“Hanna, the only reason any of the executives do the show is to boost sales. It’s how they sold my board on it. And the reason my board demanded I do it or risk losing my job. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the only reason I was promoted to CEO in the first place.”
Yes, she remembered the conversations. A young CEO, appointed in an unprecedented move by a board of directors determined to turn a failing company around after rumors of scandal and fraud by their former president.
She’d known Will was insecure in his job, something he’d shared with her privately, off camera only. In conversations she’d kept hush about even when she really wanted to air every shred of dirty laundry she knew about him.
“So, did you pick me at the direction of your board, too?”
“No.” The reply was quick and firm. “I picked you, Hanna. That was all my choice.”
She noted the absence of the word love. “So now what? You think your board set you up? Made you come here then leaked it to the press?”
He walked to look out the front window, his arms folded against his broad chest. “Something like that.” He turned to face her again. “All I know is sales never recovered. We thought the initial dive was a knee-jerk reaction from consumers. But they got worse. This last month threatened to put us in the red for the first time since they ousted Greg Kasinzisky. We have less than two months of the fiscal year left, and we have to bring things back up. Otherwise, I’m out of a job.”
Hanna fell back onto the couch and crossed a leg underneath her. “So, what, you come up here, trying to woo me back into your good graces to save your company?”
“No. Sort of. Fine, that’s what they hoped. But what I hoped for was—forgiveness, I guess. I didn’t expect you to fall into my arms, Hanna. But I’ve wanted to make this right for months. The board just gave me a little push.”
Hanna took one look at him and, against her better judgment, believed him. It would be so easy to assume he was lying yet again. That he’d tipped off the paparazzi just to get the two of them in the news again.
But the look of remorse in his eyes didn’t seem like a put-on to her. But, then again, she’d thought him legit before, and look how that turned out.
Hanna wrapped a curl of her hair around her index finger, then unwrapped it, then wrapped it again. Her mother had always lectured her to stop, but at least she didn’t chew on the ringlet like she did as a kid. “What’s done is done. But what are we going to do about it? Obviously, we can’t let them think that—”
Will sat beside her on the couch. “We’ll send an e-mail.”
Was he completely dense? “Oh, that would be just peachy. I can see the headlines now. ‘Will and Hanna send e-mail from romantic hideaway…or delivery room?’ ”
“I just meant to send an e-mail, clarifying your nonpregnant state, and leave it at that. The rest is none of their business.”
Hanna uncurled her legs and stood to face him. “You know as well as I do they’ll make it their business regardless of our requests or silence. They’ll exaggerate this thing as much as they can, and I’ll be even more ruined than I was before.”
Will stood to meet her, his voice firm. “You aren’t ruined, and I’ll find a way to fix this. I promise.”
“Hanna?” Her father’s voice floated down the front steps. “Everything okay down there?”
She pressed a finger to her eye to try and stop the tear that threatened to fall. “I’m fine, Dad. Just getting ready to head up.”
His footsteps thumped against the stairs, and a moment later he stood at the entryway to the den, his eyes shooting bullets in Will’s direction. “Don’t make me ask you to leave in a blizzard. I warned you.”
As much as she hated it, she couldn’t let him think the worst. “No, it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely anyway. The media got ahold of the juicy gossip that Will is stranded up here.”
Her dad looped his fingers in the belt loop of his blue flannel robe. “Well, that doesn’t seem horrible to me. It’s true.”
She shook her head. “They also think he’s here to witness the birth of our nonexistent child.”
He scratched his head and cringed. “That does put a crick in things, doesn’t it? Well, you’ll just have to set ’em straight.”
Like that would really work. Reporters would twist their words and report only what they wanted to hear.
And even worse would be social media.
Memories crowded in—of being glued to the computer, seeing the horrible comments made by people who knew nothing about the situation. Blog after blog after blog talked about her and philosophized every angle possible. Christians wrote how she was making a mockery of the sanctity of marriage. And everyone else wrote about how she was a poster child for why abstinence was so stupid—why couldn’t she just have sex and be proud of it? They asked.
Facebook memes with her face and stupid catchy phrases beside her were shared thousands of times. The hashtag #holyhanna even trended on Twitter for a day or two.
Not to mention the onslaught of late-night hosts switching from making fun of her to asking her to come on their shows.
No thanks.
Her dad turned and started back up the front stairs. “You aren’t going to figure anything out tonight. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
Sleep. Her dad’s answer to everything.
Hanna turned to Will. “You do know an e-mail declaring my nonpregnant status won’t change anything. They’ll still think we’re shacking up regardless of our chaperone.”
“Then we’ll do something else.”
The guy had an ego the size of Canada. Did he really think he could fix everything with the snap of his executive fingers? She sat back down. “So tell me, Mr. Smarty-pants, what grand scheme do you have in mind that will magically fix everything?”
Will paced the length of the living room and back. Several times. His hand rubbed his jaw, and she could see the wheels churning in his head.
Then he stopped and looked at her, his eyes sporting a cautious spark that made her heart shiver in trepidation.
She didn’t even want to ask but couldn’t help herself. “What’d you think of?”
He inhaled, took two steps forward, and dropped to one knee.
“Hanna, will you marry me?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hanna needed a Q-tip. There must be wax in her ears.
Or she was having a bad case of déjà vu. The words were the exact same ones Will used that day, surrounded by flowers, with a billion cameras rolling and her heart fluttering so fast she thought it would take flight. “Did you just ask me to marry you again? Are you out of your mind?”
Will remained on his knee, his hand grasping hers in a death grip. “It’s the only way to get the press on our good side, Hanna. Think about it.”
The man’s brain must have frozen more than she’d thought. Brain damage. Not good. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She closed her eyes and took a long, exaggerated breath. “Okay. I’ve thought about it. The answer is ‘in your dreams.’ ”
Will got up and slid onto the couch next to her. “We won’t actually get married. Just engaged. We’ll clarify our nonbaby status and that we won’t be living together until we’re married. Have a ‘someday in the future’ wedding date. And eventually, we’ll be old news. Then we’ll have an amicable split up and go our separate ways.”
The idea was ludicrous. Stupid. Insane. Ridiculous. Brilliant. Why was she even contemplating this? He was only suggesting it because, like always, he was looking after himself.
Hanna pressed herself against the far end of the couch and crossed her arms. “You just want to do this to save your job.”
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t factor into the equation.” He shifted in his seat. “But this will help both of us. It’ll restore your dignity, make an honest woman of you.”
Fury shot through her veins. How dare he even go there? “Excuse me? An honest woman? You’re the one—”
He held up a hand and int
errupted her. “You know what I meant. In the eyes of the media. We both know nothing happened.”
“And never will happen.”
Will shifted closer to her, but she was out of room to move away. “Just hear me out. It’ll not only help me keep my job, but it’ll help right the wrong I did to you. I really am sorry, Hanna, whether you believe me or not.”
She didn’t know what to believe anymore. He sounded honest, but she still had an overwhelming urge to gouge his eyes out with her nails. That couldn’t be a good Christian thing to feel. William Preston brought out the worst in her these days. Could she really fake an engagement with him?
And then there was the whole honesty thing. How would God feel about her lying to a nation? She was probably already on His naughty list for even doing the show in the first place. One more tick on the chart wasn’t going to change things.
Oh, good grief. What was she thinking? Was she actually considering such a crazy scheme? “If we did this, what would it look like? How long are we talking?”
Will whipped out his ever-present phone that had more gadgets and apps than the Inspector himself. A few taps on the touch screen and a calendar popped up. “Let’s see. I have eleven days left of the two weeks I told them this would take. If we send a press release tomorrow, then spend the next week or so making it look like we are a happily engaged couple, I think that would work. Then I could fly back and…”
“And what? We just stay ‘engaged’ and never see each other, and the paparazzi is miraculously okay with that? We can only feign a long-distance relationship for so long. I’m not working up here, Will. They’ll want to know why I’m not moving.”
Will looked up from his phone, his brow crinkled in a V shape, the same way it always did when he frowned. “Wait. You aren’t teaching anymore? Why not?”
“No one wants their child taught by the lady who was the reality TV scandal of the year.”
“They fired you? Because if they did, I’ll have my lawyer—”
“Hush, William.” Him and his money. The man tried to talk, buy, or sue his way out of everything. The real, non-upper class didn’t work that way. “I quit. Parents were asking questions and looking down their noses at me. I couldn’t teach like that. I’ve been doing some subbing and might go back full-time once I’m completely old news. I was hoping by next year they’d forget about all of this, but now…”
Now everything would be opened back up like the fresh, gaping wound it was. January was almost over. The next school year would start in eight short months. Granted, the recent season of The Price of Love just ended, and Jeff and MaryJane were supposedly enjoying engaged bliss, so maybe something would happen to them to take the spotlight off Will and Hanna.
There was evil Hanna coming out again. How mean could she get? Really, she wished them all the happiness in the world, even though her own happily-ever-after had turned out to be a sour grape of wrath and disappointment.
Will put his other hand on top of hers and squeezed. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe you can take a few vacations down to Nashville. Do some pretend apartment hunting. And I can make a few trips back up here, too.”
It all sounded way too complicated. Couldn’t she just kick him to the street and let the press get over this newest complication? But it had taken six months to get them to shut up the first time. Baby drama might keep things going even longer.
And Nashville didn’t seem a horrible place for a vacation. Cool versus frigid. But cash was almost nonexistent right now, with the farm barely holding its own and Hanna’s decrease in income. Frequent vacations weren’t a luxury she could afford.
And she would not be asking Will to pay. She had a little pride left.
“Hanna? What do you say?”
His voice jammed into the gears of her brain. What should she say? Crazy, that’s what it was. Pure and utter craziness. “My dad would never agree to it. He’d probably send you packing in the middle of the blizzard if he even knew you suggested it.”
A thump sounded on the stairs, and her dad appeared. “Actually, I don’t think it’s that bad of an idea. He’s got a problem; you’ve got a problem. Working together sounds like a great solution, aye?”
A fist pump in the air would be completely inappropriate and unprofessional.
But it took every ounce of strength in Will’s body not to jump and holler like they used to do when his basketball team in college scored the winning point.
And even scarier was his desire to pick up his pretend fiancée and kiss the breath right out of her.
A scowl that would melt a glacier kept him from that particular urge.
Hanna stomped over to the steps, hands on her hips, looking ready to do war. “What do you mean? Dad, do you even know what we’re talking about?”
Jim took a few more steps to the middle of the stairs where they could see his face. “Course I do. Getting engaged, but not really, to get those reporters off your back. I think it’s a fine idea.”
“But it’s lying, Dad. You always taught me—”
“I don’t recall teaching you to go bartering yourself off on national television either, and remember how well you listened to me then? You got yourself into a pickle, and Will here got himself into one, too. Seems to me, you were engaged once. Don’t remember you officially calling it quits either. If memory serves me right, you just refused to answer phone calls from the press, ENC, or Will. No reason you can’t wait awhile longer to officially call it off.”
Will grinned at the man’s logic. A little lopsided maybe, but it was the truth. No formal statement was ever given to the press. Or to him either, for that matter.
When he’d called, she’d yelled “JERK” into the phone, and then he’d heard only the monotone hum of the disconnected call.
After a few repeats of that, he got the voice of an operator informing him the number was no longer in service. Hanna had shut out Will and the world.
On his end, the official statement his lawyer put together, in an attempt to save face for the company, was that they were taking some mutually agreed-upon time apart and would appreciate privacy in their personal relationship.
After that, he repeated “No comment” so many times, he started to say it to his assistant when she asked him questions.
Eventually the hype died down, but the blemish to his character remained, as evidenced in last quarter’s sales figures.
“He’s right, Hanna. We’re just continuing where we left off. Sure, we doubt it will go anywhere, but what’s the harm in trying?”
Hanna whirled around, her wide eyes shooting virtual snowballs at him. Snowballs filled with ice—and darts—and maybe bullets. “We doubt it will go anywhere? That’s a far stretch, and you know it.”
The cell phone in Will’s pocket vibrated, notifying him of a text message. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the message from Emma, his executive assistant.
ENC CALLED. WANTS SCOOP B4 PRESS. REPORTERS CALLING, 2 MANY 2 LIST. WHAT DO U WANT ME 2 TELL THEM?
Will tapped the bottom of the phone with his finger, deciding how to reply. Hanna peeked over his shoulder.
As she read, her shoulders stooped. “Great. It’s begun. What are you going to say?”
“It depends. Are we still engaged?”
She turned and walked to look out the window. “Do I have a choice?”
He glanced down at his phone then tapped in his response on the screen.
No COMMENT. FOR NOW.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Snow, snow, go away. Come back again…after Will leaves.
The weather refused to listen to Hanna’s ranting. The Doppler radar showed more of the wet stuff headed their way after three days of on-and-off blizzard conditions.
Will had been on the phone the first day constantly, or, that is, when he could get a signal. They’d drafted a joint statement then waited anxiously for the entertainment news that evening.
Not a mention.
Even the Internet seemed eerily
quiet. Maybe the story the other day had been a fluke. Maybe everyone really was past it and didn’t care.
But then, an A-lister had gotten arrested, and another one had eloped. Reality TV drama was the leftovers, brought out when nothing else good was on the table.
The tabloids could be having a heyday, though, and the outcome of that would be seen as early as today.
At least they didn’t have to worry about humiliating pictures. They’d had one whole day without snow right after the announcement, but there was no way a reporter would risk their life in this mess just for a picture.
Hanna’s greatest hope was that there’d be no mention at all. They’d see the happy couple update, roll their eyes, and move on to the next, juicier story.
Oh, Lord, let it be so.
After clicking off the television for the night, Hanna tossed the remote onto the old coffee table, creating another little nick in the wood to go with the hundreds it had collected over the years. “I’m off to bed.”
Will and her dad were in the middle of an intense game—chess this time. Hanna refused to play anymore because she fought the urge to hurl knights at Will the whole time.
“You sure you don’t want to play the winner?” Will winked at her.
She wished he would stop doing that. Her insides rebelled every time and did a little jig without her permission. Traitors. “No thanks. You haven’t heard anything more, have you?”
He ignored her as he studied the board.
“Fine, well, let me know if you do.”
Will held up a finger. “Wait, hold on a second.” He picked up a knight and shifted it into place. “Checkmate.”
Her dad scooted back his chair. “Need to learn to respect your elders, son, and let them win a few times.”
“Sorry, sir.”
He patted Will on the shoulder, a teasing grin on his weathered lips. “Just don’t let it happen again. This old man needs to go to bed and lick his wounded pride.” He put an arm around Hanna and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Night, sugar.”
“Night, Dad.”
As the older man made his way upstairs, Will cocked his head toward the empty seat. “You sure you don’t want a shot at me?”
The Engagement Plot Page 5