Charade (A Fake Fiancée Romance) (Pretense and Promises Book 1) Read online

  Ah…so now he was going to reveal who he was. She couldn’t continue to play dumb—but if he thought she was going to bow down to him, he was sadly mistaken. Instead, at the last second, she decided to employ a little humor—all while wishing the damn coffee would finish brewing already. “You look good for your age. Decades, huh? You must be at least fifty then.”

  The handsome man then burst into laughter—and the dimples in his cheeks were impossible to miss at that point. God…she was in trouble. This man was captivating and, in spite of everything in her that told him he was nothing but bad news, she was drawn to him like a magnet. He stuck out his hand then, all business. “I’m Brock Ford.” She extended her arm to shake but she again lost her tongue. As her smaller hand slid into his strong warm one, she felt as though a bolt of electricity passed through her entire body. What would that hand feel like in other places?

  Stop. If she didn’t get herself under control, she was bound to make a fool of herself. Fortunately, she’d practiced talking to a judge and jury even though she’d never done it, but she tried to get her head in that space before she answered. “Erica Larson.”

  “So you’re not enjoying what my brother has you doing?”

  Oh, shit. Had she said too much and jeopardized her job? Well…as she’d thought earlier, maybe it would be better that way. Honesty was the best policy. “Let’s just say it’s not what I signed up for—but I realize I have to pay my dues.” The question was if she was willing to stick around that long while the firm ate her soul alive.

  “I think I might have a proposition for you…if you wouldn’t mind drinking your coffee in my office.”

  On the third floor?

  Proposition?

  “Do you have five minutes?”

  Knowing this might all be a test about loyalty or general state of mind, she hesitated and then told him the truth. “Not really. I need to finish all the shit scattered on my table, go home, sleep for five hours, shower, and come back and do it again.”

  His response was golden. No raised eyebrows at the expletive and she was certain she saw a smile lurking underneath his cool façade. “You can leave it till tomorrow. And if my brother gives you any grief about it, you can send him to me.”

  With his permission to leave her work behind, Erica wouldn’t have been able to stop herself any more than a dam with a giant crack could stop the flow of water. But she couldn’t let him know how eager she was to follow him, just in case he was the Pied Piper and not Jesus Christ. Instead, she said, “I’m intrigued,” and again wished the coffee would hurry the hell up…but this time, for completely different reasons.

  Chapter Two

  SO FAR, THIS had been entirely too easy. Most things Brock Ford wanted involved hard work and determination. But this had been simple. He’d made up his mind earlier this afternoon exactly what he planned to do and he’d lucked out. The first woman he’d spied before leaving for the evening had been the perfect candidate for his scheme—she was well dressed, beautiful, and, he had to assume, smart.

  Now he only had to convince her—and, with his track record in the courtroom, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

  His office, a place where he negotiated plea agreements and convinced clients to take what was offered, was the perfect location for him to strike a deal with this lovely creature.

  Erica Larson was his type—and he knew if he was going to have his family believe this scheme, the woman had to be the kind of female he’d fall for. She was tall and thin but not overly so. She had lovely breasts hidden under typical lawyer attire—blouse and jacket over a pencil skirt. And those legs were just as lovely as the rest of her. What captivated him the most, though, were her brown eyes. They seemed to match her light brown hair, pulled up onto her head in a careless but endearing manner.

  If he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall for the ruse he was about to present to his family.

  But, first, he had to convince Ms. Larson that his plan would help her, too.

  After they sat, she sipped her coffee, the look on her face part pensive, part irritated—no doubt because he’d torn her away from her evening’s work and she was hoping to get home before the Late Show. “As I said downstairs, Erica...” He paused, then asked, “Do you mind if I call you Erica?”

  “No. That’s my name.”

  The way she arched her eyebrow was cute as hell. He was going to enjoy working with this girl. “I have a bit of a proposition for you. I’m going to tell you right now that’s it’s highly unorthodox.”

  A slight smile crept upon her face. A fellow rebel, perhaps? That would be good because she’d need to be an ally to follow through. He hadn’t quite figured out his argument yet but it was going to revolve around her, so let the interrogatories begin.

  “How do you feel thus far about your employment with Ford & Associates?” The quickness with which she inhaled and started to form an answer told him she was getting ready to pour out a mouthful of bullshit—and that he did not need. “I want an honest answer.” He leaned over the desk a bit, his hands folded in front of him. “And, Ms. Larson, bear in mind I’m a criminal attorney. I will know if you’re lying.” He was using his courtroom voice, the one he questioned unreliable witnesses with. He knew it could be intimidating, and that was exactly what he wanted to do with this young lady if she was considering fibbing.

  She raised her eyebrows and cleared her throat. “What happened to calling me Erica?”

  He allowed a slight smirk to form on his lips. “I’ll only be friendly if you’re telling me the truth.”

  She nodded, acting like something might be caught in her throat, but then she spoke. “Well, I think I probably already let the cat out of the bag. What I’ve been doing the past year? It’s not what I went to law school for. I get that I need to pay my dues, but…”

  Perfect. “You can call me Brock, by the way. And how would you feel if I told you I could get you out of file slavery and doing what you really want to do?”

  Erica tilted her head slightly, causing a shiny lock of hair to tumble out of her makeshift bun. “I’d ask what price that privilege came with.”

  “Ah, you are a smart woman. And, yes, there is a price, but I can assure you it’s probably not what you’d expect. It should be fairly simple, and I can have you working upstairs with me in less than a week.”

  The twinkle in her eyes was all he needed to see to know he’d struck the nerve he wanted to. He’d caught the fish; now all he had to do was reel her in. “I’m listening.”

  “For what I’m about to tell you, I should have you sign a nondisclosure agreement…so, suffice it to say, this is confidential.”

  “Of course.”

  Something in him told him he could trust her, so he was going to move forward. If she turned him down and went to one of his brothers with her story, he could laugh it off—but he hoped she’d actually agree. “My father is getting ready to retire. Since I first entered law school, just like my two older brothers, dad began promising the firm to us when he was ready to stop practicing. But by the time I actually joined the firm, he’d added a caveat to his earlier promise.” He continued assessing her interest by watching her eyes—and so far, so good. “I’d been here about a year when he took Bret, Brandon, and me to Lake Tahoe one weekend as a getaway. I thought it was just to celebrate the fact that the Ford men were all in business together, but there was more to it. Dad let us know the kind of partners he wanted us to be—honest, reliable, hardworking men of integrity.”

  Erica nodded. “I’d think any lawyer with those qualities would make a good partner.”

  Brock smiled. “Yes. But dad also said flat out that he expected all three of us to get married and have families—he all but said, ‘I won’t make you partner if you don’t.’ I got a little angry then. You know as well as I do that it’s hard to have a relationship when you’re married to your work.”

  Her voice was cool but he thought he could hear irritation in her voice. “I don’t see
you or your brothers working late every night.”

  “I did when I first started here—I clocked around seventy or eighty hours a week at the office. But, unlike other law firms, that’s not what my father values. He believes that a good attorney has a loving family behind him.” Erica raised her eyebrows, signaling that she maybe thought it was as ridiculous a notion as he did. “He also thinks it keeps them on the straight and narrow path—you’re less likely to do something shady when you have people at home relying on you to keep yourself out of trouble.

  “Old fashioned, I know.

  “But that’s my dilemma, Erica. I’m not ready for marriage.” He was not going to spend the next five minutes divulging the entire truth, that not only was he not interested in a wife, but he was nowhere near ready to settle down, even with “just” a girlfriend. He might not have been married to the job as he implied he’d been when he first began his career, but he loved the idea of having a different woman whenever he chose. In fact, there were two different attorneys he played around with on occasion—one was with the DA’s office—who were about as close to a regular lay as they came, but even they couldn’t lay claim to his heart. “When dad gave us this ultimatum, for lack of a better word, Brandon was the only one of us three who was even married. I think that was all Bret needed to hear to marry his girlfriend, and Brandon and Lisa started talking about having kids within two years of that speech. I figured, eh, I got time.

  “But the years crept up on me—and dad said earlier today that he’ll be formally announcing his retirement next week. I hadn’t expected it so soon. And when dad was telling us about it, he didn’t mention the whole you-have-to-be-a-family-man-to-inherit-the-business thing, but it was unspoken. And he’s going to announce his retirement publicly, too. Here’s the thing—I could see dad telling Bret and Brandon that, once I married, he’d want them to cut me in, but once dad’s no longer in control, he won’t be able to guide their decisions. Yes, we’re technically partners now but in name only. Dad calls all the shots. When he retires, he’ll actually be giving us control of the firm—and he won’t give that to me if I don’t have a family.”

  Brock couldn’t read Erica’s face. Was she amused? Annoyed? Disgusted? A little weirded out by it all? “If you think I’m going to run to the Justice of the Peace with you tonight, you’re out of your mind. I realize it’s easy enough to annul that kind of thing, but I don’t want a headache like that.”

  “No, I don’t want anything that extreme, either. I need a woman—someone believable—to attend dad’s dinner with me next week, posing as my fiancée. If I thought getting married today would solve the problem, don’t think I wouldn’t—but my family wouldn’t buy it for one second. A recent and secret engagement? They might buy that—and that’s what I’m banking on: that they will.”

  Erica was quiet for a moment, looking down at her hands on the table. In that instant, Brock felt a tiny bit of affection for her, because she already acted the part of seasoned lawyer—she was absorbing the proposition, weighing her options, possibly deciding on a counteroffer or thinking of terms to suggest. “So you want me to pretend I’m engaged to you?”

  “That’s the gist of it, yes.”

  “How would that work exactly?”

  “Well, you’d show up with me to dad’s little soiree. I’d introduce you to everyone and tell them we had a whirlwind romance, that we’ve fallen madly in love and want to get married next spring—or something like that. And then, once all the ink has dried on the paperwork that puts my brothers and me on equal footing, you and I ‘break up,’ saying it just wasn’t working out.”

  Erica was quiet again, once more contemplating, and he wanted to give her the time to do it. As much as he would have loved to tell her to just make up her mind, he suspected she needed a few minutes to wrap her mind around it, try it on for a good fit.

  She really was the perfect woman for it—her looks were right and the fact that she was an attorney, unlike her brothers’ spouses, would make this scenario all the more believable. Or so he thought.

  “That’s it? I just show up to this party pretending to be your fiancée?”

  “You’ll probably have to put on a show for a little longer. Until dad actually retires and hands it over to us…”

  Erica nodded but was silent for a few more moments. “And what’s in it for me?”

  “Like I said, I’ll get off the back room on the first floor and actually practicing law.” Her eyes searched his as he added, “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Yes…but I also know I have to earn it.”

  She wasn’t going to make this easy. “Look…are you a good attorney?”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  “Then don’t you think you should be practicing law—instead of slaving away doing endless hours of research?” He lowered his voice as if sharing a secret. “Isn’t that what we pay paralegals to do?”

  “Yes.” Brock could see doubt in her eyes and she finally spat it out. “But what guarantee do I have that, once we ‘break up,’ I’m not forced back into my little hole? Or how can I even trust that you’ll keep me here at the firm? How do I know you won’t fire me when all’s said and done?”

  Shit. She had a point there—and she had very good reason to be paranoid. But she didn’t know Brock. In spite of the fact that he was a mad dog in the courtroom—vicious and heartless—his dad had instilled a sense of integrity in him and his brothers, a need to be honest. Of course, the fact that he was putting on a huge show to deceive them all sort of negated that—so why should she believe him? She was viewing duplicity from him from the get go. Why should she think anything different?

  He shrugged, not knowing what to say. There would be no “you just gotta trust me,” because she didn’t know him from Adam. There was no reason why she should find him trustworthy.

  “I guess you don’t.” He cocked an eyebrow. “But you yourself said you don’t like what you’re doing. If I get you up here, working cases with me and—”

  “Hold on. That’s part of the problem. I can’t be working cases with you. If I’m working with you and we are no longer a couple, why would you keep working with me? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “We were friends before.”

  “Would your family really believe that?”

  She was quick. He loved that. Being on her toes like this meant she’d be able to play the role of his fiancée easily—and that made him all the more determined to convince her. “Okay. We’ll get you your own office and cases. I’ll work with you for a little bit until we feel like you’ve got it, and then I’ll back off. That way, when we break up, you’re already established and no one thinks twice about it.”

  “I don’t know…” He allowed her to think through her pause. “Brock.” But that gap in her words was instead her way of allowing herself to say his name for the first time.

  He shouldn’t have enjoyed the way her lips and mouth wrapped around those syllables as much as he did. It was a reminder that this woman was most definitely his type, and he started imagining her as another gazelle ripe for the takedown—but he couldn’t. She was going to be his partner in crime, so to speak, so he had to keep his hands off for fear of ruining the deal.

  “Would you want to spend a lot of time around, say, your ex-girlfriends?”

  Brock wasn’t a huge fan. They were nice enough women but she was right. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere near them, no matter how well (or not) he felt like he knew them. “Should we draw up a contract? Make it seem like a prenup but instead make it agreeable to both parties?”

  Erica arched her lovely eyebrow again but a small smile formed in her corner of her mouth. “We write it together? And we sign it before you make your big announcement?”

  Was she saying yes? He sat up, poker face intact. “I think that’s agreeable. Do we have a deal?”

  She stuck out her hand and Brock took it in his. It was lovely—smooth and warm, and he could feel the delica
te bones, in spite of the fact that she had a strong handshake…just as a lawyer should, especially a female with something to prove. “Deal.”

  * * *

  11:32. That was what the green LED light on her bedtime clock said.

  Erica rolled over in bed, struggling to sleep—and that was stupid. She was beyond tired. But she’d gotten home a lot earlier than she had in months and, excited, she tackled a few projects she’d been avoiding, things like thinning out the unwanted clothes in her closet, washing the inside of the fridge, and the like—but her mind had been on Brock the whole time.

  He’d offered to draw up the initial fake prenuptial agreement. There would be the standard financial and asset items found in all prenups, but he’d add more about her professional career not being screwed with, no matter the outcome of their “marriage.” They both agreed that, even though they wouldn’t follow through with matrimony, the intent was there, and if she didn’t keep her job, she’d be able to plead with a judge that it all counted from the moment of signing. Brock swore he’d be an upstanding guy—and there was no reason not to be. She was doing him a huge favor. If he ousted her, what would stop her from blowing his cover?

  Nothing.

  Her biggest fear was what his brothers would want to do. There was no guarantee that the middle brother Brandon would like her despite her role as Brock’s love interest, and Bret might be upset that she was being pulled from research, but Erica knew already that she wouldn’t want to go back to doing what she’d been doing. Not now. She was far too excited to begin acting like a real attorney rather than one in title only. There was nothing more she could learn from conducting research. She knew now that if she needed to find something, she wouldn’t have to rely on a paralegal to do it for her, but that didn’t mean she wanted to do research and nothing but research for the rest of her career. Life was far too short for that.

  When they’d parted earlier that evening, Brock had asked her to stick it out with her old job until the announcement next Wednesday, but he added that his brother would have no idea if she hadn’t been there all night—and did it really matter? The research files kept coming, no matter how many she finished. There was no end in sight. Why not leave that for someone who had a passion for it, like Charley, the clerk who’d been with the firm since its inception?