Fill-In Fiancee

He looked up at her and grinned, pen poised over the next document.

“Guess I’ll have to find out, won’t I?”

Shaking her head in mock dismay, Carmella wagged her finger at him. “I suggest you take this seriously.”

“Come along, luv. Sunny’s only moving in for a couple of weeks and just for fun.”

Emily, the only daughter of Lloyd Winters, and senior vice president of Global Sales, popped her head in the door. “Um, I’m not trying to eavesdrop, but…” she hesitated, frowning at Brett “…did I hear you say Sunny Robbins is moving in with you?”

“Not like that,” he exclaimed, capping the pen and handing it back to Carmella. “Sunny has family at her place, and I needed a little feminine touch in mine, so we worked out a deal.”

Emily’s head swiveled, and Carmella knew just what she was thinking.

“You and Sunny. Really?”

He nodded. “Mutual benefits, that sort of thing. In fact—” he rolled his wrist over and checked his watch again “— I’m meeting her now. Provided she doesn’t think I’ve stood her up. Look, Em, Sunny and I just don’t want to get this all mixed up with work. So you won’t say anything, will you?”

“Absolutely not! I only came in because Carmella buzzed me, not because I was keeping tabs on you.”

“The thing is, it’s all come about quite suddenly, and I’m in a fix—but I don’t want to give anyone here at the office the wrong impression.”

“She’s also posing as his girlfriend,” Carmella interjected.

“She’s what?”

Brett shifted uncomfortably. “Emily, you’ve been a great friend to me, so I guess I can tell you that my parents seem to think they have the perfect woman picked out for me. I’m determined to show them I can find my own. I don’t need their help.”

“Oh…” A dawning realization lit Emily’s features. “Well, I agree! You go, Brett. Go.” She shooed him out the door. “Don’t keep your new roommate waiting.”

Brett buttoned the center button on his suitcoat, then lifted a hand. “Thanks.”

“And Brett…?” Emily asked.

“Yes?”

“Have fun.”

The moment Brett walked out the door, Carmella and Emily exchanged glances. Significant glances.

“Okay. What gives?” Emily asked.

Carmella lifted both shoulders. “A minute after I buzzed you to let you know Todd Baxter was here, Brett walked in.”

“Wait,” Emily interrupted, her gaze straying to her father’s closed door. “Todd’s here? In there?”

Carmella nodded, whispering, “Apparently, with all this downsizing, he lost his job.”

“I heard about his job, but puh-leeze.” Emily shot a second wary look at the door to her father’s office. “I don’t get it,” she muttered. “Why does my dad always treat Todd like the son he never had?”

“Oh, honey. Don’t think like that. Todd’s just down on his luck right now. He wanted your dad’s advice, that’s all.”

Emily lifted a shoulder noncommittally and finally said, “Funny, isn’t it, that Brett’s trying to avoid the same situation I got roped into?”

Carmella pinned Emily with a sympathetic look. “Mmm, I know. Parents mean well. Apparently Brett’s parents have someone in mind for him—not unlike someone else we both know and love.”

Emily shook her head, and Carmella knew exactly what she was thinking.

Years ago, Lloyd Winters had hoped to marry Emily off to one of the executives at Wintersoft—and, remarkably, he’d managed it! To the former Wintersoft wonder boy now sitting behind door number one, Todd Baxter. But Emily had married Todd for all the wrong reasons, and the marriage immediately crumbled. They’d divorced less than a year after their wedding. When Todd left Wintersoft, Carmella knew it was because he’d finally realized his chance to take over the company as Lloyd’s son-in-law ranked right on par with the status of his marriage certificate: null and void.

But Lloyd apparently still wasn’t convinced that his daughter couldn’t be happy with one of the successful bachelor executives at his company. The big-hearted widower thought he had his only child’s best interests in mind, but Carmella knew that he wouldn’t stop trying to match her up with someone until she was married. In fact, she’d heard him talking about it.

So Carmella had helped a desperate Emily hatch a plot to systematically marry off every bachelor in Wintersoft. It would take Emily off the hook and put her right where she wanted to be: single, free and unattached.

Brett was the next man on their hit list. When they’d discovered he was an English lord, they knew that they’d have their work cut out for them. They figured it would take a sophisticated, worldly woman—and they’d agreed Josie was all that and more. But now, after all their efforts, he’d just waltzed in and announced he was moving in with the wrong girl!

“You know, I feel kind of sorry for Brett,” Emily said softly. “Been there, done that. But what about Josie? I was certain she’d be perfect for him.”

“I don’t know about Josie. But I think we should keep his secret.”

“Their secret,” Emily reminded her.

“Sunny, of all people,” Carmella mused, picking up the documents Brett had signed. “Sunny and Brett…It’s an odd combination. But then, they say opposites attract.” She momentarily pondered Brett’s signature. It was the same, but rushed, hurried. Not like him at all. “He says it’s nothing, but I get the strangest sense from him. As if he’s awfully eager to have Sunny as a roommate—and that makes me wonder. It really makes me wonder.”

Sunny picked the most secluded corner booth in the Key-stone Coffee Shop and waited for Brett to arrive. He wanted to talk to her privately after work, so they could hammer out the details of their new living arrangements.

She would never admit to him the real reason she was playing the part of the smitten fiancée. It wasn’t so much to help him as it was to help herself. She needed to get away—and Brett had unwittingly provided her the opportunity. Her parents were driving her crazy.

Not in the same way Brett’s were, of course.

No, since they’d moved in with her a month ago, they’d taken over—and Sunny felt helpless to stop it from happening.

Her parents had that way about them. They just did things. Aggravating things.

Now Sunny’s windowsills had been taken over with little peat pots of scraggly herbs that flavored dinners of tofu stir-fry. Her bathroom, once decorated in lush shades of green, had become a jungle of hand-washed clothes because her mother didn’t think laundry detergent was good for the environment. Worse, Sunny’s thick, fluffy towels were now air dried—and wound up as stiff as cardboard and as scratchy as sandpaper.

And that wasn’t the half of it.

She couldn’t bear to recount her father’s quirky habits and eccentric ideas.

Her parents claimed they were going to move out. As soon as they found something. But they were making noises about finding an acreage in Vermont. Of raising goats and tapping sugar maples. Of living off the land.

It was an idealistic dream—one they couldn’t afford. And until they realized it, they’d be shacked up at Sunny’s, making her perfectly reasonable life insane and chaotic.

That was the real motivation behind Sunny’s agreement to help Brett: peace of mind. A little normalcy.

Living with an English lord might not be normal, but it was guaranteed to be proper and quiet and staid.

She’d settle for that. Gratefully.