Читать книгу Fake Fiancé - Jessa James - Страница 9

3

Chloe

When I laid out the idea, I should have expected that Blake would dig his heels in and make some sort of unreasonable demand. That was his nature, to be a bad boy who had to make things as hard as possible. He had to act out and be a pain in the ass. He wanted to be in control.

Fortunately, he miscalculated. He’d accidentally come up with what was going to be the very best solution. By spinning the story that he’d fallen in love with his PR person, we started immediately on his image rehabilitation and I had total control. He might have thought he was smart, but I was smarter.

It wouldn’t be easy, though. I’d have to spend a lot of time in his smoking-hot company without melting, without ruining every pair of panties I owned. I had no idea how I could feel so much sexual intensity for one person, a complete and total irritating man at that.

After the initial meeting, I’d stayed at the office and made my report. Frank, my fast-paced, driven, exhausting boss had found it hysterical. He survived on black coffee and energy drinks. I respected him and we had a good working relationship, for the most part. I felt as if I had to stretch the truth sometimes to keep him happy, but so far it had worked just fine. And my arrangement with Blake, Frank loved it.

“Marrying the client wasn’t exactly the way I understood your plan was supposed to work,” he said. “It will simplify the billing though.”

“No one will expect us to marry except for the public,” I countered. “We don’t care what happens after the three months are up.”

“You’re comfortable playing the fiancée?”

“Sure,” I told him. I often lied to my boss. It was efficient, tidy and I had no interest in going back and forth about it, especially with Blake as my fiancé. He wasn’t some random guy in trouble with his boss. He had a long trail of women’s panties behind him and damn it all, scorching hot looks.

Frank bought the lie, or at least had the good graces to pretend he did. And why not? No matter how I set it up I’d be putting one-hundred percent of my time into this one account until the job was finished. That’s how I worked. It was the only way I could do things—focused, either all-in or all-out. Type-A all the way, and I wasn’t going to change the way I worked best for anyone. Frank knew that, so he stayed quiet.

“We’re having dinner together tonight,” I told him, sharing the first part of the plan. “We need to be seen out a few times, then make the announcement this week.”

“Before the next game.”

“It should be on the news when the potential ad agencies are looking at their options.”

He nodded. “Good. It’s in your hands. Don’t fuck it up.”

I didn’t intend to, but didn’t appreciate his tone with me. I’d realized long ago it was the name of the game. No one ever said it would be easy being successful as a woman in this business.

I tried to balance the girlfriend look with style as I got ready and when Blake showed up his eyes showed he was pleased with my choice.

“You’ve cleaned up well yourself,” I teased and he laughed. At least he had a sense of humor.

The restaurant was nice and, as I’d hoped, we were seen by a lot of the right people. I noticed a social columnist, although I couldn’t be sure he’d know who Blake was or thought he was newsworthy, but he’d remember seeing us. A sportswriter for the Chronicle had been at the bar when we came in and he gave us a second look, nudging the guy he sat next to with his elbow, and pointing, probably asking who I was. We were already seeing reactions of this plan, and that was perfect.

We could use all of that we could get.