False Engagements

Chapter 3

This was easily the most preposterous thing Lila had ever encountered. She stared down at her drink, a tall glass of iced lemongrass tea, decorated with a lemongrass stalk that had been cut, split and curled into a fancy stirrer. 

"So let me get this straight. You want me to pretend to be your fiancee," she said, summarizing their conversation from the last half an hour. "Because your grandfather is sick, maybe dying, and your mother is trying to pressure you into marrying so your grandfather can at least rest in peace if he does pass. And also because he might write you out of the will for being almost thirty-five and unmarried with zero children."

"Essentially, yes."

She squinted at him. "Seems like a whole lot of trouble just to dodge marrying this Annette girl. Why not just marry her for appearances, and then divorce her later?"

Blake raised his eyebrows at her. "If I do, our families and companies will be even more entwined. If I want to divorce her, I will probably lose my family a significant chunk of their investments and holdings because of the alimony."

Right.

Lila supposed that as a working class person without any legal backing or powerful family members, it would technically be a lot easier for him to divorce her. And there was the crux of the problem... He couldn't marry Annette just to appease his grandfather, and he couldn't marry any of the other rich girls he knew too because it would just be the same problem all over. And this whole overly traditional business with needing to have children so they could inherit certain things...

Old money family matters seemed very complicated.

Blake leaned forward, and Lila leaned back out of reflex. The man was unfairly intense when he wanted to be.

"Think of it as a temporary job," he said. "I understand this is going to disrupt your entire life for six months at the shortest, and a year at the longest. Here's my deal: double your current annual salary. All expenses incurred will be paid by me, you can live in a separate room in my residence. I'll even pay for cat sitting."

Lila had to allow a reluctant smile to escape.

"Cat-sitting. Damn, now I know you're serious."

Blake exhaled, with an unwilling quirk up one side of his mouth.

"I've been serious ever since I made the decision to call you."

Lila hummed under her breath, stirring the drink. "That's another thing I wanted to ask... I didn't really get the impression you wanted to be anywhere close to me these last few days. James is the one who's friendly like a golden retriever. Why the sudden call last night? Why me?"

He winced slightly at the reminder that he'd been fairly aloof. That wasn't a great look now that he was asking her for a favor, that was true. Nonetheless... "My mother called in the evening to tell me my grandfather had an accident. Not entirely serious, they expect him to be walking soon. It's just... He has a fairly serious chronic illness. And in the hospital she overheard my grandfather complaining about me and how I still wasn't serious about having a family, having children to inherit, and if it might be better just to change his will to favor my cousins. She's always pressured me to marry. Now I think she will seriously force me to propose to Annette. And as for why you..." He chewed on his lip for a moment.

"This is going to sound sad. I don't have any female friends I can trust. Not that I have very many friends to begin with."

That was kind of sad.

"Dude," she said. "James was right. You really need to stop being such a workaholic." She couldn't help but laugh at his deadpan expression.

"I have to fly home tonight," he said, returning to business. "Take your time to consider my offer. If you accept, I will come back and fly you to my place. I'll send you half the money then too, so you can be assured that you won't quit your current job for nothing."

Put it that way, it really was very tempting. Double her salary, with zero rent and food all paid for in the coming year?

All the same, she had one last question.

"What if I say no?"

She almost felt sorry for asking it, for putting that deeply troubled expression on his face. "Then I suppose I will have a rather difficult family situation to deal with."