His study was back to being immaculate, as he knew it would be. The newspaper had been folded and placed in the front center of the desk. Alex knew he should sit behind it, putting himself in a position of power. But instead he touched one of the wing chairs clustered around the stone fireplace, gesturing for Emma to sit down.
She nodded her thanks, sinking into the chair and crossing one shapely leg over the other. She smoothed her ivory skirt and tucked the frivolous handbag in beside her.
Then she folded both her hands over her slender knees and looked up.
He quickly cleared his head of the picture her legs made and sat down across from her.
“Traffic was fine,” she said.
He nodded, telling himself to get straight down to business. “And you’ve made up your mind?”
She drew back ever so slightly. Then she nodded. “Yes. I have.”
He cocked his head. “And?”
She twisted a sapphire-and-emerald band around her right ring finger. “I’ll marry you.”
She sounded like she was agreeing to the gallows.
Well, it wasn’t going to be any picnic for him either. He was about to saddle himself with a reluctant wife, curtailing his social life, curtailing his sex life and, given her current expression and body language, conjugal relations weren’t going to be any part of this union.
Which meant he was celibate. For the duration. Wasn’t that just wonderful.
“Thank you,” he forced out.
She gave a sharp nod and made to rise.
“Wait.”
She arched a brow.
“You don’t think we have more to discuss?”
“What’s to discuss?” she asked. But she did sit back in the chair and recross her legs.
“For starters, who do you absolutely have to tell?”
“That I’m marrying you?”
He shook his head. “That it’s a fake.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. That part. My business partners know.”
“My sister knows.”
“Anyone else?”
“My lawyer.” It was her turn to sit forward. “You can expect a call from him on the prenup.”
Alex coughed out a laugh. “You want a prenup?”
“Of course.”
“You check my net worth in Forbes last year?” A prenup protected him a whole lot more than it protected her.
The expression in her brown eyes was more than a little judgmental. “Of course not. I couldn’t care less about your net worth.”
He found that somewhat hard to believe. But, whatever. The important thing was to get this farce moving along. “First thing we have to do is get engaged.”
“I thought we just did that.”
He opened his mouth, but she kept talking.
“You said ‘marry me or I’ll bankrupt you.’ And I decided to take the lesser of two evils.” Her pretty lips pursed. “And, you know, I really don’t think it gets any more romantic than that.”
Sarcasm? She was getting millions of dollars, while he was accepting an inferior business deal for the sake of his reputation, and she was handing out sass?
“You’re not very grateful, are you?” he asked.
“Your blackmail victims are usually grateful?”
He shook his head in disbelief. So much for Emma being panicked and intimidated. “You were expecting champagne and flowers?”
“I was hoping for a bank loan and a good actuary.”
“Well, you got me instead.”
She nodded slowly, peering down her delicate nose at him. “That I did.”
This bickering wasn’t getting them anywhere. Alex stood, shaking off his restless energy. “If we’re going to make this work, there are a few things we’ll have to do up front.”
“Like learn to tolerate each other?”
“Like convince the press we’re in love.”
Emma’s lips slowly curved into a grin. First time he’d actually seen her smile. It gave her eyes a golden glow and put a dimple in her right cheek. And when the tip of her tongue touched her front teeth, he felt a jolt of desire right down to his toes.
At this rate, he was going to have to rethink which sister was the pretty one.
“What?” he asked, tamping down the unwarranted reaction.
“I’ve now figured out the difference between us.”
Alex squinted. Had he missed something?
“I’m firmly grounded in reality, while you dare to dream the impossible.”
He wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but true enough.
“I think we can probably learn to tolerate each other,” she continued. “I don’t see how we could convince anyone we’re in love.”
Alex took a pace forward, catching the scent of her perfume, tamping down yet another jolt of desire. This was crazy. He couldn’t be attracted to Emma. He wouldn’t let himself be attracted to Emma.
“You know your biggest problem?” he asked.
She stood up, but he still had eight inches on her. “No, but I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“It’s your defeatist attitude.”
“Actually, my biggest problem is you.”
“Sweetheart, I am your salvation.”
“Humble, aren’t we?”
“When you work hard and pay attention, you don’t need to be humble.” He inched closer, dropping his voice. “There are only six people in the world who know I’m not in love with you. I’m about to convince the rest.”
“The entire world?” She arched a sassy brow.
“You need to think big, Emma.”
“You need to think realistically, Alex.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“Statistically? I believe they are.”
“Then you need to be the exception.” Alex grinned to himself. He could give back as much sass as he got. “And, Emma, my darling, I am exceptional.”
She eloquently rolled her eyes. “Can I get something in the prenup prohibiting your ego?”
“Only if your lawyer’s a whole lot better than mine.”
She took a half pace back. “So that’s your big plan? We gaze adoringly at each other in public, while our lawyers duke it out in the back room?”
He gestured for her to sit back down. “That pretty much covers it. Now, back to our engagement.”
She sat down and her chest rose and fell beneath the tailored dress. “I assume we’re talking about a very ostentatious ring?”
“Absolutely.” He eased down into his own chair. He’d been giving this some thought. In the event, of course, that one of them said yes. “Thing is, we don’t want them talking about if we’re engaged. We want them talking about how we got engaged.”
Emma paused. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“You a Yankees fan?”
She shook her head, and he could see the exact second she got his point.
Her brown eyes went round, and her complexion paled a shade. “No. Oh, no. Not the JumboTron.”
“It’d make a splash.”
“I’d have to kill you.”
“Bad plan. You wouldn’t be in my will yet.”
“You may not have noticed, but Katie does the McKinley publicity. She’s the extrovert.”
“If you’ll recall, I did try to marry Katie.”
Emma’s expression tightened for a split second, and he realized his words might have sounded like an insult.
“She’s taken,” Emma declared. “Deal with it.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Sure you did. No JumboTron. Got it?”
Alex hadn’t meant he preferred Katie. He didn’t care one way or the other. But another denial would be overkill. And it would probably just tick Emma off.
“How about if I surprise you?” he asked instead. “Add a bit of realism to the situation.”
“This is silly,” said Emma, straightening in her chair and getting all prim and proper on him. “We should be talking about the business merger. Who cares how we get engaged?”
Had she missed his point entirely? This whole thing was all about his reputation and his image.