Page 32 of The Naughty or Nice Deal

“Lydia, Dad, you remember Maeve.” They’ve met before, of course, but I do the introduction anyway, making sure to add, “My fiancée.”

“Of course I remember her! It’s so good to see you again.” Lydia warmly hugs Maeve hello. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my father put down his newspaper and stand up to join us. “I had no idea that you were seeing Ford.”

“None of us did,” my father adds.

“Oh, honey.” Maeve turns to me, her voice dripping with gooey sweetness—a tone she’s never used when speaking to me before. I should’ve known she’d get me back for that ‘kitten’ quip I just made. “You didn’t tell them about me?”

Lydia seems to know that Maeve is teasing me, or maybe she’s too excited to care, because she takes Maeve by the hand and leads her to sit down. I follow with my father and the others. “You have to tell me all about it.”

“All about… what?” Maeve asks. She sounds genuinely confused.

“The proposal, of course.” Lydia gestures at me. “Did he even remember to get down on one knee? Or did he treat it like a business proposal?”

Maeve chokes with laughter. Oh, if only my sister knew. “No, no, he was very sweet about it.” She smiles over at me softly, like we’re sharing a secret. “Ford’s been very understanding and generous with my needs in this relationship.”

I know she’s just talking about the money and our arrangement, but my sister and father don’t know that. My father has the permanent half-frown on his face that it feels like he always wears around me, but Lydia looks delighted.

“So, how long have you two been together?” she asks.

“Not as long as you might think,” Maeve says quickly. “We haven’t been keeping this from you for too long.” It’s smart of her not to pin us down with a particular timeline. “I was just paranoid, since I’m Ford’s assistant. I didn’t want people to gossip. But now that we’re officially engaged it felt like it was all right to go more public—and of course we didn’t want to keep you all in the dark.”

She sounds perfectly gracious and reasonable, and thank fuck for that. I was so busy thinking about Maeve and what it was like to have her at close quarters, and keeping her from leaving, that I forgot that people were going to want to know details about how we got together. I’m not used to explaining myself like that, not since I achieved success.

“How did he propose?” Lydia asks, stars in her eyes. My sister is such a romantic.

“Well, you know Ford likes to make grand gestures, like my ring.”

Lydia picks up Maeve’s hand to see the ring, cooing over it.

“But I like to keep things private,” Maeve continues. “I don’t want to feel like our relationship is for other people, I want to feel like it’s for ourselves. Ford likes to close his office door when he really needs to concentrate, so I didn’t even think about it when I left the office one night and saw the light on and the door closed. I figured he didn’t want to be disturbed. But instead, when I got home from work and walked into my apartment, there he was, standing there. He’d filled the whole place with flowers. I mean, I was shocked they weren’t bursting out of the windows, there were so many.”

Lydia looks delighted.

“He got down on one knee and said… well, what he said was for just between us. But it was about keeping me in his life forever. Doing whatever it took to make sure that happened.” Maeve looks over at me, her eyes warm and soft.

Damn, she’s good. She’s taking what really happened and making it sound truly romantic. And she’s not that far off. I was, and am, willing to do whatever it takes to keep her by my side forever, just not in the romantic way my sister thinks.

Smart of her to not try and come up with a whole speech on the spot. She could’ve run the risk of going over the top and not sounding like me at all, and it emphasizes again the idea that Maeve and I are private people when it comes to romance. Very clever.

She should be in a boardroom with these kinds of instincts.

I see movement out of the corner of my eye and look over to see Liam standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He has a sour look on his face as he listens, watching Maeve and my sister.

I turn away before he can catch sight of the smirk threatening to spill across my face. I wasn’t thinking about this when I ‘proposed’ this little plan to Maeve, but getting to rub my brother’s face in the massive mistake he made is a fun bonus. If I were Liam, I’d never stop kicking myself for what an idiot I’d been.

Hayden clears his throat. “As much as I love to listen to all this lovey-dovey stuff,” he says, obviously sarcastic, “I’m afraid that we do have to get some work done.”

He stands up, waving his phone at Gabriel and me.

I stand as well. “Of course. This won’t take too long, we promise.”

“You’re here with your family for the holidays,” my father says. “You can’t take a couple of weeks off?”

“No,” I say calmly. I’m used to my father disapproving of me and everything I do, of all of my choices. It’s been like this ever since I decided I wanted to take the money I inherited and use it to be my own man. I think my father in some ways even prefers Liam to me, preferring his laziness to my independence.

“Don’t even worry about it,” Lydia says. “You guys get your work done and I’ll entertain Maeve here.”

I open my mouth, then close it. I can’t force Maeve to hang around while the three of us just work on our presentations and go over the paperwork. But I can’t help but feel a strange reluctance to let her out of my sight.