Page 14 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

RHYS

“ T en years.” Damn. Had she really been out of high school that long? If I didn’t feel like an old motherfucker already, I did now.

She was four years younger than me. She was bright and full of youth. Maybe it was the permanent rosiness in her cheeks or the tautness of her skin. Either way, I felt like a lucky son of a bitch sitting across from her. “When is it?”

“The end of October.”

Two weeks away. “Aren’t these things supposed to be in June? You know? The end of the school year.”

“Yes. Normally. But when it’s being organized by your homecoming queen slash Valedictorian, who is going on a trip to Spain in June, you make sacrifices.” Vanny flipped open the pizza box and took another slice.

“Right. Naturally. What’s her name?”

“Brittney White.”

“Why is it always a Brittney?”

Vanny laughed and covered her mouth with one hand. “Right? It’s always a Brittney.”

“I pity all the nice Brittney’s out there.”

“There are nice Brittney’s?”

It was my turn to laugh. Vanny grinned broadly in response and I indulged myself in another slice of pizza. “I can’t help but detect notes of apprehension. Are you not looking forward to seeing everyone you went to school with?”

Vanny looked down at the table. She picked a jalapeno off her pizza and popped it in her mouth.

Her tongue would have been a spicy delicacy right about now.

I resisted the urge to tug at the crotch of my pants as she let out a tired sigh.

“I don’t know. I mean, there may be a handful of people I’d be curious to see.

Just to know where they ended up. But I didn’t have the best high-school experience.

” Her big brown eyes flicked up to meet mine and I almost got lost counting each one of her eyelashes.

They were dramatically long and full. “We can’t all be Rhys Daniels. ”

I felt my eyebrows inching up my forehead. “Did I give you a hard time in high school?”

“No. Of course not. How could you have? You didn’t know I existed.”

“I knew you existed.”

“You thought Chris and I went to different schools until you saw me at your graduation. And even then, you didn’t put two and two together until Principal Cavelli congratulated me on surviving my first year of high school with a brother in his senior year.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

I recalled that little moment now that she’d given voice to it.

Chris and I had been in royal-blue graduation gowns and hats with gold tassels.

I couldn’t count how many photo ops we’d been pulled into by eager girls and family friends alike.

Chris’s folks were especially excited to snap as many pictures of us as they could.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the graduation photos on their fireplace mantle also had Vanny in them.

I felt like an ass for forgetting.

“You wouldn’t be the first person to point out that I was a bit self-involved in high school.” I tucked my chair in a bit as the group of girls who’d ordered pizzas took the table behind us. One of them muttered a sweet thank you and I caught Vanny scowling at her.

Vanny drew her long hair over her shoulders and let it fall from where it had been tucked behind her ears. “You were an all-star athlete. You dated the hottest girls in school and you threw the best parties. How could you have seen your way out of all that glitz and dazzle?”

“Is that sarcasm I detect? Or jealousy?”

“Jealousy?” Vanny shook her head with a soft giggle.

“No. At the time, I might have envied your lifestyle. Nobody ever made fun of the popular jocks. But now, looking back, I wouldn’t trade the things I had to be more like you.

” She blinked and her cheeks began to turn an even brighter shade of pink than they already were. “Sorry. That was incredibly rude.”

“Not really. I understand. You have an appreciation for what you had in your life growing up. And still do.” She had parents who loved her and didn’t see it as their job to toughen her up to prepare her for the real world .

That had been my father’s classic line whenever Gigi put her foot down and said he was being too tough.

Too mean. Too controlling. He’d been as dismissive of her as he was of me, of course.

“Everybody’s life always looks different from the outside looking in. ”

“Including the infamous Rhys Daniels?”

“If you refer to me by my full name again, I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

“Oh please.”

I grinned. “Test me.”

She didn’t. Instead, she changed the subject.

“Anyway, I’ve really been considering not going to this reunion.

I mean, I don’t really have friends worth seeing.

Kim will be there but I see her all the time.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of teachers.

Maybe some kids from the debate team. But other than that—”

“You were on the debate team?”

“Yes.”

Cute . Every little thing I found out about her made her even more interesting.

I regarded her with curiosity as the girls behind me erupted in a chorus of giggles.

One of them rocked back, the back of her chair knocking into mine.

I tucked myself in closer to the table and rested my elbows on the shiny aluminum surface.

“I think you should go to your reunion.”

“I think you should reconsider telling me what to do.”

Sassy and sexy and cute all at once. Who was this girl, and how the hell had Chris managed to hide her from me for so long?

I chuckled. “I mean it. I missed mine and I regret it big time. I don’t have a lot of friends from that time of my life, regardless of how it might have looked to you when we were in high school. I didn’t feel compelled to go back and socialize with any of them. But I think I missed out.”

“Barf.”

“Excuse me?”

Vanny rolled her eyes and leaned forward to mimic my position with my elbows on the table.

I made a valiant effort not to glance down at her cleavage, which was whispering my name in a siren’s song.

“Spare me, Rhys. You going back to see your asshole friends is completely different than me going back to immerse myself back into a world where everyone knew me as Chris Hampton’s fat little sister. ”

I grimaced.

Vanny continued. “I know you think you’re doing me a favor. But I have absolutely zero interest in showing up there in exactly the same spot I was when I graduated.”

“Which is where?”

“Single. Fat. With no significant career prospects on the horizon.”

“You’re way too hard on yourself.”

“Am I?” she challenged. There was a dark edge to her voice I hadn’t heard before. The things she was saying still weighed heavily on her heart. I could hear the pain as clearly as I could see it in her eyes.

And I wanted to make it better.

“What if you changed the game and went back your own way?”

She sighed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, if you could show up under any conditions, what would they be?”

Vanny stared at me thoughtfully. I liked how much of her focus I had. Perhaps for the first time, I hadn’t said something stupid to set her off.

She pursed her lips. “I mean, any conditions?”

“Any.”

“I guess I’d like to be going back in a beautiful dress. And a nice car. And I’d like to have a man on my arm.”

“A boyfriend?”

“A husband would be ideal. Or fiancé.”

I nodded. “So let’s do that then.”

“What?”

I grinned and leaned back in my seat, clasping my hands behind my head.

The girl sitting in the chair behind me was forced forward.

I heard her friends muttering under their breath but ignored them.

“Let’s go to your reunion together. As a newly engaged couple.

Consider it my way to make it up to you for overlooking you in high school. ”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

This girl was a storm of her own chaos. Why the hell did I like it so much?

“I know I don’t. And I’m not doing this as a charity case.” I let my arms fall and folded them across my chest. “Come on. What do you say? If a fiancé gives you the confidence to march into your reunion and show those bozos who you are now, you should go for it.”

Vanny watched me like I was holding a loaded gun. A storm of chaos with trust issues, it seemed. What could I say to convince her? How could I change her mind?

She gnawed at her bottom lip. “Can I think about it?”

“Sure thing.

“There would have to be some conditions.”

“Naturally.”

“One of which being Chris.”

“What about him?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t keep this from him.”

I shrugged. “From where I’m sitting, there’s nothing to keep from him.

We’re playing make-believe, aren’t we?” Was that manipulative?

Maybe a little. But I knew her brother would put an end to this thing before I had a real chance to get to know her, and I was so close, I could almost taste those damn jalapenos on her tongue.

She made an uneasy sound in the back of her throat that made my cock ache furiously. Then she nodded. “Okay. This might work. We’d have to get to know each other if anyone is going to believe we’re engaged.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Yes. We’ll have to spend more time together. Do you think you can handle that?”

Handle it? The sweet girl had no idea what she was getting herself into.

“Baby, I can handle it. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m a lot of woman.”

“I have big hands.”

Her cheeks blazed red and she dropped her gaze bashfully. My fake fiancée had the cutest smile, and everyone in that reunion would believe we were together if I could get her to do what she just did just one time. That was all it would take.

Vanny Hampton was mine.

At least for the next two weeks.

Her phone buzzed and she fished it out of her purse to quickly respond to a message from her friend, Kim. She offered me an apology as her thumbs worked at the keyboard on her phone. “Sorry. Kim is begging me to come back so we can dance together.”

“Let me walk you.”

Vanny agreed to let me walk her back to the club. The bouncer stepped aside to let her in when I nodded at him, and she hovered, waiting for me to follow with an expectant smile. “Are you coming in?”

I slid my hands into my pants pockets. “No, you go ahead. You came out to spend the night with Kim. You and I will touch base later in the week to get to know each other better. I’ll call you.”

Vanny glanced at the front doors and then back to me. I might have been mistaken, but she looked a little torn. “Are you sure?” she asked.

I half turned away. “Positive. I’m not the sort of fiancé who won’t let his woman enjoy a night out with her girls.”

To my delight, she threw her head back and laughed. It was easily the best part of the night, and I flashed her a smile before turning and walking down the sidewalk to my driver, who’d been parked outside since I arrived.

Resisting the urge to look back over my shoulder and see if she was still standing at the door was a nearly impossible feat. But I managed.