Czytaj książkę: «The Tycoon's Fiancée Deal»

One

Derek Caruthers was a badass. He knew it and so did everyone else he passed in the halls of Cole’s Hill Regional Medical Center. He was one of the youngest surgeons in the country to have his stellar record and, aside from a few bumps along the way, he deserved his reputation as the best. Today he felt especially pleased with himself as he had been invited to meet with the overall hospital board. He was pretty sure he was going to be named the chief of cardiology as the hospital prepared to open its new cardiac surgery wing.

Mentally high-fiving himself, he entered the boardroom. Most of the members were already there but the new board member wasn’t. The first item of business in today’s meeting was to reveal who had been chosen to oversee the new cardiac wing. Derek had no idea who it would be, but given that Cole’s Hill was a small town, and he’d heard that the new board member had a local connection to Cole’s Hill, Derek was confident it would be someone he knew.

“Derek, good to see you,” Dr. Adam Brickell said, coming over to shake his hand. Dr. Brickell had been Derek’s mentor when he first started and the two men still enjoyed a close bond. The older doctor had retired two years ago and now sat on the board at the medical center. He had been the one to put Derek’s name forward for chief.

“Dr. Brickell, always a pleasure,” Derek said. “I’m really looking forward to this meeting. Something I usually don’t say.”

“Keep that enthusiasm, but there might be a wrinkle. What if the new board member has her own ideas about the cardiology department?” Dr. Brickell said.

“Her? I’ve yet to meet a woman I couldn’t bring around to my way of thinking,” Derek said. He didn’t want Dr. Brickell to see any signs of nerves or doubt in Derek. Whoever this new board member was, Derek would win them over.

Dr. Brickell laughed and clapped him on the back. “Glad to hear it.”

Derek’s phone rang and Dr. Brickell stepped away to allow him to check his call. Given that he was a surgeon he never ignored his calls.

He noticed that it was from his friend Bianca. She and he had been besties for most of their lives. It had gotten a bit awkward on his side when he’d developed the hots for her in high school but all of that had ended when she’d moved to Paris to model, fallen in love with a champion racecar driver and married him.

But for Bianca, the fairy-tale romance and marriage had been short-lived; after only three years together, her husband had been killed in a plane crash, leaving her to raise a two-year-old son alone.

Well, because of that, Derek had once again made being Bianca’s friend a top priority.

She’d been sort of fragile since she’d moved back to Cole’s Hill. He knew it was the pressure her mom was putting on her to find a husband so that Bianca and her son wouldn’t be “on their own.”

He glanced around the room and caught Dr. Brickell’s eye, gesturing that he needed to take the call. Dr. Brickell nodded and Derek stepped out into the hallway for privacy.

“Bi, what’s up?”

“I’m so glad you’re here. Did I catch you before the hospital meeting?” she asked.

“Yes. What’s up?” he asked again.

“Mom has another man lined up for me to go out with tonight. Is there the slightest possibility you’re free?” she asked.

No, and even if he were, he wasn’t going to go there. They were friends by her design and probably for his sanity, he wasn’t about to rock the boat by dating her. He would cancel for her but this was Wednesday and everyone in the Five Families area where they both lived knew that the Caruthers brothers had dinner at the club and then played pool on Wednesday nights. “It’s pool night with my brothers and your mom will know that.”

“Damn. Okay, it was worth a shot.”

“It definitely was. I’m sorry. Who is it tonight?”

“A coworker from the network. He’s a producer or something,” Bianca said.

Bianca’s mom was a morning news anchor for their local TV station. She’d been busily setting Bianca up on dates since she’d moved back to Cole’s Hill.

“Sounds...interesting,” Derek said.

“As if. Mom has no idea what I want in a man,” Bianca said.

And that was a can of worms Derek had no intention of opening right now. “I’ve got to go. The board is almost all here.”

“No problem. Good luck today. They’d be foolish not to pick you.”

“They would be,” Derek agreed. “Later, Bi.”

“Later.”

He disconnected the call and put his phone back in his pocket. He adjusted his tie as he looked down the hall for a mirror to check it and heard the staccato sound of high heels. He glanced over his shoulder, a smile ready, and his jaw dropped.

The woman walking toward him was Marnie Masters. Damn. She gave him a very calculated look from under her perfect eyebrows. Her blond hair was artfully styled around her somewhat angular face and teased to just the right height. She moved the way he imagined a lioness would when she sighted her prey and he didn’t kid himself that he was anything other than the prey.

“Marnie, always a pleasure to see you,” he said, though he’d been dodging her calls, texts and party invitations for the last eighteen months. So calling it a pleasure was a bit of a stretch.

“I would believe that if I didn’t have to resort to taking this role on the board and leaving my practice in Houston in order to ‘run into’ you,” she retorted.

“You’re back in Cole’s Hill?” he said, shaken. He knew he needed to get his groove back and put on the charm.

“Well, it’s the new me. Daddy donated the money for this new cardiac surgery wing—at my suggestion—and the board agreed to his suggestion that I be hired to oversee the new wing. I just finished doing something similar in Houston and Daddy really wanted me to come home... So it seems as if you and I will be working together for the foreseeable future,” Marnie said.

“I’m glad to hear the board has hired someone with your qualifications,” he said.

“I imagine we will get to know each other much better now that I’m working here. It will give us a chance to spend more time together and get caught up.”

Derek knew he couldn’t just say hell no. But there was no way he was getting involved with her again. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

“Why? There are no rules against it,” she said, with a wink. “I checked.”

“Of course there aren’t any rules. It’s just that I’m engaged,” Derek said. “I wouldn’t want my fiancée to get the wrong idea.”

* * *

“Engaged?” Ethan Caruthers asked as he and Derek ordered another round of drinks at the Five Families Country Club later that night. “Why would you say something like that?”

“You know Marnie. She wasn’t going to accept a no. So I panicked and...”

“Said something over-the-top. Derek, that’s crazy. I think when it becomes clear you don’t have a fiancée, this could backfire,” his brother said.

Ethan had a point. Already, his lie had added a wrinkle to his prospects for becoming chief of cardiology. Marnie hadn’t been happy to hear about the engagement and had told the board that she was considering a few other applicants. Dr. Brickell had firmly been in Derek’s corner, saying that the decision needed to be made sooner rather than later, but Marnie had stood firm. She’d insisted it would be two months before the final decision would be made and had enough support from other members to win the argument and temporarily table the decision.

The board had adjourned and Derek had gone back to work, doing two surgeries that had wiped the fiancée problem from his mind until he’d shown up here. Ethan was the only one of his brothers waiting when Derek had arrived.

“Tell me about it,” Derek said. “If I could just find a woman...someone who needed a guy for a few months.”

“Would Marnie believe one of your casual friends was your fiancée?” Ethan asked.

“No. I told her it was someone special and that’s why it was under wraps.”

Ethan took another swallow of his scotch and shook his head. “Damn, boy, you always did have a gift for telling whoppers.”

“I know. What am I going to do?”

“About what?” Hunter asked, joining their group. Hunter had recently moved back to Cole’s Hill after spending the better part of ten years playing in the NFL and traveling the country promoting fitness while dodging the scandal of being accused of killing his college girlfriend. Recently the real murderer had been arrested and charged with the crime, which had enabled Hunter to finally break free of the dark cloud of suspicion. He was now engaged and planning the wedding of the century according to their mother and Ferrin, Hunter’s fiancée. Everyone was in wedding fever in Cole’s Hill.

“He needs a fiancée,” Ethan said with a bit of a smirk.

Derek reached over and punched his brother. Of course Ethan would think it was funny. With only eleven months separating the two of them they were “almost twins,” and as Ethan was the older of the two, he had always been a little smug.

“Do I want to know why?” Hunter asked, signaling the waitress for a drink as he sprawled back in his chair.

“Marnie Masters.”

Hunter threw his head back and started laughing. “I thought you broke up with her years ago.”

“It’s been eighteen months,” he said. He had broken up with her two years ago but had given in one night six months later when he’d been in Houston and slept with her again. It had just renewed Marnie’s belief that he wasn’t over her and that they should get back together. He’d been avoiding her ever since.

“So why do you need a fiancée?” Hunter asked.

“Marnie’s the new board member brought in to oversee development of the surgical wing at the hospital. I panicked when I saw her and announced that I was engaged when she suggested we’d have a chance to spend time together.”

“Ah,” Hunter said. “Do you have someone in mind?”

“Not really,” he said, but he knew that wasn’t true. His mind kept pushing one face forward. She had nicely tanned olive skin, thick long black hair and the deepest, darkest brown eyes he’d ever gazed into. She was also not looking for marriage and needed a break from her matchmaking mother. He could provide her cover. But she’d have to be crazy to go along with his idea.

And she wasn’t.

She was a single mom who needed her best friend to be there for her. Not come up with some scheme that would enable him to act out his long-held fantasies of calling Bianca Velasquez his.

Even if it was only for two months, three tops.

Damn.

Just then, Derek noticed her walk into the room with a guy who was a couple of years older than they were. She was smiling politely but he knew her routine. She’d brought him to the club for dinner so that when it was over she could politely bid him adieu and then walk the few blocks back to her parents’ house in a nearby subdivision.

She was elegant. Graceful. The kind of woman whom dashing A-listers fell for. Not the kind of woman who’d agree to a fake engagement.

“Uh-oh,” Ethan said.

“What-o?” Hunter said.

“That has never been funny,” Derek said.

“It’s a little funny,” Ethan pointed out.

“Not tonight,” Derek said.

“I’m still not caught up. Where is Nate?” Hunter asked. Nate was their eldest brother and the last of three of them to arrive. He had recently married the mother of his three-year-old daughter, Penny. Derek liked seeing his eldest brother take on the role of husband and father.

“He’s running late. Something to do with taking Penny on a ride before he could drive into town,” Ethan said. “Being a daddy has changed him.”

“It settled him down,” Hunter said. “You two should try it.”

“I am, sort of,” Derek said. The idea of really settling down and getting married wasn’t appealing. He was married to his job. It took a lot of focus and concentration to be a top surgeon and most women—even Marnie—didn’t really get that. They wanted a man who paid at least as much attention to them as the job.

“What you’re doing doesn’t count,” Hunter said. “Bianca deserves better than a fake proposal.”

“It’s probably as close as I’m going to get,” Derek admitted. He knew that Ethan was hung up on a woman who was married to one of his friends. So that was probably not going to happen, either. “You know we’re the ones who aren’t letting the gossips of Cole’s Hill down. They like to think of us as the Wild Carutherses, which we can’t be if we are all married up.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Ethan said.

Derek toasted his brother and when Nate joined them a few minutes later the conversation thankfully changed from his fake engagement. Derek ate and drank with his brothers and kept one eye on the bar area where Bianca and her date were. He was ready to help her out. Like a friend would. That was all. Hunter had been right: there was no decent woman who wanted a fake fiancé.

* * *

Bianca Velasquez wasn’t having the best year. She’d rung in New Year’s by herself on the balcony of a royal mansion in Seville while Jose was en route to meet her. His plane had crashed and that had been...well, devastating. She’d never had the opportunity to finish her business with Jose. She’d been mad at him and had said to herself she’d hated him but the truth was he’d been her first love. They had a child together and no matter how many women he slept with while traveling the world on the F1 racing circuit, she...well, she hadn’t been ready for him to leave her so abruptly.

She rubbed the back of her neck as what’s-his-name droned on about a hobby he’d recently taken up. To be honest she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d zoned out a long time ago. And the thing was, he seemed like a nice man. The kind of man who deserved a woman who would engage in conversation with him instead of marking time and eating her dinner and dessert so quickly she gave herself indigestion. But Bianca couldn’t be that woman.

“And I’ve lost you,” he said.

She smiled over at him. He was good-looking and charming, everything she’d normally like in a man. “I’m sorry. This is a case of it really not being you, but me. I’m just...”

He shook his head. “I get it. Your mom mentioned this was a long shot but I couldn’t resist seeing if you were as beautiful in person as you were in your photographs.”

She blushed. She’d been a full-time model by the time she was eighteen and had gotten a contract that had taken her to Paris and launched her career as a supermodel. It had been in Paris where she’d met Jose and fallen for him. But she was older now and no longer felt like that carefree girl. “Those photos were a long time ago.”

“Which photos? I’m talking about the one on your mom’s desk,” he said.

“Oh. This is embarrassing. I am totally not myself tonight,” she said. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

“It wasn’t a waste and if you ever feel like trying this again,” he said, “give me a call.”

He got up and left and she sat there at the table, staring out the windows that led to the golf course. The sun had long since set. She should head home but her son was already in bed and her mom would probably want to grill her about the date. And that wasn’t going to go well.

So instead she signaled her waiter to clear away the dessert dishes and ordered herself a French martini.

“Want some company?”

She glanced up to see Derek Caruthers standing next to her table. He wore his hair short in the back and longer on top; it fell smoothly and neatly over his forehead. When they’d been kids his brownish blond hair had been unruly and wild, much like Derek himself. These days he was a surgeon renowned for his skills in the operating theater.

“I have it on good authority that I am not that charming tonight.”

He pulled out the chair that her date had recently vacated and sat down. “Surely not.”

“It’s true. I was the most awful date. I felt like the worst sort of mean girl.”

He signaled the waiter for a drink, and a moment later he had a highball glass filled with scotch and she had her martini.

“To old friends,” he said.

“To old friends,” she returned the toast, tapping the rim of her glass against his.

“How’d the meeting go today?” she asked. She envied Derek. He had his life together. He knew what he wanted, he always got it and unlike her he seemed happy with his single life.

“Not as I’d planned,” he said.

She took a sip of her drink and then frowned over at him. “That’s not like you. What happened?”

“An old frenemy showed up, making problems as is her habit and I had to shut her down,” Derek said, downing his drink in one long swallow.

“How?” Bianca asked. “Tell me your troubles and I’ll help you solve them.”

It was nice to be discussing a problem with Derek. A problem that didn’t involve her. The thirty-something who’d moved back in with her parents. She knew the gossips in Cole’s Hill had a lot to say about that. From jet-setter to loser in a few short months. She pushed her martini aside realizing she was getting melancholy.

“Actually you can help me out,” Derek said, leaning forward and taking one of her hands in his.

“Name it. You’re one of my closest friends and you know I would do anything for you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said.

She smiled. Of course she’d help Derek out. He’d always been her stalwart friend. When she’d dreamed of leaving Texas and going to Paris to model, he’d listened to her dreams and helped her make a plan to achieve them. When she’d been lonely that first year, he’d emailed and texted with her every day.

“What do you need from me?”

“I need you to be my fiancée.”