Some Like It Charming - By Megan Bryce Page 0,22
could get her to do what he wanted, just like he could with anybody else, and he’d come out later in a great mood, with a lot less money in his pocket.
A million dollars!
And if she kept after that half, he knew he’d eventually give in. He was turning her life upside down and he felt an inkling of guilt about that. She’d ferret that guilt out eventually.
He frowned when he read again that she would leave O’Connor Capital at the end of their “engagement”. She was his best salesman. How she did it, he didn’t know. She wasn’t personable, friendly, chatty, sexy. . .
Okay, she was a little sexy. In a hold-the-whip, take-no-prisoners kind of way.
But she could see if and how much others wanted what she was selling. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d heard her clients say they wouldn’t have paid a dollar more.
He’d talk her out of leaving at the end. He knew she didn’t want to.
Even if she did suddenly find herself holding a small fortune.
It was the game that drove her, and if she left she’d have no one to compare herself to. No one to compete against.
Ethan knew she was too competitive to flourish without that in her life. She’d get gray and boring without that drive. Ethan had six weeks to point that out to her.
He pulled out his cell and called up his grandmother.
“You might want to get Mother something strong to drink. I talked Mackenzie into playing fiancé.”
“Good. Not more than three percent, I hope?”
Ethan grimaced. “She didn’t want it. She wanted payment up front.”
“How much?”
“A million. With a possible half at the end.”
“A possible half your shares at the end?”
He laughed. “No. Another half mil.”
“I guess it’s a start.”
He shook his head. “We’ll go to dinner tomorrow night, give the paparazzi some happy couple pictures. Can you take her shopping in the morning? She’s out of her element with all the cameras and I don’t want her to feel self-conscious.”
“I’ll bring your mother. They’ll fight each other and distract themselves.”
He’d hear about it from his mother, and wondered briefly if he’d hear about it from Mackenzie as well.
His grandmother asked, “Did you get a ring?”
“She has it. It needs to be sized.”
“We’ll do it.” She laughed. “Tomorrow will be fun. And don’t worry, your mother will warm up to her.”
Ethan grinned. “I doubt it. But it should be pretty fun anyway.”
They hung up and Ethan glanced down at Mackenzie’s hastily scrawled signature.
This would work.
The tabloids would stop quoting his exes, reminding him how much he hurt those he cared about. Mackenzie would keep him from hurting anyone else for a while, and he had no fear of somehow finding her falling for him. If anybody in this world was O’Connor-proof, it was her.
And at the end, he would go into a woman-free mourning. He’d make sure Mackenzie came out on top and that the world knew that his heart was broken. If he played it right, he could get a year off by this six-week engagement. He would become more careful, a little more introspective. Slower to jump in to the next relationship.
He already knew this was going to be the best million dollars he’d ever spent.
All he really had to worry about was keeping that half mil in his pocket for the full six weeks.
Four
Ethan’s grandma had called Mackenzie early the next day. Ellen had said, “We’ve got some work to do today, I hear. We’ll turn you in to a pretty picture to hang on my grandson’s arm.”
“Is that the goal for today? Let’s just aim for no one questioning whether this engagement is real. I don’t need to look like a Barbie.”
Ellen had chuckled. “Good. Then in that case we’ll go out, have some fun, spend some money, eat some lunch. He doesn’t need a Barbie hanging on him, he needs a grown woman walking beside him. We’ll make sure he gets what he needs.”
It had gone worse than Mackenzie could have possibly imagined, with her somehow ending up with blond locks worthy of a pin-up. All it had taken was one look from Christine O’Connor that plainly said no one in their right mind would believe that Ethan had fallen for her, and wham, she’d allowed the stylist do whatever he wanted.
Mackenzie’s only consolation was that Christine had hated the transformation just as much as she did. And probably for the same reason. Mackenzie hadn’t known hair could scream sex but this hair did.
After