Page 118 of Tuxedos and Tinsel

She remembered one day, lying together on the beach.‘I would die if I lost you,’she’d said to Anthony.

‘Don’t say that,’he’d said.‘If anything happened to me, I’d want you to find another guy. But why are we talking like this? We’re both going to live until we’re a hundred.’

‘Why not schedule in a question-and-answer session?’ Dominic said.

She pulled her thoughts back to the present. ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Excellent idea, in fact.’

Dominic rolled his eyes in response.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You weren’t serious. I... I was.’

‘No, you’re right. I guess there’s no room for spontaneity in a fake engagement.’ It was a wonder he could get the words out when his tongue was so firmly in his cheek. ‘A question-and-answer session it is. At a time to be determined.’

‘Good idea,’ she said, feeling disconcerted. Was all this just a game to him?

‘Are there any more conditions to come?’ he asked. ‘You’re all out of fingers on one hand, by the way.’

‘There is one more very important condition to come—and may I remind you I do have ten fingers—but first I want to hear if there’s anything you want to add.’

She actually had two more conditions, but the final condition she could not share with him:that she could not fall for him. She couldn’t deal with the fallout in terms of pain if she were foolish enough to let down the guard on her heart.

Andie’s beautiful green eyes had sparkled with good humour in spite of the awkward position he had put her into.Coercedher into. But now her eyes seemed to dim and Dominic wondered if she was being completely honest about being an ‘open book’.

Ironically, he already knew more about Andie, the fake fiancée, than he’d known about Tara when he’d got engaged to her for real. His ex-wife had kept her true nature under wraps until well after she’d got the wedding band on her finger.What you see is what you get.He so wanted to believe that about Andie.

‘My condition? You have to wear a ring,’ he said. ‘I want to get you an engagement ring straight away. Today. Once Tara sees that she’ll know it’s serious. And the press will too. Not to mention a symbol for when we meet with Walter Burton.’

She shrugged. ‘Okay, you get me a ring.’

‘You don’t want to choose it yourself?’ He was taken aback. Tara had been so avaricious about jewellery.

‘No. I would find it...sad. Distressing. The day I choose my engagement ring is the day I get engaged for real. To me, the ring should be a symbol of a true commitment, not a...a prop for a charade. But I agree—I should wear one as a visible sign of commitment.’

‘I’ll organise it then,’ he said. He had no idea why he should be disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm. She was absolutely right—the ring would be a prop. But it would also play a role in keeping it believable. ‘What size ring do you wear?’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ she said. She held up her right hand to show the collection of tiny fine silver rings on her slender fingers. Her nails were painted cream today. ‘I bought these at a market and just tried them on until I found rings that fitted.’ She slid off the ring from the third finger of her right hand. ‘This should do the trick.’ She handed it to him. It was still warm with her body heat and he held it on his palm for a moment before pocketing it.

‘What style of engagement ring would you like?’ he asked.

Again she shrugged. ‘You choose. It’s honestly not important to me.’

A hefty carat solitaire diamond would be appropriate—one that would give her a good resale value when she went to sell it after this was all over.

‘Did you choose your ex-wife’s engagement ring?’ Andie asked.

He scowled at the reminder that he had once got engaged for real.

Andie pulled one of her endearing faces. ‘Sorry. I guess that’s a sensitive issue. I know we’ll come to all that in our question-and-answer session. I’m just curious.’

‘She chose it herself. All I had to do was pay for it.’ That alone should have alerted him to what the marriage was all about—giving her access to his money and the lifestyle it bought.

‘That wasn’t very...romantic,’ Andie said.

‘There was nothing romantic about my marriage. Shall I tell you about it now and get all that out of the way?’

‘If you feel comfortable with it,’ she said.

‘Comfortable is never a word I would relate to that time of my life,’ he said. ‘It was a series of mistakes.’