When the plane is in the air and evens out, Tom’s voice comes over the intercom, letting us know the flight is going to be about six hours and should be smooth most of the way.
“You asked why you’re here.” Jace lets go of my hand, and I focus on his face.
“Yeah.”
“I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition?”
“I need you to pretend to be my fiancée for the week.”
“What?” All the blood rushes from my head, making me feel lightheaded.
“My mom has been on me for the last year to settle down, and I don’t have time for a relationship nor to deal with her and her million-and-one questions or suggestions this week. I need something to distract her while I close the deal I’m working, and what better distraction than me showing up with my new fiancée?” He pulls a box out of his pocket and flips it open, showing me a way-too-huge diamond ring. “Ouch! What the fuck?” he yelps.
“I needed to know if this was a dream.”
“You’re supposed to pinch yourself, not me.” He glowers in my direction as he rubs his arm.
“I’m not going to give myself a bruise you idiot.” I look around and realize there is no way to escape this insanity. We are literally in a tin can in the middle of nowhere. “You’ve kidnapped me.”
“What?” He sounds horrified.
“You have me on a plane with no way to leave.”
“I didn’t kidnap you.”
“This feels a lot like kidnapping, Jace!” I shout, and he reaches over, covering my mouth with his hand.
“Stop saying I kidnapped you,” he growls, and I glare at him. “I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars.”
My eyes widen. With that amount of money, I could pay off my mom’s medical bills and my student loans plus have a little left over.
“You’re serious?” I whisper after pulling his hand away from my mouth.
“Of course I’m fucking serious.”
“You want me to pretend to be your fiancée for a week for fifty… thousand… dollars.”
“Yes.” His jaw clenches.
“I don’t get it. Why are you asking me?”
“You weren’t my first choice.”
Ouch.
“Thanks,” I say sarcastically.
“Look, the girl I hired got food poisoning. She informed me this morning before I called you. I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d be able to trust on such short notice.”
“You trust me?” I huff out a laugh.
“Christy trusts you, and I trust her with my life.”
“Are you sure the girl you hired got food poisoning and didn’t just blow you off because she decided no amount of money is worth putting up with you?” I raise my brows.
“Trust me, she didn’t blow me off. Not like that anyway,” he says smugly, and my nose scrunches in disgust.
“You’re so gross.”
“Hmm,” he mutters, then asks, “What do you say?”
“So, I just have to pretend to be your fiancée for a week and keep your mom away from you so you can work? Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.” He holds the box with the ring out toward me, and my heart starts to pound. Could I do it?
Should I do it?
I look at the ring, then him.
I know I shouldn’t. There is no way I should even pretend to be his fiancée, but that money could help out my mom and me. And it’s one week. You can do anything for one week if it’s worth it. Right?
“Penny?”
“Don’t rush me. I’m thinking,” I bite out, and he holds up his hands. Closing my eyes, I press my lips together, knowing I should say no, but greed gets the best of me. “All right.” I let out a breath and meet his gaze. “I’ll do it.”
“Really?” His shoulders relax, and I nod.
“Yeah.”
“Great.” He hands me the box, and I take out the ring that is so gaudy it has to be fake. Or I hope it is anyway.
“Hopefully it fits,” he says, watching as I slide it on.
I have to use a little extra force to get it over my knuckle, but once it’s on, the fit is almost perfect. Actually, I’m surprised I could even get it on at all. I’m sure whoever he had chosen to be his fake fiancée for a week was not considered plus-size by today’s distorted beauty standards.
The weight of the metal and stone feels foreign, and as I hold up my hand, all I can think is, It looks ridiculous. “Who picked this thing out?”
I look over and notice him pulling papers out of a bag that looks like a briefcase. “Becky.”
“Food poisoning girl?”
“No,” he mutters distractedly as his phone starts to ring. Looking at the screen, he sighs, then glances at me. “I have to take this.” He stands, then hands me a stack of papers before moving to the back of the plane.
I look at the first page that has some information about him, then set it aside and look down at my hand, wondering what the hell it is I’m thinking.
Oh, I know. I’m an idiot!
Chapter 6
Faking it
I startle awake when something cold touches my cheek and sit forward, blinking up at the man standing over me. It takes a couple of seconds for the fog to clear and to remember why Jace is above me and I’m not home in bed.
“You fell asleep,” he says, taking a step back, and I look past him and see that Tom is opening the door of the plane.
“We landed?”
“About five minutes ago.” He lifts his briefcase from his seat. “Grab your bag. Our car is already waiting for us.”
Without a word and still a little out of it, I pick up the papers he handed me earlier and put them in my bag before I unhook my belt. I follow him past Tom and Henry, thanking them before I carefully take the steps down off the plane. When my feet land on the tarmac, I take in the rolling hills off in the distance and draw in a deep breath.
“Are you coming?”
“Yes.” I pick up my pace and meet him at the back of a navy-blue Jeep that is parked near an open hangar. “Is this your car?” I ask him when he opens the trunk.
“Why would I have a car in Washington?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you come here a lot and need something for when you visit.”
“Did you look over the papers I handed you?”
“I—” I start to tell him no, but Tom rolls up with our bags right then, and Jace’s attention goes to him. As the two of them talk about our return flight that will happen next Sunday while loading our bags into the trunk, I walk around to the passenger side of the Jeep and open the door.
It takes me a minute to get my bottom in my seat, and as soon as I do, I open my bag and start to take out the papers to see what’s on them but stop when my phone rings.
When I see it’s my mom calling, I get lightheaded, and my heart begins to flutter inside my chest. For the first time in my life, I think about not picking up her call, but I know that if I don’t answer, she’ll worry.
With a curse, I slide my finger across the screen and put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Mom,” I greet, hoping she doesn’t hear the panic I’m trying hard to hide.