The Billionaire's Runaway Fiancé (Invested in Love)

by Jenna Bayley-Burke

  His lips curved as he raised an eyebrow. “Too much money?”

  “It’s not what you wanted?” Her expression faltered, and she lifted her glasses closer to her face. “I’m sorry. I know you’re swamped. I shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

  “The inspection reports are here as well?” He thumbed through the file. The estate fit his concept in every way but one—it sat in the middle of Lake Shastina in Northern California. He’d been thinking tropical.

  “Yes. Everything that needs fixing on the house is cosmetic. When the board objected to the project, you said you’d put up your own money for the first one, so I didn’t want any surprises. My parents have had the listing for years. There is nothing wrong with the property.”

  “Then why has it been listed for years?”

  “Location.”

  “I’m afraid that is the same problem we have now.”

  “No.” Robyn shook her head, a wisp of brown hair falling forward. “To live in, it’s too remote, but not for a vacation, an escape. You don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere, but visiting is fantastic for recharging your batteries.”

  He nodded and looked again at the report she’d drafted. She had a point, and there were certain security aspects of a private island that gave the property even more potential. But then, everything seemed to hold promise when Robyn presented it. Like the way she stepped to the side of his desk, leaning closer to see the folder and giving him a close-up shot of her feminine curves where the vee of her blouse dipped.

  Curtis hooked a finger in the collar of his shirt and tugged. He had no idea what to do with this developing attraction to Robyn, so he stuck to business. “It’s worth the risk. Go ahead and put the deal in motion.”

  Her lips curved, a little at first, and then so much her cheeks pushed up the frames of her glasses. She righted them with a whisper of a laugh and then set her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. The heat of her fingers seared down his arm, curling his fingers. His whole body began to teeter on the knife’s edge of desire. He could probably have her here, now, but he’d never taken a woman before he knew a way out of the scenario. He’d never wanted a woman this badly, beyond his common sense.

  “You won’t be sorry, I promise.” She removed her hand, smoothing it against her skirt.

  “I know.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to rid himself of the imprint she’d left, but it only served to spread the heady feeling across his chest, and lower. “I’ll need three remodel options at tiered costs. We’ll begin the remodel as soon as we clear escrow.”

  “Me?” She backed her way to the far side of his desk. “I think a project manager would be better suited—”

  “Normally, that would be the path, but since I’m funding it myself, I need to do the legwork. Right now, I don’t have time.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never managed a project before, let alone one on a multimillion-dollar estate.”

  “I trust you.” With more than she could ever know. “I’ll approve ideas before any checks are signed. Consider it hands-on training. You might want to run your own business someday. Managing a project can give you some insight into that.”

  She nodded, twisting her hands again. No, not her hands this time, the ring. The one he’d given her.

  “Do you need to have it sized?” He tilted his chin toward the symbol of their bond.

  “What? Oh, the ring. No. It’s a nervous habit, I guess.” She hid her hands behind her back.

  “Are you having second thoughts?” His stomach clenched at the idea.

  She heaved a heavy sigh. “Your mother is trying to have me fitted for a wedding dress, and Kendra is trying to set up interviews and photo shoots. She says people are beginning to ask questions, and if I don’t do my part, our being together will make the paparazzi worse instead of better.”

  He lifted a brow. “Do you think she suspects anything?”

  “Kendra? No, she’s just great at getting people to do what she wants.”

  Curtis squared his shoulders and closed the folder. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll tell them both we are planning to elope privately without a lavish ceremony. That should put my mother’s attentions on me, trying to convince me to let her have a wedding.”

  “Let her have a wedding?” Robyn laughed at him. Laughed. She didn’t know his mother very well.

  “As for Kendra, I think the less press you do the better.” Her face fell, and he knew he’d given the wrong answer. “Unless there is something you want to do.”

  Her cheeks lifted in a smile. “A photo shoot sounds like fun. I’ve never done one.”

  “If you want to, but keep Kendra with you for interviews.” He didn’t need some overeager reporter twisting her words.

  Robyn practically shone as she left his office. Curtis closed his eyes, wondering how his simple plan had become so complicated.

  Chapter Five

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Kendra’s voice on the phone grated on Curtis’s nerves. She’d asked him the same question every day for the last two months.

  “Very.” Each day, he grew more certain this would be the best business decision he’d ever made. Already he could see the difference in the press. The attention had downgraded from a shout to a murmur. The only piece in the news this week was Robyn’s interest in bridal regalia.

  “Did you get my email?”

  “Which one?” Sitting at the small table in his hotel suite, he scrolled through the messages in his inbox. Robyn condensed everything into one message—from his itinerary to transaction details she was ironing out. Kendra shot him an email whenever a random idea popped into her head.

  “The Stylish article—the one with the engagement details and pictures of Luxe.”

  “Saw it. Liked it. Is that all?” With one hand he loosened his tie, glancing at the alarm clock that reminded him he had five hours until his next flight.

  “And when have you scheduled the photo shoot?”

  How he hated to have his picture taken. “Ask Robyn.”

  “Your fiancée claims there is no time. I suggest the two of you figure it out. The only shots of you together are candids. I’m tempted to doctor something up before the tabloids take it as a sign this whole charade is manufactured.”

  He stiffened, his pulse hammering in his ears. “Excuse me?”

  “You usually date very publicly, Curtis. This is a hard sell.”

  “I’m not selling anything. This is a real relationship, not something you’ve contrived for publicity. I’m living my life, doing my job. If it’s not newsworthy, all the better.”

  “I’m trying to keep this as low-key as I can, but California’s most eligible bachelor marrying his secretary is news. It’s a Cinderella story, and magazines love that kind of spin.”

  He couldn’t hold in his laugh. Cinderella had gotten them all into this game in the first place.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Have you run that Cinderella theory by Robyn? She’d love it.”

  “Good to know. It’s the theme of the photo spread Bridal Party wants to do with her.”

  “Don’t twist her arm on any of this, Kendra. If she says no, you back off.”

  “Are you kidding? She’s a bridal tour de force. She and your mother went to the bridal show this week and were photographed—”

  “Don’t tell me. Whatever she wants is fine by me.” His mother had really taken Robyn on as her protégée, even roping her into helping with charity events. It was a little too cozy for his liking, but it did lend authenticity, as well as throw the scent off him.

  Kendra didn’t bother to hide her sigh. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”

  “Robyn is fantastic. End of discussion.”

  “Not that. Are you sure you want to do this to her? No one is this good of an actress. I think she’s actually in love with you. And she’s not like the other women you’ve dated who understood the game.”

  “Robyn know
s what she’s getting into.”

  She hadn’t balked at the confidentiality agreement, hadn’t haggled the terms of any of the contracts she’d signed. Well, except to ask if there was a fidelity clause. Which there was. He had no intention of embarrassing her publicly or allowing himself to be embarrassed.

  Kendra cleared her throat. “Are you actually planning on marrying her? Your attention span with women has never been that long. I like her, and so I’m saying I don’t think she has any idea what she’s really signed on for.”

  “Everyone likes Robyn. Me most of all. Don’t worry. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

  When he clicked off the line he stared down at his phone, watching the screen fade as he powered it down. Soon, this part of his life would be over. Robyn’s influence will have created enough of a shadow for him to evade the world of society pages and gossip columns.

  He needed this relationship for his sanity, but he wasn’t selfish enough to get it at the expense of Robyn’s feelings. He would not hurt her. She’d have everything she ever wanted. He’d make sure of it.

  …

  Robyn winced at the bright lights stinging her eyes and heating the church to a deplorable degree. The old stone building had no air conditioning, as if she needed another reason to sweat besides half her family tagging along to watch the photo shoot. That’s what she got for suggesting they set the Cinderella-themed piece in her hometown.

  “A little more emotion, Robyn,” the photographer called out, clicking his shutter. “You have to give me something.” He turned to Kendra. “Make her lose the glasses and stop acting frigid.”

  Frigid? She was practically melting. Her throat ached, and tears stung at her eyes, but she didn’t dare let them fall. No telling how long they’d have her in the makeup chair again.

  Kendra swished over to her, flicking her sheet of black hair off her shoulder with her long, manicured nails. “Listen, honey, I know you aren’t used to this, but you have to try.”

  “I’m trying.” She clutched at the pink tulle of the bridal gown she wore, wishing she could take a deep breath. No dice—they’d laced her so tight into the corset she couldn’t even sit down. “The other photographers haven’t been so demanding.”

  “Those were candid shoots, Robyn. You just had to be yourself and have a bridal shower or pick out the dress with Curtis’s mother. This is a formal photograph with the possibility of making the cover if you could just relax.”

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Pretend it’s your wedding day.” She must have pulled a face because Kendra’s eyes widened in alarm. “Or don’t. I know you two don’t want any of this hoopla, but we need these photos for the magazine. If you keep looking awkward and tense, the reporter we did the interview with this morning will put that in her piece. Is that what you want?”

  “You know it isn’t.” Curtis had proposed to keep the press at bay. She couldn’t invite gossip or their relationship would never evolve from pretend to real.

  “Then smile, relax, and lose the glasses.” Kendra swiped for them, but Robyn batted her hand away.

  “Without them, I can’t see a thing.”

  “That might help.” Curtis surprised them both from behind the photographer. He stood with his arms folded across his broad chest, his feet spread apart to make him appear even larger.

  Shut the front door. If he were a picture in a catalog, she’d be ordering overnight delivery. Her cheeks tightened in a smile as his gaze met hers, and he returned the grin. They were getting closer already, and with months to dance around the wedding planning, things would change between them. She knew it.

  “I thought you wouldn’t be in until tonight.” She released her dress and stood as tall as she could to ease the pressure from the corset. She was supposed to have time for her father to pick her up from the church and run home and change before he arrived so they could survey the Sapphire Island property together.

  He tilted his head toward Kendra and gave her a nod as he stepped over the power cords littering the floor. As he made his way to her with confident strides, her toes curled in her too-tight heels. He raised a hand to her face, and she thought he might touch her, but instead he lifted the frames off her face and stepped back.

  “I can’t see a thing.” She reached out a hand, catching his wrist to steady herself. Her heart raced, and she told herself it was the fear of being blind to anyone farther away than he was. Not because his presence sped up her pulse.

  “Don’t you have contacts?”

  “I hate them,” she said through clenched teeth. There was no way she could wear both contacts and eye makeup. Both felt like grit in her eyes, and together they were a lethal combination. Her mother had selected a new brand for her and presented them as a bridal shower gift last night, but she hadn’t wanted to risk trying them today.

  “Yes!” exclaimed the photographer. “Very pouty. I like it.”

  Releasing Curtis, she turned toward the shutterbug. “I’m not pouting.”

  “Frye, touch her again. With you here we seem to be getting some emotion out of her. I’ll frame it so you’re out of the picture. From the waist up she doesn’t look so awkward.”

  A few more clicks and Robyn was so mad she could have spit glass at the man. Not to mention Curtis, who began to stroke her hand as if Mr. Snaps-a-lot hadn’t just called her frigid and freakish.

  “How about a few of them together?” Kendra asked, a dastardly grin on her face.

  So she’d known Curtis was coming. She could have issued a warning. Something so Robyn wasn’t completely unprepared as Curtis sidled next to her on the steps of the church altar.

  Jolly holly sticks, they were standing in front of church pews filled with people, she in full bridal regalia, and he in a dark suit. He took her hands and stared into her eyes. Robyn had to squeeze her eyes tight, trying to steel herself against the waves of emotion hitting her from all sides.

  Here was all she ever wanted, and none of it was real.

  “Closer,” the photographer ordered. She held still, but Curtis moved to her, enveloping her in his arms.

  She opened her eyes and tilted her head up to look at him. “Did you change your cologne?”

  His chest shook as he laughed silently. “Not wearing any.”

  “Perfect. More of that.”

  Robyn rolled her eyes at the photographer’s instruction, melting deeper into Curtis as she whispered, “I hate him.”

  Curtis dipped his head, pressing his forehead onto hers. “He’s just doing his job,” he said through a smile, never once moving his lips.

  “Insulting me is his job?” And isn’t it yours to defend me?

  “You need to relax, or you’ll hate the pictures. Besides, if I started in on the photographer, your dad would finish it. He’s glaring at him. Or maybe me.” Curtis straightened, running a finger down her cheek. Her blood heated at his tender touch, her mind unsure if this was real or for the cameras.

  The photographer stepped too close for her to ask without his overhearing.

  “How about a kiss?” he suggested from behind his giant lens.

  Curtis tilted his head, leaning closer. Her pulse stalled as her hand found the center of his chest and pushed. He was really about to have their first kiss photographed in front of a live audience. She stepped back, teetering as one of the shoes came off. The bumpy carpet soothed her foot but did nothing for the ire rising inside.

  “I don’t think so.” She narrowed her eyes at Curtis, squinting to see his reaction.

  “I can’t believe this,” the photographer mumbled, slithering out of her focus.

  “Robyn, come on.” Curtis held out a hand. The dangerously appealing charm of it all unnerved her. “Let’s get this over with.”

  She shook her head, realizing she couldn’t pretend anymore. She’d agreed to play along in the hopes he would open his eyes and see her and the potential they had together. But even here he didn’t feel a thing, insisted
on living life by going through the motions.

  No one knew none of it was real. No one would ever know. Sure, everyone had been surprised by how quickly things happened, but they’d never doubted the story she fed them. No one, not even her three sisters watching this whole charade, realized Curtis only thought of her as his assistant. And always would.

  Her mouth went dry as dust, her heart pounding so fast against her ribs she knew it must be quaking the silk of her dress. At once, she broke out in a sweat and felt chilled to the bone. What had she done?

  She’d sold herself to him for a dream. Now that she’d awoken, she had to face a reality worse than any nightmare. As much as she adored him, it wouldn’t be enough to make it right. None of this was right. Perfect, but not right.

  How could she have done this to him? To her family? To herself? Make a mockery out of the one thing she’d ever truly wanted?

  Everyone stared at her, watching and waiting for her to do something. She felt their collective urging, telling her to move. Beneath her diamond-crusted tiara her scalp tingled with the sweat of panic. Humiliation and heartbreak stung bitterly at her mouth. She couldn’t do this now, or ever. She had no choice. She grabbed the train of her dress, squinted her eyes to make out the safest path, and ran.

  …

  So much for most-eligible bachelor. The top fifty sexiest men list, too. Though, if Curtis had his choice, being left at the altar was not how he would have opted off both lists. Kendra had already made a joke about it, saying it was best to be jilted at a photo shoot than in reality. She was trying to feed the two reporters a line about nerves and pressure, but from their eagerness to get on their cell phones, they hadn’t bought a word of it.

  Dear God, he had to get out of here, away from the media frenzy that would follow. He probably had another thirty minutes before more reporters arrived and the piranhas started swirling. He needed a fast, and foolproof, escape.

  It came to him in a flash, the one place he could go for privacy, an island estate he’d bought, not a half hour’s drive from here. He’d had his boat moved from the Bay, and it was waiting at the dock. Once he crossed Lake Shastina and made his way to the island, no one could get to him before he was ready.