Otherwise Engaged: A Fake Engagement Romance

Nothing like getting an email from your lawyer about the IRS before ten AM to ruin your Monday morning.

I leaned over my desk, rubbing my temples while I re-read the body of Eric’s message. According to Eric, the IRS was ‘amenable’ to an installment plan—with steep interest, of course, because why not twist the debt-ridden knife? While it was still good news in theory, they wanted an answer right away. Problem was, I didn’t have an answer. Until I had Callaghan locked down, I couldn’t safely guarantee I’d be able to adhere to a payment schedule, and failing to uphold my end of the bargain would put me in even worse standing with them.

Twelve days. I just needed to get through twelve more days, survive my fake engagement party, get Callaghan’s signature on those papers, and then my problems would be over. Well, almost over; there was still the matter of securing the bid with the city, but Ian was adamant that he had that in the bag. He’d been all but promised it by the head of the planning department. It was a no-brainer, anyway; Flux’s project was superior to AM Developments’ in every way.

I picked up my freshly refilled mug of coffee, praying the caffeine would somehow kickstart my brain, and then I stared at the monitor, debating how to reply to Eric. Maybe we could begin to negotiate the specifics of the agreement and drag it out as much as possible, thereby buying me some time to make sure I had the money lined up. I didn’t want to flat-out tell my lawyer that was my strategy, though. It didn’t seem like it was entirely ethical.

The door to my office swung open, unsolicited, and I glanced up to find my least favorite person in the world standing in my doorway. There was no good time for an impromptu visit from Satan’s understudy, but I was especially displeased at the intrusion before I’d even had time to finish my second coffee of the day.

My blood pressure tripled as Adam swaggered in without an invitation, wearing an expensive-looking navy designer suit and a shit-eating grin that told me my morning was about to go even more sideways. Seizing hold of the mouse, I saved my email draft and closed it in case he somehow caught a look at my screen.

“Hey, cuz.” He rapped his knuckles against my desk.

“Who let you in?” I asked, trying to seem indifferent instead of irritated.

Although we had tried to minimize the fallout for the sake of maintaining a professional work environment, Flux’s staff were more than aware of the negative circumstances surrounding Adam’s departure from the company. Anyone employed by me should have known better to give him free reign of our floor. Not only was he an annoying asshole, but he also could have been trying to engage in corporate espionage.

Adam snagged my favorite Mont Blanc pen off my desk, twirling it between his fingers. “Your receptionist, Janine. She always had a thing for me. Applied for a job with AM awhile back, actually, but I’d already filled the position with this hot blonde named Trisha.”

Note to self: Fire Janine.

“But enough about me,” he said. “Let’s talk about you for a minute. How are things with Thayer?”

“Great.” I resisted the urge to throw my coffee at him. As tempting as it was, it would have been a terrible waste of a premium Kona blend.

Adam clucked his tongue. “Think they’ll stay that way if you lose the bid?”

“I’m not even a little bit worried about that.” A half-truth; I wasn’t a little worried, I was a lot worried. Being broke—and possibly, unemployed—wasn’t exactly an appealing attribute in a grown man. Plus, I didn’t want it to look like I was pulling an Adam and pursuing Thayer for her money.

“I could buy you out,” he offered, setting the pen on my desk without putting it back where it belonged. “We could roll Flux under the umbrella of AM Developments.”

My grip on the mug tightened to the point where I thought it might shatter. “A merger?” I shot him a look of disbelief, because his offer was as insulting as it was delusional. “Hard pass.”

Adam sank into the guest chair across from my desk. I reopened my email and composed a message to my assistant, Shane, directing him to terminate Janine with two weeks’ severance. Then I requested that he place security on standby in case they needed to escort my current ‘guest’ out of the building. Adam craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of my screen, and I hit send before he could read the message, exiting the email program.

“Let’s be honest, Bradford. We both know it would be a bailout,” Adam said, leaning back in his chair again. “Flux is circling the drain. But it does have a few properties of value, so I’d keep those and let you stay on as project manager. You know, out of the kindness of my heart.”

Not in this lifetime. I would move back in with my parents before I lowered myself to working for Adam, and I had no intention of doing that anytime soon, either.

When Adam saw the disgusted look on my face, his smugness factor shot through the stratosphere. I made a conscious effort to neutralize my expression. While he was annoying the shit out of me, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of letting that show.

“Don’t be proud, Bennett. The optics are better for you than declaring bankruptcy.”

“Good thing I don’t plan to go bankrupt.”

“Speaking of optics, the timing of your relationship is interesting.” He folded an ankle over his knee, gaze zeroing in on my face. “Didn’t you say you’d rather eat glass than get married?”

I had said that, along with various other disparaging comments regarding marriage, like the fact that I thought it was a one-way ticket to boredom and a dead bedroom. In retrospect, my stance seemed a little extreme, but now wasn’t the time to examine my change of heart on that subject. I couldn’t afford to engage in am impromptu navel-gazing session with Adam sitting in front of me.

I shrugged, taking a sip of my coffee. “People change.”

“Indeed,” Adam mused. “You sure seem to have changed in the nick of time.”

“What are you trying to say?” Funny that he was trying to imply something about my reasons for being with Thayer when he was the king of ulterior motives himself.

Then again, Adam wasn’t wrong. At least, not about how it started.

“Nothing,” he said innocently. “It’s just interesting, that’s all.”

“Circling back to the point,” I said. “I’m not interested in your offer. I have several meetings on my agenda this morning, so perhaps Janine can show you out.” I pointed to the door.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you lose the bid.”

My jaw clenched. “What do you mean, when?”

Way to take the bait, Bradford.

Adam pushed to stand. “You haven’t heard? The city is going to accept my bid.” He gave me a faux sympathetic look. “Of course, that’s not public information yet. I guess you wouldn’t know, since you don’t have the same connections I do. But you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

The edges of my vision started to turn grey as he turned and sauntered over to my door, lingering in the threshold. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll always have a job waiting for you at AM Developments. That’s what family is for, right?”

Before I could respond, Adam disappeared down the hall. Which was just as well, because the only response I could formulate was a string of insults and profanity.

The door clicked shut behind him, encasing me in a silent tomb of misery. Worries whirled through my mind, picking up additional fears like debris, forming an F5 tornado of panic. I was fucked. Utterly fucked. I was going to go down in flames while Thayer witnessed the whole thing.

NOT TEN MINUTES LATER, after I’d finally crafted a sufficiently vague email to Eric, my door swung open again. If it was Adam again, I was going to throw my Flux-logoed coffee cup at his oversized head. Instead, I looked up from the computer to find Ian holding a sheaf of papers in one hand, his expression tight and sandy hair disheveled.

He stalked into the room and flopped into the chair across from me. Frowning, he stared at the floor in front of him and drew in a long inhale, holding it for a couple of seconds before exhaling loudly.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Maybe this was some kind of marital thing, not even related to business. Of course, I didn’t want that to be the case, but my sanity couldn’t withstand another Flux-related fire, either.

Ian’s gaze rocketed over to me and the look in his eyes said it all. “I’ve been informed that we’re going to lose the bid,” he said. “I wanted to prepare you.”

A lead weight formed in my stomach. I swallowed the last of my coffee, but suddenly the smooth blend tasted bitter.

“Funny,” I muttered, setting down the empty mug. “Adam just came here to tell me the same thing.”

“He did?” With Ian’s office tucked away in a corner, he was blissfully unaware of most office comings and goings.

“Janine let him in. I guess he didn’t grace you with his presence on the way out.” I stood up and began to pace near the window, leather Oxfords clicking on the glossy tile. Tiny flakes of snow whirled in the air outside, and the grey overcast sky was as bleak as my mood. “By the way, Janine won’t be with us much longer.”

When he didn’t say anything more, I turned back to face him. His expression was grim, much like our situation. We were on a crash course and there was no time to swerve.

“Why are we going to lose the bid? How do you even know?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from climbing. I was frustrated with the situation, not with Ian. “You told me you had this in the bag with your connections in the planning department.”

“I did,” he snapped. “Until the mayor pulled rank.”

I turned back to face him. “The mayor? What the fuck?” Maybe I should leave the office after this to go throw around heavy things at the gym. It was that, or start throwing the furniture. I hadn’t broken a chair in a while, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“Strange, right? It doesn’t make sense. Why would the mayor overrule the planning and development board? He never interferes with administrative matters like that.”

“Adam doesn’t have any connections to the Mayor that I know of,” I mused. Emphasis, that I knew of. But my cousin was nothing if not sneaky. “Nor does Richard.”

“I have that private investigator looking into Adam. So far, it’s been a dead end. He hasn’t found any connections between him and anyone politically connected, but he’s still looking.”

“Good,” I said, crossing the room to my desk and sitting back down. I nodded to the papers he was holding. “Was there something else? Did come in here to give me those?”

Ian’s gaze dropped to the stack of papers, and he fell silent. I watched him, impatiently waiting for him to say whatever he was trying to build up to saying. I wasn’t sure what more could go wrong. My life was already in difficult mode, with the settings switched to worst-case scenario.

“I did some digging into Adam’s proposed development.” His words were measured, intended to carefully tap dance around the point. “I wanted to see what might have given him the upper hand.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

“I managed to get a list of tenants.”

“Okay…” I waved him on impatiently. I didn’t need to know the entire research process, I just needed to know the result. “What’s your point? Did Adam snag some golden anchor tenant that won over the mayor?”

Our tenant roster was solid, a nice mix of local businesses and corporate chains. The commercial spaces were small, fairly standard 1100-2000 square foot units, only suitable a few types of commercial activities. I didn’t see what Adam could possibly have that we didn’t.

“Not exactly.” Ian slid the stack of papers across my desk to me. “Did you know about this?”