“Walk straight to the car, don’t look at them, don’t hesitate, but don’t duck your head. As long as they can get some shots, they might not press in too much. Do you have any sunglasses?”
She nodded, her face pale. “In my bag,” she said, licking her lips. She fumbled around until she found them.
“Put them on. They’ll help with the flashes. You ready?”
She nodded again, a little less sure this time, but ready to charge anyway. Impressive.
He handed her one of the bags so he’d have an arm free and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
He opened the door and ushered her out. The shouting came from all directions. People calling his name, asking questions. Who was she? Was it serious? Were those suitcases hers? Where were they going?
Constance kept her head held high and marched straight to the car, only pausing now and then when one of the men would crowd too close. Luca kept an arm around her, pulling her closer. Once again, he thought how stupid he’d been to head out without Joe. By himself, it might not have been so bad, but with Constance in tow there was a fresh story to be had. A juicy one. And everyone wanted to be the first to get a piece of it.
He plastered a smile on his face, tried to look good-naturedly bored, as if all the attention meant nothing to him. It did mean something, but the photographers probably wouldn’t find it very flattering. So he did what he could to appease them. Besides, he and Constance needed to get in the papers; that was the whole point of their arrangement.
When they got to the car, Luca pulled Constance around for a second so the photographers could get some shots of them standing together.
“Smile,” he muttered to her.
She glanced up at him, momentarily surprised, but she rallied quickly enough, letting a shy and overwhelmed smile show, though her face was still white as a sheet.
“All right, that’s enough for now,” Luca said, opening the door so she could slip inside.
The vultures moaned and kept shouting questions at him. Luca shoved the luggage in the trunk and headed to the driver’s side.
“Sorry, guys. My fiancée is exhausted. I need to get her home. Thanks!” he said, sliding into the car amid a fresh wave of exclamations.
“What was that?” she asked him.
“What?” He eased out of her driveway, careful not to hit any of them. Not that it would bother him particularly if one of them got a teensy bit injured, but it would make his day more of a pain.
“I thought you hated them,” she said.
“I do hate them. They hound me night and day no matter where I go or what I’m doing. The novelty of that kind of attention wore off a long time ago.”
“Then what were you doing making us stand there and pose for them, and telling them flat out that I was your fiancée?”
“I thought you understood the whole point of this little charade.”
“I do, but it seems strange that you’d court their attention when you say you hate it so much.”
He shrugged. “They can be useful sometimes too. We need to get in the papers, on all the social media sites. Well, we just did. A couple good shots of us together here and from the store, that ring flashing on your hand, your luggage in the trunk of my car, and more shots of us pulling into my estate, and twenty minutes from now the whole world will know we’re engaged. I’m sure the shots from the jewelry store are already being spread around with speculation as to what’s going on. I confirmed it for them.”
“I hardly think it’ll be that fast.”
Luca snorted. “Trust me. Face it, Miss McMurty. In less than an hour the whole world is going to know your face.”
Chapter Eight
Constance stared at Luca over a romantic candlelit dinner, trying to keep her face from revealing all the emotions seething inside. Anger being up front and center.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset. You agreed to all this.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling around her clenched teeth. “I did. Under duress. But you didn’t tell me it would be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Seriously?” she hissed, waving a hand toward the window of the restaurant where several dozen photographers had been snapping photos since the moment they’d sat down.
“You get used to it. Just ignore them.”
“I don’t see how anyone can get used to this.”
He shrugged and took a bite of his spanakopita. “It can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes, I’ll give you that, but I’ve found if you give them a good smile or two and then try to ignore them, they’ll go away. Eat.”
His tongue darted out to lick a flake of pastry off his lip and she froze with her fork halfway to her mouth.