A Pretend Proposal: The Fiancée Fiasco / Faking It to Making It / The Wedding Must Go On

Long after he lost sight of her taillights in the flow of traffic, he stood in the parking lot of Antonio’s. He was going to have no problem convincing Nana Jo that he found Elizabeth Morris attractive. No problem at all. Which caused him to wonder: What had he just gotten himself into?

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_e84e4cc3-2dc0-56c8-a394-a7799af814c0)

“SO, HOW did it go last night?” Mel asked the next morning as she and Elizabeth sat at the small round table tucked into the corner of Elizabeth’s office at Literacy Liaisons. Her friend grinned broadly. “Did you seal the deal and get great gobs of money for our endowment fund?”

“Not exactly,” Elizabeth hedged.

She sipped her coffee, her fourth cup so far, and tried to think of a less damning way to explain the “deal” that Thomas had proposed. She still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around what he’d suggested … er … proposed. Much less the fact that she had agreed. She told herself it was the agency’s needs that caused her to tell him she’d do it, but every time she recalled that kiss in the parking lot, she knew she was lying.

She replayed it now, remembering the feel of Thomas’s mouth when it met hers. He’d watched her carefully—curiously?—not closing his eyes until the last moment. Elizabeth knew this because she’d kept both of hers wide open, afraid even to blink lest she find him and the entire evening a figment of her imagination.

But a figment didn’t kiss like he did. No one she’d ever met had kissed like he did, evoking responses and tugging forward needs she didn’t know she possessed. Thomas had ended the contact before things could progress too far. She’d wanted to think that he was being considerate, chivalrous even. The man was so courteous. His expression, however, said otherwise. He looked surprised, a reaction that could be taken a couple different ways, unfortunately, one of them not so flattering.

“Earth to Elizabeth. Earth to Elizabeth.” Mel was snapping her fingers. Then she demanded, “What exactly does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“Well, what it means is … um, it means—”

“That I haven’t presented her with the check yet.”

Thomas stood in the doorway, his expression infused with amusement and something else Elizabeth couldn’t quite decipher. Was he embarrassed? Uncertain? Was he recalling that kiss that he’d said had been intended to put both of them at ease? And—God!—what if it actually had put him at ease?

“Mr. Waverly!” She shot to her feet. Her hip bumped the table’s edge and her coffee spilled, spreading over the tabletop in a brown wave and threatening to drip into Mel’s lap.

“I thought we agreed you would call me Thomas.” His smile was engaging and just this side of intimate, no doubt for Mel’s benefit. Before either woman could react, he walked over, took the handkerchief from his pocket and laid it over the puddle of java to prevent further damage.

Not that the coffee was what held Elizabeth’s attention. No. It was the man and the ridiculous effect he was having on her. One simple smile—calculated for maximum impact, most likely, since everything between them was intended for show—and her insides were whipping around like the blades of a ceiling fan stuck on high. But who could blame her? Look at him. He was gorgeous. The lean cheeks and square jaw. The blue-green eyes set off by slashing dark brows. The tidy hair that was just this side of black. And that build. She couldn’t help it. She sighed.

No matter what he wore, he wore it well. Already, she’d seen him in casual attire and a three-piece suit. Today, he’d paired a herringbone jacket with dark jeans, managing to look more put-together and sophisticated than men who were going for just that effect.

Meanwhile, she was back to wearing sackcloth. Well, not exactly. But she might as well have been. Her stint as Cinderella had ended, and Mel’s borrowed clothes had been returned. In their place, Elizabeth had tucked a plain white blouse into a navy pencil skirt. The strand of imitation pearls around her neck added little in the way of embellishment to an otherwise boring outfit.

The sad thing was she’d picked it out with care that morning, hoping for simple sophistication. Now, she merely felt plain, especially sitting next to Mel, who wore a leopard-print wrap dress tamed by a black blazer.

“I wasn’t expecting you yet. You’re early,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at her wrist before realizing no watch was strapped to it. She’d opted to leave it off today since it was a little clunky.

Mel cleared her throat, reminding Elizabeth of her manners.

“Oh. Mr…. Thomas.” She managed a smile. “This is my good friend Melissa Sutton. Mel’s in charge of Literacy Liaisons’s volunteers, both recruiting them and then training them to tutor our clients.”

Elizabeth held her breath after the introduction, well aware of the effect her best friend had on men. Not that it mattered in this instance. From a purely practical standpoint, however, it wouldn’t do for him to be attracted to other women if he was trying to convince his grandmother he’d fallen head over heels for Elizabeth.

He smiled politely and pumped Mel’s hand. A cadre of bangle bracelets jangled. Thomas, however, showed no outward sign of being interested.

Hmm. This was a first. Elizabeth had witnessed men of all ages—married, single and every status in between—come on to Mel in one form or another with no encouragement whatsoever. A young seminary student had opted not to pursue the priesthood after meeting her, such was her friend’s natural allure. But Thomas’s only interest in Mel apparently was to point out, “My handkerchief didn’t cover everything, I’m afraid. You’ll be wearing some of that coffee if you don’t move.”

“Oh!” Mel glanced down and managed to shift out of harm’s way a second before coffee dribbled over the table’s edge. She divided her gaze between Thomas and Elizabeth as she rose. “I’ll just go get something to clean this with.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Thomas said.

“The same.” Mel offered a cheerful smile. She waited till she was at the door and Thomas’s back was to her before she mouthed to Elizabeth, “Oh, my God!”

“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time,” Thomas said. “I did say nine.”

The clock on the wall read eight forty-five. He was early again, which she should have expected. But Elizabeth had been running uncharacteristically late all morning. She hadn’t slept well. In fact, other than a couple of hours just before her alarm went off, she hadn’t slept at all. Who could blame her? Forget Thomas’s “proposal,” it was that kiss that had caused her insomnia.

She touched her lips now, remembering it, savoring it. Lost in recalling exactly how his mouth had felt pressed to hers, it took her a moment to realize that the man responsible for that kiss was smiling at her. She pulled her fingers away.

“Nine. Right. You said nine.” She nodded, mortified at the way she was acting. “I remember that now.”

He nodded, too. Then, when the silence threatened to become awkward, he spread his hands wide. “So, this is Literacy Liaisons.”

Work. Good. Excellent. It was the center of her life, what she poured most of her time and effort into, which meant it would be easy to talk about. And that would help take her mind off how sexy Thomas looked in that herringbone blazer and crisp blue oxford shirt sans necktie.

“Let me show you around,” she suggested.

She started in the main meeting room, which resembled a classroom, with the letters of the alphabet posted on the walls along with pictures that corresponded to the sounds those letters made. Instead of rows of desks, however, there was a large conference table. Elizabeth had found that adults responded better to that setting than the more traditional one. Some of them had had bad experiences with school. Others were embarrassed by their situation. A conference table made it seem more like a workplace. Even though they were students in the true sense of the word, her clients also felt more like respected adults here. She explained that to Thomas.

He glanced around, nodding in appreciation. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”

“It’s not an issue for some people, but when we realized it was for a lot of our clients …” She shrugged. “The goal is to make them as comfortable as possible so they can focus all of their attention on learning to read.”

“How exactly do you do that? The teaching, I mean.”

“There are a variety of different methods. For instance, the Barton Reading and Spelling System has proved a good fit for a number of our clients. It focuses on phonics and recognizing the sounds letters make.”

Thomas’s nod was perfunctory. He found her work interesting, but the woman even more so. His gaze kept straying to her mouth. He’d hoped to find he was wrong, but the fact remained that last night’s attempt to quell any nerves over upcoming physical contact had backfired miserably. One kiss, and now he kept imagining a second and a third. His gaze strayed to her open collar. With only the top button left undone, he could only make out the hollow of her throat. Since when did he find that part of a woman’s body so arousing? He watched her swallow and other sorts of intimate activities an engaged couple—or any consenting couple—would enjoy popped into his mind. Activities that would take place in a bedroom with the door closed and without the barrier of clothes or the bother of inhibitions.

Disturbed and aroused at the direction his thoughts kept taking, he had to exhale slowly between his teeth. Even then, a portion of his pent-up groan escaped.

“Am I boring you yet?” Elizabeth inquired.

“Sorry. Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m fascinated,” he admitted truthfully. He forced his gaze from her lips again. “That is, with what you do here. It’s … fascinating.”

If only he’d left it at that. But he lifted his hand to her face, and brushed his fingers over the slope of her cheek before tucking some hair behind her ear. He’d done something similar while they’d stood next to her car the previous evening. Though her hair was back to being stick-straight today, it was just as soft, and blessedly free of the sticky hairspray and comb teasing the women of his acquaintance tended to use in abundance.

“Thomas?”

He lowered his hand. “I was wondering.” He let the thought go unfinished since it was heading to boggy territory. He needed to keep their interaction professional, even if everything about their agreement was rooted in being personal. He cleared his throat. “Will it be possible to meet again this evening? We have a lot yet to learn about one another.”

“I suppose so.”

“Maybe I could come by your place, bring some Chinese food? Do you like Chinese?”

“M-my place?”

It sounded so much more damning when she said it, especially since her eyebrows were raised in alarm. So, he amended with an easy smile, “I’m eager to meet Howie.”

The door had barely closed behind Thomas when Mel grabbed Elizabeth by the arm and began peppering her with questions.