phone, and he wanted the job because, well, why not? Which tends to be the way Matt and I operate. Why not?” She laughed, because looking back, it was insane. “By the time he and Romy landed, he’d upped the drama quotient and decided we needed to be fake-engaged. Romy, however, insisted Kyle wouldn’t buy a relationship between me and Matt because we had too much of a brother-sister vibe. Go figure, huh?” Pause. “Brother-sister? Because we’re so much alike? And people who are too much alike...?” Pause. Surely he knew what she was saying? Surely he could work out she was alluding to him and Romy? Mr. and Ms. Perfect—a doomed combination, ’cause everyone knew opposites attracted. Bu-u-ut, nope. Not even a blink. “So I guess I’ll cut to the chase. Fact is, Romy said if we wanted to mess with Kyle’s head, you’d make a better fiancé.” Another pause, to see if that sank in.
But all she got was a confused question. “Why would that mess with his head?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve never spoken to him.”
Dear God, men could be obtuse! “No, you’ve never spoken to him, but he saw you at Flick’s. He saw you...and me...? Watched me serve you...?”
He was shaking his head, still not getting it. Seriously, did lawyers not need to be smart?
“What possible reason could you give for you living here and me in the States?” he asked, missing every damn point.
“That we were still deciding where we’d ultimately settle—here or in New York.”
“I’d never live apart from my fiancée.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you, Mr. Perfect? But Kyle bought it—probably because he’s Mr. Asshole!” she said. “And let’s face it, everyone back in those DC days knew your family was rusted onto the Upper East Side and you’d be rusting on right along with them in due course. Plus I’d made it crystal clear to Kyle during our ill-fated, short-lived romance that it would take a miracle to budge me from Australia, so yeah, you and I had big decisions to make.”
“Then why did we decide to get married?”
“Er, because we were in love?”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “If I loved you so much I’d consider leaving New York for you, why couldn’t I be bothered to come with you to your ex-boyfriend’s wedding?”
“Ah, well, you see, your father was receiving some big law prize, so you sent Matt to represent you and to—to protect me.”
“Protect you from what?”
“Unwanted advances.”
“Whose?”
“Kyle’s, of course. You see, he didn’t just visit the club, he expected me to dance for him.”
“He what?”
And damn if he didn’t look as though he was going to punch something—a look she remembered from the time Kyle had come into Flick’s to rant at her after that hideous night at Club DeeCee, and Matt had had to restrain Teague to stop him intervening. “Of course, I didn’t dance for him, and he left...relatively peacefully,” she said. But Teague was still looking thrillingly on the edge of violence, so she moved right on. “So, anyway, Matt, Romy, law prize, yada yada. The thing is, we built up the story until it was so convincing, I almost believed our impending nuptials were a done deal. Frankie’s wedding—that’s what we called it. A weekend of utter insanity, looking back.”
“And none of you thought it would be of interest to me to know I’d suddenly acquired a fiancée?” he asked, supercarefully.
“No-o-o, because—technical point—you hadn’t acquired one. And they probably didn’t tell you because...” She trailed off there because somehow, without changing his expression, he looked more ominous than he had over Kyle being a dick.
“Because?” he breathed out.
Swallow. Pull off the bandage fast now. “Because we knew you’d hate it.”
“And how did you know that?”
“Because you weren’t, you aren’t... I mean you’re not... That is, you’re...you...?”
A moment, during which he blinked once, and then he said, “I see.”
His face was completely expressionless now, and that made Frankie so nervous—and, face it, way too turned on—she couldn’t immediately think how to proceed.
“Go on,” Teague said, his voice as smooth as dark blue silk.
“I guess the thing that made it work was that Kyle was never going to see you again, because he’s not in your circle or your league, and he and Laura were going to live in Chicago, which meant I was never going to see them again, so...”
“So?”
“Well, so what was the harm in it?”
He blinked at her again. Blink. Blink. Banked fury is how she’d describe it. Hot as fuck! “And the ring?” he said.
“We knew it needed to be a good one, because everyone knows you’re filthy rich. No, not filthy. Never filthy. Clean. Clean-cut. I mean—” Stop. Babbling. She cleared her throat, got herself together. “So, anyway, the three of us went shopping, and we chose this one—” she waggled the fingers of her left hand “—because it looked like the kind of ring that would come out of a rich family’s vault.”
“It’s nothing like the rings in our family vault!”
“Well, Kyle didn’t know that. And you have to admit it looks expensive. Because it was expensive.”
“And Matt bought it for you—even though he could have borrowed one from my actual family vault if he’d bothered to ask me.”
“But they thought... They never would have expected, um...”
“I get it. Believe me, I get it. I was not—not...”
“Not insane,” she said, because surely that was a compliment, but he blinked again, like it was some strange, startling, unwelcome news being broken to him. “And, anyway, the ring was a last-minute plot embellishment so there wouldn’t have been time to ask you for a ring, even if we’d dared, and...and...and what difference does it make? Matt was on the way to being seriously wealthy, and you know how generous he is and—”
“So why didn’t you keep it, if he could so easily spare the money?”
“Because I don’t do that. I don’t accept unearned gifts from men. Matt knows that. The plan was for him to sell it and donate the money to charity.”
“Charity.”
“Charity. But I guess... Well, it wasn’t important to him, the—the ring...after it served its purpose. So he—he forgot about it.”
“Forgot.”
“Forgot. Until...” She paused to take a deep breath. “Until a week ago, which is where things get tricky.”
“Tricky?”
“Or interesting, depending on your point of view.”
“Interesting.”
“The fact you keep repeating me makes me think you may need to pour yourself some more whiskey.”
“I don’t need any more whiskey.”
“Then pour it and put it in the middle of the table in case I need it.”
He said nothing, just grimly poured the whiskey then pushed the glass dead center.
“So,” she continued, “think about what happened a week ago.”
“Can we not play guessing games?”
“I