Читать книгу Falling For Her Fake Fiancé - Sarah M. Anderson - Страница 11

Four

In the end, it’d come down to one of two dresses. Frances only had four left after the liquidation of her closet anyway. The green one was clearly out—it would reek of desperation to wear the same dress twice, even if Ethan’s eyes had bugged out of his head when he’d looked at her in it.

She also had her bridesmaid’s dress from her brother Phillip’s wedding, a sleek gray one with rhinestone accents. But that felt too formal for dinner, even if it did look good on her.

Which meant she had to choose between the red velvet and the little black dress for her negotiation masquerading as dinner with Ethan Logan.

The red dress would render him completely speechless; that she knew. She’d always had a fondness for it—it transformed her into a proper lady instead of what she often felt like, the black sheep of the family.

But there was nothing subtle about the red dress. And besides, if the evening went well, she might need a higher-powered dress for later.

The little black dress was really the only choice. It was a halter-top style and completely backless. The skirt twirled out, but there was no missing the cleavage. The dark color made it appear more subdued at first, which would work to her advantage. If she paired it with her cropped bolero jacket, she could project an air of seriousness, and then, when she needed to befuddle Ethan, she could slip off the jacket. Perfect.

She made it downtown almost twenty minutes late, which meant she was right on schedule. Ethan Logan could sit and cool his heels for a bit. The more she kept him off balance, the better her position would be.

Which did beg the question—what was her position? She’d only agreed to dinner because he’d said he wanted what was best for the company. And the way he’d said it...

Well, she also wanted what was best for the company. But for her, that word was a big umbrella, under which the employees were just as important as the bottom line.

And after all, if something continued to be named the Beaumont Brewery, shouldn’t it still be connected to the Beaumonts?

So dinner was strictly about those two objectives. She would see what she could get Ethan to reveal about the long-term plan for the Brewery. And if there was something in those plans that could help her get her world back in order, so much the better.

Yes, that was it. Dinner had nothing to do with how she’d felt Ethan’s chest muscles twitch under her touch, nothing to do with the simmering heat that had rolled off him. And it had even less to do with the way he’d looked down at her, like a man who’d been adrift at sea for too long and had finally spotted land.

She was Frances Beaumont. She could not be landed. For years, she’d had men look at her as if they were starving and she was a banquet. It was nothing new. Just a testament to her name and genetics. Ethan Logan would be no different. She would take what she needed from him—that feeling that she was still someone who mattered, someone who wielded power—and leave the rest.

Which did not explain why, for the first time in what felt like years, Frances had butterflies in her stomach as she strode into the lobby of the Hotel Monaco. Was she nervous? It wasn’t possible. She didn’t get nervous, especially not about something like this. She’d spent her entire life navigating the shark-infested waters of wealthy and powerful men. Ethan was just another shark. And he wasn’t even a great white. He was barely a dogfish.

“Good evening, Ms. Beaumont.”

“Harold,” she said to the doorman with a warm smile and a big tip.

“Ms. Beaumont! How wonderful to see you again!” At this rather loud pronouncement, several other guests in the immediate vicinity paused to gape at her.

Frances ignored the masses. “Thank you, Heidi,” she said to the clerk at the front desk with another warm smile. The hotel had been catering to the Beaumont family for years, and Frances liked to keep the staff on her side.

“And what can we do for you tonight?” Heidi asked.

“I’m meeting someone for dinner.” She scanned the crowd, but she didn’t see Ethan. He wouldn’t be easy to miss—a man as massively built as he was? All those muscles would stand out.

Then she saw him. And did a double take. Yes, those shoulders, that neck, were everything she remembered them being. The clothing, however? Unlike the conservative gray suit and dull tie he’d had on in the office, he was wearing a pair of artfully distressed jeans, a white button-up shirt without a tie and...a purple sports coat? A deep purple—plum, maybe. She would not have figured he was the kind of man who would stand outside a sartorial box with any great flair—or success.

When he saw her, he pushed himself off the column he was leaning against. “Frances, hello.” Which was a perfectly normal thing to say. But he said it as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes—or his luck—as she strode toward him.

He should feel lucky. “Ethan.” When he held out his hand, she took it and used it to pull herself up so she could kiss him on the cheek.

His free hand rested against her side, steadying her. “You look amazing,” he murmured, his mouth close to her ear.

Warmth that bordered on heat started where his breath kissed her skin and flamed out over her body. That was what made her nervous. Not the man, not the musculature—not even his position as CEO of her family’s company.

It was the way her body reacted to him. The way a touch, a look—a whispered word—could set her fluttering.

Ridiculous. She was not flattered by his attentions. This was not a date. This was corporate espionage in a great dress. This was her using what few resources she had left at her disposal to get her life back on track. This was about her disarming Ethan Logan, not the other way around.

So she clamped down on the shiver that threatened to race across her skin as she lowered herself away from him. “That’s a great color on you. Very...” She let the word hang in the air for a beat too long. “Bold,” she finished. “Not just any man could pull off that look.”

He raised his eyebrows. She realized he was trying not to laugh at her. “Says the woman who showed up in an emerald evening gown to hand out donuts. Have no fear, I’m comfortable in my masculinity. Shall we? I made reservations at the restaurant.” He held out his arm for her.

“We shall.” She lightly placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. She didn’t need his help—she could walk in these shoes just fine—but this was part of setting him up. It had nothing to do with wanting another flash of heat from where their bodies met.

The restaurant was busy, as was to be expected on a Saturday night. When they entered, the diners paused. She and Ethan must have made quite a pair, her with her red hair and him in his purple jacket.

People were already forming opinions. That was something she could use to her advantage. She placed her free hand on top of Ethan’s arm and leaned into him. Not much, but just enough to create the impression that this was a date.

The maître d’ led them to a small table tucked in a dim corner. They ordered—she got the lobster, just to be obnoxious about it, and he got the steak, just to be predictable—and Ethan ordered a bottle of pinot grigio.

Then they were alone. “I’m glad you came out tonight.”

She demurely placed her hands in her lap. “Did you think I would cancel?”

“I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d tried to string me along a little bit. Just to watch me twist.” He said it in a jovial way but she didn’t miss the edge to his voice.

So he wasn’t totally befuddled. And he was more than sharp enough to know they were here for something much more than dinner.

That didn’t mean she had to own up to it. “Whatever do you mean?”

His smile sharpened. The silence carried, and she was in serious danger of fidgeting nervously under his direct gaze.

She was saved by the sommelier, who arrived with the wine. Frances desperately wanted to take a long drink, but she could not let Ethan know he was unsettling her. So she slowly twirled the stem of her wineglass until he said, “I propose a toast.”

“Do you now?”

“To a long and productive partnership.” She did not drink. Instead, she leveled a cool gaze at him over the rim of her glass and waited for him to notice. Which, admittedly, did not take long. “Yes?”

“I’m not taking that job, you know. I have ‘considered’ it, and I can’t imagine a more boring job in the history of employment,” she told him.

She would not let the world know she was so desperate as to take a job in management at a company that used to belong to her family. She might be down on her luck, but she wasn’t going to give up.

Then, and only then, did she allow herself to sip her wine. She had to be careful. She needed to keep her wits about her and not let the wine—and all those muscles—go to her head.

“I figured as much,” he said with a low chuckle that Frances felt right in her chest. What was it with this man’s voice?

“Then why would you toast to such a thing?” Maybe now was the time to take the jacket off? He seemed entirely too self-aware. She did not have the advantage here, not like she’d had in the office.

Oh, she did not like that smile on him. Well, she did—she might actually like it a great deal, if she wasn’t the one in the crosshairs.

He leaned forward, his gaze so intense that she considered removing her jacket just to cool down. “I’m sure you know why I want you,” he all but growled.

It was getting hotter in here. She tried to look innocent. It was the only look she could pull off with the level of blush she’d probably achieved by now. “My sparkling wit?”

There was a brief crack in his serious facade, as if her sparkling wit was the correct answer. “I consider that a fringe benefit,” he admitted with a tilt of his head. “But let’s not play dumb, you and I. It’s far too beneath a woman with your considerable talents. And your talents...” She straightened her back and thrust her chest out in a desperate attempt to throw him off balance. It didn’t work. His gaze never left her face. “Your talents are considerable. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman like you before.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up, making him look like a predator. She might have to revise her earlier opinion of him. He was not a dogfish. More like...a tiger shark, sleek and fast. Able to take her down before she even realized she was in danger.

“Of course not.”

“Then why do you want me?” Because honestly—for the first time in her adult life—she wasn’t sure what the answer would be.

Men wanted her. They always had. The moment her boobs had put in an appearance, she’d learned about base male lust—how to provoke it, how to manage it, how to use it for her own ends. Men wanted her for a simple, carnal reason. And after watching stepmother after stepmother come and go out of her father’s life, she had resolved never to be used. Not like that.

The upside was that she’d never had her heart broken. But the downside?

She’d never been in love. Self-preservation, however vital to survival, was a lonely way to live.

“It’s simple, really.” He leaned back, his posture at complete ease. “Obviously, everyone at the Brewery hates me. I can’t blame them—no one likes change, especially when they have to change against their will.” He grinned at her, a sly thing. “I should probably be surprised that Delores hasn’t spiked my coffee with arsenic by now.”

“Probably,” she agreed. Where was he going with this?

“But you?” He reached over and picked up her hand, rubbing his thumb along the edges of her fingertips. Against her will, she shivered—and he felt it. That smile deepened—his voice deepened. Everything deepened. Oh, hell.

“I saw how the workers—especially the lifers—responded to you and your donut stunt,” he went on, still stroking her hand. “There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for you, and probably wouldn’t do for any Beaumont.”

“If you think this is going to convince me to take that job, you’re sorely mistaken,” she replied. She wanted to jerk her hand out of his—she needed to break that skin-to-skin contact—but she didn’t. If this was how the game was going to go, then she needed to be all in.

So instead she curled her fingers around his and made small circles on the base of his palm with her thumb. She was justly rewarded with a little shiver from him. Okay, good. Great. She wasn’t entirely at his mercy here. She could still have an impact even without the element of surprise. “Especially if you’re going to call them ‘lifers.’ That’s insulting. You make them sound like prisoners.”

He notched an eyebrow at her. “What would you call them?”

“Family.” The simple reply—which was also the truth—was out before she could stop it.

She didn’t know what she expected him to do with that announcement, but lifting her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss against her skin wasn’t it. “And that,” he whispered against her skin, “is exactly why I need you.”

This time, she did pull her hand away. She dropped it into her lap and fixed him with her best polite glare, the one that could send valets and servers scurrying for cover. Just then, the waiter appeared with their food—and did, in fact, pause when Frances turned that glare in his direction. He set their plates down with a minimum of fanfare and all but sprinted away.

She didn’t touch her food. “I’m hearing an awful lot about how much you need me. So let us, as you said, dispense with the games. I do not now, nor have I ever, formally worked for the Beaumont Brewery. I do not now, nor have I ever, had sex with a man who thought he was entitled to a piece of the Beaumont Brewery and, by extension, a piece of me. I will not take a desk job to help you win the approval of people you clearly dislike.”

“They disliked me first,” he put in as he cut his steak.

What she really wanted to do was throw her wine in his face. It’d feel so good to let loose and let him have it. Despite his claims that he recognized her intelligence, she had the distinct feeling that he was playing her, and she did not like it. “Regardless. What do you want, Mr. Logan? Because I’m reasonably certain that it’s no longer just the dismantling and sale of my family’s history.”

He set his knife and fork aside and leaned his elbows on the table. “I need you to help me convince the workers that joining the current century is the only way the company will survive. I need you to help me show them that it doesn’t have to be me against them or them against me—that we can work together to make the Brewery something more than it was.”

She snorted. “I’ll be sure to pass such touching sentiments along to my brother—the man you replaced.”

“By all accounts, he was quite the businessman. I’m sure that he’d agree with me. After all, he made significant changes to the management structure himself after his father passed. But he was constrained by that sense of family you so aptly described. I am not.”

“All the good it’s doing you.” She took another sip of wine, a slightly larger one than before.

“You see my problem. If the workers fight me on this, it won’t be only a few people who lose their jobs—the entire company will shut down, and we will all suffer.”

She tilted her head from side to side, considering. “Perhaps it should. The Beaumont Brewery without a Beaumont isn’t the same thing, no matter what the marketing department says.”

“Would you really give your blessing to job losses for hundreds of workers, just for the sake of a name?”

“It’s my name,” she shot at him.

But he was right. If the company went down in flames, it’d burn the people she cared for. Her brothers would be safe—they’d already ensconced themselves in the Percheron Drafts brewery. But Bob and Delores and all the rest? The ones who’d whispered to her how nervous they were about the way the wind was blowing? Who were afraid for their families? The ones who knew they were too old to start over, who were scared that they’d be forced into early retirement without the generous pension benefits the Beaumont Brewery had always offered its loyal employees?

“Which brings us back to the heart of the matter. I need you.”

“No, you don’t. You need my approval.” Her lobster was no doubt getting cold, but she didn’t have much of an appetite at the moment.

Something that might have been a smile played over his lips. For some reason, she took it as a compliment, as if he was acknowledging her intelligence for real this time, instead of paying lip service to it. “Why didn’t you go into the family business? You’d have made a hell of a negotiator.”

“I find business, in general, to be beneath me.” She cast a cutting look at him. “Much like many of the people who willingly choose to engage in it.”

He laughed then, a real thing that she wished grated on her ears and her nerves but didn’t. It was a warm sound, full of humor and honesty. It made her want to smile. She didn’t. “I’m not going to take the job.”

“I wasn’t going to offer it to you again. You’re right—it is beneath you.”

Here it came—the trap he was waiting to spring. He leaned forward, his gaze intent on hers and in the space of a second, before he spoke, she realized what he was about to say. All she could think was, Oh, hell.

“I don’t want to hire you. I want to marry you.”