Читать книгу The Boss's Fake Fiancée - SUSAN MEIER, Susan Meier - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

“I THINK YOU’RE going to have to do more than show up at the wedding.”

Mitcham Ochoa tossed his pen to his desk and glared at his cousin Riccardo. It wasn’t exactly like looking in a mirror when he saw Riccardo, but it was close. All the Ochoa men had dark hair and dark eyes. Most were tall. The same age, Mitch and Riccardo didn’t just share physical characteristics; they behaved like brothers and knew everything there was to know about each other. Both had also been dumped by a woman they thought they wanted to marry. Except Riccardo had been broken to his very core when his fiancée chose her former boyfriend over him and Mitch eventually realized he hadn’t really loved Julia. Because Riccardo knew that, Mitch was not pleased with what Riccardo was hinting.

“I’m over her.”

Riccardo winced. “You know that and I know that, but it isn’t every day that a woman leaves her boyfriend for his brother, and then the jilted brother is asked to be the best man at their wedding. Tongues are going to wag, my friend. Everybody’s going to watch every move you make. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you have no reason to be jealous.”

Righteous indignation whipped through Mitch and he bounced out of his tall-back black leather office chair. If anybody knew Mitch felt nothing but happiness for his brother and Julia, it was Riccardo. It annoyed the hell out of him that his cousin was pushing this nonissue. “I have no reason to be jealous!”

“Your brother is the oldest. He got the CEO-ship of your family’s business. He stole your girlfriend.”

Mitch growled.

“And let’s face it. He’s better looking.”

Mitch tossed his pen at Riccardo, who ducked.

“It’s reactions like that that will have Nanna fussing over you for the two weeks we’re in Spain celebrating this wedding. Do you want to have Nanna hovering?”

Finally seeing what Riccardo was doing, he slowly lowered himself to his seat again. “No.” Oh, Lord. He did not want Nanna hovering. His mother would be bad enough, but his grandmother? If she thought he was having even one iota of sadness over Julia marrying his brother, she’d do everything but spoon-feed him his dessert and make him look pathetic, when he wasn’t. Finding his brother in his bedroom with his girlfriend two years ago hadn’t been upsetting as much as it had been a wake-up call that rippled through his whole life. Losing Julia had put him back into the dating pool where he’d realized maybe their “love” was more about convenience than real emotion. They’d been together so long that staying together just seemed like the right thing to do. Recognizing the mistake he’d almost made in the name of comfort had jarred him. And now he was smarter, sharper, alert to the pitfalls of getting too comfortable with anything.

“Then you have to figure out a way to prove—from the very second you step off the Ochoa Vineyards jet—that you’re not just fine with this wedding. You are happy.”

Unfortunately, his family didn’t seem to see that his brother’s betrayal hadn’t really been a betrayal but a way for Mitch to dodge a big, fat bullet. They didn’t see how it had spring-boarded him to the kind of success he’d always longed for. All they remembered was that the initial shock of it had thrown Mitch into a tailspin. This was what he got for moving an ocean away. They hadn’t seen how quickly he’d bounced back. And when he tried to tell them, they thought he was either attempting to smooth things over or save face.

“The only way Nanna will ever think I’m happy is if I’m married.”

Riccardo frowned. “You can’t get married before your brother. No time.” He stopped. His face shifted and he burst out laughing. “But you could bring a fiancée to the wedding celebrations.”

“Right.”

“No! I’m serious! All you have to do is find a woman to agree to be your fiancée for the two weeks we’re in Spain. You make up a story about how you met. You create some romantic schmaltzy thing about how you proposed. You kiss her a few times in front of Nanna and—” He snapped his fingers. “You’re no longer the rejected brother.”

“Except I’m engaged?”

“No. No. A couple weeks later, you call Nanna. You say you had a fight and you’re not engaged anymore. And you don’t really have to explain too much until the next time you go home.”

He had to admit there was a certain poetry to it. He’d sneaked home to propose to Julia the night he’d found her and his brother in the bedroom of their apartment. They were fully clothed, but there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of reasons why Alonzo would be in her bedroom, except that they were lovers. Alonzo had vehemently denied it. He’d even told Mitch he’d walked in on their first kiss. They weren’t cheating. They didn’t want to hurt him. But it was clear from the way Alonzo protected Julia that Mitch’s brother might not be sleeping with her, but he loved her.

He’d been gobsmacked, but the whole mess had prompted his dad to give him the go-ahead to start the project he’d been angling to try for years: put his family’s wines online. He’d moved to New York for a change of scenery and grown to love the city. He’d also gotten so good at selling his family’s wines that he’d started a second website. That site sold wines from numerous vineyards—and glasses, wine racks, corkscrews, aprons, T-shirts with funny wine sayings, books on wine, books on serving wine, books on hosting wine-tasting parties—anything and everything related to wines. That was the site where he made money. Lots of money. Enough money to bring Riccardo from Spain to New York to help him start three more specialty websites. One sold anything and everything to do with cycling. One sold cooking supplies. One sold anything to do with golf.

All he had to do was pick a topic, find the vendors who made the “best” of whatever he wanted to sell, test their products, rule out the weak, choose the good and create a site. There was enough variety in the duties that he was never bored, and Riccardo was a financial genius. Whatever money Mitch’s websites brought in was invested to make more money. Though they wouldn’t tell their family, they were on track to be worth more than the entire Ochoa family enterprises in as few as three years.

So losing Julia had opened the door for him to become the businessman he was today. The very fact that he wouldn’t go back and change the outcome was proof that everything that had happened was for his benefit.

Still, none of those things would sway Nanna into believing he was happy, and she’d more than hover. She’d make him look pathetic. Worse, his grandmother making a big deal about him would put a real damper on his brother’s wedding. This was supposed to be Julia and Alonzo’s special time, two weeks of celebrating, and if he didn’t do something, his presence could actually ruin it.

But if he didn’t attend the wedding, refused to be best man, people would gossip that he was upset and the whole wedding would be about him not being there.

Either way, Julia and Alonzo’s wedding could become all about him.

He had to fix this.

“So where do we find this woman who’d be willing to pretend to be my fiancée for two weeks?”

* * *

Lila Ross gathered the sheets of paper that flew out of the copier, stacked them neatly, stapled them and headed into her boss’s office. It wasn’t often that she had both Mitch and Riccardo in the same room at the same time. She had to take advantage of this opportunity to get their approval on last month’s income statements, especially since they were leaving the next day for a family wedding.

Reports ready, she shoved her big-frame glasses up her nose and headed for the open door. She knocked twice to let them know she was there, then entered the room talking.

“I have last month’s income statements.”

Mitch said, “Great. Thanks. Come in.”

Riccardo’s face shifted. His eyes narrowed. His forehead wrinkled. His head tilted.

Deciding that expression probably had something to do with whatever they’d been discussing before she came in and was, therefore, none of her business, she handed one of the reports to Mitch and one to Riccardo before she sat on the empty chair in front of Mitch’s huge chrome-and-glass desk. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind Mitch displayed a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline, glittering in the bright sunlight of a perfect June morning. The big geometric print area rug beneath her feet protected hardwood floors bleached then stained a medium gray that complemented the gray paint on the walls. The ultramodern black sofa and chair sat with a chrome-and-glass coffee table and end tables that matched the desk. The room was the picture of luxury and success that didn’t surprise her. Mitch Ochoa had the Midas touch.

Not to mention good looks and charm.

He glanced up at her and smiled. “Give me two minutes to peruse this, and then we’ll talk specifics.”

Her heart pitter-pattered. When he smiled, it was like the sun breaking over the horizon in her soul. “Sure.”

He smiled again before he began reading.

She told herself not to look at his shiny black hair as he read, but that only took her eyes to his broad shoulders, white shirt and black tie. He was so urbane. Born and raised in Spain, he’d been all over Europe before he’d come to the United States. She had no idea why he’d chosen New York City to start his breakaway business, but every night she’d thanked her lucky stars that he had—

Every night until last night.

Last night, she’d finally realized that she’d been his assistant for an entire year. They’d eaten many a lunch together. Not to mention late-night dinners when they worked until midnight to get something online or to wait for stats at the end of a new product day.

He could have kissed her thirty-seven times. She’d counted.

But while she’d gazed up at him with stars in her eyes, he’d looked down at her with the eyes of a friend. No. Scratch that. He’d looked down at an assistant. She hadn’t even broken the barrier to become his friend.

And last night—

She fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut as pain and emptiness assaulted her.

Last night, she’d realized he would never see her as anything other than an employee, and she had to start job hunting. As long as she was this close to him day after day, she would continue believing that someday he’d notice her. But if he hadn’t noticed her—not even as a friend—after an entire year of late nights and weekends, he wouldn’t ever notice her. It was time to get on with her life.

And if she really wanted to get on with her life, she had to find a job with a company where she could climb the corporate ladder and eventually earn enough money that she could start looking for her birth mom. They’d been separated when she was ten. Raised in a series of foster homes, she’d been without a family, a place, since then. Finding her birth mom would give her the sense of belonging she’d always yearned for. That meant she had to get away from the distraction of Mitcham Ochoa.

Riccardo cleared his throat. “These numbers look fine, Mitch.” He tossed his copy of the income statement to Mitch’s desk. “So maybe we can finish talking about that thing we were discussing before Lila came in.”

Mitch’s head jerked up. His gaze flew to his cousin, then over to Lila and back to Riccardo again, as if reminding Riccardo they had an employee in the room. “Now?”

“I just want you to see the opportunity you have before you. We were talking about not being able to find a certain person to fulfill a specific job, and suddenly I’m thinking perhaps that person is right under our noses.”

Okay. She wasn’t stupid. They were talking about her. If she was reading this situation correctly, they had a job they needed to fill and she fit the bill. For Mitch to be cautious, the new job had to be a promotion.

Her heart leaped with joy. A promotion would mean more money—maybe enough to hire a private investigator to begin searching for her mom—

Then she remembered that for her sanity and her future, she had to leave Mitch Ochoa’s employ and her heart sank. Wasn’t it just like fate to finally give her a chance at a promotion when she’d decided—firmly decided—it was time to move on? As hard as she’d worked to climb the ladder in this growing company, she also knew herself. Other people might think she simply had a crush on Mitch. But she couldn’t work for someone for a year without getting to know him. In her heart, she genuinely loved him. And promotion or not, she had to leave this job or she’d end up living her life for a man who barely noticed her. Then even if she found her mom, she’d be a broke, single spinster. Not a mom. Not a wife. Not a woman who gave her mom grandkids. She’d be none of the things she longed to be.

She rose from her seat. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what you’re talking about, but I think I should tell you that I—”

Riccardo held up a finger to stop her. “No decisions until you hear us out.”

Mitch said, “Riccardo,” his voice a warning growl.

Riccardo walked behind Lila’s chair, put his hands on her shoulders and sat her down again. In two quick moves, he had her chopstick-like pins out of her chestnut-brown hair, and it fell to her shoulders in a curly waterfall. Then he reached forward and removed her glasses.

If Mitch had done either of those, she probably would have swooned at his touch. Because it was all-business Riccardo, she spun around and gaped at him. “What are you doing?”

He turned her head to face front. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

Mitch blinked. “Oh, my God. Yes.”

“Sí. She is perfect.”

Mitch rose and rounded his desk to lean against it, in front of her. “Pale and delicate to Julia’s dark features.”

“Short and petite where Julia’s a little taller.”

“Smart,” Mitch added.

Riccardo laughed. “I won’t insult Julia by making the obvious comparison.”

Lila looked from Mitch to Riccardo and back to Mitch again. “What comparison? And could I have my glasses back so I can see?”

Riccardo said, “You can’t see without your glasses?”

She took her thick glasses from his hand. “Why else would anyone wear them?”

“Do you have contacts?” Mitch asked quietly, seriously.

Their gazes met and she swallowed hard. For the first time in a year, he wasn’t looking at her as an assistant but as a woman. She wasn’t sure how she knew the difference, except something in his eyes had shifted, changed, and a million fireflies glowed in her stomach.

“Yes. I have contacts. But I only wear them for special occasions.”

Riccardo said, “We have a very special occasion for you.”

“You’re sending me somewhere?”

“I’m taking you somewhere.”

Oh, wow. The only thing she’d heard in that sentence was I’m taking you. Her heart about popped out of her chest, and she knew she was in more trouble than she’d even believed the night before. She had to get away from this man or she’d be knitting sweaters for him when he was eighty as he dated twenty-year-old starlets.

“Mitch’s brother is getting married,” Riccardo said. “In Spain.”

She frowned. “I know. I reserved the family jet for you guys.”

“Yeah, well, Mitch needs more help than reserving the jet.”

Mitch pushed away from the desk. “You know what? I think Lila and I should talk about this privately.”

Riccardo’s eyebrows rose in question.

Mitch said, “Think it through, Riccardo. The less you know, the better the ruse will work.”

Riccardo laughed. “Okay. I get it.” He scooped up his copy of the income statement. “I’ll be in my office, but just remember I’m your detail guy. You won’t want to leave me out of the loop completely.”

He left the room, but in the last second, reached in, grabbed the knob on the door to the office and closed it.

The oddest feeling snaked through Lila. She’d been alone with Mitch a million times, behind closed doors lots of those times. But suddenly it felt like everything had changed.

“I really do need a favor. A big favor,” Mitch said, walking around his desk and dropping into his black leather chair.

“How big?” Seriously? Had her voice just shivered? The man was not the Big Bad Wolf and she certainly wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood. She’d been a foster child until she was eighteen. She’d fended for herself forever. Even in some ugly situations. How could a man she’d known a year, a man she loved and respected, send that kind of fear skittering through her?

“Riccardo already mentioned that my brother is getting married.”

“Yes.”

He leaned back in his chair. “What you don’t know is that Alonzo’s fiancée had been my girlfriend.” He glanced up, caught her gaze. “I cut a business trip short, sneaked into our apartment to surprise her with an engagement ring and caught them together in our bedroom.”

Her eyes widened. “Yikes.”

He waved his hands. “They were fully clothed. But, really? What reason did my brother have being so comfortable in my bedroom with the woman I’d come home to propose to?”

“None.”

“Exactly. They had the good graces not to even try to deny that they’d taken advantage of my many trips for our family’s vineyard to...get to know each other.”

She couldn’t help it. She giggled. He had such a sense of humor. And he seemed fine with his brother’s betrayal—or was it his girlfriend’s betrayal? Oh, God. It was both. How had he gotten over that? Maybe she shouldn’t have laughed?

He sat up. “That’s exactly the attitude I’d want you to have. That my brother marrying my former girlfriend is no big deal. Funny even. Because I couldn’t be happier for them. Alonzo truly loves Julia. She truly loves him. Theirs is the match that should have been made all along.”

Putting some of this together in her analytical brain, she said, “So you want me to come to Spain with you?”

“Sí.”

“As your date for the wedding.” The very thought made her nerve endings do a happy dance, but she told them to settle down. There was no way she could agree to that.

“No. Actually, I’d want you to pretend to be my fiancée.”

Her breathing stopped. “What?”

“My mom is okay. She has a lot of duties with the wedding to keep her busy. But my grandmother? She’s got way too much free time. I swear to God,” he said, raising his hands and opening them in supplication, “it won’t matter what I say. She’ll treat me like a wounded puppy the entire celebration.”

“And everybody will feel sorry for you.”

“It’s not just about pride. It’s about Julia and Alonzo’s special celebration. I don’t want the focus to be on me. I want it on them.”

“True.”

He leaned a little farther back in his chair. “I turned this arm of my family’s enterprise into our company’s biggest moneymaker. I’m branching out on my own. I don’t want to spend two weeks with my dad looking at me as if I’m emotionally unstable and wondering if he should replace me, even though I’m making tons of money for him and even more money for myself.”

“Never thought of that.”

“Then you don’t know how stubborn and thickheaded Spanish men can be.”

Oh, she had a pretty good idea.

“Your presence alone will satisfy everybody’s curiosity about how I dealt with my brother moving in on my girlfriend while I was traveling.” He laughed. “Or maybe I should say just your presence will prove that I easily handled my brother and girlfriend falling in love. And there will be no talk, no questions. Discussions with my dad will go smoothly. My grandmother will chat you up about our future wedding plans and probably take you shopping for china patterns, not smother me with unwanted, unnecessary sympathy.”

He took a breath, then added, “I’m not going to lie. This will be a long two weeks of acting for you. But I’ll compensate you. In fact, right now I’m so sure this is the best way to go that I’m willing to give you anything you want.”

What she wanted was him.

But that was actually what made this favor impossible. “I can’t.” She’d get stars in her eyes. She’d read into things and when she came home she’d be even more in love with him than she was now. So, no. She couldn’t do it.

“Okay, let me be frank. The family jet leaves tomorrow. I can’t go out and hunt up a woman to do this for me. Not someone whose discretion I trust. Because you truly have to keep this secret. If my family even suspects this is a ruse, it will backfire.” He held her gaze. “I trust you in a way I’ve never trusted anyone. And I need you. I honestly don’t think anybody but you could pull this off.”

She said nothing, torn between agreeing simply because she was an employee who believed it was her job to do whatever her boss wanted, and recognizing this wasn’t a normal boss/assistant request. It was above and beyond her duties. And potentially heartbreaking for her.

“Isn’t there anything you want?”

She said nothing.

“Anything you need?”

That’s when it hit her. She did have something she needed. She could ask him to use his considerable resources to find her mom, but then she’d still be working for him. She’d spend two weeks pretending to be his fiancée and come home to being his assistant again. That was a heartbreak waiting to happen.

But a new job would not only provide money for a private investigator to locate her mom, it would get her away from Mitch and her pointless crush. She really would be getting a fresh start.

“I need a new job.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I want a new job.” Assistant jobs, though a dime a dozen, didn’t always pay well. With his connections he could find her one of those gems of a job that didn’t get advertised in any of the job search websites. Plus, if she handled this right, going to Spain could be the end of her association with him. She wouldn’t have to come home and pretend they hadn’t kissed—albeit for the benefit of his family. She would be gone. Off to start a new job. A new life. The life she wanted.

“You have lots of friends and connections. I’d need to get a job that would pay me more than this salary. And the job would have to lead to promotions.”

“You don’t like your job here?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I could raise your salary.”

“Mitch, if you want me to do this, today has to be my last day with Ochoa Online.”

He didn’t even blink. “Okay.”