The Corporate Marriage Campaign

“You said yourself it would be much more believable if the models were real people.”

“Well, yes, it would. But isn’t it a little shady to pretend?”

“Who does it hurt?” Trey asked coolly. “The only difference is that on the last page, the happy couple will ride off into the sunset separately instead of together.”

“You’ll keep up the fiction all the way?”

“Right up to the end of the campaign—and then cut, stop the action. It won’t matter to the customer who’s looked at the ads. She’s already had her thrills along the way.”

“I don’t know,” Darcy said doubtfully. “Customers can be funny that way.”

“Look, it’s no different than if Caroline and Corbin had made it all the way through the ad series and then he hit her the night before the wedding.”

“Except that you’re planning the exit before the engagement ever gets off the ground. Of course, if you’re going to be convincing to all your customers, you’ll have to play it very close to your chest right up till the moment when you don’t go through with the wedding. And that could be a problem.”

“Interesting that you think so. Tell me why.”

“Because if you’re acting as if you’re serious in public, the woman you choose as your supposed bride might get the idea that you really are. Serious, I mean—no matter what you tell her in private.”

Trey nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. In fact, Dave pointed out that it could end up in something like a breach-of-promise case.”

“He would say that. Skittish guys all think alike.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Skittish guys? You saw the problem just as quickly as Dave or I did.”

He’d caught her on that one. Darcy shrugged. “So I guess that makes me a skittish girl.”

“And that’s why…” He raised his cup and sipped. The silence drew out.

Darcy felt her breath catch and wondered why she was feeling so anxious. All this had nothing to do with her. Or did it?

“That’s why,” Trey said very softly, “Dave suggested that my supposed bride be…you.”

CHAPTER TWO

TREY hadn’t spent a lot of time in his life contemplating proposals—how the question should be phrased, what the best occasion to ask it would be, or even who he might want to address it to. He figured there would be plenty of time to consider all that, because he was thirty-two and not in the least anxious to settle down.

But there was one thing he would never have expected—that when the day came and he actually suggested to a woman that the two of them might become engaged, she would choke on her coffee and turn purple at the very idea of becoming Mrs. Andrew Patrick Kent the Third.

Stunned and a bit dizzy, maybe—he could understand that sort of reaction. Shedding tears of joy, perhaps. Completely unable to speak and having to indicate agreement by gesturing, even.

But asphyxiating in shock?

Of course the notion of being Mrs. Kent wasn’t what was actually sending Darcy Malone into coughing spasms at the moment. It couldn’t be, because he’d made quite clear that an actual marriage wasn’t what he was offering. She was gasping for air merely because he’d suggested she be his temporary fiancée.

And that made no sense whatsoever. Considering the number of women who’d angled for the position over the years, why was this one puffing in agony over the notion that she simply pretend for a while that she wanted the title?

“Darcy,” he said. “If you could stop this for a minute and just listen…”

“If I could stop…” She clutched both hands to her chest. Her voice was a barely understandable croak. “I would. Just go away, all right?”

“Not as long as you’re threatening to strangle. Here, have a drink of water.” He held a glass to her lips and she managed to sputter a few drops. Her coughs died down to a low wheeze, and he said, “There, that’s better.”

“Maybe it is from your point of view.” She leaned weakly against the counter.

“Look, I don’t understand what’s so awful about the idea. I’m not asking you to have my baby, you know.” He set the water glass down with a bump. “Most of the women I know would be flattered.”

“Which is precisely why you’re asking me, instead of one of them. Right?”

He nodded, relieved that she understood.

“Because I’m not fool enough to take you seriously. So there you have it.”

Trey frowned. “I guess that didn’t come out quite the way I intended it to.”

“Maybe you’ll figure out what I mean in a year or two. Or maybe I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and see how that comment is really a compliment to me. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

“If you’d just listen to what I have in mind, I think you’d see it differently,” he suggested. “There would be considerable advantages for you in this plan, you know.”

“Name two.”

“You need a job.”

“I’ll get one on my own, thanks. I’m perfectly well qualified.”

Her tone was a bit truculent, just enough to make him suspicious. Trey wished he’d thought to ask Dave exactly why she was unemployed at the moment.

“I could make it easy for you,” he said. “You said you’re applying to the Kentwells chain—”

“And what do you think my working conditions would be like on any job you could give me? I’m sure my new supervisor would be simply delighted to have an employee foisted on him by the boss.”

“I’m not stupid enough to make it obvious, Darcy.”

“And exactly how are you going to keep it from being obvious? Are you planning to make the announcement about hiring me before or after my picture is splashed all over the newspapers and the airwaves, standing next to you and choosing lamps for our bedroom? Do you really think your other employees can’t connect the dots and see what’s going on?”

“All right, then—I’ll get you a job somewhere else.”

“I told you, I’ll do it myself, on my own merits. I don’t need a handout.”

“Stubborn, aren’t you? Dave said you were.” Maybe that explained why she was here and not still wherever she’d been living. San Francisco—was that what Dave had told him?

“For a guy who’s supposed to be devoted to the principles of confidentiality, Dave talks too much.”

“You’re not his client. I am.”

“So he can talk to you about me, but he can’t tell me about you? Oh, that’s charming.”

“Unless we’re engaged. Then he can say pretty much whatever he wants because we’d be—in a sense—family.”