“What?”
“I need to know more about you.”
He practically growled, clearly annoyed with me. He practically threw himself into a chair and stared at me with what I’m sure he thought was an intimidating looked. However, I didn’t turn away; I didn’t even drop my gaze for an instant. My aunts always said I was the most stubborn person they knew. When I wanted something, there was nothing in the world that could drag the thought from my mind. That was something Miles was going to have to learn about me.
“Why do you need to know about me?” he asked.
“Because people are going to ask about us. How we met. What our first date was like. How you proposed. And they’re going to expect me to know about you.”
“So lie. Women are supposed to be really good liars. At least, they always have been in my experience.”
There was a bitterness to his words that made me wonder what the women in his life had done to him. Was this about Claire Watson? Had she broken his heart?
That was something I should know if I was going to be able to convince people our marriage was real.
“I’m not a great liar. And if someone asks me what your favorite color is, I’d really like to be able to answer honestly.”
He stared at me for a long minute, a war going on behind his eyes. Slowly, a little resignation came into them, and he sat up. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Why did you come to Texas?”
He groaned. “You have to go for the jugular, first question out?” He dragged his fingers through his hair, as he leaned back, his eyes shifting to the ceiling for a long second. “If you must know,” he said very slowly in a tone that suggested he really didn’t want to tell me, “my brother had just married my fiancée. So, I felt like it was a good time to get out of Dodge. And Joan was here, so this is where I decided to come.”
“You and Joan are close?”
“I told you, Joan used to work for my father. I’ve known her since I was quite young.”
“Why did your brother marry your fiancée?”
His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. “When you get the answer to that question, feel free to fill me in.”
I looked away, feeling a little guilty for pushing that issue, but at least I knew now why he didn’t just ask Claire to go through with her promise to marry him and why he would run away from home. I might have done the same thing in his position.
“Your turn,” he said. “If you have to know about me, then I should know about you, too.”
“Okay,” I said, dragging out the syllables as I wondered what it was he might ask.
“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”
I blushed. “What do you mean?”
“Why isn’t there some big, dumb guy knocking me out for asking you to do this?”
I caught the edge of my bottom lip between my teeth as I focused on the pen in my hands, twirling it between my fingers. That was actually a pretty good question. I just wished I knew how to answer it.
“Surely you’ve had men in your life. Are you between lovers right now, or what?”
“You make me sound like a promiscuous woman.”
“No. Just a typical, modern woman.”
I chuckled softly. I’d never been accused of being typical before. And he couldn’t have been further from the truth. My first kiss was from Lisa’s brother because we happened to both step under a piece of mistletoe at the same time and their mother goaded him into it. My second kiss didn’t happen until the night of my high school graduation and that was my high school crush saying goodbye. I was too tall in high school to get much action. Most of the boys were intimidated by me. And college was a whirlwind of all-nighters that were more about studying than sex.
But I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“I’m picky about who I go out with.”
“Yeah? What’s your type?”
I looked at him. “Why? Does it matter now? Are you going to set me up with someone when you toss me aside at the end of this deal?”
“Maybe.” He grinned, but there wasn’t much humor in it.
“What kind of music do you listen to?”
I figured a change in subject was warranted. I didn’t expect to see a light come into his eyes. He sat up again, that twisted grin turning into a pleased smile.
“Would it surprise you if I said I was into an eclectic combination of music? Jazz, pop, rap, big band, classical…I really like a lot of things.”
I couldn’t help but be lured in by the enthusiasm in his voice.
“Do you listen to Sinatra?”
“Old Blue Eyes? Who doesn’t?”
“I grew up listening to him. My aunts—they have this thing for him. Every Sunday they would play his records, one after the other, while we cleaned the house. I grew up knowing the words to all his greats.”
“Don’t tell Joan that. She’d be your best friend for life. She thinks no one appreciates the greats anymore. But she’s the one who introduced me to Sinatra and Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.”
“She had a lot of influence on you.”
“I spent more time with her as a kid than I did my parents. She was my father’s assistant, so she was always at the house, working in his home office while he was off playing golf. If not for her, my father’s company wouldn’t be what it is today. And she’d let me hang out in the office with her, sit and watch her negotiate over the phone and do all the things she did so well. She always had music playing, always had some bit of knowledge to bestow on me. I was like a lost puppy dog, following her around. I thought she was the most amazing woman in the world.”
“You had a crush on her.”
“It was more than a crush. She was the love of my life until I was fourteen and discovered she was already taken.”
“That must have been tough.”
He nodded—even as a wry smile twisted his lips. “But she let me down easy.”
I remembered my first crush and couldn’t help but sympathize. Mine was my fifth grade teacher. He was young, single, and the most handsome man I’d ever known until that moment. All the girls in my class had a crush on him, even Lisa, but I thought that the special attention he showed me meant that I was at the top of his list. It never occurred to me that it had more to do with the fact that I was struggling in my work because that was the year my aunts discovered I needed glasses. He didn’t let me down easy. I just happened to be hanging around the classroom after school one day and saw his girlfriend arrive to pick him up. I cried for a week.
“Can I ask you something?”
He shrugged. “I thought that was the purpose of this.”
“My aunts…they would never accept the money if they knew why we were doing this. If they found out—”
“No one needs to know the truth.”
“But they would expect there to be a proper wedding. They’d want to help plan it.”
“I thought we’d just go to the justice of the peace.”
I half nodded. “But my aunts and my friend Lisa, they won’t believe this is real if we don’t at least have a party, or something. They know me. They know I’ve dreamed of a big wedding since I was a little girl. To run off and elope…they know that’s not me.”
“Then what do you propose?”
“A small wedding in my aunts’ backyard?”
“It would take time to pull together a wedding. I need this to happen in the next two weeks.”
“Why the rush?”
That tightness came to his face again. I knew he wouldn’t answer, so I wasn’t surprised when he leaned forward and groaned. “If you can pull it together by the end of next week…”
“I can.”
“And we have to have a priest. My mother will not accept this whole sham if we don’t have a priest officiate.”
There was resignation to his voice that was beginning to sound a little familiar.
“No problem. My aunts attend St. Michael’s over on Third Street. I’m sure Father Brian would be more than happy to do it.”
Miles waved his hand at the paper still sitting in front of me. “So, sign the contract and we’ll get this thing going. Just tell me what I have to do.”