“We don’t need to bring my parents into anything.” She looked up into his ice-cold eyes. “It doesn’t relate to the work we’re doing here. You just stick to doing your job, Lily, and I’ll do mine.”
His parents and his past clearly wasn’t open for discussion anymore. Not now that she was only an employee. When she’d been a potential lover he had shared with her, but now … now she wasn’t fit to speak of it apparently. She sucked in a sharp breath. It didn’t matter. He was right. It was personal, and this was business. What she’d learned about him during their brief relationship, if it could be called that, had nothing to do with what happened in their professional association.
She would just have to pretend that she didn’t know he’d sacrificed so much of his life to raise his sister, a sister he still felt responsible for. She’d have to pretend she didn’t know exactly what he looked like under those perfectly tailored business suits.
Of course, it wasn’t any kind of challenge for Gage. Temporary sexual relationships were par for the course for him. Which was one reason she’d decided to give a sexual relationship with him a try, so having an issue with it now was just contrary.
“All right, Gage, but it makes my job easier when you do as I advise you to do.”
“I gave you my permission to make the announcement about the sanctuary,” he said, his voice conveying just how unconcerned he was.
“Yes,” she said tightly, “and it’s helped. As I knew it would. Letting people run stories about you that are full of conjecture and false information isn’t right.”
“Of course, you have no trouble feeding the press false information.”
She gave him a steely glare. “They had false information to begin with. And you didn’t have a problem with it, either.”
“To protect Madeline? Of course not. And we’re going to continue on Saturday.”
“Oh, really?” Her heart sped up.
“Yes. A very valuable client’s daughter is getting married and holding the reception at the San Diego Forrester tomorrow. I’ve been asked to make an appearance, and of course that means my lovely fiancée should be on my arm.”
She looked down at the ring that still glinted on her left hand, her entire body getting stiff with tension. It had been one thing to play happy couple with Gage before they’d been … intimate together. But it was quite another thing to try and pull off when that segment of their relationship was over.
She would have to touch him. Hold his hand. Maybe kiss him.
They hadn’t held hands in Thailand. Not casually, not by themselves. It was an odd realization, and it was even stranger that she cared. It was simply a telling example of what their relationship had been. Purely sexual. Those little gestures that actual couples used to convey affection didn’t apply to their four-day fling.
“Okay, that works for me.” It did. It would. It had to. It was her job to protect Gage’s image, and if she didn’t go with him, questions might come up, which meant she had to go with him, and she had to turn in the performance of a lifetime.
It had meant buying a new dress—a short, black one with a low V-neckline that had a slight ruffle to help conceal some of the cleavage that the dress put on display—but when she walked into the San Diego Forrester on Gage’s arm, her engagement ring sparkling in the overhead lighting, she felt like she belonged there. Like she belonged with Gage.
It was a dangerous feeling, but it was one she had to embrace, at least for the night. There was no other option. Tonight she was Gage Forrester’s fiancée. She would try not to focus on the fact that she was really Gage Forrester’s discarded leftovers.
Who asked to be discarded.
She took a deep breath and tried to rid herself of the tightness in her chest.
The hotel was decorated beautifully, every table covered with a crimson tablecloth, white orchids in white vases acting as centerpieces. And the tablecloths matched her shoes, which was a very nice and convenient surprise.
Maybe if she focused on that she would survive the evening with some semblance of sanity intact.
Gage put his arm around her waist the moment they fully entered the reception area and she had to fight the urge to melt against him. It was so strange, how natural it was to want that. How easy it was to want to lean on him.
She managed to stop herself. She wasn’t about to cling to him, even if his touch did feel better than she remembered. And he smelled amazing. She’d always noticed that about him, from the very first time they’d met. But it was different now, more intimate. Now she picked up on the subtle scent of his skin … clean, but beneath the scent of soap and aftershave, the slight musk of his skin. She could pick it out so easily now, now that she’d been so close to him, now that she knew just how his skin tasted.