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I paused, duck breast hovering on my fork. “Really?”

“Of course, that’s where you’ll be.”

Sweet, this man was impossibly sweet.

“Okay.” I laughed lightly. “That will be fun. Together in the same city for more than a few days.”

“Precisely, and—” David flicked at the waiter, who appeared a third time and reached for my plate.

I swallowed a scream of protest as the remaining bites were scooped away.

“And I’m prepared to stay longer,” David added once there was only us at the table.

Distracted by the disappearance of the food and his micromanaging, I hid my annoyance behind a gulp of wine.

“Oh, big merger?” If my words held a bite, it was his fault. He took my food.

“Something like that. It depends on you, Annaliese.”

I looked at him. Really, truly looked at him. There was a sensation prickling along the back of my neck that I was suddenly aware of. It’d been there, but I’d been ignoring it, heavily invested in my dinner.

Oh, good lord, no....“What’s the merger?” I whispered.

“Us.” David opened a box and pushed it across the unfortunately empty table. “I think we should get married.”

I blinked down at the shimmering diamond. It was huge, set in a halo of smaller rocks. Elizabeth Taylor would greedily pluck it from the velvet and shove it on her pudgy little fingers.

Not me.

No, the duck threatened to make a reappearance.

“Why?” I blurted out.

If my rude question perturbed him, David didn’t show it. “We’ve been dating a few months. And I can’t think of anyone better to spend my life with. You’re perfect, Annaliese.”

Perfect—that was what this poor sap thought?

Me, the master manipulator. The author, with a wicked sharp pen, who was finally released from purgatory and returning to the life I was banished from, fully prepared to write the ending I wanted to my story.

David wasn’t the end game. He was a chess piece. A pawn who was sent to make the opening attack. The beauty behind long distance relationships was that I could hide behind thecover he provided while I worked my moves. And when his usefulness ran its course, I would cut him loose.

It wasn’t as though I planned for things to grow serious. To me, they hadn’t.

“We haven’t even slept together!” I hissed.

David shrugged. “I find your traditionalism refreshing.”

I closed my eyes briefly. Was that what he thought? Didn’t he realize there wasn’t a drop of chemistry between us? No passion! Hell, he hadn’t even dropped to his knee to pop the question. This was a purely pragmatic solution. A business deal.

Which...was exactly the energy behind his proposal.

Looking into his soft brown eyes, I had a big decision to make. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. There’s plenty of time to explore a more intimate aspect of our relationship. Or if you’d rather wait until spring, I’ll survive,” he said with a smirk.

The man rarely teased. His seriousness was part of what made him so perfect.

No, no, no!I was supposed to show him off as a boyfriend, then count on him to return to LA. Where he would eventually receive a phone call telling him it was fun but we were done.