Page 15 of Nothing to Win

Yet, his aversion to marriage, or rather his reasons for being averse to it, suggested he could be quite calculating.No news flash there.

“What about romance?Do you believe in romance?”

“Flowers and sonnets?”he asked.“If you want flowers, you’ll get them.Jewels, clothes, whatever you want.”

“Hmm, to satisfy me, not you,” she said, linking her fingers and resting her elbows on the arms of her chair to settle back and scrutinize him.“I don’t equate romance with money.I’m sorry, but I don’t.This isn’t real, so it may have an unexpected advantage for both of us.”

“What’s that?”

She smiled.“Maybe we can be honest about what the opposite sex is really thinking without game playing.You and I are not interested in winning each other’s hearts.Let me put it to you like this, at the start of this conversation you were more interested in looking at something behind me than at me.I value eye contact more than this.”

She touched the bejeweled bracelet couriered to her along with the dress and sundries.

“Perhaps, but you can’t show up to dinner in jeans.”

Jeans?Ha, hilarious.Like her mother would ever allow denim over their threshold.She was barely allowed to wear pants at all.

She wasn’t averse to playing a little.“I can’t?”

“The women I see make an effort.”

“To impress you,” she said, returning to her meal.“I have no desire to impress you or any man…” Though she had to concede with a shrug.“Which may be why I’ve found myself perpetually single.”

“Most women in your position would be spoken for by now.”

Popping a piece of fish between her lips, she chewed and swallowed, washing the food down with some wine.“I’ll try not to be offended.”

“Women in your position are either folded into the family corporation or happy to be trophy wives.”

“And I’m neither.”

“What is it you do want, Miss Sear?”

In the history of her world, no one had ever asked that.Just out there and… Now she was stumped.

He bought her some time by topping off each of their glasses.

Time to vamp.“In life or from a relationship?”

“Both,” he said.“The purpose of what we’re doing is to make others believe we’re together.I should be able to talk about you with some authority.”

So the question was functional not personal interest?

“How do we plan to sell this?”she asked.“Who have you told about our deal?”

“Julius knows everything.Carver’s aware.Others, including Jenna, my assistant, have been led to believe we may have been seeing each other in secret for a while.”

“If we’ve chosen now to go public with our relationship, we must be serious about each other, see a future,” she said.What an odd conversation.She shook her head.“My family won’t believe it.”

“Of course they will,” he said.“You’ll make them believe it.”

“When would we have seen each other?When would—”

“You said yourself that Bram is out most nights.I assume when your father is not entertaining your mother that he too spends time at the office.We’ve managed to be together tonight without anyone knowing our plans.”

Glancing around the room, she acknowledged the looks they drew from other tables.“I think people know our plans… this won’t go unnoticed.”

“Good.Given my history with your family, we wouldn’t have conducted the initial stages of our relationship in public.Our presence here alone is doing half the work for you.We wouldn’t move from private to public until we were sure this was something we wanted to pursue.”