The Corporate Marriage Campaign. Leigh Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ whatsoever. Considering the number of women who’d angled for the position over the years, why was this one puffing in agony over the notion that she simply pretend for a while that she wanted the title?

      “Darcy,” he said. “If you could stop this for a minute and just listen…”

      “If I could stop…” She clutched both hands to her chest. Her voice was a barely understandable croak. “I would. Just go away, all right?”

      “Not as long as you’re threatening to strangle. Here, have a drink of water.” He held a glass to her lips and she managed to sputter a few drops. Her coughs died down to a low wheeze, and he said, “There, that’s better.”

      “Maybe it is from your point of view.” She leaned weakly against the counter.

      “Look, I don’t understand what’s so awful about the idea. I’m not asking you to have my baby, you know.” He set the water glass down with a bump. “Most of the women I know would be flattered.”

      “Which is precisely why you’re asking me, instead of one of them. Right?”

      He nodded, relieved that she understood.

      “Because I’m not fool enough to take you seriously. So there you have it.”

      Trey frowned. “I guess that didn’t come out quite the way I intended it to.”

      “Maybe you’ll figure out what I mean in a year or two. Or maybe I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and see how that comment is really a compliment to me. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

      “If you’d just listen to what I have in mind, I think you’d see it differently,” he suggested. “There would be considerable advantages for you in this plan, you know.”

      “Name two.”

      “You need a job.”

      “I’ll get one on my own, thanks. I’m perfectly well qualified.”

      Her tone was a bit truculent, just enough to make him suspicious. Trey wished he’d thought to ask Dave exactly why she was unemployed at the moment.

      “I could make it easy for you,” he said. “You said you’re applying to the Kentwells chain—”

      “And what do you think my working conditions would be like on any job you could give me? I’m sure my new supervisor would be simply delighted to have an employee foisted on him by the boss.”

      “I’m not stupid enough to make it obvious, Darcy.”

      “And exactly how are you going to keep it from being obvious? Are you planning to make the announcement about hiring me before or after my picture is splashed all over the newspapers and the airwaves, standing next to you and choosing lamps for our bedroom? Do you really think your other employees can’t connect the dots and see what’s going on?”

      “All right, then—I’ll get you a job somewhere else.”

      “I told you, I’ll do it myself, on my own merits. I don’t need a handout.”

      “Stubborn, aren’t you? Dave said you were.” Maybe that explained why she was here and not still wherever she’d been living. San Francisco—was that what Dave had told him?

      “For a guy who’s supposed to be devoted to the principles of confidentiality, Dave talks too much.”

      “You’re not his client. I am.”

      “So he can talk to you about me, but he can’t tell me about you? Oh, that’s charming.”

      “Unless we’re engaged. Then he can say pretty much whatever he wants because we’d be—in a sense—family.”

      “In a sense,” she agreed. “You’re not giving this idea up, are you?”

      “I think it’s the perfect arrangement.”

      “What makes it so great—if I’m allowed to ask?”

      “For one thing, sudden engagements are always suspicious, but—”

      Darcy’s eyes widened. They were an odd shade of brownish-green, he noticed. Trey had never seen anything quite like them.

      “What?” she gasped. “You’re saying you don’t believe in love at first sight?”

      He ignored the irony dripping from her voice. “But since you’re my friend’s sister and not just some stranger, we could easily have met months or even years ago. You’ve lived out of town for a while, so that explains why my other friends haven’t met you or heard about you. But since I travel a fair amount, I could have been visiting you often. They’ll believe it.”

      “Not just some stranger… That sounds like a great title for a made-for-TV movie.”

      She said it under her breath, but there was no missing the fact that Darcy had gone past irony all the way into sarcasm, so Trey pretended he hadn’t heard her. “People will still be startled when I announce that I’m getting married, of course—”

      “I don’t doubt that a bit.”

      “But not as startled as they would be if I said I was engaged to someone they’d known all along.”

      She nodded. “Someone you’ve obviously not been serious about before.”

      He was making progress, Trey told himself. He could almost see the dents starting to show in her armor. “Right. You’re the unknown, so they’ll reserve judgment for a while. And it’s conceivable that I could have fallen in love with you, so—”

      She rubbed her temple as if it hurt. “Gee, thanks. I feel so honored.”

      Trey felt like swearing. What on earth had he said that was so terrible? She was easy on the eyes, she had a graceful walk, she projected a certain confidence even in ragged sweat clothes. If he could just surgically remove that sharp tongue, she’d be next door to perfect for the role. “I was paying you a compliment.”

      “Drop it, Trey. You’re only digging yourself a deeper hole, here.”

      “Anyway, the fact that we’re admitting we’ve only seen each other at random intervals will even help account for why the whole thing falls apart in the end—when we break off the engagement.”

      “Because when we start spending lots of time together, we’ll realize we aren’t as compatible as we thought we were.”

      “Exactly.”

      “Well, that’s not hard for me to picture,” she said. “You really have thought of everything.”

      “It’s not like this will last forever, Darcy.”

      “But it will go on for a while.” She sighed. “Just for the sake of discussion, and not because I’m agreeing to anything, how long do you expect it would take?”

      Trey stopped to calculate. “Two or three weeks.”

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