My Fake Christmas Fiance (Kane Christmas #1) - Julie Kriss Page 0,12

last.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, you haven’t been with anyone. I believe you.”

“Does it matter to you?”

“Of course not.” She frowned. “It doesn’t matter. Right?”

“Right.”

God, this was the weirdest situation I’d ever been in. We were supposed to have signed the new papers by now. Or our fathers were. Damn them both.

“I’ll get your bag.” I got out of the SUV and got her suitcase from the back. I heard her boots crunch on the snow as she got out of the passenger side.

“I admit I’m curious to see your bachelor pad,” she said as she followed me to my front door.

“Penny, no one says bachelor pad.”

“I do. And I’ve never seen one.”

“Boring what’s-his-face didn’t have an apartment?”

“He lived with roommates.”

I could definitely compete with that. If I were competing, of course.

I pulled my house key out and glanced at her. Penny was almost as tall as me and long-limbed, but she looked small inside my winter coat. Her cheeks were red with cold and the panic I’d seen on her face back at her apartment seemed to have dissipated. She wasn’t wearing any lipstick, but her lips were naturally red in the chilly air. She looked pretty and natural. Britney had been nice, but she’d never looked as pretty as Penny did right now.

I cleared my throat. “We’re not getting married,” I said, because it needed to be repeated regularly.

Penny nodded. “I know.”

And with that, I turned the key and we went into the house.

Chapter 6

Penny

Wes didn’t have a bachelor pad. He didn’t have a man cave. He had a nice townhouse.

I walked into a living room of clean white with rich hardwood floors and a soft gray sofa. Past the living room was an immaculate kitchen with stainless steel appliances gleaming in contrast to the pretty gray-and-white tiles. In the corner of the room was a beautiful wrought iron staircase spiraling to the second floor. Muted sunlight came through the windows, reflecting the snow outside.

I looked around, surprised. “This is your place?”

“It is.” He carried my suitcase through the front door and closed the door behind him.

“Um.” I tried to remember my manners. “It’s really nice.” I slipped Wes’s coat off, a little reluctantly. It was warm and smelled good. “Thanks for the coat,” I said, folding it neatly on the arm of the sofa.

“Right. Let’s see.” He opened the front hall closet and rifled through it. “Sophie leaves her stuff here all the time. You’d think she lives here or something. Okay, here you go.” He pulled a bright red coat of puffy nylon out of the closet and handed it to me. “I think she’s close to your size.”

I slipped it on. It fit perfectly, though the color wasn’t one I usually wore. Fire-engine red wasn’t part of my wardrobe. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” Wes shrugged, grabbed my suitcase, and headed for the stairs.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked, taking the red coat off and following him.

“Five years. Kane Co. was started by my grandfather. For most of those years, it’s done really well. Well enough for me to afford a place like this when I finished college and started at the company. Though for the last few years, well…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his neck as he reached the top of the stairs. “We weren’t sure what was going wrong. It turns out that the problem was Dad.”

I winced, thinking about his father going to prison for embezzling from the company. “How did he get caught?” I asked.

“I hired W.B., and W.B. started digging,” Wes said. “It was W.B.’s data that uncovered what was going on, but it was me who had to bring what Dad was doing out into the light.”

As I followed him I thought about those words, and then I realized what they meant. “Was it you who reported him to the authorities?”

“I had to.” There was a note of defensiveness in his voice. “What was I supposed to do, let him get away with it forever? Kane Co. was about to go under. Now I know why he agreed to the crazy marriage condition to make the merger happen. He wanted his cash cow to keep going.” He sighed. “Dad will probably never speak to me again, which is fine. Mom is horrified, but only because she’s a stickler for appearances. She isn’t talking to me at the moment either, but she’ll get over it. The only one more angry at Dad than I am is Sophie.”

I searched my mental filing cabinet