Abby Gaines - The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero - The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero

Actually, Craig and Gage were Grace’s stepsons, but she had always been more of a mother to the boys than the woman who had given birth to them. As a result, there wasn’t anything Gage wouldn’t do for Grace—except marry and have children.

“No,” his father responded to his question. “I stopped by to tell you that Dean Garrison is planning to retire at the end of the summer.”

The announcement wasn’t really news to Gage. Garrison, the current vice president of Clinical Science, had been talking about retirement for a few years now.

“You’re one of several candidates whose name has been put forward to fill the position.”

“One of several?” Gage echoed, unable to hide his surprise.

Though no explicit promises had ever been made, he’d always believed that the job would be his when Garrison retired. It was all he’d ever wanted, everything he’d worked toward.

“I want to give you the job,” Allan told him.

“But?”

“But the fact that your name is Richmond isn’t justification enough. You need to prove that you’re V.P. material.”

“Hasn’t my work over the past half dozen years proven it already?”

“Your work has been exemplary. It’s your reputation outside of work that has led some of our more conservative board members to question your maturity and commitment.”

“My reputation outside of work?” he found himself echoing his father’s words again.

“Your inability to commit to a relationship,” Allan clarified. “Moving from one relationship to another, from one woman to another, could give the impression that you’re shortsighted—unable or unwilling to focus on the long-term.

“Face it, Gage. You’ve earned yourself quite the reputation as a playboy and that’s not the image we want for our executives at Richmond Pharmaceuticals. Until you settle down, I can’t—and I won’t—go to bat for you with the board.”

“I used to date a lot of different women,” he acknowledged. “But I haven’t been dating at all in the past few months.”

“Why is that?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”

His father finished his beer and set the empty bottle down. “Maybe that’s true.”

“What else could it be?”

“Do you really want to know what I think?”

Gage wasn’t sure, but he nodded anyway.

“I think—I hope —you might finally have realized that you’ve been wasting your time with women who are completely wrong for you.”

“That’s assuming there’s a woman out there somewhere who’s right for me.”

“There is,” Allan said with certainty. “And when you find her, you’ll know it.”

Gage wasn’t convinced. He also wasn’t looking for any “right” woman. He liked being able to come and go as he pleased, not being accountable to anyone but himself. He was happy with his life—or he would be, as soon as he was in the V.P. office.

And now he had a specific timeline to focus his efforts: six months. He’d been given half a year to prove to his father and the rest of the board of directors at Richmond Pharmaceuticals that he was mature and responsible—like his brother, Craig.

Allan Richmond might not have mentioned his older son’s name out loud, but the comparison was implied. Gage had always been measured against his brother, and he’d always come up short. The fact that Craig was already a V.P. and Gage was not was proof of that.

But what else did Craig have that Gage didn’t?

A wife and four kids.

He frowned at the answer that immediately sprang to mind, because he had no intention of following his brother’s footsteps down the matrimonial path. He didn’t want to get married. He didn’t want to settle down. Maybe a wife and family was the American dream for a lot of men, but to him, it was a nightmare.

As a child caught in the middle of a nasty custody battle between his parents, he’d learned early on to protect himself. He put up safeguards around his heart so that every time he moved from his father’s house to his mother’s and back again, it hurt a little less. When his mother left for the last time, he almost didn’t care.

And he hadn’t let himself love another woman since. Not the head-over-heels type of love, anyway. Maybe he’d come close a couple of times, but he’d always pulled back before he got in too deep. Even with Beth, his only serious long-term girlfriend and the only woman he’d even believed himself to be in love with, he’d been the one to leave rather than be left behind.

And thankfully he’d been mistaken about the whole love thing, which he proved by putting Beth out of his mind and concentrating on his career. And any woman who claimed he didn’t know the meaning of commitment didn’t understand him at all, because he was already committed to his job. And now he had a new focus—to ensure that the V.P. office would be his by the end of the summer.

It was almost ten o’clock before Lillian Roarke was finally satisfied that all the necessary details for the engagement party had been taken care of and said good-night to her daughters and niece. Ashley went to her room to call her fiancé and update him on the plans, and Megan turned to Paige and demanded, “What have you done?”

Her cousin didn’t feign ignorance or apology. “I got your mother off your back for one night,” she said.

“But now she thinks I have a boyfriend, which she interpreted to mean a date for Ashley’s engagement party.”

“And you will have, as soon as you invite Gage Richmond to go with you.”

Megan shook her head. “I barely know the man.”

“You know him well enough to help him shop for a birthday gift for his niece.”

“We happened to cross paths at the mall and he was desperate.”

“Well, happen to cross paths with him at work and tell him that you’re desperate.”

“Yeah, I can see how that kind of approach would appeal,” she said drily.

Paige laughed as she sorted the lists and notes that littered the table. “I’ll bet it’s one he hasn’t heard before.”

“And not one he’s going to hear from me,” Megan said.

“Why not? What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid,” she denied. “But you know I don’t have the best track record with men.”

“You’ve made a few errors in judgment,” Paige acknowledged with a shrug. “So have I. So has your sister.”

Megan guessed her cousin’s thoughts were on a similar path to her own—wondering if Trevor Byden was Ashley’s prince charming or another error in judgment. She pushed the thought aside and picked up her wineglass.

“Asking Gage Richmond out on a date wouldn’t be an error in judgment,” she finally said. “It would be an invitation to humiliation.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the man is a major leaguer when it comes to dating and I’m still at the T-ball stage.”

Paige smiled at the analogy. “Well, that major leaguer seemed majorly interested in playing ball with you.”

“Because he delivered a dress that I was careless enough to leave in a toy store?” she asked skeptically.

“Because he couldn’t take his eyes off of you the whole time he was here.”

Megan shook her head. She wished it was true but experience had proven that men like Gage Richmond were oblivious to her.

“And no one else will be able to take their eyes off of you when you walk into your sister’s engagement party with him.”

Except that Megan would walk into the party alone, and her mother would pretend to hide her disappointment.

As a child, her relatives had often referred to her as “poor little Megan” because she was too shy to make friends, preferring to hide in a corner rather than make conversation with people she didn’t know. She might not be “little” anymore, but nothing else had changed.