasn’t sincere. These were, if possible, the most insincere roses ever. Just all part of the game—and she had to admit, he was playing his part well.
The thought made her sadder than she’d thought it might. Which was ridiculous. Sincerity was just another form of weakness that people could use to exploit you. Her mother had sincerely loved her father, and see where that had gotten her? Nowhere good.
The corners of Ethan’s eyes crinkled, as if her less-than-gracious response amused him. “Fine. Speaking of, when would you like to be seen together in public again?”
Falling For Her Fake Fiancé (The Beaumont Heirs 5) Page 7