put him back into the dating pool where he’d realized maybe their “love” was more about convenience than real emotion. They’d been together so long that staying together just seemed like the right thing to do. Recognizing the mistake he’d almost made in the name of comfort had jarred him. And now he was smarter, sharper, alert to the pitfalls of getting too comfortable with anything.
“Then you have to figure out a way to prove—from the very second you step off the Ochoa Vineyards jet—that you’re not just fine with this wedding. You are happy.”
Unfortunately, his family didn’t seem to see that his brother’s betrayal hadn’t really been a betrayal but a way for Mitch to dodge a big, fat bullet. They didn’t see how it had spring-boarded him to the kind of success he’d always longed for. All they remembered was that the initial shock of it had thrown Mitch into a tailspin. This was what he got for moving an ocean away. They hadn’t seen how quickly he’d bounced back. And when he tried to tell them, they thought he was either attempting to smooth things over or save face.
“The only way Nanna will ever think I’m happy is if I’m married.”
Riccardo frowned. “You can’t get married before your brother. No time.” He stopped. His face shifted and he burst out laughing. “But you could bring a fiancée to the wedding celebrations.”
“Right.”
“No! I’m serious! All you have to do is find a woman to agree to be your fiancée for the two weeks we’re in Spain. You make up a story about how you met. You create some romantic schmaltzy thing about how you proposed. You kiss her a few times in front of Nanna and—” He snapped his fingers. “You’re no longer the rejected brother.”
“Except I’m engaged?”
“No. No. A couple weeks later, you call Nanna. You say you had a fight and you’re not engaged anymore. And you don’t really have to explain too much until the next time you go home.”
He had to admit there was a certain poetry to it. He’d sneaked home to propose to Julia the night he’d found her and his brother in the bedroom of their apartment. They were fully clothed, but there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of reasons why Alonzo would be in her bedroom, except that they were lovers. Alonzo had vehemently denied it. He’d even told Mitch he’d walked in on their first kiss. They weren’t cheating. They didn’t want to hurt him. But it was clear from the way Alonzo protected Julia that Mitch’s brother might not be sleeping with her, but he loved her.
He’d been gobsmacked, but the whole mess had prompted his dad to give him the go-ahead to start the project he’d been angling to try for years: put his family’s wines online. He’d moved to New York for a change of scenery and grown to love the city. He’d also gotten so good at selling his family’s wines that he’d started a second website. That site sold wines from numerous vineyards—and glasses, wine racks, corkscrews, aprons, T-shirts with funny wine sayings, books on wine, books on serving wine, books on hosting wine-tasting parties—anything and everything related to wines. That was the site where he made money. Lots of money. Enough money to bring Riccardo from Spain to New York to help him start three more specialty websites. One sold anything and everything to do with cycling. One sold cooking supplies. One sold anything to do with golf.
All he had to do was pick a topic, find the vendors who made the “best” of whatever he wanted to sell, test their products, rule out the weak, choose the good and create a site. There was enough variety in the duties that he was never bored, and Riccardo was a financial genius. Whatever money Mitch’s websites brought in was invested to make more money. Though they wouldn’t tell their family, they were on track to be worth more than the entire Ochoa family enterprises in as few as three years.
So losing Julia had opened the door for him to become the businessman he was today. The very fact that he wouldn’t go back and change the outcome was proof that everything that had happened was for his benefit.
Still, none of those things would sway Nanna into believing he was happy, and she’d more than hover. She’d make him look pathetic. Worse, his grandmother making a big deal about him would put a real damper on his brother’s wedding. This was supposed to be Julia and Alonzo’s special time, two weeks of celebrating, and if he didn’t do something, his presence could actually ruin it.
But if he didn’t attend the wedding, refused to be best man, people would gossip that he was upset and the whole wedding would be about him not being there.
Either way, Julia and Alonzo’s wedding could become all about him.
He had to fix this.
“So where do we find this woman who’d be willing to pretend to be my fiancée for two weeks?”
* * *
Lila Ross gathered the sheets of paper that flew out of the copier, stacked them neatly, stapled them and headed into her boss’s office. It wasn’t often that she had both Mitch and Riccardo in the same room at the same time. She had to take advantage of this opportunity to get their approval on last month’s income statements, especially since they were leaving the next day for a family wedding.
Reports ready, she shoved her big-frame glasses up her nose and headed for the open door. She knocked twice to let them know she was there, then entered the room talking.
“I have last month’s income statements.”
Mitch said, “Great. Thanks. Come in.”
Riccardo’s face shifted. His eyes narrowed. His forehead wrinkled. His head tilted.
Deciding that expression probably had something to do with whatever they’d been discussing before she came in and was, therefore, none of her business, she handed one of the reports to Mitch and one to Riccardo before she sat on the empty chair in front of Mitch’s huge chrome-and-glass desk. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind Mitch displayed a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline, glittering in the bright sunlight of a perfect June morning. The big geometric print area rug beneath her feet protected hardwood floors bleached then stained a medium gray that complemented the gray paint on the walls. The ultramodern black sofa and chair sat with a chrome-and-glass coffee table and end tables that matched the desk. The room was the picture of luxury and success that didn’t surprise her. Mitch Ochoa had the Midas touch.
Not to mention good looks and charm.
He glanced up at her and smiled. “Give me two minutes to peruse this, and then we’ll talk specifics.”
Her heart pitter-pattered. When he smiled, it was like the sun breaking over the horizon in her soul. “Sure.”
He smiled again before he began reading.
She told herself not to look at his shiny black hair as he read, but that only took her eyes to his broad shoulders, white shirt and black tie. He was so urbane. Born and raised in Spain, he’d been all over Europe before he’d come to the United States. She had no idea why he’d chosen New York City to start his breakaway business, but every night she’d thanked her lucky stars that he had—
Every night until last night.
Last night, she’d finally realized that she’d been his assistant for an entire year. They’d eaten many a lunch together. Not to mention late-night dinners when they worked until midnight to get something online or to wait for stats at the end of a new product day.
He could have kissed her thirty-seven times. She’d counted.
But while she’d gazed up at him with stars in her eyes, he’d looked down at her with the eyes of a friend. No. Scratch that. He’d looked down at an assistant. She hadn’t even broken the barrier to become his friend.
And last night—
She fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut as pain and emptiness assaulted her.
Last night, she’d realized he would never see her as anything other than an employee, and she had to start job hunting. As long as she was this close to him day after day, she would continue believing that someday