“Good point,” he admitted in a defeated tone.
I hated seeing him disappointed, so I racked my brain for another solution. And I didn’t pay too close attention to why I felt the way I did. I was in search of a solution to my Duckworth problem. That was all.
“What if… what if I bought your uncle Mark’s shares to keep them in the family?” I suggested, thinking out loud.
Ellison’s eyebrows shot up. “Like… like we’re serious enough in this fake relationship, you wanted to make sure Mark didn’t sell his shares to a random stranger? You did it to save us from being taken over by someone with hostile intent.”
The irony wasn’t lost on either of us.
“It would make sense,” I said as the thought began to settle in and flesh itself out in my mind. “And then my leadership changes could be explained by my disapproval for how your dad has been running the company. If you and your dad aren’t close, and if Ian and your father aren’t close, then it wouldn’t be seen as such a bad thing, right?”
“And since they know I don’t want a future at York Capital, it would be like forcing Dad to pass the company down to you, his future son-in-law.”
This was ridiculous. Surely, no one in their right mind would believe any of this.
“It’s an awfully big lie to tell your godparents,” I warned. “Why would you risk your relationship with them in that way?”
Ellison hesitated. “To get my family business back. Obviously.”
I felt my back teeth grind together. For some reason, I hated the fact he was still fighting for his father even though he’d tried telling me he had no loyalty to him anymore.
“And how will you explain things afterward? Once we’re no longer in our fake relationship and you’re left with the shell of a family business?”
Ellison’s eyes met mine. “Maybe I will tell them I was deceived by a corporate raider. You used me all along to get your hands on our family business.”
If he expected me to be affronted, he was going to be disappointed. I let out a huff of laughter. “Somehow I feel like that was your intent in this fake boyfriend scheme all along. Leave me looking like an ass.”
He eventually grinned at me. “If the Gucci brogue fits…”
I looked down at my dress shoes. “They’re Tom Ford, actually.”
His laugh came free and easy, bubbly enough to make me almost join in, and I rarely laughed. For some reason, I’d been closer than usual since spending time with this confounding man.
“Do you think it will work?” Ellison asked when he pulled himself together. “We’d have to really sell it. Ian knows me better than most people. He also knows… about… what happened at the club. I told you that already. So he knows…” He seemed to be stumbling over his words.
“What?” I asked with some frustration. “Just say it. You already told me there was more to it than the dare. Are you saying he knows you’re attracted to men?”
“He knows I’m attracted to you,” he blurted. His face flushed again, which made me sit up taller with a little pride.
“I believe you meant that in the past tense,” I said as if I didn’t care at all.
I cared.
“Well, that too,” he muttered, focusing intently on his beer bottle. The kitchen sparkled cleanly around us in the warm light from only the hanging fixtures over the island. A faint smell of lemons and bleach lingered from Jenny’s attentions earlier in the day. It took a minute for his implication to hit me.
I opened my mouth to quiz him on it before I shut it with a snap. I wasn’t going there. His attraction to me was irrelevant. It wasn’t like I was going to act on it anyway.
“Won’t that work in our favor?” I asked. “Make a relationship between us more believable?”
Ellison kept his eyes on the bottle. “Well, yes. But… it’s possible he could ask you about it. Maybe ask you if you forgave me or how we got past the misunderstanding all those years ago.”
“Misunderstanding?” I asked. “Is that what it was?” My voice came out way more biting than I’d intended, exposing how much this still bothered me. I tried to rein it in. “Never mind. We would have to… let it go. Pretend to let it go, anyway.”
Ellison studied me, looking noticeably less confident than before. “And could you do that? Pretend to let it go?”
It was a good question. It certainly wouldn’t be easy for me to lie about it if asked directly. As for pretending to be Ellison’s boyfriend, though? That would probably be all too easy.
Dangerously easy.
“I would have to, wouldn’t I?” I asked, standing up and taking my unfinished bottle to the sink.
“You want that building pretty badly, don’t you?” He didn’t ask in a snide way, but more in the tone of dawning realization.
He’d been candid with me, so I was candid with him. “I do. Yes. This project is incredibly important. More important to me than York, as you can see.” I turned back around to see his reaction. He nodded.
“And York Capital’s legacy is more important to me than the incredible betrayal my father will feel when he sees us together.”
Fuck.
“Your father will be at the house party?”
“He wasn’t planning on going, but as soon as he finds out you and I will be there together, he’ll change his plans. I have no doubt.”
The party would be excruciating with Warren York there. “And you don’t trust him enough with the truth.”
Ellison nodded. “No way. He would tell me it wasn’t worth it. He’d rather lose the company, lose everything, than imagine the two of us happily together, even if it’s fake. Appearances are everything to him.”
I ground my teeth together again. “He hates me that much?”
Ellison brushed past me to set his bottle next to mine by the sink. On his way out of the kitchen, he looked back over his shoulder. “No. He hates me that much.”
And then he disappeared down the hall.
After rinsing the bottles and dropping them into the recycling container, I poured a glass of water and made my way to my bedroom. I’d spent years studying strategy, and I used the next hour thinking through how I would tackle the challenge of a high-society house party.
Google got a workout on my laptop, considering I barely even knew what an event like this would even look like.
Hamptons house party.
The results were horrifying. There were hundreds of drunk yuppies half-dressed standing by a large swimming pool. I changed my search terms to “old people Hamptons house party” and saw a man in a douchey suit holding the reins to a fancy horse, also standing by a large swimming pool.
I groaned and shut my laptop.
I knew what it was like to be a fish out of water, but this would be taking it to the extreme. According to the internet, there would be long, lavish dinner parties and possible lawn bowling. I’d need to know what the fuck shuttlecock was and how to play it. No.
No.
This was impossible. It had been hard enough hiring someone to teach me etiquette several years ago after I’d embarrassed myself at a business dinner. This would be a hundred times worse.