“Relax. Everything will work out,” Pauline said. The plan they were about to propose was her idea.
Relax. Yeah, it was easy for Pauline to say that. She wasn’t the one in danger of having only visitation rights.
“I’m confident she’ll agree. But if she doesn’t, I have a backup in mind,” his publicist continued.
Leave it to Pauline to always have multiple strategies prepared. It was just one of the reasons she was at the top of her profession.
Unless Courtney refused, who the backup was didn’t matter. Regardless, he wanted to know. “Who?”
“My cousin. Kym graduated from Juilliard. She’s done a few commercials and some small parts on television but so far has had no luck landing any big roles. A marriage to you would help her career immensely. And she knows how to keep a secret. But I really don’t think I’ll need to get her involved.” Pauline patted his hand in an almost motherly fashion.
Actually, in a lot of ways she acted more like a mother than his mom, Scarlett, who’d more or less grown up in front of a movie camera. Before she’d met and married his father, she’d partied with the best of them. Her partying ways remained almost nonexistent until after Josh’s younger sister was born and his mom went back to acting. It wasn’t long after that his parents divorced, and his mom went on to spend her time with countless men before marrying and divorcing husband number two and then marrying her current husband, Trevor Basto, six years ago. Since Josh’s life mirrored hers in so many ways, his mom never criticized him or told him to reconsider his behavior. On the other hand, his publicist, who oddly enough wasn’t much older than him, thought nothing of doing both. And now he wished he’d listened to her a little more.
“I think there’s a decent chance Courtney will agree. If she doesn’t, we’ll worry about it then,” Evan said from across the table.
From the start, he’d agreed marriage to Courtney would crush much of the muscle behind Naomi’s arguments, especially the fabricated ones for sole custody. He hoped it would also convince her to drop the suit entirely, because if they went to court, the media would be all over it, which meant Adalynn would be dragged through the tabloids too. And he’d do anything to keep her protected.
A knock on the office door prevented Josh from replying, and a moment later Robin, Evan’s personal assistant, stepped inside.
“Evan, Ms. Belmont is here,” she said.
Regardless of whether it was Evan’s personal assistant or someone on the janitorial staff, all the employees at Epic Gaming called his brother by his given name. According to Evan, he wanted everyone at the company to feel like an equal. While Josh approved of his brother’s sentiments, their dad didn’t. He believed no one outside of upper management should call the CEO by his first name. In true Evan fashion though, he’d told their father what he could do with his antiquated beliefs.
“Thanks, Robin.” Evan stood and followed his assistant out.
When the door opened a moment later, Evan reentered the room with Courtney a step or two behind him, and Josh’s heart missed a beat. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her. With her only feet away, he recognized what an ass he’d been not to reach out to her since leaving her hotel suite.
“You already know my brother, Josh. And this is his publicist, Pauline Carten.” Evan gestured toward Pauline.
Courtney didn’t immediately reply or even move. Instead, she stared at him and then blinked a few times, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. After the third time, she stepped closer to the table and extended her hand in Pauline’s direction. “Courtney Belmont. It’s nice to meet you.” Rather than select a seat, she glanced at him and nodded. “Josh, I um.... I didn’t know you would be here today. It’s nice to see you again. Have you been in Providence long?”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to show up wearing, but it wasn’t the navy blue pinstripe wool skirt and matching blazer. In Hawaii she’d always worn colorful outfits, and somehow the dark business suit reminded him how much he still didn’t know about her.
“About a week. How have you been?”
“A little busy but otherwise fine. You?”
He would have preferred to continue their polite but friendly conversation rather than get to the real reason for the meeting, but Evan had other ideas.
“Please make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything, Courtney?” Evan pulled out a chair for her at about the same time Josh lost the battle to do the same thing himself. If he’d pulled out the chair, it would have been the one next to him, not the one across the table.
“I’m fine for now, thank you.” Her eyes never strayed from him as she replied and sat down.
With everyone seated and the pleasantries out of the way, Evan didn’t waste any time getting down to business. “Before we get started, I want to apologize for not being upfront about today’s meeting.”
Her forehead wrinkled in confusion, but much to Josh’s relief she didn’t get up and leave, something he’d feared would happen once Evan came clean.
They’d discussed Josh meeting with Courtney alone, however Pauline insisted it was a better idea for her to come to Evan’s office, eliminating the possibility any pictures of them would surface in case she refused to go along with their plan. At the time, Pauline’s argument seemed reasonable. Now though, he wished he’d called Courtney and arranged a private meeting with her rather than have his appearance here blindside her.
“While I do have a proposal I want to discuss with you regarding Epic Gaming and the foundation, it isn’t the only reason I arranged this meeting,” Evan continued.
“Okay, and what is your other reason?” she asked in a tone filled with both suspicion and interest.
“I’m sure you’re—” Evan began.
“One of the reasons we asked you here was to tell you Evan and I are each donating one million dollars to the foundation.” Josh appreciated his brother’s help, but Courtney deserved to hear the truth from him. “The second is because I’m hoping you’ll be willing to help me.”
After Courtney got over the shock of seeing Josh again, she wondered if she’d made a mistake and her meeting with Evan was tomorrow. As far as she knew, Josh had nothing to do with his brother’s company, so there was no reason for him to be here. It took only a matter of seconds for her to dismiss her theory that she’d showed up at the wrong time or day. Evan’s assistant would’ve told her the meeting was another day, not let Evan know she was here. Now that her initial shock at seeing Josh was gone, other emotions were taking over, most of them attached to the memories she had of their time together.
Focus. Later she could deal with her feelings and the images going through her head. For whatever reason, Josh hadn’t contacted her directly, but at the same time he claimed he needed her help.
“You already know I have a daughter,” he continued.
Thanks to Josh’s efforts, pictures of his daughter rarely appeared in the media, but he’d showed her several photos while in Hawaii. There was no denying the family resemblance between the two of them.
Nodding, Courtney wondered where the conversation was headed.