enough to lose one’s integrity,” she asserted firmly. She reached out and took her water glass, getting ready to stand up and leave the restaurant. She didn’t like where this conversation was going, nor that he thought he could pay her for something so wrong.
“How about a thousand dollars an hour?” he suggested.
Miranda definitely wasn’t expecting that, but she should have, considering the calculating look in his eyes. She immediately started choking on the ice water, coughing for several minutes while she carefully set her glass down on the table so she didn’t spill it. When she could breathe again, she glared across the table at him. “That’s obscene!” she gasped out.
He smiled at her reaction which only proved that she was the perfect woman for the job. “Okay, so tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t get it. I don’t lie and I don’t cheat people. I don’t want to do this to your sister.”
He thought about it for a long moment then came to the conclusion that the only way he would get her to help him was if he presented the whole story to her. “When I was sixteen years old, my sister, Wyndi, was six. My parents went out to run an errand and never came back. They’d been in a car accident and died instantly. I was taking care of my sister that afternoon. When the police came to take us both away, I convinced them that I could handle raising her on my own.” He hadn’t thought about these memories in a long time and he didn’t like doing it now. “It took only six months for child protective services to take her away from me. They sold our house for us, put both of us in separate foster homes and, for the next eighteen months, I tried to run back and find her, to protect her. I was determined to live up to my promise to Wyndi to take care of her, to show her that nothing would separate us. Death had already taken too much away from us, I wasn’t going to lose her too.” He paused for a moment, looking across the room, unable to take the compassion that had suddenly appeared in those green eyes that had turned slightly teary.
“I couldn’t do it,” he finally said. “I couldn’t take care of my baby sister. And when the state services couldn’t stop me from running away from whatever facility they’d dumped me, they lied to me. The case worker in charge of us told me she’d died. I went through hell for over a year, blaming myself for not taking better care of her, for not being there for my parents.” There was another long silence and he gripped the arms of the chair to keep from punching something as he sifted through the words, trying to tell her as little as possible but still get her to understand how important this was to him. “She came to my office this morning,” he told her, ignoring her gasp of horror as he continued with the story. “She is alive and well and I’m about to become an uncle. The person in charge of our cases lied to me. And while I will deal with that woman separately, I’m determined to protect my sister now in any way I can. Before Wyndi left my office, she asked me if I was happy. She didn’t believe me when I told her I was fine, so I told her I was getting married. It seemed to ease her concerns. And since she’s pregnant with my niece or nephew, I will do anything I can to protect her gentle heart. She’s too nice, too sweet and she lets every little thing worry her,” he told Miranda. “I will protect my sister this time around. So if you won’t pose as my fiancée, I will find someone else. I won’t have her worrying about me for any reason.”
Miranda’s heart was already melting. “I’ll do it,” she said, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I’ll pose as your fiancée for as long as it takes to help her.” And to help him, she thought, but she wasn’t really sure where that thought came from. If there was anyone in this world who could take care of himself, it was this strong, amazing man sitting across the table from her. But as she looked