Otherwise Engaged (12 page)

“You’re talking about spending tens of thousands of dollars!”

“So?”

“So? That’s insane!”

“No, it’s not. Molly, in ten years it’ll be too late. Let me buy the CDs for him now.
Please.”

“Can you imagine the field day those newsmagazines will have when they find out you bought a twenty-thousand-dollar gift for my son?” Molly asked. “Pres, I can’t let you do it.”

His jaw tightened. “Screw the newsmagazines. Let ’em say what they want. Let ’em think we’re getting married. I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to say ‘no comment’ until they go away.”

“That’s easy for
you
. You didn’t just spend the entire afternoon on the phone with the elementary-school principal trying to figure out what to do if these damned reporters follow Zander to school on Monday.”

Pres froze. “Mother of God. I never thought of that. I’ll … I’ll go to school with him.”

“Oh, that will really help him fit right in.” Molly rolled her eyes in disgust. “Maybe all the kids will bring along their mothers’ billionaire lovers.”

“I’m not your lover. Although, believe me, I’d like to—”

“You, me, and Zander are the only three people in the world who know that you’re not. The other forty-seven trillion—”

“Can think what they want. And I think you’re wrong. I think a lot of people believed me when I said we weren’t engaged or even involved.” Pres smiled ruefully. “And they’re all single and female and staying up at the resort.”

Molly was temporarily distracted. “Really?”

He nodded. “There’s been an incredible run on rooms.”

“Poor baby,” she said, snorting. “Must be tough with all those gorgeous, available women walking around the lobby in thong bikinis …”

“I hid in my office all afternoon. Now, if it had been you walking around the resort lobby in a
thong bikini,” he continued, “I would’ve come out of hiding.”

“Me in a thong bikini?” Molly laughed. “Dream on, Seaholm.”

“I will,” he murmured. “I have been.”

Molly felt her cheeks heat with a blush and she turned away. Pres must’ve realized he’d gone too far, because he brought the conversation back to safer ground.

“Well, what did Zander’s principal suggest? What are we going to do to keep the media away from the school?” he asked.

We. Molly tried not to like the sound of that word too much. “I don’t know. We have the weekend to come up with some kind of plan.”

“Or to defuse the situation.” Pres shook his head. “Molly, I truly feel awful about getting you and Zander involved in this.”

“Maybe …” Molly said.

“What?”

She nervously chewed on the end of her hair. “This might be a really stupid idea, and I can’t even believe I’m saying this out loud, but … Maybe we should just pretend that we’re engaged.”

Pres had to turn away. Pretend they were engaged. Oh, my God.

“You know,” she continued with a crooked smile, uncertain as to his response. “Appear together in public. Let the press take lots of pictures of us together. Kill the mystique and intrigue and …” She watched him uncertainly. “Bad idea?”

For Pres and Molly to appear together in public as an engaged, loving couple was so utterly
not
a bad idea. Pres could barely contain himself, imagining the possibilities. Whether or not it would work to defuse the situation was a different story.

He kept his voice matter-of-fact, even managing to sound a little skeptical. “Maybe it’s worth a try.” Yes, yes, yes,
yes
, it was
definitely
worth a try.

“Do you think?”

Molly was looking at him with her blue eyes wide and hopeful. She was doing this for Zander, he realized. For Zander’s sake, she would appear with Pres in public. She would share romantic, candlelit dinners, she would walk hand in hand
with him on the beach, she would probably even kiss him.

God, he hoped so.

And then something flickered in Molly’s eyes. Something tiny and nearly unnoticeable that made him wonder if just maybe a part of her was doing this because she wanted to.

Last night she’d told him that she wanted to kiss him, but she didn’t want to kiss him.

This would take all decision making out of her hands. She would
have
to kiss him. For Zander’s sake.

Pres didn’t care what her reasons were. He just wanted her in his arms again.

“Let’s try it,” he said.

“Let me see if I got this straight. You want me to spend my Saturday night
babysitting,”
Dom said. “The resort is filled with more excruciatingly beautiful women than it ever has been before, and you want me to spend the evening having burgers and root beer and playing video games in the arcade with a ten-year-old kid.”

“Yes,” Pres said. “Please?”

Dom crossed the plush carpeting of Pres’s private suite and sat down on the sofa, watching through the door as Pres slipped on his jacket and adjusted his tie in the bedroom mirror. He raised his voice to be heard in the other room. “Just promise me that the kid’s not a brat.”

“The kid’s not a brat. I swear. He’s the sweetest kid I’ve ever met. You’re gonna love him.”

“Let’s not go that far. I’ll endure him. Because I know how badly you want this.” Dom untied his bow tie with a single accomplished pull and unfastened the top few buttons of his shirt. “Hey—are you sure this isn’t illegal? Me distracting the kid while you try to seduce the mother?”

Pres came out of the bedroom. “It’s called babysitting, Dom. It’s legal. And my goal tonight isn’t to seduce Molly.” He paused. “At least not exactly.”

“Oh, good, then you’ll be back before eleven?”

Pres ignored his friend. “I’ve booked them a room. Suite 314.”

“Oh, so it
is
going to be a slumber party. …”

“Molly’ll tell you what time Zander should be in bed. Until then, knock yourself out. Let him order room service, whatever he wants. …”

“What if it’s pizza and beer?”

“Whatever he wants within reason.”

“I know,” Dom said, a grin lighting his craggy face. “I’m just jerking you around.”

Pres gave himself one last look in the foyer mirror. He’d suffered long over what to wear to this dinner date with Molly. He didn’t want to wear a suit and be too formal. But shorts and a polo shirt were definitely not enough. He’d finally settled on a softly faded pair of stonewashed blue jeans, a crisp white shirt, lightweight sport jacket, and low-key tie. “How do I look?”

“Like the most eligible bachelor of the year,” Dom told him. “Hearts are going to break tonight, my friend.”

Pres nodded. “Keep your fingers crossed that mine’s not one of them.”

The elevator door was going to open in a matter of seconds. In a matter of seconds Molly and Preston were going to walk out of that elevator and into the resort lobby, where a dozen or more photographers were waiting to snap their picture.

“It’ll be still photographers only,” Pres
reminded her, giving her a reassuring smile. “No TV cameras, no questions. Just smile and … look like you like me.”

Molly lunged forward and pulled the elevator stop button. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

Lord, she was so nervous, she was nearly hyperventilating. Pres, on the other hand, looked so calm and cool. And gorgeous. The elevator light glinted off his golden hair, bringing out the hint of red. His eyes were a perfect mix of brown and green.

“It’s not too late to back out,” he said quietly.

“Yes, it is.” Molly took a deep breath and looked at her reflection in the mirrored walls.

She looked … okay. Not half as good as Preston, but not as awful as she’d thought she’d look while she was pawing through her closet, searching desperately for something to wear. She’d finally found this blue sundress. It was simple, with a basic sleeveless bodice and a long, graceful skirt. With her hair up off her neck, she thought she looked vaguely elegant.

“We’ll go out there,” Pres told her, “stand for a moment while they take our picture, and then we’ll go into the dining room. We’ll order drinks
and appetizers, and then we’ll get up to dance. We don’t have to do it for long—just long enough to let the photographers get more pictures. Our dinner order will take priority over everything else coming out of the kitchen tonight, so we’ll get our food quickly. We’ll eat as much or as little of it as you like, and then we’ll leave.” He smiled at her. “Okay?”

Molly had to smile back at him. “I feel like I’ve just been briefed to go fight a crucial battle in a war. Are you sure we shouldn’t synchronize watches?”

“You’re not wearing a watch.”

“Good point.”

“This is going to be okay,” Pres said.

Molly nodded and reached for the button to restart the elevator. But she didn’t press it in. She pulled her hand away and turned to face him again.

“One more thing I’m a little nervous about that you didn’t touch on in your briefing …”

Pres nodded. “Yes, I’m going to kiss you again.”

“When? I mean, not to sound as if I need to know
exactly
when, but … If I did know exactly
when, it might help me be a little bit less nervous and—”

“When we’re dancing.”

“Ah.”

“And maybe when we’re not dancing.”

“Well, that just about covers it, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe if I kiss you now, it’ll relax you—”

Molly pushed in the button and the elevator started moving. “No, thanks. I’d like to arrive in the lobby with all my clothes on, please.”

This time Pres leaned forward and pulled the stop button. “I almost forgot. …” He took a small box from his pocket. “We have to make this look official.” He handed the box to Molly.

It was a jeweler’s box, small and hard and covered with the softest black velvet. Molly opened it slowly, afraid to look inside.

It was a ring, just as she’d expected. But not just any ring.

“Good Lord, it’s the Hope Diamond.”

Pres laughed. “No, it’s not.”

It was awful. Molly had never seen such a gaudily decorated ring in her life. “It’s … certainly something, isn’t it?” She glanced up at him.

“It’s a Seaholm family heirloom,” Pres told her.
“My grandmother wore it, and my mother after her.”

It was enormous. It looked like one of those disgusting ring lollipops that Zander liked to eat.

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s much too big,” Molly said, trying hard to be diplomatic. “It’ll catch on everything, and … what if I
lose
it?”

“It’s big enough—it should be easy to find.”

“It’s big enough to use teeing off on the country-club golf course,” Molly told him. “Besides, what if your mother wants it back?”

“She won’t,” Pres said. “She’s not a Seaholm anymore. She remarried a few years ago, after my father died.” He looked down at the ring. “So you
don’t
like it?” He was trying hard not to smile, and Molly suddenly realized as he took another box from his pocket that he had been teasing her. “You were remarkably tactful.” He took the box with the gaudy ring from her hands and replaced it with the other.

“So that
wasn’t
a Seaholm family heirloom?”

“Actually, it was,” he said with a smile. “But I figure as long as I was going to break family tradition by becoming engaged without getting
married, I can ignore the family-heirloom engagement ring too.”

Molly looked at the box in her hands. “I’m afraid to look inside this one.”

Preston reached forward and opened it for her.

It was a sapphire. It was big, but not too big, and it sparkled and gleamed with a blue fire. The setting was simple, with only one small diamond adorning it.

Molly swallowed the lump in her throat. “Oh, wow …”

“I knew you’d like this one.”

She glanced up at him. “What if I’d liked the other one?”

“Then I would have actually had to marry you,” Pres said, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Because where else would I find a woman who honestly likes that ring—”

“There are probably a few hundred of them here at the resort right now.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” he pointed out. “What I was going to say was, where else would I find a woman who likes that ring, and yet still maintains a sense of humor and some degree of
good taste?” He motioned to the sapphire ring. “Try it on.”

Molly took the ring from the box, then realized she still wore her wedding ring on her left hand. She was going to have to take that off.

She’d never taken it off. Ever. But she’d wanted to. After Chuck had died, when she read all those letters he’d written to someone else … Still, she’d kept the ring on. Out of what? A sense of loyalty? Or as a reminder to her of her poor judgment when it came to men and marriage?

She tugged at her ring, but it stuck on her knuckle.

“May I help?” Pres took her hand and eased the ring off. His hands were warm and so gentle. He took the sapphire ring from her, and slid it onto her finger.

It somehow seemed a far too intimate act and Molly gazed up at him, for a moment unable to breathe.

He put her wedding band into the ring box. “I’ll hold this for you,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

He seemed as aware of the intimacy of the moment as she was, and he forced a smile, trying to
break the mood. “I feel like I should get down on my knees and beg you not to marry me.”

“Don’t worry—I would accept. I have no intention of marrying you.”

“Promise?” he asked.

Molly felt her lips curve up into a smile, and they both laughed.

“With all my heart. Do
you
promise?”

“I do. Although I remain hopeful that we can celebrate our engagement with an early version of the honeymoon.”

Molly started the elevator, pulling away from the heat in his eyes. He may have been teasing, but he was also dead serious. “Like I said before, dream on, Seaholm.”

“And like
I
said, I will. I’m a big believer in dream and wish fulfillment.”

The doors slid open.

Molly turned and looked at Pres, her eyes wide. This was it. Time to go. He held out his hand to her, and she grasped his fingers tightly.

Together they stepped out of the elevator.