Leigh Michaels - The Corporate Marriage Campaign

No, she thought. This time would be different. This time, she was the one who would be doing the using.

She vaguely heard the creak of Dave’s office door opening, and only when she heard the murmur of approaching voices did she realize that she and Trey were still standing in the kitchen, hand in hand. She pulled away as quickly as she could.

But obviously Dave had already seen, for he said, “You’ve struck a deal, then? Good—I’ll get the paperwork written up.”

“Paperwork?” Darcy said. “You mean like a prenuptial agreement?”

Trey frowned at her.

“All right, a nonnuptial agreement, then,” Darcy muttered.

Dave had gone straight on. “I’ll draw up a simple contract. I’m glad we could help out, Trey.”

“What do you mean, we?” Darcy said. “Unless you’re going to be getting your picture taken, Dave, and making nice at social functions, I don’t think that your contribution is nearly as personal as—”

Caroline spoke up. “Speaking of social functions, will you be giving Darcy an engagement party, David?”

“It hadn’t crossed my mind, no.”

Darcy relaxed. At least Dave hadn’t totally lost his perspective.

Caroline frowned. “Then perhaps I’ll do it. I don’t think it matters who hosts it, really—does it, Darcy? I know showers are supposed to be given by friends, not by family members, but is there any rule about engagement parties?”

Was the woman serious? Hadn’t she gotten the message that this wasn’t real? Or was Trey planning to keep her in the dark, too?

Darcy decided to humor her for a bit and wait for Trey to speak up or Caroline to regain her senses. “Beats me. As long as we’re shopping for everything a couple needs for a wedding and a home, maybe we should start with an etiquette book so we can look up the rules.”

Caroline smiled, and then touched a careful finger to her upper lip where the skin had stretched wide and broken open once again. “Ouch, that hurt. But that’s a really good idea. Every bride should have an etiquette book on hand. I think this is going to be wonderful, Trey—Darcy has much more creative ideas than I do.”

“Yes,” Trey said, almost under his breath. “I’d already noticed how creative she is at getting what she wants.”

“I’ll start planning the party, then,” Caroline went on. “Surely by the weekend I’ll be able to appear in public, don’t you think? I’m a fast healer.”

Fast healer? Darcy wondered if that meant Caroline had experience in how long it took her to heal from facial blows, and suddenly she felt a little selfish at having thought only of the impact this agreement would have on her own life. If by playing this part for a while she could make Caroline’s life a little easier, spare her some embarrassment over her broken engagement, and help her pick up the pieces of a shattered dream so that she didn’t become involved with yet another abusive man somewhere down the line…

Now that’s a great motive, she told herself. It sounds so much nicer of me than simply blackmailing Trey Kent into setting me up in business…

Her head was obviously still spinning. How had she gotten herself so enmeshed in this? And why? That was the real puzzler. Certainly not to help Caroline, whom she didn’t even know, or Trey, whom she didn’t even like!

“This is wonderful,” Caroline bubbled. “It’s all working out better than anyone could have hoped. Just a couple of hours ago I thought I’d ruined everything, but now it’s going to be even better than I thought was possible.”

Trey was looking at his watch. “Caroline, about the district attorney—what have you decided to do?”

Caroline’s glee vanished. She took a deep breath. “I’ll talk to him. And I’ll file charges.”

“Good.” Trey squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be right there with you all the way.”

There was a soft note in his voice that was unlike anything Darcy had heard before. She was still trying to sort out whether it was approval, support, warmth, love, or something else entirely, when he turned to her.

“Darcy, I’ll pick you up at six, and we can spend the evening going over the necessary details so you’ll be prepared for the shoot tomorrow.” Every hint of softness was gone.

“How considerate of you to ask whether that fits into my calendar,” she murmured, making no attempt to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “And here I expected maybe you’d be dictatorial about your plans.”

“I suppose we could go in without any preparation and just let the crew think we were too busy making love to bother to talk,” Trey said.

Darcy noticed her brother biting back a grin, and glared at him. “Six will be fine.”

“I thought it would,” Trey murmured.

Irritated, Darcy struck back. “Now you must run along and get busy, darling,” she said sweetly, “because you’ll need to make all the money you possibly can, in order to provide for me.”

When Trey arrived at the cottage on the dot of six o’clock, Darcy was still struggling to make the computer print out a will she’d been working on most of the afternoon. “Have a seat while I finish,” she told him. “Dave needs this first thing in the morning.”

He sat on the corner of the desk, right next to her, rather than in the chair she indicated. “Word processing isn’t exactly your top skill?”

“If you’re trying to make the point that I’d be happier doing graphic arts instead of wills, don’t bother. We all know that already.” She pushed a key and the printer wheezed, sucked in a sheet of paper and stopped dead.

“What’s the rush with the will?” Trey said.

“Since it’s not your will, that information is confidential.” Darcy tried the print command again, but the printer refused to budge. “Okay, I get the message. Maybe it just needs to pout for a while. I want to be home early anyway because it’s been a very long day. So I’ll come back and finish this up later.” She closed the file and turned off the computer. “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you going to change clothes?”

Darcy glanced at her slacks and sweater. “Why? Where are we going? Because if you’re planning to take me someplace swanky, I’d suggest you think again.”

“There will be some formal events along the way, you know,” Trey warned. “If you’re not comfortable with that, we’ve got a problem.”

“Oh, I can handle swank—as long as you provide the clothes. I just meant that you surely don’t want to talk about all this at one of your regular hangouts and risk being overheard by your friends.”

“Good point. Where do you suggest?”

She looked him over thoughtfully. “There’s a little bar a few blocks down. It’s noisy enough that nobody can be overheard, and dark enough not to be noticed—that is, if you lose the tie and borrow one of Dave’s windbreakers to replace the suit coat. Try the back of his office door.”

When he came back, he was shrugging himself into an oversized black jacket emblazoned in huge yellow letters with the name of the college where Dave had gotten his law degree. “This isn’t exactly what I’d call anonymous. I bet it glows in the dark.”

“It’ll fit into the crowd at Tanner’s better than that suit would.”

“You’re sure Dave won’t mind me borrowing it? Where is he, anyway?”

“I don’t know. He left an hour or so ago and said something vague about having an appointment.”

He helped her into her raincoat. Darcy checked her pockets for keys and emergency funds and locked the door of the cottage behind them.

His car was parked directly in front. It was—of course—a fire-engine-red sports car that Darcy’s gut said had cost at least twice as much as her entire college education. Men are so predictable… “Oh, boy,” she said. “How many miles does this baby get per gallon of testosterone?”