The Engagement Project

by Brenda Harlen

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “You don’t have to entertain me every minute of every day.”

  He frowned. “We came here to spend the weekend together.”

  “Only because your parents suggested it.”

  “And because you’re my fiancée,” he reminded her.

  “I wasn’t sure you remembered that part.”

  His frown deepened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Give me a little credit, Gage. I may be naive and inexperienced, but even I can tell that you’ve lost interest in me.”

  “Where in hell did you ever get an idea like that?” he demanded.

  She met his gaze evenly. “From you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “It’s not what you did but what you didn’t do.”

  “Okay—what didn’t I do?”

  She didn’t think she would have to spell it out for him, and though she felt her cheeks flame, she wasn’t going to back down. “You haven’t touched me in more than a week.”

  He stared at her, as if he didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “That’s why you’re pissed off at me? Because we haven’t had sex in a week?”

  “It’s been more than a week,” she said again. “And I’m not peeved. Okay, I am peeved. But only because I thought, our arrangement notwithstanding, that you respected me enough to be honest with me.”

  “Honey, right now I am honestly confused.”

  She huffed out a breath. “You should have told me you didn’t want me anymore.”

  “I haven’t stopped wanting you,” he insisted. “And maybe that’s the problem.”

  It was a statement that left her as confused as he claimed to be.

  “When we first agreed on the terms of this arrangement, I was certain that the attraction I felt for you would run its course,” he told her. “Because that’s what always happened before.

  “But the more I had you, the more I wanted you. And the more I asked of you, the more you gave. And the more you gave, the guiltier I felt because I knew I was taking advantage of our agreement and your innocence.”

  His explanation annoyed rather than appeased her. “Then maybe I should be feeling guilty for taking advantage of our agreement and your experience.”

  He shook his head, dismissing her twisted logic. “The guilt should have been my first clue.”

  “Clue to what?”

  “That I have feelings for you.”

  Megan’s heart gave an unexpected bump against her ribs. Her annoyance faded.

  I have feelings for you.

  It was hardly a declaration of undying love and yet she knew the words were sincere because of his reluctance to say them. And a tentative hope began to blossom deep in her heart.

  “Okay, so maybe we could both scrap the guilt and figure out where we go from here,” she suggested lightly.

  “I don’t want anything more than I wanted when I put that ring on your finger,” Gage told her.

  She understood that it was more a warning than a statement, and she nodded. “Nothing has to change.”

  Except they both knew everything already had.

  And when Gage pulled Megan into his arms, he knew that she knew it. But it was easier for him—maybe for both of them—to pretend otherwise.

  They’d been lovers for weeks now, but in some ways, she was still so innocent, so unaware of her own appeal. And although he’d been certain his desire for her would be sated once he’d finally had her, the truth was, he wanted her more.

  And never so desperately as at that very moment.

  They left a trail of discarded clothes on the way up to the bedroom, then tumbled together onto the bed, mouths fused, limbs tangled.

  He wanted to take his time, to savor her. But the desire stirring inside of him was too strong, too fierce. It had been—as she’d deliberately pointed out—more than a week since they’d been together, but he felt as if he’d been waiting for her forever.

  Usually, after about three weeks with a woman, he started to feel claustrophobic. He didn’t feel like that with Megan. Maybe it was because they’d already agreed to an end date for their relationship, at the end of which they would go their separate ways. That six-month deadline meant he could enjoy the time they had together without worrying that she would expect more.

  Or maybe it was just Megan.

  He had no idea where that thought had come from, and he sure as hell didn’t want to think about what it meant, so he shoved it aside as he skimmed his hands over her. He felt her arch, heard her moan, and knew she was as desperate for him as he was for her. He drove into her, and swallowed her cries of pleasure as they rode out the storm of desire that had overtaken them both.

  Afterward, as he drifted toward sleep with Megan tucked close to his side, he acknowledged that his feelings for her were stronger and deeper than anything he’d ever felt for another woman. But still, he could choose what to do with those feelings—or he could choose to do nothing at all. Because his heart was and would always be his own.

  This time when he woke in the morning, Gage expected to find Megan in bed beside him and was disappointed when she wasn’t. And then he was annoyed to realize he was disappointed.

  Dammit, what was it about this one woman that seemed to tie him up in knots?

  Having worked with Megan the past couple of years, albeit indirectly, he’d thought he had a pretty good understanding of her character.

  She was smart. Smarter than anyone he’d ever known, that had been obvious straight away. But the more he got to know her, the more he understood that her intelligence was only one layer of the whole—and not even the most important one. She was loyal to her friends and family. She was compassionate and caring, generous with both her time and her affection, and she was the most incredibly responsive lover he’d ever had.

  And he was in way over his head.

  She’d asked him to be honest with her last night, and he’d been more honest than he’d intended. But there was one truth he’d held back—that the depth of his feelings for her absolutely terrified him.

  Rather than examine those feelings too closely, he heeded the rumbling of his stomach and headed to the kitchen in search of some breakfast.

  What he found was Megan, standing in front of the stove and wrapped in a short, silky robe that outlined every delicious curve of her body.

  “I thought you didn’t cook.”

  She jolted at the sound of his voice from the doorway, but when she turned, she was smiling.

  “I don’t,” she insisted. “At least not very well. And not very often, if I can help it. But I was hungry and the box said ‘just add water,’ so I thought it was maybe something I could tackle.”

  He watched her slide the spatula into the frying pan, lift the pancake and flip it.

  “Are you tackling enough to share?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said, and gestured to the oven.

  He peeked through the glass window and saw that there was a plate already piled high with pancakes that were being kept warm.

  “How much mix did you use?”

  “About half the box.”

  He chuckled. “Looks like you’ve made breakfast and lunch and maybe dinner.”

  “Breakfast and lunch,” she allowed. “But I think we’ll need something with a little more substance for dinner.”

  “We could always fry up some bacon to go with the pancakes.”

  Without so much as a glance in his direction, she flipped the next pancake at his head.

  Of course, he had to exact revenge for that insult with a passionate kiss that went on so long that they forgot who was the punisher and who was being punished. Then they finally ate some of the pancakes—barely making a dent in the stack Megan had cooked—and tidied up the kitchen together.

  “Do you want to take a walk into the village today?” he asked when the last of the dishes had been dried and put away.

  She looked out the window. “It’s rainin
g.”

  “So? It will be an easy way for you to get that wet look you like.”

  Her smile was wry. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

  “It was a memorable moment.”

  “Then you should also remember that my teeth were chattering when I said it.”

  “It’s a light spring drizzle today,” he said. “But if you’re afraid of a little rain, we could drive, instead.”

  Her eyes narrowed, as he knew they would. He’d never known Megan to back down from a challenge.

  “I think I’d like to walk.”

  He grinned and took her hand.

  They were both wet and chilled when they got back from their trip to the village, so Gage started a fire while Megan went upstairs to change into dry clothes. By the time she came back down in a pair of softly faded jeans and a bulky wool sweater, the flames were crackling.

  She sat beside him on the floor in front of the fireplace and he handed her one of the glasses of wine he’d poured.

  “This is nice,” she said.

  “Romantic?”

  She smiled. “Definitely.”

  “A guy doesn’t go to this much effort for a woman unless he’s still interested,” he told her.

  “Or at least interested in getting in her pants, my mother would say.”

  “That, too,” he agreed. Then, because she’d given him the opening and he was curious, he asked, “What is the story with you and your mom, anyway?”

  Megan leaned her head back against his shoulder, still facing the fire. “There’s not really a story,” she said. “We just don’t understand one another. I think she was completely baffled by me from the moment I was born and we’ve never quite managed to get past that.”

  “What about your dad? You never talk about him.”

  “He died a few weeks before my high school graduation.”

  “Were you close to him?”

  She was silent for a moment, and when she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. “He was everything to me. Parent, friend, confidant. And he loved me unconditionally.”

  He hugged her closer.

  “He died in a car accident,” she told him. “I remember the last time I saw him—I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast when he dropped a kiss on the top of my head and said he’d see me at dinner. But he didn’t. He never came home.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

  She nodded. “He was a good man. A good father. And as much as I don’t see eye-to-eye with my mother, I know she loved him, even if it took me a long time to realize how much.

  “After he died, I went away to school so I didn’t really see how devastated she was. And when she started dating again, a few years later, I was angry with her because I thought she was trying to replace him.

  “It seemed like every time I came home, she was dating someone new. But she never dated anyone for too long, she never let anyone get too close. It took me a long time to realize she wasn’t fickle, she was ensuring she didn’t fall in love. Because so long as she didn’t fall in love again, she couldn’t have her heart broken again.

  “Of course, now she’s in Switzerland with her latest boyfriend, so my theory could be wrong.”

  “Or maybe she’s just finally ready to move on,” he suggested.

  She turned around so that she was facing him, and he took a moment to study her in the light of the fire. Her hair was still damp from the rain, her face was completely bare of makeup, and the oversize sweater disguised her feminine curves, and yet to Gage, she was the most naturally beautiful woman he’d ever known.

  Her eyes, those gorgeous violet eyes that he knew would haunt him until the end of his days, were serious and intense. “Can I ask you a question now?”

  “Sure.”

  “When are you going to be ready to move on?”

  Megan wasn’t surprised that Gage didn’t answer, that he only looked past her, to the flames flickering and crackling in the grate.

  “I didn’t even realize it until I was talking out loud,” she told him. “But your dating pattern is just like my mother’s. You never date anyone for more than a few months, and you never let anyone get too close.”

  “Says the woman wearing the ring I put on her finger,” he noted, still not looking at her.

  “Which you put there under false pretenses.”

  Now, finally, he shifted his gaze back to her, and the stark pain she saw in his eyes nearly took her breath away. “Don’t.”

  She only wanted to understand, but the single word was an entreaty as much as a demand, and it was the plea she couldn’t ignore.

  “Okay,” she said, accepting that the time for talking was over.

  Then she lifted her arms to link them around his neck, pulling him down on the rug with her. That he didn’t resist. And though it made her heart ache to realize that he wouldn’t open up to her, that this was all he would accept from her, for now, it would be enough.

  The following Friday night, Gage decided to toss some steaks on the grill and enjoy a quiet night at home with his temporary fiancée. A plan that he knew was unlikely to be realized as soon as Megan walked in the door, then slammed it shut behind her.

  He started to offer her a glass of wine, but the look in her eye warned him that it was more likely he would wear it than she would drink it. He set the glass back down again.

  “Hi, honey. How was your day?”

  “How was my day?” Her eyes were narrowed and her tone was icy. “How can you ask me that you…manipulative…cretin.”

  They were probably the harshest words Gage had ever heard come out of her mouth, so he decided that it wouldn’t be wise to let her see his amusement. Obviously she was worked up about something and though he didn’t have a clue about what that might be, he held up both hands in mock surrender. “What did I do?”

  “You lied to me about this engagement.”

  She paced across the living room, her low-heeled shoes clicking on the hardwood floor. But it was the hurt that she didn’t quite manage to hide that echoed in his mind.

  “It was never just about you needing to prove something to your father,” she said now. “It was about wanting the V.P. office when Dean Garrison retires.”

  “I never made any secret about the fact that I expected to move up in the company,” he reminded her, refusing to feel guilty about that fact.

  “No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “You just failed to tell me that you wanted the same job I’ve been working toward for the past eighteen months.”

  He frowned. “I thought you were happy working on the research angle.”

  “Of course I’m happy. I love my job.” Except the way she threw the words at him suggested otherwise. “But it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

  “It’s not?”

  “That surprises you, doesn’t it? That I might actually have ambitions.”

  “I never really thought about it,” he admitted.

  “And why would you?” she challenged. “Mousy little Megan should be happy to hide in the lab, avoiding all unnecessary contact with the big bad world.”

  “I certainly never thought that.”

  “Well, you should have. Because it’s true—or it was until I started working with you on this trial. You encouraged me to take the lead on the project, and you made me see that I could do it. To see that I was capable of doing so much more. And to realize that I want to do more. I don’t just want to participate in the research, I want to determine the direction of it. I want to make a difference. And I could do that from the V.P. office. But you didn’t even tell me that Dean Garrison was planning to retire.”

  He was silent for a moment, trying to sort through all of the information in her outburst, but in the end he only asked, “How did you find out?”

  “He told me. I had my performance review today and Dean raved about my work. He told me I was an asset to the company. And he told me that he was going to recommend that I be con
sidered for promotion when he retires at the end of the summer.”

  He should have been annoyed to hear that Garrison would make such a recommendation, but how could he be when he knew it was the right thing to do? Because Megan was undoubtedly an asset in the lab and to the company. And he felt a twinge of guilt that he’d completely ignored her ambitions to further his own.

  “I was so excited when I walked out of his office,” she continued, “and then I realized that his enthusiastic endorsement was nothing more than a pitiful consolation prize because the V.P. office is what you’ve been after all along. And there is no way the Board of Directors will promote an unknown lab researcher over someone named Richmond.”

  She glared at him through eyes that glittered with unshed tears. “Especially now that you’ve proven your maturity and responsibility by finding yourself an appropriate fiancée.”

  “You’re right,” Gage said, because there was really nothing else he could say. “I used you for my own purposes, without even considering what you wanted, and you have every right to be pissed.”

  “I just wanted a real shot at it.” Megan spoke softly now, all of her anger drained away by his admission, her shoulders slumped with resignation. “I wanted my work to mean something.”

  It was the same thing he’d wanted—and the reason she was wearing his ring. He’d needed to neutralize his bad-boy reputation, to take it out of the equation so that the board of directors would look at his work record instead of his personal life and put him in the V.P. office.

  She made her way back to the door, and his heart started to pound harder, faster, an immediate and instinctive protest against the possibility that she might actually walk out of his condo, walk out on him.

  Don’t go.

  The words he wanted to speak lodged in his throat.

  He wasn’t a child anymore, heartbroken as he watched his mother walk out the door. He wouldn’t plead, he wouldn’t beg. Not this time.

  If Megan didn’t want to stay, he wasn’t going to try to convince her otherwise.

  But as the door closed behind her, he finally realized a truth he hadn’t been willing to acknowledge before. That he’d never wanted the promotion as much as he wanted the woman who’d just walked out the door—and possibly out of his life—forever.