Shopping for a Billionaire's Fiancee

by Julia Kent

  “I was thinking I might find another way to help you wake up,” she says as her head disappears underneath the sheet.

  So much good karma. So much. I must have saved thousands of children or built a hospital in my last life.

  I’m coming back as a rat in my next life, aren’t I?

  Better enjoy this one while it lasts.

  Shannon makes sure I do.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Proposal...

  Le Portmanteau is designed to make you feel just a little bit like a country bumpkin, even if you’re a Parisian sophisticate with a world palate and the budget of a sheik.

  That’s why it’s Jessica Coffin’s favorite restaurant, if you believe her Twitter feed.

  Not that I read her feed. That’s Grace’s job. I just get executive briefings now.

  Grace made sure Jessica is not here tonight. Having her make a sudden appearance the night I propose to Shannon would not just be catastrophic, it might land my future fiancée in a jail cell for a night.

  Which would put a slight damper on our celebration.

  Self-preservation has many incarnations.

  While I had already cleared my day well in advance, knowing and preparing the perfect proposal, Shannon is running late. I’m standing here in the waiting area tapping my toes like a kid at his first formal dance with a date who’s about to stand him up, but he doesn’t know it yet.

  But Shannon won’t no-show.

  Right?

  Of course not. Women don’t wake you up like that in the morning and then leave you hanging twelve hours later.

  Besides, four syllables guarantee she’s coming:

  tiramisu

  There is something magical about that dessert. It’s like saying the word “breasts” in the company of straight men. “Tiramisu” is a siren call to women.

  She’ll be here.

  I’m on my phone, checking for client email, when the phone rings. Not with a text, but an actual call. That means it’s either Grace or Dad, because everyone else texts.

  This is a number I don’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “Declan McCormick?”

  “Yes.”

  A relieved sigh. “Ah. This is Chandra Mobu, from Le Portmanteau.”

  I look around, but the only person who works here is speaking with a couple who walked in and are expecting a table without reservations. Amateurs. I—er, Grace—booked four months ago.

  “Yes?”

  “Giuseppe was the person who arranged your proposal tonight, and he’s not here.”

  A cold rush fills my veins. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. McCormick. I’m stepping in to help, and Giuseppe gave me your instructions. He caught the chicken pox from his grandson, and—”

  What’s up with all these cases of adult chicken pox? First Angelina Jolie, now Giuseppe? Why is chicken pox suddenly ruining some of the most important events in the world?

  “Do you have all of my instructions?” I demand, clipped and tight. One problem with relying on other people to help you: they’re human. It’s an inherent weakness and it’s unfailingly annoying. “The toothpicks, the ring, the tiramisu, the Champagne, the—”

  “I assure you, we have his directions, and we will make certain this is a proposal you will never forget, and one with great fanfare and excitement.”

  “Damn right.” I shut off the phone and take a deep breath, fists tight, jaw ready to cut glass. The jeweler’s box rubs against my thigh, heavy and light as can be.

  Like my heart.

  Shannon picks that very moment to walk in.

  Somehow, she manages to change time itself. All of the air in the room halts its circulation, crowding around her as she looks at me with an apologetic smile. Her hair brushes against her shoulders, hips moving like she’s on a runway and I’m the only person in the audience watching her.

  Two hands start clapping inside my chest. My throat goes dry. My entire existence revolves around the fact that she is here, right now, and I am about to ask her to share the rest of her life with me. To love me and believe in me and make children with me. To grow old together if we’re lucky, and to ache with the pain of loss if we’re not.

  I need her to be the center of my universe because, frankly, I don’t have a choice. She’s it, whether she says yes tonight or not.

  Please say yes.

  Because she has no idea what’s about to happen, she’s remarkably normal, putting her arms around me and stretching up to plant a quick kiss on my lips. “Hi, honey! I’m so sorry I’m late. We had a problem with that new online accounting marketing campaign, and the client was horrendous. As if it’s my fault the spokeswoman they chose for the ads turns out to have nude photos of her circulating all over because her psycho Romanian ex-”

  She stops talking and looks at me in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re gray. And not as in Christian Grey.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Declan, you look like the poster child for how to spot a heart attack.” She pulls me back to the chair I was just sitting in.

  “I’m fine.” My hands feel like ice cubes and there’s a lump in my throat the size of China. This is real. This is happening. My confidence is gone. It vanished without a trace. This internal case of the nerves isn’t because I’m worried she’ll say ‘no.’

  It’s because I realize she’s about to say ‘yes.’ The magnitude of my love for her can’t be captured in a number, nor an exponent, nor by any known mathematical equation. It’s wider than the galaxy and bigger than any known dimension.

  The enormity of who we are and how we’re about to join is so vast. I didn’t know I could feel this much love for someone.

  For her.

  “Put your head between your knees.”

  “I’d rather put my head between your knees.”

  She gives me a surveying look. “All right. You must be fine if you’re making sex jokes.”

  “That wasn’t a joke.”

  She sniffs and sighs. “You’ve clearly recovered.”

  “I was never not fine.”

  “Excuse me for worrying you might be having a heart attack.”

  I kiss her cheek and snuggle up. “Thank you.”

  “Because that would totally blow my cover for this mystery shop,” she hisses.

  I feel so loved.

  Just then, someone who sounds exactly like Chandra Mobu appears, a petite, dark-haired woman with kind, sharp eyes and a grey streak through long hair pulled back in a pony tail.

  “May I help you?” she asks, pointedly not looking at me. I’d warned Giuseppe not to tip Shannon off with any behavior she might detect as abnormal.

  My being the color of industrial waste when she walked in doesn’t count.

  Nearly forgetting the ruse, I start to respond when Shannon elbows me and says, “Yes. We have a reservation.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Jacoby.”

  Soon she’ll just say McCormick. A hot rush of blood pours through me.

  My head dips and I can’t suppress a smile. Here we go. That’s better. This is who I am. Grounded. Calm. Focused.

  Utterly sure.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby? Right this way,” Chandra says with a gracious smile and a mischievous charm. There goes my jaw again, tight as a drum. Mr. Jacoby my ass.

  Shannon just snickers and links her arm in mine as we enter the dining room.

  Le Portmanteau is as different from The Fort as can be. There’s a reason I asked Greg to use this restaurant for this ruse: the last place anyone would ever expect to see me is here. I’m a nobody, because this place isn’t our competitor. They’re sleek Scandinavian lines, all grey and white with flashes of primary colors, like a Gubi showfloor with an incredible menu, while The Fort is Teddy Roosevelt’s Delmonico’s steak house for the twenty-first century.

  We’re seated, and I pull Shannon’s chair for her. She’s
always a little surprised when I do this, even though we’ve been together for a year and a half. It’s engrained in me; Mom made me take classes in comportment and manners. I can dance a waltz, find the shrimp fork, and help an old lady cross the street in ninety seconds or less.

  And I speak Russian.

  I’m a regular catch.

  Shannon’s seated and waiting for me to sit, so I do, directly to her left. My mind feels like it’s three seconds behind my body.

  “Wine? Shall I send the sommelier?” Chandra asks me.

  With eyebrows raised, Shannon looks at her and says, “I’d love that. Thank you.”

  Chandra leaves and just as she’s out of earshot, Shannon whispers, “Can you believe that?”

  “What?”

  “The sexism.”

  My mind turns into slices of Swiss cheese being carved by toddlers with pinking shears.

  “The huh?”

  “The sexism! Asking you about the wine. It’s so mid-twentieth century.” She looks around the half-empty dining area. We’re seated right by the huge window that overlooks the ocean, the bay calm and tranquil. As dusk kicks in the waves lap at shore and it all feels very—

  “Unbelievable,” Shannon chokes out.

  I’m starting to agree.

  “That’s going in my eval.”

  Let me pause here for a moment and admit that it never occurred to me, in any of my nineteen visions for how my proposal would unfold, that Shannon would actually do the mystery shop. I used it as a convenient way to get her here and surprise her.

  But for her to be here and take the evaluation seriously is not even in my mental playbook for how this all happens. In my mind we talk, we laugh, we enjoy a bottle or three of wine and a lovely meal, then dessert and Champagne are served with a ring as the coup de grace.

  Instead, she’s talking about—

  “And can you check the men’s bathrooms? I’ll go if you don’t want to deal with it,” she adds, reaching for her bread plate and the herbed butter. “But this isn’t a bagel shop.”

  Just then, the sommelier appears. Shannon asks him a few questions about white wines while I silently turn into the Hulk inside my skin.

  My rapidly graying skin.

  The ring is digging into my thigh so I shift a little, nudging against Shannon’s knee. Her eyes dart round the room, take in the gorgeous view, and then rest on me.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Hi.”

  “Thank you for coming here tonight. I know it’s the last thing on earth you want to do.” Her hand comes to rest on my thigh, dangerously close to the ring.

  I shift away.

  She looks hurt. “I—did I—what’s going on?” she asks in a quiet voice.

  Saved by the wine steward. The sommelier starts the wine parade with me. Shannon glowers. Wine is poured and soon we have a bigger mess than perceived sexism at a luxury restaurant.

  “Why don’t you want me to touch you?” she asks as I guzzle my white wine like it’s cough syrup and I have TB.

  “I do,” I protest, pouring myself another glass.

  “Then,” she croons as her hand goes right back where it was, “why did you flinch?”

  I move away. “Because I don’t appreciate being objectified and treated like a piece of meat.”

  “Since when?” she says, a little too loudly and with great incredulity.

  “If you can find sexism in a restaurant I can find it in our relationship.” I reach under the table and slide the ring so it’s squeezed between my legs.

  Great. Nothing like feeling like a drag queen with a bad tuck on the night you’re about to propose to your girlfriend.

  Who is looking at you like you belong on top of her old Turdmobile.

  I take her hand and put it back. “There. Happy?” My fake grin isn’t helping.

  “Declan, what is going on?” she asks suspiciously. “You don’t look well, you seem nervous, and you don’t want me to be intimate with you.” She swallows, hard, then sits up straight and tall. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Like what?” Man, this wine is good. I think I’ll buy the vineyard. Right now. I’ll grab a helicopter and go to Napa. Immediately.

  “Are you...unhappy?”

  Just then, the server appears, full of hope and promise and a melodic recitation of the chef’s specials. I swear it’s a performance worth of a poetry slam, in verse. Is that iambic pentameter I hear? A bit of Olde English thrown in for good measure?

  Shannon listens politely and orders a salad and fish.

  Oh, shit.

  I order a thick porterhouse and as the server leaves, ready myself to grovel.

  “Can we start over?” I ask just as Shannon stands. “Where are you going?” I ask. Have I blown it so badly she’s leaving? And how did I mess this up? One small issue and another small issue and suddenly she’s hurt and pissed. It’s like—

  Like when I dumped her.

  Oh, man.

  “Shannon, please come back. Let me explain. I’m just really overwhelmed and once you know everything you’ll understand.”

  I’m not doing myself any favors with my word choices. That sounded like my dad trying to explain why Mistress #1 got Mistress #2’s roses and note.

  She glares. “I need to go check the bathrooms.” Before she leaves she grabs her wine glass and guzzles it like a hockey player mainlining electrolytes between plays.

  I watch her receding form as it turns down a white hallway, disappearing like my hope for a perfect proposal.

  Chandra walks past me and quietly says, “I hope everything is going as planned, Mr. McCormick.”

  “Not quite,” I reply through gritted teeth. I hand her the ring as discreetly as possible. I have to give her credit; she palms it like a pickpocket from “Oliver Twist”, so smooth it’s as if we never touched.

  “Our staff is on it. After your meal we will have the tiramisu and Champagne ready. The string quartet should arrive any minute and will come out as scheduled.”

  Cheesy, right? I know. But that’s how this works.

  “Thank you,” I say as she nods and disappears, gliding away.

  Shannon’s on her way back, a too-calm look on her face.

  “What was that about?” she asks me as I stand and hold her chair for her, pushing her in.

  “Nothing. Just checking to see if everything is fine,” I explain.

  “Fine,” she says. There’s a bite to her words. I put my hand on her knee and while she stiffens, she doesn’t move.

  “Shannon, can we hit the rewind button? I wasn’t myself when we arrived, and I’m really looking forward to this evening.”

  “Since when do you look forward to a mystery shop?”

  Oops.

  “Since it means having hours alone with you.”

  Her face softens, eyes turning dreamy. “Really?”

  “Always.”

  Bzzz.

  My chest vibrates, the effect like a defibrillator, making me jump. I pull out my phone.

  Grace.

  I stand and hold one finger up to Shannon, who gives me a withering look, the sweet, loving smile fading fast.

  “This is not a good time,” I grunt into the phone.

  “I know, Declan, and I am so, so sorry, but some guy named Giuseppe keeps calling. Says he needs to talk to you.”

  Chandra walks by and gives me a surreptitious thumbs’ up. “Oh, him. It’s fine, Grace. I don’t need to talk to him. Everything’s under control.”

  “You sure? Because he’s calling from the restaurant where you’re proposing and he’s insisting it’s important.”

  What could a guy stuck at home with chicken pox need to tell me? “It’s all good. No worries.”

  “Okay. I’ll pass on the message. And Declan?”

  “Yes?”

  “You picked a great one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And happy birthday. How cute that you picked the same day. Smart move. This will make
it hard to forget this day.”

  I try to process a reply, but Grace is off the phone before I can. I’d completely forgotten about my birthday in the planning for this proposal.

  Our salads were delivered in those handful of seconds I was on the phone, and Shannon is daintily taking bites that make her look disturbingly like Jessica Coffin.

  “You need to leave?” she asks in a resigned tone.

  “No.” I sit back down and stuff lettuce in my mouth. It might as well be embalming fluid.

  She gives me a weak smile. “Good.” As she pulls her phone out of her purse, Chandra comes over to the table, making Shannon freeze. I know she’s going for her app, hoping to answer some questions from this pseudo mystery shop.

  “I hope the food is pleasant?” Chandra asks.

  “Great Romaine,” I mutter. “The best. Ever.”

  Shannon’s glare could perform Lasik surgery on me from two hundred feet.

  Chandra nods and walks over to another table, working the room.

  “I do not like that woman,” Shannon says, stabbing a tomato viciously like it’s Chandra’s eyeball.

  Entrees appear, freshly-ground pepper is offered, and soon we’re in peace, Shannon tapping away on a screen as her fish becomes a smelly piece of rubber. My steak tastes like I’m nibbling on someone’s calf, and my stomach is doing the two-step.

  And then it hits me.

  I can call this off.

  Not the marriage itself, but this ill-fated proposal. In business meetings I’m never afraid to hit the pause button or withdraw a proposal altogether to go back to the drawing board and regroup. Maybe—just maybe—that’s the best approach here.

  Whatever choice I make needs to happen fast if I’m stopping all this, because the gears are in motion. Musicians, tiramisu, ring, Champagne...

  Little breathy sounds are coming out of Shannon. She takes two bites of her fish and sighs. Not being a mind reader, all I can do is reach for her hand and take it in both of mine, caressing the soft skin, hoping she’ll let me make all of this right.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally says.

  Wasn’t expecting that. But never look an unsolicited gift apology in the mouth.

  “Okay,” I say, not sure where this is going.

  “I’m just so stressed with work, and I know you hate doing mystery shops with me, and—”