Page 54 of Fake Dark Vows
He smiles, the gesture barely making it to his eyes before it fades. He studies the floor, my coffee cup, the muted TV.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Fine.” He shrugs. “Sore. It probably has more to do with the bottle of brandy I polished off single handedly than the bump on the head.”
“And the champagne.”
“And the champagne.” He still can’t look me in the eye, not fully, and the blood that has been bubbling away crazily in my veins becomes a simmer. “Thank you, Rose. For what you did.”
What I did? Does he realize how ambiguous that sentence is?
“You saved my life.”
“Anyone else would’ve done the same. Lucky I found you first.”
Our eyes meet, and my heart performs a somersault. The question flickers across his face: what was I doing down at Swimming Beach so late at night? But he doesn’t say the words out loud.
“Rose, things are not…” He inhales deeply and swallows hard. “My life isn’t what you think it is, at least, not right now.”
Here it comes, I think. The whole I-like-you-but-the-timing-is-shit excuse.
“You’ve no doubt heard the saying ‘it’s tough at the top’.
Seriously? That’s what he’s going with?
“I know it makes me sound like an obnoxious asshole,” he continues, “and I’m not looking for sympathy, but people are always waiting to tear you down and trample you into the ground.” Another swallow. “I’m not doing a great job of explaining this, so I’ll cut to the chase. I have a proposition for you, Rose.”
“A proposition?”
Another job? A date? A potential relationship?
“Will you pretend to be my girlfriend?” He stares at me then, full-on eye contact, like he’s afraid to miss my life-altering response. “Well, fiancée rather than girlfriend. I’ll buy you a ring. We could announce the engagement in Vegas. You can keep the ring, Rose. I’ll buy you an apartment. Anything you want. Just until this—situation—blows over.”
“You want me to pretend to be your fiancée…”
I’m numb. If I couldn’t see my cooling coffee on the floor and Zooey Deschanel’s face on the TV screen, I’d think this was all a bad dream, and I’d wake up in my guest room on Ruby Island with the sun streaming through the windows.
“I realize it’s a big ask but?—”
“You don’t say.” I finally find my voice and the courage to speak up. “What does that even entail, being Brandon Weiss’s fiancée, huh? Do you want to dress me up and attend a few parties with you so that people can see I’m not a figment of your imagination? Do you want the paparazzi to follow me around and plaster my pictures all over the media? Or do you want me to be a real fiancée?”
My heart is hammering against my ribs and making me feel queasy. I was wrong. Brandon Weiss isn’t just an arrogant asshole who thinks he can buy whatever he wants—he’s the biggest fucker I’ve ever met.
“What? No answers, Brandon? You haven’t thought this through, have you?” I allow my mouth to twist into a smile. “Will we share a bed? Will we fuck every night, Brandon, like other couples in the early stages of a relationship, or will this be a purely platonic arrangement?”
Tears well in my eyes when I spit out the last word.
“I…” At least he has the decency to hang his head. “It will be whatever you want, Rose.”
I shake my head and give a loud ugly sniff. I refuse to let him see me cry. “This isn’t what I want. I want to marry for love. I don’t care about a diamond ring; I care about the man sliding it onto my finger with a smile that’s all for me. I care about wanting the same future. About children, and a cute floppy-eared spaniel, and a home that we created together.”
He nods. “You will have all of that someday, Rose. I know you will.”
But not with him.
“I’ll deposit a million dollars into your father’s bank account today, Rose. He’ll never have to worry about money again, I promise you.”
And there it is: the final offer. The one he knows is guaranteed to win me over.