Bad Engagement (Billionaire's Club #10) - Elise Faber Page 0,17
our time from here on out.”
“And yet my daughter has a ring on her finger,” her father, Harry, said. He hadn’t introduced himself, but Kate had given Jaime a rundown on all the important details—like names, like her being the oldest, like her dad recently retiring and taking up woodworking and having been given a workshop in the back yard by her mom for his birthday, complete with every tool under the sun.
Which meant there were plenty of sharp instruments in the vicinity.
Jaime held back a shudder and answered truthfully. “When you find someone worth holding on to, you don’t let them go.”
Silence, but he got the feeling that Kate’s father approved.
Of that one thing he said, at least.
“And you didn’t think you should meet us first? Didn’t think you should ask permission before proposing?”
This question, or rather questions, came from Kate’s brother, Jake.
He met the hostile blue eyes. “I think Kate is smart and capable enough to make the decision of who she wants to marry,” he said, and it wasn’t a line. Jaime believed it. He wouldn’t have asked for permission from her dad to marry Kate. She was a strong, adult woman who could decide for herself. And if something like that was important to her—which he highly doubted based on the whole fake engagement thing—maybe then he would have given Harry a heads up that the proposal was coming. But he still wouldn’t have asked permission. “As for meeting you guys, I did want to and am happy we finally got here. Between our work schedules—Kate’s been working extremely hard, and I recently took over full time at my vet practice—along with wanting to keep this one thing for ourselves for just a little while—I come from a large family, too—time just got away from us.”
“Sounds selfish,” Jake said.
He shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t think it’s selfish to spend time building a strong foundation with the woman who you’re going to spend the rest of your life with.”
The noise on the TV rose then, the crowd screaming as someone from the Gold scored, but Jaime didn’t look away from Kate’s brother.
Their gazes clashed—suspicion, irritation, frustration in Jake’s, but Jaime held firm. If this fake engagement was going to turn into something more, then this was something he would need to overcome.
“How’d you know that sunflowers are Mary’s favorite?” Harry asked, drawing Jaime’s focus by referring to the bouquet he’d had stashed in the back seat and had given to Marabelle in the ten seconds he’d had before he’d been dispersed into the living room from hell.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “But I know they’re Kate’s, and so I hoped that she would like them, too.”
“And the whiskey?”
“My favorite,” he said, “and my mom raised me to never come to a house empty-handed.”
“Hmm.” He turned his eyes back to the TV, and Jaime followed his gaze in time to see Liam Williamson make a move that even in slow motion was fast enough that he had to concentrate to see it.
He whistled. “Damn, he’s good.”
A beat, the tension hanging in the room for one more long moment then Harry chuckled and shook his head. “He’s something else, that’s for sure. Didn’t think he’d be here for long, but he’s certainly carved a niche out for himself here.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it was smart of them to put him with Coop and Blue. Their line has been almost unstoppable this season.”
Feeling Jake’s gaze on him, Jaime turned to face Kate’s brother.
“You watch other sports?” Jake asked.
Jaime shrugged. “A little basketball and football, but I prefer hockey.”
A glimmer of approval on the other man’s face before he turned back to the game. “What do you think of Plantain this season?”
“Still recovering from that shoulder injury, but I’ll bet she’ll be back up to full strength before the playoffs,” he said.
More quiet, but this silence—punctuated by the noise of the game playing in the background—wasn’t homicidal, having him contemplating those power tools, or tense, two sets of eyes glaring. Instead, it had that glimmer of approval transforming into something more.
Not quite endorsement.
But he didn’t think they’d be going to get the saw.
Good enough.
Eight
Kate
She was sweating as she arranged the bouquet of sunflowers Jaime had given to her mom—gorgeous, beautiful sunflowers that made her smile and want to steal them home for herself.
But the perspiration wasn’t from the flowers.
It was because Jaime was confined in the other room with her brother and father, and based on the glares she’d seen when she’d walked