The Billionaire's Fake Fiancee - Lauren Wood Page 0,43

we were distracted by a light tapping on the glass panes that lined the wall. We looked up to see none other than Ben himself standing there, side-stepping his way to the door to come in.

18

Ben

“Ben!” Kate looked at me with wide, stunned eyes. “What are you doing here!?”

“Give it up,” Chuck barked. “They already know everything. That you stole your friend’s kid and lied.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, Chuck,” I shot back sarcastically.

I pushed past him and walked up to Kate at the front of the room, dropping down on one knee in front of her.

“What the hell …” she mumbled through clenched teeth at me, silently begging me to get up.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to propose marriage,” I assured her. “But I do want to propose something else … That you be my girlfriend.”

Chuck’s face grew bright red with anger. “I don’t know what kind of games you’re playing here, but now is not the time …”

“Chuck, shut it,” Greg ordered, raising a hand to silence him. “This is my boardroom. Not yours. You had your turn to talk, now let’s hear what Ben and Kate here have to say.”

“I love you,” I blurted. “I know my timing is terrible, but I needed to get that out. I’ve been running from saying those words from the moment you first said them to me a week ago.”

Kate was too surprised to speak, so I stood back to my feet and turned to address the clients and everyone else. “I know you don’t know anything about me. Other than the fact that I’m the lunatic who pretended to be her fiancé and used my best friend’s kid … trying to pass her off as my own. But Kate has told me a lot about you. I understand and admire your values for family. But the thing is … I’ve spent a lot of time with these people in the past few weeks. And if there’s anyone in this room who truly values family, it’s Kate. She may not have one of her own yet, but I’ve seen her with my friend’s kid … and with my friends … and she has a sincere love for the people in her life. And … I hate to say it, but while these other guys may have families … they seem to have more resentment towards them than anything else.”

“Hey, watch it, buddy,” Chuck growled.

“Come on. I’ve only met you a few times, and I’ve already heard you complain enough about your wife and kids to last a lifetime. Same with you, Greg. You guys don’t even play with your kids. You just pass them off to your wives and they pass them off to the nannies.” I turned back to the clients. “There’s only one person in this room who I’ve witnessed expressing a genuine concern and interest in the success of your products. And that’s Kate. She has more passion for her job than most people have about anything in their lives, and that’s why I agreed to lie for her to help her present this pitch to you.”

“So, let me get this straight,” the client said, scratching his head. “You two lied about being engaged and having a kid just so you could present this pitch to me?”

We both nodded solemnly.

He turned back to Greg. “And if you didn’t think this woman was engaged … you wouldn’t have even let us listen to her idea … even if it was the best one?”

“Well, yes,” Greg stammered. “But you said you wanted to work with someone who understood kids firsthand.”

“I said I wanted to work with people who understood the values of family firsthand,” he argued. “And a family can be many different things. A company should be like a family. And no one should be excluded or go unheard just because of something silly like not being engaged or married or whatever.”

“But she doesn’t know anything about kids!” Chuck fumed.

“Actually,” I interjected. “She was great with Olivia. She took better care of her than I did, to be honest. And when it came to the toy testing group, she was the only one that actually went in the room and observed the kids firsthand. Didn’t she even know about research and studies when it came to kids that you didn’t even know yourself, Chuck?”

He didn’t answer, but the embarrassed look on his face let everyone know that I was right.

“And Kate, what was it you told me? About how you market products all the time that no one has firsthand experience with?”

“Yes,” she answered sheepishly. “That is true. No other