The Proposal, page 31
If she hadn’t already told me she was ready to go, I’d have tried to warn her. She’d looked forward to coming to work to hang out with me? I should’ve invited her out sooner. Now I wouldn’t get to hang out with her every day. Maybe she had a couch I could crash on once I was evicted.
Unemployed, drinking half-priced booze, hanging with my girls. The perfect way to forget about the ache in my chest that made it hard to breathe. Somehow getting fired hurt far less than Leo betraying my trust.
45
Leo
Life is about choices. Some are big, like which college to attend. Some are small, like faking left instead of right. And some can shift the entire course of your life. Standing in front of the reception desk, there was no question mark or worry, only sheer determination to make this work.
My leg bounced up and down the entire time I was waiting in the reception area. This time it wasn’t nervous energy that flooded my system, like standing in the tunnel in a stadium with the roar of the crowd rumbling the ground under my feet. It was fear like a gladiator felt, facing down a lion with nothing but a spear and a broken shield. I had to do this.
The second the call came in, my plan kicked into high gear. I put in a call to my lawyer and accountant, who at least still took my calls. One piece was in place, but there was still more to do. People flowed up and down the long hallways like this was any other day, not one of the biggest of my life.
“Leo. What are you doing here?” Kathleen’s voice broke through the nerves building inside me as I sat outside the large double doors.
I stood, buttoning my coat. “Mr. Waverly invited me.”
Her lips pressed together and she looked toward the closed door. “That might be so, but this is still my hotel and I won’t be working with people I don’t trust.”
“We bent over backward for you. Should we have pretended to be engaged? Maybe not, but we busted our asses to give you everything you wanted and more, so I won’t apologize for one damn thing.”
A woman with a sunny smile and a folder held against her chest stopped short when she saw the two of us. The smile slid off her face.
“Is everything okay?”
I tugged on the cuffs of my jacket. “Kathleen and I were resolving an issue between us.”
She harrumphed and stormed off.
The woman turned to me. “Sorry for everything being out of sorts. Mr. Waverly doesn’t generally work this quickly, but he wanted to meet with you before he left town. You’ll only have twenty minutes, I’m afraid.”
I nodded, gripping the folio in my hands. My heartbeat pounded in my hands. I held onto it, not wanting it out of my sight.
“Mr. Waverly will see you now.” The receptionist gestured to the large wooden doors beside her.
Sticking the folio under my arm, I took a deep breath, my hand tightening on the handle.
“It’ll be fine. He’s incredibly nice, and hardly ever has security escort anyone out.” She stood and opened the door. “It was a joke.”
I stepped through the open door. A fresh paint smell lingered in the room. Leather couches—not the slick kind with chrome accents like Sports Central, but the homey, lived-in kind that were broken in and soft—made up the seating area of the office.
“Leo.” A tall man stood from behind his desk, walking around it with his hand extended. “Good to see you again?”
“Clint with the shrimp?”
He laughed. “I can see you’re surprised. None of your research turned up a picture of me, I see.”
Clint Waverly. Holy shit.
I swallowed those words since I was at least pretending to be a professional right now.
“No, it didn’t. I can’t say I was looking for it, either. I was more focused on the quirks of the company.”
He sat in a wide leather chair beside the couch. “I could tell from the presentation. You put a lot of work and effort into showing us what you could bring to the table. What do you have for me?” He nodded toward the dark leather folder I had with me.
I sat up straighter, my fingers curling around the portfolio I held against my leg. “Your chance to land one of the best up and coming design professionals in the industry and bring them on board at Waverly.”
The speech I’d practiced at least a hundred times with variations based on objections was delivered with a calm, cool, collected demeanor that didn’t match the chaos racing through my head.
I’d gotten Sam’s blessing to do this. He’d come to terms with what might happen to Simply Stark even with all the work I’d put in, but I could still save Zara. As much as she’d hate that, and maybe hate me, I could give her the choices and chances she’d never had before and to finally put herself first.
“You have…” Clint glanced down at his watch, fixing his shirt cuff. “Eighteen minutes. I arranged this talk after seeing your vision and passion for the work, and to discuss your future with Waverly Hotels, and you’re pitching someone for our interior design internship? Is this how you want to start things off? Asking for a favor?”
Fixing this was my only chance, not just putting a broken thing back together, but making it better than before.
“It would be me doing you a favor to help you get someone like Zara here at Waverly.”
“This is the woman who worked with you and Kathleen.” His mouth twitched “She mentioned something about an engagement.”
I cleared my throat. The weight of this settled on my chest like a three-ton stone. “Our engagement…I’m coming clean to you, Clint. It was never real. We pretended to be engaged to get on Kathleen’s good side and stay there.”
He leveled his gaze at me.
My hands clamped onto my knees, refusing to squirm.
“And how’d that turn out for you?”
My head dipped.
“She didn’t seem too happy with how things turned out.”
“It was a bad day for both of us, but she got fired because of it.”
Clint let out a low whistle. “Why isn’t she here with you today?”
“I’m not her favorite person right now.”
He leaned back in his chair, lifting his leg and resting his ankle against his knee. “So this isn’t concern for a fellow colleague. This is something more.”
“It’s both.” I looked into his eyes. Launching into the story of how we came to be fake fiancées, I laid it all out on the table for him. Everything—well, not everything, but everything PG-rated that brought me to his office.
“You didn’t answer my question from before. How was it, pretending to be engaged?”
“Frustrating and hilarious and confusing and infuriating and breathtaking.”
He apprised me with a look. “It may be you know a bit more about being in a relationship than you thought.” And a chuckle.
I let out a huff of stifled laughter. “Maybe in a small way.”
“As for getting on Kathleen’s good side, I can’t blame anyone for doing everything they can to stay there. We’ve been working on this merger for over two years. I’ve never seen a more hands-on owner in my life.”
He rocked back in his chair, eyes boring into mine.
I held his gaze without a flinching. If this was a battle of the wills to win even a chance at getting her back, I could go all day.
“The interior design group doesn’t have a home base. Did you know that? We’re a global company. That team works setting up new properties whenever we acquire them, and they’re on-location during the acquisition. We like them embedded to bring as much of the regional flavor to each hotel as possible.”
“I understand.”
“This means continuous travel. Months at a time spent in different locations crisscrossing the globe to keep us at the top of the hotel game.”
“She’s always wanted to travel.”
“What about you? You’re willing to watch her go.”
I stared down at my hands, clasped in front of me, my forearms resting on my knees. If they offered her this job, she’d be gone. Globetrotting, discovering new and exciting places leaving her past behind. Leaving me behind.
“She’s talented and deserves to have her chance at her dream.”
“So this is your grand gesture? You plan on standing outside of her window with a boom box until she’ll talk to you.”
I laughed. “It’s part of it. I do have a few other tricks up my sleeve.”
The office door opened and the assistant from earlier poked her head in. “Clint, I’m sorry, but we need to get you in the car if you’re going to make your flight.”
Sighing, he pushed himself up from the chair. “It’s always go-go-go. Rachel keeps me on track though.” He took my hand. A firm, but friendly shake.
It was done. At least part of it. There were still a few more things to put in place—and then the whole ‘getting Zara to speak to me’ thing, —but I’d keep trying to make her dream come true, even as my future turned murkier by the minute.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I stole a glance. Charlie at Sports Central. Pushing it back inside, I silenced the vibration. It wasn’t what I wanted after all.
Clint’s assistant rushed into the room and gathered up a few things from his desk, while he slipped on his suit jacket.
“Do I have any calls in the car?” He buttoned his blazer without a hint of worry about the time. That must be the benefit of having other people worry about that for you.
She shot a quick glance at her phone and shook her head. “You’re clear until take off, then you have a couple calls once we’re in flight before we land in Rome.”
“Rome? I thought we were going to Berlin.”
“The updated itinerary was sent to you this morning.” She opened her folder and slipped out a piece of paper holding it out to him.
He waved it off with a smile. “That’s what I pay you for. If I kept my own schedule, I’d end up in Paris, Texas instead of France.”
“If I recall, that’s when my new contract showed up on my doorstep.” She laughed and slipped the paper back inside her folder.
They carried on with their conversation as if I weren’t there. Should I see myself out? They were blocking the door. Then again, they were leaving anyway. I hadn’t gotten an answer from Clint, but he seemed like he’d been on board.
“Worth every penny.” Clint stopped at the door, holding onto it. Rachel narrowly averted slamming into his back. With a quick dip of his head, he swung his gaze to mine. “Leo, let’s keep this meeting going. The car can bring you back once it’s dropped me off. That work for you?”
“I’ve got nowhere to be.”
“Then hurry up. If we put Rach behind schedule, there’ll be hell to pay. So what else do you have planned for your no-longer-fake fiancée? I need more details on that presentation.”
We set out to the airport in a black-tinted SUV. I laid out my entire playbook for Clint and he nodded and laughed along.
By the end of the ride, I felt hopeful that I could pull this off.
We didn’t pull up to the normal departures terminal, but straight onto the tarmac.
Rachel climbed out of the driver’s opened door and answered her phone, waiting for Clint to follow.
He shook my hand again. “Good luck, Leo. The next time we’re in the city, you’ll have to fill me in on how it all goes.”
“I will. Thanks for everything, Clint.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. Wait until the ink is dry and you haven’t slept in a month.”
“I can handle it.”
His smile brightened. “I have no doubt you can.”
The driver closed the door behind him and we were back on the road. Back in my apartment, I went through all the emails and documents I’d need to finalize my plans. Big plans. All I had to do was hope they didn’t blow up in my face.
46
Leo
A man in a suit even more formal than my tux opened the doors to the hotel. His suit had tails. At least I hadn’t gone full penguin.
“There’s still time to turn around and find a less insane way of talking to her.” August leaned over, slipping his finger under his collar, sweat beading on his forehead.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“Someone needs to be here for when you need bail money.”
It had taken all my detective skills and a compelling argument made to Stella to get the information I needed to put my plan in motion. This wasn’t the ideal place, but there weren’t many options.
Zara had become part hermit, barricading herself in her apartment. Tonight, she wouldn’t have the chance to run away. Not until she heard everything I had to say. I’d already run through each of the guy’s phones—even using Everest’s hadn’t gotten me more than a single text or a ten-second call. Tonight was my night.
I stepped through the second doorway leading to the ballroom. One of these days I’d find a way to repay Hunter. A word was all it took for him to make the impossible possible. Not that scoring an invitation to a reception neither of us had been invited to had been any more difficult than procuring an engagement ring with a few hours’ notice, but he never let me down.
Fingers tightened on my arm. For a second, I thought we’d been spotted and we were on our way to being chucked out in the gutter. August’s fingers bit into my bicep. “You didn’t say this was a wedding reception.” He looked over at me like we’d stepped into the seventh circle of hell.
The twenty-piece classical orchestra on the stage was set up in front of the large backdrop with two interlocking initials signifying the bride and groom’s new nuptials. A wedding cake large enough to feed three city blocks sat prominently in the corner under spotlights more powerful than any SWAT team.
“It’ll be okay. You’re not the groom, remember?”
He stared at straight ahead at the cake.
Prying his fingers off my arm, I scanned the room for the only reason I was there.
Couples in evening gowns and tuxes like mine glided across the dance floor to waltzes that put my plays out on the field to shame. Was everyone here a professional ballroom dancer?
The colorful dresses created a tapestry of wealth in the room, but I wasn’t looking for one of them. Servers blended in with the décor, wearing matching outfits in black and white. There were more people crammed into the room than there had been at our Super Bowl after party.
“August, can you see her? I can’t see anyone.” Turning behind me, I saw that I was on my own in a sea of people shooting me strange looks.
He was standing right where I’d left him.
I stepped in front of him and shook his jacket, breaking the stare-down he had going with the fondant-covered tower in the corner. “Snap the hell out of it. It’s a wedding. I didn’t know either, or I wouldn’t have had you come. But you’re here now. Will you help me?”
He blinked a few times and shook his head. Some of the color returned to his face and he no longer looked like he’d watched an exorcism go wrong. “I’m good. I can do this.”
We walked through the crowds of people that grew thicker by the minute.
“There have to be at least three hundred people here. How much do you think this wedding cost?”
“With that spread.” He nodded to the carving stations, sea food waterfall made up of lobster tails and crab legs and champagne glass tower. “We’re talking five times what mine would’ve been.”
Holy shit. Even from afar I’d been roped into some of the wedding planning details as August’s best man. The sting from his almost-wedding was still there, but one thing we all agreed on was he’d dodged a bullet, not that any of us could say that to his face. Not yet anyway. Five times! No wonder the wedding planning business was so fierce. Shaking off the distraction and mental calculations, I got back to my mission.
“I’ll never find her in here. We need a better vantage point.” Even with both of us a head above most people, there were too many bodies. And more people were looking our way. They were going to find out we had no business being here.
“What about up there?” He pointed to the stage where the orchestra had taken a break. An unattended microphone sat perched at the front of the raised platform. “From the looks we’re getting, the countdown clock is ticking. I’ll distract the sound guy, you go up there.”
We rushed through the press of people, swimming through a sea of faces until we reached the stairs leading up to the stage.
August did his wing man duty and tripped over some of the wires, sending earsplitting feedback through the room. Heads turned our way.
I climbed the first two steps, getting a better vantage point, and searched the faces. Waiters wove their way through the throngs of people, trays balanced above their heads in some places where the packed bodies left them little room. I took the next two steps until I was up on the stage. Shielding my eyes from the bright lights, I scanned the room. Could she be in the back? Maybe she’d be on the rotation of servers coming in later? Had I missed her?
Then I spotted her. The one moving through the crowd with determined efficiency, never deviating from her forward progress while still letting people take their pick from her tray. Even from behind with her hair in a low braid in an efficient and out-of-the-way hairstyle, I couldn’t look away. Her outfit matched all the other servers, but she looked more beautiful than any of the women in their glittering designer gowns.
She smiled politely as people took champagne flutes off her tray.
“Zara,” I called out.
She wasn’t far from the stage, but with so many people it was hard to be heard over the background music and rumble from the crowd.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Zara.”
She paused for a second looking up and around, but not behind her.
Once again, I cupped my hands. “Zara!” My voice boomed through the room and every head whipped around in my direction. The mic beside me now live and cranked up to eleven.
“Sorry,” I said into the mic. “Congratulations to…” I looked behind me at the custom backdrop “Marcela and Evan. May you have a marriage as wonderful as this wedding. Your dress looks amazing.” The woman in white’s expression changed from confused to beaming. “But I need to talk to that woman.”
