Otherwise Engaged: A Fake Engagement Romance

There’s a first for everything in business. First project, first office, first business card, first time hiring someone, first time firing someone. Most first times are exciting milestones along the road to success. Well, except for firing someone—though when they deserve it, sometimes that feels pretty damn good.

But your first nasty letter from the IRS, threatening bank account seizures and legal action is a speedbump you pray you’ll never hit. And I just did—doing ninety miles per hour.

“You’re going to have to tell him sometime.” Eric leaned back in his chair across from my desk, looking at me pointedly. He folded his fingers over his emerging potbelly, the result of stress from recently making partner at his firm.

“I will.” Eventually.

For now, Ian didn’t need to know. It wasn’t like I was going to keep this under wraps forever; I’d tell him once I had a solution, ideally in the form of a massive cash injection.

Until then, knowing about the tax arrears—and our dire financial position—would only cause Ian unnecessary stress. As Chief Operating Officer, his head needed to be clear to focus on overseeing more pressing matters, like acquiring and amalgamating the parcel of land we’d been working on for the past year. I’d let him focus on that, while I stood on my head, trying to prevent the company from folding.

It was my fault, anyway. Or Adam’s fault, if you wanted to be specific. I’d already sunk every penny to my name into this company. When he’d put the screws to us two years ago, demanding a buyout, I had nothing left to draw on and no choice but to borrow from the company to pay him.

Definitely not ideal, but I figured we had enough of a buffer to survive—and we would have, except the real estate market decided to take a fucking face plant. It had been unprecedented, unforeseen, and highly unfortunate timing.

Before I knew it, our conservative projections were unrealistic, and our margins were shrinking faster than my balls in a cold shower. The buffer dwindled to zero, and I began using money earmarked for specific projects for other things, trying to make it up before it was needed. Essentially, kiting within my own company.

The real estate market had since recovered, but the reality of our financial situation had not. The fallout from Adam’s treachery was still haunting me.

“This seems like a fairly straightforward matter. According to them, there’s a large amount of tax owing from last year.” Eric scanned the sheaf of papers in his hand, identical to the ones that sat on my desk in front of me. He glanced up, eyebrows raised behind his black-rimmed glasses. “Unless there’s more to the story. Did you request a reassessment? Are there losses that weren’t accounted for on your return?”

“No.” I wished I had a leg to stand on, but I didn’t. “We owe the money.”

Hopefully, Ian would understand why I kept this from him. Or maybe he would never need to know. Maybe I could somehow magically conjure the money out of thin air, get the IRS off my back, and make it all go away before anyone had to know.

Probably not.

“Okay.” Eric nodded, waiting for me to continue. To explain why we hadn’t paid corporate taxes for the year prior. Except I didn’t have an explanation other than the ugly truth: we had been short on funds and the money went to other things. Like paying staff, so I still had a company.

“It’s not like I think taxes are optional,” I said. “We just fell behind, and it snowballed from there.”

“That’s not uncommon.”

Glancing down, I re-read the details, noticing ‘Bennett Charles Bradford’ listed under addressees. My heart started to hammer, blood pressure spiking.

“They named me personally? What the fuck?” I stood up and began to stalk in circles in front of the window. Lately, I’d been exceeding 20,000 steps a day from stress-pacing alone.

“You’re the CFO,” he said. “Technically, you could be held personally responsible for the unpaid taxes. But if the corporation pays the arrears, they won’t go after you to recover the funds.”

I dearly hoped not, because I didn’t have the funds. Contrary to what most people thought, I didn’t have a big fat trust fund anymore, nor the bank account to back up my designer wardrobe. After Adam pulled the plug, I’d poured everything I had into keeping the company afloat. I was living on a prayer, leveraged to the hilt. It was downright embarrassing. Thank God for client-lawyer confidentiality.

“Look,” Eric started. He drew in a breath, hesitating. “This is me putting on my Eric-your-friend hat, not lawyer-Eric talking. What’s going on? The company seems to be doing well. Your projects are selling, correct?”

“Mostly,” I said. “But it’s been a rough couple of years. Buying out Adam ate into our operating reserves and then the low-rise condominium we wrapped up last spring didn’t meet our projected price per square foot.” Or my projected price per square foot, to be specific. Because those items fell under my purview, and I overshot. Significantly.

Sure, we made a profit, but barely. When you factored in the time spent and opportunity cost, it was a poor return on investment.

“Ah.” Eric glanced down, making notes in his folio with his Mont Blanc. “So you have a liquidity problem.”

“Yes.”

“Is there any way you can raise some additional funds? You know, to help get you through?”

I clamped down on the urge to snap at him. I knew he meant well, but did he really think I hadn’t tried?

“Working on it.”

He nodded sympathetically. “It’s a tight market out there.”

“It is,” I agreed.

I wondered how unprofessional it would be to ask Eric for a loan. He’d recently made partner, which involved a massive firm buy-in, so he probably didn’t have any cash anyway. Not to mention, it would probably be inappropriate to hit up my legal counsel for cash, even if he was my friend. No, I couldn’t actually do that. But I was stretched so thin and so desperate that I didn’t know what to do.

“What we want to avoid is an audit,” he said. “They’re a pain in the ass. They’ll swoop in here and scrutinize everything from your expense accounts to what you pay for toilet paper.”

Yes, I definitely wanted to avoid that.

“How do we make sure that doesn’t happen?”

He looked at me sympathetically. “By paying them.”

“And if I can’t? Can I make some kind of payment arrangement like you said, give them installments?”

“We can try. They aren’t always as amenable to it when you owe a large sum of money.”

Well, that made zero sense. The more you owed, the harder it was to pay. I wouldn’t need a fucking payment plan if I only owed a couple grand.

“Does the company have any assets it can dispose of? Real estate or other hard assets?” he asked. “Otherwise, you’re in for a bumpy ride with any additional fundraising in this market.”

Didn’t I know it.

My phone buzzed and an appointment notification popped up on my screen.

“Shit,” I muttered, looking down at the reminder. “We’ll have to cut this short; I have another meeting I have to get to.”

And by meeting, I meant I was going to go buy a goddamn engagement ring to continue my charade, based on some faint hope of keeping Callaghan on the hook.

I hadn’t pictured myself buying an engagement ring ever, and definitely not under these circumstances. But after things spiraled out of control at the party, rumors of our impending engagement had spread like wildfire, including to my own mother—who was thrilled.

Now I understood how Thayer’s fib had come back to bite her in the ass.

At any rate, everyone was expecting me to propose, and I had to follow through or risk looking like our ‘relationship’ wasn’t solid. In order to land Callaghan, stability needed to be my middle name.

Eric nodded, pushing his chair back as he stood. “We have fifteen days to respond. Let’s touch base at the end of the week to work on the statement of defense. That will give us time to finalize it before it’s due.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”

But what defense did I have when I was guilty?

STAGE THREE…METASTASIS to the lymph nodes…more radiation and possible surgery…

My mother reached across the table, placing a soft hand on top of my own. I blinked, snapping back to reality, and looked up to find her dark blue eyes watching me with an expression of concern.

Why was she worried about me? I should be the one worried about her. When she said her cancer had returned, I hadn’t expected it to be this serious. Naively, I’d been hoping it was like before; caught early and entirely treatable.

“I haven’t told Holden yet,” she said. “Let me tell him when we’re alone, please.”

Panic crawled up my throat. I reached for my beer and took a hefty gulp, trying to swallow the ball of tension stuck in my esophagus. “Will do.”

“I still have to go for more tests,” she added. “But I am sure it’s going to be fine. My oncologist tells us the prognosis is still very good, statistically. And you know your father’s health insurance is world class.”

It was true; while I resented the shit out of my uncle Richard, he provided his senior executives with top-shelf benefits, including health care coverage fit for the US President. My mother would be able to access every cutting-edge treatment available within the continental United States. The plan even covered holistic therapies like acupuncture and massage.

Still, that knowledge did little to put my mind at ease now that I knew her cancer had spread.

Moments later, my younger brother, Holden, rushed through the door of the restaurant, fresh from moot court at his law school. He leaned in and gave our mother a warm hug. Then he slid into a chair across from me, shrugging off his charcoal suit jacket.

“Alicia had an emergency at work,” he said apologetically. “Client in need of an urgent root canal.” His girlfriend, two years older than him, was a dentist catering to the high-end crowd. In other words, charging them through the nose for a few X-rays and tooth-scrapings. Smart gig, really. Hell of a lot more stable than what I’d decided to dive into.

“That’s okay.” Our mother gave him a tired smile. It hit me that she didn’t look as vibrant as she usually did, only adding fuel to my bonfire of worries. “Maybe next time, she can meet Thayer.”

Holden’s light brown eyebrows practically hit his hairline. “Thayer?”

“His girlfriend, Holden.”

The choking sensation in my throat returned, intensifying. My beer, now empty, was of no help.

“Girlfriend?” Holden looked even more confused.

“We haven’t been dating long,” I said, picking up the food menu to give myself something to focus on other than my brother’s prying stare. The engagement ring in my suit jacket felt like it was burning a hole through the wool fabric. “But it’s getting serious.”

“They’re talking marriage.” My mother beamed over the table at me. I felt like such an asshole.

“Okay…” he muttered. Clearly, he didn’t want to get into it in front of our mother, and thank God for that.

When she excused herself moments later to use the bathroom, Holden yanked my menu out of my hands, snapping it shut. He leaned over the table eyeing me like I was an enemy spy.

“Are we talking about Thayer Montgomery, Bennett? From high school? Isn’t she the one who—”

Me and my big fucking mouth. And my temper…And my ego.

“Ancient history.” I feigned a neutral expression, cutting him off with a wave of my hand.

He took a sip of his gin and tonic, watching me. “You’re not exactly the type to forgive and forget.”

I wasn’t—and I hadn’t. But it didn’t matter right now. Our interests were mutually aligned.

“Call it personal growth,” I said. “That was nine years ago. We’ve moved past it.”

“Since when?” he demanded. “I’ve had to hear how much you hate her since high school. Hell, you practically made me hate her.”

Okay, I may have trash talked Thayer a little in the past when I was upset about what she did. Plus, she’s so damn stubborn, and she argues like it’s an Olympic sport. Talk about having a smart mouth.

But her soft lips and that little sound she made when we kissed the other night were almost enough to make me forget. My cock twitched at the memory, brain immediately flipping into X-rated territory.

Fuck.

To say I wasn’t handling the stress of my current situation well was an understatement, and epic sexual frustration was the cherry on top of the garbage sundae of my life. At this point, a warm breeze could get me off.

“I decided it was time to move past it,” I said, picking up the new bottle of beer our server just set down. “And mom doesn’t know about any of that. She likes Thayer, and we’re going to keep it that way, especially with mom being sick again. Okay?”

I didn’t lean into the bossy older brother role often, even as kids, so when I did, Holden knew better than to argue. Hopefully, he wouldn’t manage to pry the truth out of me eventually. He could read me better than Ian, even.

Holden frowned and opened his mouth to say something. His eyes fell on our mother as she approached the table, and I shot him a warning look before he could add anything further.

“Fine,” he said.

OUR FATHER WAS SUPPOSED to join us for dinner but didn’t arrive until we were paying the bill—after Holden had already left to pick up his girlfriend at work. At least he showed up in time to drive my mother home, but I was still irked. He’d been almost entirely MIA the past few years, consumed with trying to prove himself to everyone else in the wake of his insider trading charges. Copping a plea deal like he had didn’t exactly help his image, and he was hell-bent on restoring it to its previous, untarnished state. Which would never happen.

We made a slow shuffle through the restaurant, heading in the direction of the exit.

“Sorry again for being late.” My father ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair, looking nearly as frazzled as I felt. Beneath his black wool dress coat, his tie hung loose around his neck. Leaning in, he gave my mom a quick kiss on the cheek as he steered her to the door. To his credit, he was a significantly better husband than father.

“Richard needed me to attend a meeting on his behalf,” he added.

Of course, he did. Richard was more than happy to let my dad do all the grunt work.

“I know how it goes,” I said coolly.

Coming to a stop on the curb outside, we waited for the valet to bring their car around. I was within walking distance to my apartment and glad for it, because I needed the air to clear my head.

“How are things with work, anyway?”

I tensed, trying to hide my discomfort. Was he asking to make conversation, or asking because Richard told him I’d approached him for a loan?

“Great,” I lied. “Just wrapping up the next round of financing.”

In a swoop of good timing, their black Mercedes sedan pulled up to the curb, and the valet hopped out, handing my father the keys. I gave my mother a hug, releasing her and trying not to worry about how frail she felt in my arms.

“I hope you bring Thayer next time,” she said, giving me a warm smile that made me feel like even more of a jerk than I already did.

“I will, she just had a work commitment tonight.”

The valet opened the door for her, and she turned back to look at me before sliding in. Her face lit up. “We could do dinner with her family. I’d love to catch up with Alexandra and Charles.”

Guilt stabbed me in the gut. “Even better.”

Between this and the ring, Thayer really was going to kill me.

And she didn’t even know about Mexico yet.