Some Like It Charming - By Megan Bryce Page 0,13
her office and decided he’d give her a few more minutes to cool down. Give her time to empty that stapler, at least.
Mackenzie fumed at her desk after Ethan left.
This was all because of that stupid softball game. She’d known not to mix business and pleasure and sure enough, she was right. In less than a week, she’d gone from being a pain in the butt salesman, to meeting his family, to becoming engaged to him. She didn’t even know how to get out of it. He wasn’t taking no for an answer, and if she tried to hold a press conference she’d get laughed off the phone.
Maybe she could submit her own article to the Enquirer– He forced me to marry him!
What a nightmare.
Her emergency stash of chocolate was taking a hit today. She couldn’t concentrate. And everyone in the office had found some reason to walk by and stare at her. She knew if she left the dubious sanctuary of her office she’d be accosted, and she had no idea what to say yet. And how to say it without choking, or hyperventilating, or blushing.
The world thought she was engaged to Ethan Howell O’Connor.
How was she to ever hold her head high again? He dated movie stars and debutantes, and now he was engaged to her? No one would have believed it if he hadn’t told the world himself.
Her voicemail was full, had been full almost the minute the press conference had ended. The two most alarming calls had been from his grandmother and mother, the ten reporters following close behind.
This was going to ruin her life, and he thought she could just dump him in the end and everything would go back to normal? Sometimes he could even bullshit himself.
She had two messages from friends, one from her friend Shane.
“Is there more than one Mackenzie Wyatt who works for O’Connor? ‘Cause I swear I just heard he’s engaged to you.”
And Cassandra.
“Mackenzie! I don’t talk to you for one lousy week and the sky starts falling! What is going on? Call me!”
She didn’t know what to tell them, didn’t know what to tell herself.
Fifteen minutes later she’d snuck out to her car. There was one person who might be able to help her. One person who would be even less happy about this than she was. She should have just called but she couldn’t do it at the office. She couldn’t stay there one more minute with all those incredulous, watching eyes staring at her without shouting that there was no way in hell she was marrying Ethan O’Connor.
And that would just make her look like even more of a fool when he came back and told them she was. They’d believe him. They would always believe him.
She stopped at a gas station and used the payphone to call the number his mother had left on her voicemail. Mackenzie was the last person in California without a cellphone and normally she was proud of that. Today she hadn’t wanted to get out of the car.
His mother answered warily and Mackenzie announced herself just as warily.
There was a heartbeat of silence.
“Ms. Wyatt.”
Another silence.
“Why don’t you join us for dinner.”
“I’ll either be drunk or in prison for killing your son by then. Let’s make it lunch.”
“Perhaps this should be a private conversation.”
“I can meet you right now. The sooner you fix whatever is wrong with Ethan, the sooner we can end this pretend engagement.”
Christine O’Connor sounded a little cheerier. “Pretend? Come to the hotel.”
Mackenzie headed back downtown to the hotel. The glass high-rise of the Ritz-Carlton gleamed in the sunlight and when Mackenzie entered the modern lobby, money screamed at her. The new of it didn’t suit either Christine or Ellen O’Connor, but maybe Ethan had picked it. He would look at home here. He would look at home just about anywhere. Mackenzie’s current thinking was that he would look at home in a casket.
Christine O’Connor opened the door before Mackenzie even knocked, and she walked right in. For a moment Mackenzie wondered if it was wise to be alone with his mother and then she heard Ellen O’Connor chuckling.
“I looked like that myself a few times while I was married to Ethan’s grandfather.”
“Like you wanted to kill him?”
“Like killing was too good for him. Now, Christine was always too gentle. She never got angry with Michael like I did Grant.”
Mackenzie glanced at Christine and the frigid look she was currently wearing. Gentle was not the word she would have