Marriage Made on Paper (5 page)

She let out a low growl of frustration and tossed off her covers before stalking over to her computer. If she wasn’t going to get sleep, she would get work done.

She opened up her email account and clicked open the message that she knew contained her search engine alerts on Forrestation Inc. and Gage Forrester. It was important for her to keep tabs on what was being said about him so she could release a statement if necessary.

She scanned the message and her stomach dropped. She bit out a curse and picked up her phone, speed dialing Gage’s number, not caring that it was three in the morning.

“Gage, we have a very serious problem.”

“T
HIS
is garbage.” Gage threw the printed papers back down on his desk, his muscles tense, his entire body wound up and ready to attack at any moment.

Hearing Maddy’s voice, thick with tears on the other end of the phone a few moments before, had made him feel capable of very serious violence against the person responsible for spreading such venomous rumors.

It made him feel physically ill, seeing the article written with such foul accusations. Accusations directed at Madeline. She was doing well now, had graduated from college, was finally coming out of her shell and putting their neglectful childhood being her. She’d been such a quiet little girl, as if she was afraid to step out of line. Afraid he might abandon her, too. But she’d grown so much in the past few years, and now this threatened to destroy everything Maddy had battled so hard for.

“I agree,” Lily said. “It’s not news, and it’s a shame we live in a culture that thinks it is. But the simple fact is that we do, and this story is going to be in every print and digital publication this morning, from respected newspaper to scandal rag.”

“She doesn’t need this. She’s been through enough. She just graduated. It’s hard enough finding a job, and
she won’t let me help her. Add this, and no one will hire her.”

Lily sucked in a sharp breath and tugged on her suit jacket. “I know, Gage. Trust me. I’m fully aware of how hard it is to be a woman in the corporate world, and a …” She looked at him, her expression filled with distaste. “Sorry, but a sex scandal is hard to move past. For the woman, at least.”

“She wasn’t involved with him,” Gage growled, skimming the article on the top of the stack again. “She swears she wasn’t. She says he was her boss, she was doing an unpaid internship, and he came on to her. She refused to sleep with him, and now, now that his wife is leaving him because he’s a lecherous old jackass, he’s blaming Maddy to try and make her look like she was some kind of predatory female out to destroy their marriage, out to take him down and ruin his life.”

“Regardless of whether she had a relationship with him or not …”

Gage’s heart thundered harder, rage pounding through him. “She didn’t.”

Lily put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, you know your sister better than I do, if you say she didn’t, she didn’t. But now that it’s out like this … there’s very little we can do to fight it. It’s going to be everywhere. Even if she were to come back with her own version of the story, which I think she should do in the future no matter what, this is going to hit like an explosion. William Callahan is so high-profile … and his wife—soon to be ex-wife—is more famous than he is.”

Gage was familiar with the man’s trophy wife. She’d come on to him at several industry parties, and, despite the fact that she was a world-famous model whose looks
had, literally, been memorialized in song, he’d never even been tempted. He didn’t poach other men’s wives. He didn’t need to. But she was definitely open to playing around behind her husband’s back, and clearly Mr. Callahan was no better. And they were trying to drag his sister into their sordid lives.

“Infamous is more like it,” he bit out. “I’ll ruin him for this.”

“I don’t blame you, Gage, I don’t, but before you engage in serious ruination, we need to figure out how we’re going to handle the media firestorm Madeline is about to get hit by.”

Lily had met Maddy on a few occasions. She was a pretty brunette, petite and fine-boned, delicate and small, none of the height Gage had inherited passed down to her. She looked young, and in some ways seemed younger. It was obvious that Gage doted on her, and that, despite that, Madeline made an effort to be independent, which Lily completely respected.

She also understood the kind of dilemma she found herself in. It was hard for a woman to be taken seriously in business. It was hard to find the right balance. Dress up too much, men make assumptions about what you’re there for … not enough and you would get torn apart by the other women.

“We can create our own distraction.”

Lily narrowed her eyes. “No. I don’t know what you’re thinking, I just know it’s probably going to create a big cleanup for me.”

He shook his head. “It won’t. But it will take the focus off of Maddy. If we can bury this story with one of our own, it will at least soften the blow.”

“You have a valid point, but I seriously doubt you’re
going to magically stumble upon something that overshadows a scandal of this magnitude.”

“I thought I might announce my impending marriage.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Marriage? You aren’t getting married.”

“No. But don’t you think it would make a nice headline?”

She let out a completely undignified, involuntary snort. “No one would believe it.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. You’re not exactly the marrying kind.”

“And why is that?”

“Marriage requires monogamy,” she said. At least it was supposed to require monogamy. She’d witnessed all the drama that came when people strayed. Her mother had thrived on the drama, the jealousy.

“I don’t cheat on women. If I’m attracted to someone else, I end the relationship I’m in. I see no point in pretending to want one woman if I want another.”

“You seem to change the woman you want with alarming frequency.”

“And that’s why it would be such a big story if I were preparing to get married. I’ve dated enough actresses and models to have serious headline appeal with the tabloids.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll give you that. But where are you going to find a woman who won’t want to marry you for real? One who will keep her mouth shut about the arrangement.”

She looked back at Gage—his blue eyes were trained on her and a slow smile spread over his handsome face.

“Lily.”

She didn’t like the way he said her name, with intent, his low voice rolling over it, making it sound like a verbal caress. And it made her stomach tighten and her breasts feel heavy. Like last night. Like when he’d held her in his arms.

“I want you to marry me.”

She could only stare at him. Words were failing her, which was virtually unheard-of. She always knew what to say. She always knew how to respond in every situation, quickly and efficiently, cutting if necessary. She was never speechless. Except she was now.

She opened her mouth, then shut it again, trying desperately to think of some kind of sharp, witty response. Instead she settled for simple. “Not really, though.”

A short chuckle escaped his lips. “No. Not really. I just want you to be my fiancée.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No! Absolutely not.”

“How much do you value your job, Lily?”

She locked her teeth together. “It’s everything to me. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am.”

“It would be a shame to have any of your hard work compromised, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” she bit out.

“I don’t want Madeline’s hard work compromised because she got tossed to the wolves. I don’t want her to lose all of the progress she’s made, all of the confidence she’s managed to gain.”

The threat, though he didn’t state it explicitly, was certainly implied. If she wanted to keep her job, she had to play by his rules.

“And it has to be you,” he continued. “You and I were seen together at the gala last night, and we were definitely breaching the boundaries of professionalism.”

“We were well within normal boundaries of a boss
and employee attending an event together,” she said, even as images of him holding her close flashed through her mind.

He raised his eyebrows. “Really? What else do you consider within normal employer-employee boundaries? Gotten engaged to any of your other bosses?”

“I haven’t even agreed to get engaged to this one,” she said through clenched teeth.

On a personal level, she was horrified by the idea. She didn’t want to spend more time with Gage. She didn’t want to pretend to be his adoring fiancée. But if she pushed that aside and looked at it objectively, she knew that this was the best way to throw the spotlight off of Madeline without completely compromising Gage’s public image.

“You’re right,” she said finally. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“This will be simple for you, Lily. You’re the consummate professional.”

“If you think I’m going to fall for that, you’re sadly delusional.”

“What is that?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, showing off his wonderful arm muscles. He knew.

“You’re turning on the Forrester charm. It doesn’t work on me,” she said, even as her stomach tightened a little bit.

“All right, then forget the charm. We don’t have another choice. If I go down, you go down with me. We have to fix this. If you walk away, it only gets worse for you. No one will hire you if they find out you left a client in the lurch when a massive scandal was breaking that related to his family. If you help successfully diffuse this, though …”

“I know.” She would most likely be sworn to secrecy about the fine details, but she imagined she would earn herself an extremely glowing reference. And the best record for a PR specialist was, without a doubt, a smooth history with the press. More than a hint of scandal and her career was in serious danger. “Fine. Yes.”

“Excellent.” Gage picked up his mobile phone and punched in a number. “Dave? I need an engagement ring. I don’t know.” He looked at her. “What size ring do you wear?”

“A six.”

“Six.” He paused. “It doesn’t matter. Make sure it’s noticeable.” He snapped the phone shut.

“Did you just call poor David at five in the morning to have him buy me a ring?”

“You already know the answer, why did you even ask?”

Annoyance rolled in her stomach, along with nerves that refused to be calmed. She flexed her fingers, imagining the weight of a ring there. His ring. It made everything in her feel jittery. It was such a symbol of ownership. Like he was marking her as his. Which was silly because they weren’t in a real relationship and they were never going to be. But everything about marriage and relationships severely unnerved her, and it was hard to shake the anxiety that was coursing through her.

“I was just incredulous,” she snapped.

“So, what’s the story?”

Right. Work. This she could do. Create a press release, get the right spin. She was good at this. She grabbed her notebook of the desk. “We’ve been working together for a while. We’ve grown closer, friendship, then, well … more. And then you proposed last night
after the gala, which is why I didn’t have a ring yet. Because that detail would have been noticed.”

“Good. Take care of it. The ring will be in your office in less than an hour then you can make the announcement.”

She could tell by the way he was sitting, looking at her, that she was dismissed. “As proposals go,” she said, unable to resist, “that one ranks right up there with a ring in the food.”

“I thought women liked that,” he said, his slightly amused.

“No. It gets the ring messy and if you don’t find it you might break a tooth.”

“I’ll keep that in mind should I ever stage a real proposal.”

“Do you actually plan on doing that?” she asked, not able to picture it.

“I don’t plan to, no.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“What about you? You’re impervious to wedding bells, so you say, but do you have a boyfriend you’re going to have to explain this to?”

“No. And even if I did, I told you when you hired me, work comes first. I was serious.”

“You would ditch your boyfriend to further your career?”

“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same to any of your past lovers.”

“Of course I would. But most women don’t see things that way.”

“I’ll ignore the most comment for now and just say, then maybe some women don’t have a problem with someone else having so much control over their life, but I do. My career is important to me. It comes first.
If I was with someone, he would have to understand that.”

“No man is going to understand you playing fiancée to someone else.”

“Then I guess there isn’t a right man for me,” she said, smiling tightly. “Not in a permanent sense anyway.” She couldn’t resist adding it, because the last thing she wanted was to betray the fact that she didn’t do relationships of any sort, at all, full stop, ever. And why should it matter if Gage knew? She didn’t usually worry about it at all. In fact, she was extremely secure in her antirelationship status.

“I don’t see there being a right woman for me in that way, either. Which, ironically, makes us perfectly compatible.”

A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. “I suppose, ironically, that’s very true.”

“Now go, prepare a statement. We’ll make a formal announcement this morning. Start calling media outlets and let them know we have a story. The more of them we can distract the better.”

She nodded once. She could do this. It was her job. That was all. It was only business, nothing more, there was no reason why it would feel like anything else.

She clenched her hands into fists, trying not to imagine what the weight of the ring would feel like, then turned and went back to her office.

The frenetic energy of a press conference was usually something Lily thrived on. She loved everything about them. The noise, the chaos, the low hum of excitement that pulsed through the crowd. She was never nervous. She always knew just what she was going to say, or what her client was going to say.

But this morning, she felt as if she was going to throw up.