The Boss's Fake Fiancee (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

Melissa liked to think she had been through hard times. She had lived through Mark’s infidelity. She had lived through months of waking up each morning and wondering why she should bother getting out of bed. She had suffered the humiliation of people looking at her with pity.

She had never felt like this.

Garth’s hand rested on her hip. They posed for a reporter and cameraman who were working the massive hotel ballroom with its crush of men in tuxedos and women in sparkling gowns. To the press covering the Autism Advocates event, they were the perfect couple. Garth never left her side as they worked the room. She made conversation with people she knew from Solen Labs, and introduced Garth to people she’d connected with through her own work with the advocacy group. Garth talked about ThinkSpeak, and his plans to revolutionize the treatment for children with severe autism. People asked them, “When’s the wedding?” and “Tell us how you two met again?” And of course everyone said, “You look so happy.”

Meanwhile, Melissa felt as if she were hovering a few feet above her body, avoiding the pain only by removing herself from it. She could no more feel that hand on her hip and know this was the last time she’d feel it, than she could look Garth in the eyes and hear him say again, “It’s not worth it.”

She’d screwed up again. This time, she’d seen it coming. Falling for Garth had been a disaster she’d warned herself against from day one. The loss should have been easier to bear this time. But it wasn’t. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

She distracted herself by thinking about her next steps. She’d have to tell her family. The press would find out. Maybe the best thing would be to keep things quiet for a little while as she looked for a new job.

Melissa stumbled as the thought of leaving Solen Labs caught her with unexpected force. Garth caught her under her arm and she had to stifle a sob.

Don’t think, don’t look at him, don’t let him know how much this hurts.

The words became her mantra. She smiled and shook hands. She laughed and stepped out onto the dance floor as if she’d been born to this life. But she couldn’t meet his eyes. Not yet.

They danced for an hour. Melissa’s head began to pound with the force of her unspent tears. Finally, she pulled him off the floor. “How much longer would you like to stay?” she asked stiffly.

“We can go now,” Garth replied. She noticed he had been no more able to meet her eyes than she had his. “I’ve seen everyone I need to see.”

She nodded. Her hold on her composure was razor thin, and as soon as she got home, she would dissolve. If she could only make it that far.

“Melissa?”

She spun around at the familiar voice. “Deanna?” It was indeed her old friend—or rather, ex-friend. She wore her hair in a tall up-do, and her curvy body was on full display in a tight silver dress. Mark followed a few feet behind. “And Mark.” She paused, wondering just how much more the universe would choose to pile on her tonight. She waited for the anger and hurt to come, but all she felt when she looked at Mark’s carefully trimmed hair and manicured hands was a deep, resounding emptiness. She had no energy left to waste on Mark and Deanna. Not tonight. Not anymore. “How, er,
lovely
to see you both.”

Mark looked wary, probably remembering the last time they’d seen each other. “Melissa.” He nodded to Garth and extended a hand. “It’s been a while. Congratulations on catching her. You’re a lucky man.”

Garth looked at Mark’s hand as though it were something vile. “Yes, I am.” He looped his arm tighter around Melissa’s waist. “And you’re an ass.”

Mark’s mouth fell open. Deanna sucked in a sharp breath. “Well, I…” She turned to him and snarled, “I told you they wouldn’t want to talk to us, you idiot.”

He ignored her. “Look, surely we can let bygones be bygones.” A note of desperation entered his voice. “It’s a small community, you know. Maybe we can find a way to work together in the future.”

Garth pursed his lips in distaste. “I would sooner work with a hyena. Everyone knows you’re a few steps from bankruptcy, Venshiner. And you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.” Before waiting for a reply, Garth spun Melissa around and headed for the exit. They went only a few feet before he turned back around. “For the record, if you ever talk to her, touch her, or contact her again, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

Melissa thought she heard the click of a camera and remembered, in a dizzy, vague corner of her brain, that the press were everywhere tonight. She could see the picture on tomorrow’s
New York Star Herald
: “Billionaire Solen Slams Failing Entrepreneur Mark Venshiner.”

And for the first time that night she didn’t have to fake her smile.

Chapter Twenty-three

“So I’m not recommending any marathons, but I certainly think getting out and walking a little bit every day is a good idea.” Dr. Caldy fixed Nan with a firm look. “As long as you’re careful. Take it easy and give yourself time to build back your strength.” He had come to the house for Nan’s final check, and now sat beside her bed, leaving Garth to pace in the background. “Just because you’ve kicked the pneumonia doesn’t mean you don’t have a long way to go to get your strength back.”

With each word, Garth felt his heart tear in two opposite directions. Of course, on one hand he was relieved to know Nan was doing well—as well as she could, given her heart and age. But on the other, he couldn’t ignore the obvious consequence of the doctor’s proclamation.

The pneumonia was gone. He’d have to tell her about Melissa.

Natalie Orelian had signed the investment agreement on Thursday. She said she’d enjoyed seeing him at the auction with Melissa. He’d been eternally grateful for Melissa’s presence, as she’d stayed close by his side all night, smoothing over his usual social deep freeze with her wit and beauty. But every second had been an agony, as he wondered if she could possible have been as calm and unconcerned as she looked. He’d almost punched Mark Venshiner right in the middle of his smarmy face, loosing all his pent-up frustration and disappointment on the horrible little man, but had decided Venshiner’s bankruptcy and professional collapse would be its own punishment.

“If you start getting short of breath,” Dr. Caldy continued, “or having any kind of chest pain, you need to sit down, take it easy, and call me if it persists. Understand?”

Nan smiled, her eyes crinkling with pleasure. “No aerobics?”

“Maybe in a few weeks.”

“I suppose I can handle that.”

The doctor left a few minutes later, with a handshake to Garth and a peck on Nan’s cheek. He’d been treating her for many years and had become a friend. Garth wouldn’t have trusted his recommendation otherwise.

After he’d left, Nan pushed herself to standing. Garth took a step toward her, hand out, but she waved him away. “You heard Dr. Caldy. I get to walk every day. On my own.”

“He said you could walk. He never said on your own.” Garth grabbed the soft fleece robe that lay on the dresser a few feet away and handed it to her. “I expect you to take me, Nurse Margaret, or Jess out for these daily walks, you know. The last thing we need is for you to take a fall.”

“Pish.” Nan snorted. “I’m as steady as a rock.”

Still, she placed her hand on his forearm as she began to shuffle toward the patio door. She might have been out of the woods, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t as fragile as a newborn child. All three dogs followed, tearing out ahead when Garth opened the door, and then circling back around to stay close by Nan’s feet. At a slow pace, they walked from the bedroom to the veranda overlooking the backyard garden.

Nan sat down on a gliding rocker and arranged her robe over her knees. She coughed lightly as she patted the seat beside her. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s been bothering you.”

Garth flashed her a look of surprise. “What do you mean?”

Nan chuckled. “I’ve known you all your life. Do you really think you can hide it from me when you have something you need to say?”

He sank down into the chair. It was time to tell her. But how?

The events of the last few weeks buzzed through his mind. The article. Nan, assuming it was true. The pact with Melissa. The ring. The kiss…

Waking up during the night at Seesaw, and finding her in his arms. Melissa laughing as they walked on the beach. The night of the auction, when she’d been so regal and proud, so beautiful he could hardly bear to look at her.

Her voice, saying, “I love you...”

Nan’s soft voice penetrated his reverie. “Why hasn’t Melissa been by this week? I called her twice. She said she’s been busy at work.”

“I suppose that explains it,” Garth said hollowly. He wished he could tear his brain out of his head so the memories would stop bombarding him, but they just started coming faster than ever.
Melissa in her office, feet on top of her desk, sipping her coffee as they talked. Melissa in his bed, her skin yielding gently under his fingers, her body opening like a flower.

Melissa, telling him she was ready to say good-bye.

“I’m not coming back to work. I’ll finish up my projects from home,” she’d said the night of the auction, when he dropped her back at her house. “You can email me after Nan meets with the doctor. I’ll find a new job on my own. I don’t want to see you again.”

She hadn’t shed a single tear. Just raised her chin and stared straight into his eyes.

I don’t want to see you again.

That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For this to end smoothly? Simply?

Then why did he want so desperately to do nothing less than turn around and beg her to stay? He’d had to use every ounce of self-control to keep himself from grabbing her and holding her tight. The voice in his head kept saying over and over again that it was for the best, that neither of them needed the pain, but somehow he hadn’t managed to avoid the pain after all. Because waking up every morning without her was its own special hell. And instead of getting better, every day it seemed to be getting worse.

“But wouldn’t you know if she’s busy at work?” Nan asked. “Aren’t you the boss?”

Garth shook his head. He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I haven’t been Melissa’s boss for a long time.”

“What’s really going on?” Nan asked gently.

Han Solo stood up on his haunches, scratching Garth’s knee in an obvious request for attention. Without thinking, Garth picked up the little dog and put it in his lap. “I don’t quite know how to say this,” he hedged.

That much, at least, was true. He had absolutely no idea how to tell Nan he’d perpetuated the biggest lie of all time.

“Something’s gone wrong?”

He nodded.

“Something bad?”

He nodded again. Something caught his throat in a tight grasp, and speaking was suddenly out of the question. He tried clearing his throat but no sound emerged. The thing that had him in its grasp was squeezing now, and the pressure was doing the oddest thing: the backs of his eyes were starting to tingle and burn.

He rubbed a hand over his face, struggling for calm.

“That’s what love does to you,” Nan said after a moment. “Turns your world upside down and backward.”

Garth shook his head. How could he explain to her that wasn’t it? This wasn’t about love. This was about regret and frustration. And sure, a little bit of sentiment. Even he wasn’t immune to that. But love?

He took a deep breath. “Nan…you see…” The words slipped away like minnows, darting though his lips. Meanwhile, the deep strumming of his heart made it feel like the overstressed organ might burst in his chest.

“Melissa and I…I don’t think we are going to…she and I…”

“Oh no. Stop right there,” Nan interrupted as he trailed off again. “You’ve got to go after her. That’s the only thing for it. You’ll mess up from time to time, Garth. Every man does. That’s when you pick yourself up by your bootstraps and say you’re sorry.”

He froze. “No, Nan, that’s not it. I mean, yes, I did mess up, but not the way you mean.”

She continued, unconcerned by his obvious discomfort. “Garth, I’m not sure you ever appreciated just how alike you and your grandfather were. But sometimes I look at you and it’s like I’m looking at an old movie of him.”

“Really?”

She smiled. “Really. Like now. You can’t imagine how much he struggled to tell me he loved me. Or how close he came to walking away, because he was scared of what might happen if I ever left him.”

“Nan, I can’t do it.” He discarded any hope of trying to tell Nan the truth, and blew out a shaky breath. He’d never mastered a conversation with her in the past, and he certainly wasn’t going to start now. “I can’t.”

She fixed him with a steely eye. “Nonsense. You wake up every morning and imagine her with you, don’t you?”

Garth closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

“At the end of the day, you want to tell her everything that happens. You know it won’t mean anything until you share it with her.”

He thought about ThinkSpeak, and the plans they’d made that week, and how he longed to tell Melissa about them, and find out if she thought they were moving too fast or too slow.

I don’t want to see you again…

“Yes.”

“The thought of loving her is terrifying you because you know how badly it will hurt if you lose her.”

He brushed a hand across his eyes, not even bothering to nod, because she was right and she knew it. They both knew it.

Even though he’d only been five years old, he still remembered the pain of waking up and expecting to see his parents, and remembering anew each morning that they were gone. That they were never coming back. And now he couldn’t help but think, what if he let himself love her, and then Melissa left him, too? What if she changed her mind or moved on? What if something happened to her like it had to them?

“You learned about pain too early,” Nan said, breaking into his thoughts. “It wasn’t right for a child to stare in the face of death and try to make sense of it. Shutting things out worked for a while—I understand that. You have challenges some people don’t—and gifts they don’t, either. Now you’ve got a chance for something more. Love changes your life, Garth. It brings terror and joy all in the same breath. And if you think loving Melissa is frightening, just wait until you have a child.”

He jerked in his seat. A child?

“But that doesn’t mean you run away. Your capacity to love is going to grow and grow until you think you can’t love any more—and then you’ll love a little bit more.” Nan continued her relentless assault, her words etching themselves across his mind even as his stupid, traitorous imagination painted a picture of Melissa, holding their child in her arms. “Everyday, you’ll look at the love you’ve been given and know you’ve been blessed. And you’ll hold it even tighter because you know you could lose it.”

As she had lost her daughter…

“How did you keep going?” Garth asked, his voice a strangled whisper.

Nan reached over to squeeze his hand. “I had you.”

The last bit of resistance melted away. If Nan could keep going in the face of such pain, how could he be too scared to even try? Garth slumped in his chair. “It’s too late.”

“Nonsense,” Nan said crisply. “I don’t know what you did to Melissa, but it’s plain you messed up and you’re going to make it right. It’s going to be hard and scary but you’re going to do it. Because the risk of losing her isn’t worth the pain of knowing you didn’t even try to hold on to her.”

He paused, considering her words, knowing they were true. A single conclusion rang in his mind, excruciating in its simplicity.

He would have to win her back.

It wouldn’t be easy. He hurt her and made her think she wasn’t worth it. But she was, and every fiber of his being knew it was true. Now, he’d have to make sure she knew it, too.