Diamonds Are Forever - Brooke St. James Page 0,16

was trying to get there quickly, so we didn't talk much on the way to the party. We left his boat at a marina and took his truck from there. He had a huge, brand new Ford Bronco. I had to take two steps up to get into it.

"This is a cool truck," I said, checking out the inside once we were on our way to the party.

"Thank you," Drew said. "It was a graduation gift."

"Wow," I said, looking around. "What a gift."

I turned to look at him, taking in his profile as he drove. He was smiling. He was so good-looking that it crossed my mind to wonder why in the world he needed a fake date.

"What do these people think?" I asked. "Do they think you have a girlfriend already? Is there anything I should or shouldn't say? Maybe it's smart for me to keep pretty quiet so I don't say anything wrong. Who's all going to be there?"

Drew had the radio playing, but he turned it down, smiling at all my questions.

"My dad's a State Senator," Drew said. "It's a party for him. It's his birthday. There's probably going to be about a hundred people—some from Houston, and some are his Senator friends from other cities."

He stopped speaking, and I was quiet for long enough that he glanced at me.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I just got way more nervous," I said, causing him to laugh a little.

"Don't be," he said. "We'll fly under the radar. I just need to be there to support my dad, and I'd rather not have to encounter certain situations."

"And you think just having me stand next to you is going to solve that problem—keep this woman from coming up to you?"

"That's the plan," he said with a shrug.

"Am I supposed to make up a fake name and a whole identity?" I asked. "Do I need to be someone special?"

"You are someone special," he said, ever the gentleman.

I couldn’t help but smile. "Seriously," I said.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Just be yourself."

My first thought was that I should definitely not mention Mac, but I didn't say that. I just knew I wouldn't mention my son to any of these people. I hoped I wouldn't get into a situation where I had to deny having children, because I obviously wouldn't do that, but I also wasn't planning on bringing it up—especially since I was supposed to be Drew's girlfriend.

"Is there a designated amount of time that you and I are supposed to have been dating?"

"A month or so," he said. "Nobody will ask us. I've come to Galveston a few times recently, so they'll assume I was seeing you. My folks will definitely go along with it. We've all been busy lately, and they don't know who I'm seeing."

"Is it okay for me to say my regular name and everything?"

"Lucy King? Yeah."

"What's your last name?" I asked. "My dad was asking me, and I had no idea."

"Your dad was asking about me?" Drew asked, glancing at me with a grin.

"When I brought home the ring," I said.

"What'd you do with it?" he asked.

"Why, you don't want it back, do you?"

"No."

"Good, because I sold it."

"To who?"

"A jeweler."

"How much?"

"Thirty-five," I said.

"Thirty-five dollars?" he asked, grinning, teasing me.

"Hundred," I corrected.

"That's pretty good," he said, nodding easily. "Better than in some fish's belly."

"I wonder if that's ever happened," I said. "Where a fish ate something valuable and someone took it home to cook it and got rich."

"That's definitely happened," he said. "Don't you think?"

"I would think so," I said. "It happened that one time in the Bible."

"Where the whale ate Jonah?" he asked.

"No, where Peter found a coin in a fish's mouth. Enough to pay a tax he owed."

"Well, see, there it is. It has happened before."

"Yeah. I guess," I said. "But that one was more like God put it there."

"Yeah, but how do you know He didn’t use some little kid to do it?" Drew said. "Maybe it had been in there for two weeks, in that fish's mouth, because a kid threw it into the river."

I shrugged, thinking about it. "Maybe God used a human to get it there. I guess we'll never know. I'll add it to the list of things I'd like to ask God when I see Him."

We pulled into the parking lot at Palm Beach. I was slightly nervous about going inside, but not as much as I thought I would be. I felt an odd sort of confident calmness, like I