Temporary Fiancée (2 page)

“I don’t see the humor here,” he said sharply.

Haley looked directly at him, and her smile disappeared as she experienced another small jolt of awareness that kicked her senses into high alert. Even grumpy, Rand was over the top handsome. His eyes were a kind of a stormy blue, and he had the tall, lanky frame of a man who kept in shape. He looked like a grown-up Brad Pitt with a precision haircut. His situation was bizarre, yet suddenly her need for the money wasn’t her only motivation for hanging onto this job. This urgency to play his pretend fiancée surprised her.

“Look, Mr. McNeill, I can do it.”

When he raised an eyebrow and shook his head, she hurried on. “Really, I can. I took a theater class in college. I know how to act. I can act taller.” She waited, but he didn’t even crack a smile. “I realize I’m not like the women you’re usually attracted to, but that can be an advantage. You wanted someone totally different after Angela.” Haley’s voice trailed off, then in a moment of inspiration she added, “I’m not just short, I’m...” She paused, then finished triumphantly, “domestic.”

“What do you mean by domestic?” he asked, his tone indicating that skill wasn’t high on his requirement list.

She grinned and leaned toward him, her enthusiasm increasing as her imagination took off. “I can cook. In fact, I’m a gourmet cook. I also like decorating, and I love children. That’s why you fell in love with me. We wouldn’t even have to change the monogram on your towels.”

His mouth twitched, and she wondered what she’d feel like if he really smiled at her. Once again he ran his eyes over her, reassessing. A ripple of disappointment zipped up her back as he suddenly frowned again.

He pushed himself to his feet and crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing. “Why are you so eager to go along with this?”

She wondered how to answer. She certainly wasn’t telling him she was fascinated with him and his predicament. “I need the money.” Not only was it a plausible reason, it was also true. She felt a thrill just thinking about the tiny shop in the center of Esperanza Plaza. The money from this job, coupled with her SBA loan, would enable her to finally get her fledgling business off the ground.

She grinned up at Rand. “I assume you are planning to pay more than the standard secretarial rate for something like this. Right?” Confidently, she stuck out her hand to seal the bargain.

Instantly, his eyes changed to an icy, almost colorless shade, and his fingers tightened like a vise around hers. “If I hire you in this capacity, I’ll pay good money for your assistance,” he said with arctic coolness. “However, I don’t intend to be blackmailed because of it.”

She winced. Every sentence out of his mouth stuck in her skin like porcupine quills. She yanked her hand back and met his gaze head on. “You should have thought of that before you spilled your guts to a total stranger. For all you know, I could be a tabloid spy.”

“I was under the impression they didn’t hire children.”

His look dared her to respond, and she barely restrained herself from sticking out her tongue. What a provoking man. “I just assumed you’d pay more for an acting job that gets you out of a jam than you would for someone typing up reports. Call a professional acting agency. Ask them about their going rate. I’m sure it’s more than secretaries make.”

For several seconds he stared at a spot over her head, then shrugged as if resigned. “You’ll receive adequate compensation for tonight. And I still need you to do the secretarial work when this farce is over. I’ll want you to sign a confidentiality statement. Is it a deal?”

This time it was he who offered his hand, as she nodded. Haley’s heart skipped a few beats. She had the job! Jubilant, she barely registered the now familiar tingle of awareness that zinged through her when his fingers closed over hers.

She’d heard about these electrical charges between people. Either he was an alien from another planet, or they were destined to have a love affair.
Whoa, girl. He’s a great looking guy, but he’s also a card-carrying chauvinist who thinks you have the sex appeal of a carrot.

Barely had she completed the thought, when he asked, “Do you have another outfit you could change into? Something a little more...feminine?”

He means sexy, she thought. Haley’s flicker of interest in him disappeared. He thought she was shapeless and sexless. Her body, while small and slender, was appropriately proportioned. She’d never had a man look at her in such a dismissive way.

Unsure of how to answer without ripping his head off, she glanced around her casually, noting the manicured lawn, evenly spaced trees, and the pristine condition of the driveway, not an oil stain in sight. Even the late summer flowers grew in color-coordinated rows, classic evidence that Rand McNeill was an A-type control junky.

She squared her shoulders.
Never let it be said that Haley Marchand knew when to keep her mouth shut.
“Maybe you could still find a tall, executive type with a D-cup to play your fiancée.” Good. Her voice didn’t sound as bitchy as she felt.

Irritation once more shaded his eyes to that dauntingly icy hue. “If that isn’t just like a woman, taking every little comment as a criticism. I don’t have time to find someone else! You’re the one who insisted you had acting ability.”

“Okay. Okay,” she relented, almost feeling sorry for him. To a man who had obvious control issues, it probably seemed as if he was dancing with chaos. “You should lighten up, Mr. McNeill. High stressors are prime candidates for heart attacks.”

His jaw locked into place. “Thank you, doctor,” he said through his teeth. “For your information, I’m not a high stressor. I am, however, in a high stress situation and you don’t seem to be helping.” He stared at her more closely. “What kind of an accent do you have? Is it Southern.”

“Oklahoma, right near the Arkansas border.” She looked at him curiously. “I’m surprised you noticed. I’ve been here five years and thought I’d pretty much lost the accent.”

“What brought you to Idaho?” The question sounded as if he were conducting an interview rather than showing a genuine interest. So she answered in the same tone.

“A scholarship to Boise State. I graduated a couple of years ago.”

He shot her a dubious look. “You have a degree?”

The insult was obvious. “Why yes, sugar, I do,” she said in an exaggerated drawl.

“What’s it in?”

She laughed. “Culinary Arts and business management.”

He still looked doubtful. “If you have a degree, why are you working for a temporary agency?”

She shrugged. “It suits me to have a flexible schedule right now.” There was no need to tell him she was on the verge of starting her own business, and that this particular temporary job would pay her enough to buy some of the more expensive equipment she needed.

He stared at her as if he were going to ask something else, and then he went on. “All right,” he sighed and rubbed his temple as if he had a headache. “I need help right now, and you seem to be the only game in town.”

She was a sucker for needy people. “Don’t worry. Angela will think we’re so in love, her face will turn green.”

“God.” He looked up at the sky and shook his head mournfully. “She’ll never believe I’m attracted to someone like you.”

She swallowed a nasty comeback. She knew she wasn’t a raving beauty, but no one had ever made her feel quite so unattractive. “You’re right. It’s not going to work if you can’t even pretend to like me,” she muttered. It was unreasonable given their rather turbulent meeting so far, but it was unsettling for her to think that Andrew McNeill had to force himself to even pretend to like her. All her previous employers had genuinely liked and appreciated her.

“I’ll pretend when it’s necessary. Stop sulking and come into the house.” He pushed himself up from the chair, awkwardly balancing on his good leg. Then, leaning on the handle of his cane, he limped across the wide stone porch toward the open front door, his stride hampered by the unwieldy cast. After a few steps, his cast caught on the edge of a planter overflowing with red geraniums, and he swore. Turning, he growled, “Are you coming or not?”

“Charming,” Haley muttered as she trailed behind him, reluctantly noticing how nicely his jeans curved around his backside. Sometimes life just isn’t fair, she thought. To boost her flagging morale, she mentally added a state-of-the-art microwave oven to her equipment list as she stepped into the welcome coolness of Andrew McNeill’s house.

Chapter Two

Rand swore under his breath. The knot of irritation in his stomach coiled tighter as he entered the house with the child-secretary close on his heels. How the hell had he gotten himself into this mess? Because he didn’t want Angela to know he was still hurting.
Juvenile! Stupid! Ridiculous!
He closed his eyes against the pain and embarrassment that tightened his gut every time he thought of his former fiancée.

He wasn’t a good enough actor to pass off this waif-like creature as his new love interest. Angela would laugh in his face. Normally, he wouldn’t be caught dead coming up with an asinine plot like this, but when the phone rang at eight that morning, the sound of Angela’s seductive voice had shaken him so badly, all rational thought flew out the window.

They hadn’t spoken to each other since their break-up, yet that morning on the phone, Angela indicated they could still have a future together if he would get over his rather stuffy reaction to her casual infidelity.

At that moment, his still smoldering anger at her offhand destruction of what he had believed to be a permanent and exclusive commitment managed to destroy all his working brain cells. He struck out, wanting to hurt her.

“It’s going to be very awkward for everyone if you come. My new fiancée might not understand.”

“New fiancée! What fiancée? We’ve only been separated for a few months.” Angela sounded half angry, half incredulous.

“I’ve known her for quite some time,” he lied, hoping she wouldn’t ask for details. “When we broke up, she was there for me, and you can probably figure out the rest.”

After a long silence, Angela assumed a brisk, businesslike tone. “Well, congratulations. Surely you can work it out with your
new
fiancée, because I’m still coming. I’m V.P. of marketing and acquisitions for the company, and we have some real concerns with the merger.”

So he was now caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.

As he moved down the hallway, Rand struggled with the self-disgust of a normally sensible person who makes a totally illogical decision based on emotion. Irrationally, he blamed the WorkForce Agency. Why couldn’t they have sent someone older? Or who at least looked older? Actually, Angela was only a couple of years older than the woman from the temp agency, but there were years of difference in their level of sophistication. Angela certainly had more experience. A lot more experience.

The bitter memory of betrayal knifed through him. He had loved her, been dazzled by her beauty, and she’d thrown that love in his face for a weekend fling that had obviously meant nothing to her. It hurt. He hurt. And it was this hurt that had forced him into playing this ridiculous game.

Behind him, he heard a soft sigh and turned to see the girl pivoting slowly in his entryway, an expression of sheer delight on her face. For a moment, he smiled at her, feeling an instant of connection. He loved the entryway himself. The pristine whiteness of the walls offset the deep red of the ceramic tile floor. Against one wall, a small heirloom table, given to him by his grandmother, held a ceramic statue of a red horse.

Her smile urged him to share her enchantment, and he abstractly noted her wide-spaced, hazel eyes surrounded by lashes as thick and black as her hair. Innocent eyes in an expressive face. Not a good poker player, he thought. Then he noticed the lush contours of her mouth. Definitely not a child’s mouth, he thought, forcing down an aberrant urge to run his tongue across her top lip to see if it was as soft as it looked.

“What a wonderful house,” she commented as she moved down the entryway and peered through the arched doorway into a huge living room filled with light. He felt a surge of pleasure that she so obviously appreciated his house. Pleasure that disappeared a few seconds later when she kicked off both her shoes and did what looked like a little tap dance in her stocking feet on the tile floor.

He groaned inwardly. Ten. She looks ten. What grown woman dances barefoot in a stranger’s hallway?

She turned once again toward him. “Did you decorate this your—” Her smile faded into uncertainty. “What’s the matter—is your leg hurting?”

“No, my leg isn’t hurting.” He directed a pointed glance at her feet.

She blushed again, and Rand felt as if he had slapped a child, but she got under his skin. All that enthusiasm was annoying as hell. Guilt made him defensive. “I have a problem with terminally cheerful women,” he said gruffly. “Could you tone it down some?”

She lifted her chin, slipped her pumps back on, and eyed him with a look that put him on guard. She didn’t look quite so childish anymore. In fact she looked...determined. One thing about her, she wasn’t shy about speaking up for herself—a trait he usually admired in a woman.

Giving her a more thorough perusal, he realized she wasn’t all that childlike in the figure department either. There wasn’t a lot there, but it was nicely packaged if you liked small women with uncontrollable hair.

“Are you naturally rude, or did you have to take classes?” she inquired, the sweet smile on her face belied by the steely amber glints in her eyes.

He almost laughed, but willed his face to remain impassive. He should be grateful she hadn’t started crying. He was behaving like an ass. Suddenly he felt jaded way beyond his thirty-three years.

In a moment of truth, he realized he was jealous of this woman’s clear-eyed zest for life. He raised his hand in an open-palmed gesture of apology, and she acknowledged it with a slight nod of her head. Her black curls quivered as if they had a life of their own.