Judith McWilliams - The Boss, The Beauty And The Bargain

Livvy sighed. “There isn’t anyone. I just said that to stop Mom from crying.”

Conal felt himself sag as an overwhelming feeling of relief washed through him, loosening his rigid muscles. He felt as if a benevolent fate had just lifted the weight of the world off his shoulders.

“So if you would agree to come with me this weekend and pretend to be the man—” Livvy paused and then blurted out “—who has asked me to marry him, I’ll postpone my vacation and do the soup presentation for you.”

Conal’s eyes widened as what she was saying finally registered. Liwy wanted him to spend the weekend pretending to be her fiancé? A feeling of exultation filled him. He would be able to kiss her and touch her to his heart’s content, and if she objected, he could say that he was merely trying to add authenticity to his act. Since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d been trying to figure out a way to get her into bed, and now this gift from heaven had fallen into his lap. It seemed too good to be true, and that worried him. Things that seemed too good to be true usually were. He pushed his sense of pleasure aside and tried to find the fly in the ointment.

“How am I supposed to behave?” he asked cautiously.

“Just be yourself,” Livvy said, beginning to relax slightly at his matter-of-fact response. “You see, my mom is always telling me that I should grab one of the rising young executive types that frequent the street corners of New York City.”

“Those are not the types who frequent street corners in New York City!”

Livvy shrugged. “I know it, and you know it, but Mom is convinced it’s true. Anyway, I think if she were to actually meet a high-powered executive type she wouldn’t be so keen to see me married to one.”

Conal chuckled. “I think I’ve just been insulted.”

“Not really. It’s just that Mom’s idea of a perfect husband is a man like my father was. He worked his shift at the mine and spent his evenings and weekends at home with his family. In fact, according to Mom, the only disobliging thing he ever did was to get himself killed while she was pregnant with me,” Livvy said wryly.

“I see,” Conal said slowly, wondering if that was also Livvy’s idea of a perfect man. Was that why she had refused all his invitations? Because she wanted a stolid, unimaginative man who never took any risks. It was a depressing thought, but he refused to dwell on it. Right now he needed to concentrate on his unexpected opportunity to show her how great they could be together. To prove to her that the factors that made them mesh so well in the office would work equally well in bed.

“It’s a deal.” Conal fought to keep his sense of triumph out of his voice. “I’ll masquerade as your fiancé and you’ll do the presentation.”

“I didn’t tell Mom that we were engaged, just that I was considering it,” Livvy hurriedly corrected him.

“Engaged is better. It gives us more leeway. Tell me what kind of engaged couple we’re supposed to be,” he said before she could question what sort of leeway he meant. “Is this a Bertie Wooster type of engagement, where I call you ‘old girl’ and pat you on the shoulder?”

“You like Jeeves and Wooster, too?” Livvy asked, momentarily diverted.

“I bought the entire set of videos when I was in England last spring. If you do a good job on the presentation, I’ll let you watch them. But to get back to our discussion. If it isn’t a Bertie Wooster type of engagement, is it like one of those old Doris Day, Rock Hudson movies from the sixties? The kind where he kisses her like this.”

To Livvy’s dumbfounded amazement, Conal leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. The scent of his cologne was stronger that close to him, and it caused the bottom to drop out of her stomach.

To her disappointment he straightened up almost immediately and stared down into her eyes.

“Somehow that doesn’t seem quite right,” he said slowly.

Livvy ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip and stared into his eyes. There was a light glittering in their depths that she wished was passion but feared was simply devilment.

“I can’t quite see you as Doris Day. You’re more the foreign-film type of heroine.”

“I am?” she asked weakly, still off balance from his unexpected kiss.

“Uh-huh. Full of unfathomable secrets and hidden purposes.”

He cupped the back of her head with his large hand and pressed his lips against her mouth. His tongue darted out to lick over her bottom lip and Livvy shivered, instinctively opening her mouth. He immediately took advantage and began to explore with his tongue inside. Livvy trembled at its rough texture, and her hands came up to clutch his arms. She felt as if she needed an anchor in a world that had suddenly lost all its familiar moorings.

Her fingers slipped over the crisp cotton of his shirt, digging into the muscles below. Kissing him was turning out to be every bit as fantastic as she’d imagined it would be.

Livvy bit back her instinctive protest as he raised his head and stared down into her flushed face. Kissing him was also filled with potential pitfalls, she reminded herself. She absolutely had to keep her wits about her when she was around him. No matter how hard it was.

“I was right. You are definitely the foreign-film type,” Conal murmured, and his warm breath wafted across her cheeks making the skin tighten.

Livvy stared up at him, wondering what she had let herself in for. Nothing she couldn’t handle, she told herself, trying hard to believe it.

Two

Livvy tensed as the doorbell shattered the stillness in her apartment. Its normally melodious chimes suddenly seemed raucous. Nervously she ran her turquoise silk pullover down over her faded jeans. Conal was here! But that wasn’t any reason to be jittery, she tried to tell herself. She had never felt nervous around him before. Exasperated, sometimes, and usually excited, but never just plain nervous.

But then she’d never been pretending to be his fiancée. The thought sent a flood of complex emotions swirling through her, the major one being anticipation.

The bell chimed again. After quickly glancing around her small living room to make sure that she hadn’t inadvertently left out one of the numerous portraits of Conal in various stages of undress that she had painted over the last year and a half, Livvy hurried to open it.

The sight of Conal standing there wearing a pair of tan slacks and an Aran knit sweater momentarily left her speechless. He looked even larger in the bulky sweater than he normally did. And somehow different in casual clothes.

“Good afternoon,” Livvy said, feeling awkward. Their pretend engagement had introduced a new element into their relationship. An element she didn’t quite feel comfortable with yet.

“Not so far it hasn’t been!” Conal stalked into her apartment.

Livvy blinked, caught off guard by his scowl. Was he regretting their masquerade already? Did he want to back out of their agreement?

“Larson stopped by the office this afternoon right after you left,” Conal announced. “He brought the model he hired with him to see what you thought.”

“And to think I missed a treat like that,” Livvy said, relaxing slightly when she realized that Conal’s ill humor was work related.

“You probably would have thought it was a treat,” Conal said sourly, “since you were the one who gave him the bright idea.”

“I did not! I am intellectually and morally opposed to the exploitation of the female body by a bunch of overage, drooling male adolescents!”

Conal’s annoyance dissolved in the face of her outraged expression. “Very good. Did you practice that or does such slogan mongering come naturally?”

“I am not kidding,” Livvy muttered. “I think it’s disgraceful.”

“I agree with you, but you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Larson thought about what you said about finding some overmuscled male to wear a sequined jockstrap in the commercial and decided it was a great idea.”

Livvy’s mouth fell open, and she stared at Conal in shock. “He found a male model in a red sequined jockstrap?”

“Actually they were blue sequins,” Conal said. “And I couldn’t talk him out of it.”

“I should hope not!” Livvy said virtuously. “Total nudity is going entirely too far.”

“Where’s your sense of outrage now?” Conal demanded.

“I’m looking for it.”

“Well, you’d better find it before Monday morning because Larson is coming back.”

Livvy grinned. “Lovely...something to look forward to. Maybe he’ll bring the model with him. I’ve never actually seen a sequined jockstrap.”

And if he had his way she never would, Conal thought on a flash of a dark, uncomfortable emotion that he very much feared was jealousy. He didn’t want Livvy looking at strange men. For that matter he didn’t want her looking at familiar men. At least not until he’d had a chance to thoroughly explore the emotions she seemed to so effortlessly raise in him. Explore them and dissipate them. Then he wouldn’t mind what she did.

“Where’s your suitcase?” Livvy suddenly realized that he hadn’t brought one. A feeling of disappointment engulfed her. Had her first guess been right, after all? Had he changed his mind about pretending to be her fiancé?

“I left it in the car,” he murmured, trying to decide if this would be a good time to give her the diamond he’d spent all last evening choosing or whether he should wait until they had actually arrived at her home. Now, he decided. That way if she objected he would be able to argue with her, something he couldn’t do in front of her family.

He’d wanted to buy her a piece of jewelry for months now. Something like a diamond pendant. On a long gold chain so that the diamond would nestle between her breasts. Her bare breasts. He swallowed at the tantalizing image that popped into his mind. Later, he told himself. When they were actually lovers, he would buy her what he wanted. But for now he would have to be satisfied with giving her what he could make a good case for her accepting.

Conal pulled the small black leather box out of his pant’s pocket and shoved it at her.

“Here,” he said. “To help the impersonation.”

Livvy stared at the box as a feeling of longing, heavily tinged with sadness, slipped through her. It had to be an engagement ring. An engagement ring she wanted so desperately to be real. A ring she wanted to mean something to him. To be a promise from him for a future together.

Livvy took the box and slowly opened it. A gasp escaped her as the huge diamond caught the sunlight pouring in through the window and splintered it into a million fragments of rainbow-colored light. The ring was absolutely gorgeous in its simplicity. A single stone set in a plain gold band. It practically shouted good taste and...the money to indulge it, she realized. Anything that beautifully cut, to say nothing of that big, had to have cost a fortune. She couldn’t accept it. Even temporarily. No matter how much she wanted to. It was far too valuable.

“If you don’t like it—”

“It’s the most gorgeous ring that I’ve ever seen,” she said truthfully.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What if I lost it?” she asked.

“I’d collect from my insurance company. It’s just a ring I bought a few years ago and then didn’t need,” he lied. Somehow, it was very important to him that she accept that ring. Accept it and wear it.

“A few years ago?” Livvy tried to swallow the metallic taste of anger that unexpectedly coated her mouth. Why had he been so willing to marry some other woman then and yet he was now vocally opposed to marriage?