Page 40 of Charming Deception

I hate that he’s making sense right now. Marketing is my thing, not his.

“That means you,” he adds grimly, “plus someone the family approves of. Which means no gold diggers and no bimbos, Jamie.”

I’m gradually absorbing how serious he is about this. “You know I’m not in a relationship.”

“Then get in one.” Yup. He’s serious. “And it needs to be grand. Yet believable.”

Believable. Because it won’t be real, but he’ll want me to sell it like it is. Is that what he’s saying?

“So now celibacy isn’t enough? Now you want me to ask someone to marry me, but not have sex with her, or, what? You’ll choose to believe I failed the game and lock me out of my inheritance?” I keep my voice calm, but that vein in my forehead is ready to explode. “Because of some fucking online gossip?”

My brother just looks annoyed. “You can have sex with her. Eventually. You’ve only got a few more weeks on the challenge.”

“And where am I supposed to find a woman worthy of your ‘approval’ out of nowhere? She’s just supposed to appear out of thin fucking air?—”

The door bursts open and a small, disheveled whirlwind Tasmanian-devils into the room, spraying soil. “You fired Romeo?” Megan pants at me in her little tank top, her sweaty cleavage heaving.

Her nipples are hard.

“I’m so sorry.” Clara’s right behind her, huffing and puffing. “She outran me.”

I sit back, not sure how to process that Megan Hudson just sprinted into my office. “It’s all right, Clara. You can leave us.”

Clara nods, smoothing her mussed hair as she shuts the door.

“You fired Romeo?” Megan repeats, whipping her gardening trowel in the air for effect. And flinging mud across my office.

“Is that mud?”

“What?” She wipes her sweaty forehead with the back of her wrist, smearing mud across it.

Graysen crosses his arms over his chest, glancing from my mud-sprayed sofa to Megan to me. I ignore him, trying to look unfazed, but mud on my sofa from Brianza is a hard no. I don’t even have sex on that sofa.

“What are you, auditioning for some Shakespeare-in-the-Park thing?” I demand, fucking irritated in five different directions.

“Huh?” Megan looks from me to my brother and back, suddenly self-conscious, like she’s just realized she exploded into a meeting spraying mud and shouting at me about Romeo.

“Who’s Romeo?”

She blinks at me. “Uh, Romeo is the very sweet, kind man who’s been making your gardens beautiful for the last four years and he has three kids he’s trying to put through college and his wife is going blind and you just fired him from the job he loves!” She stares at me, panting, waiting for me to respond to that.

Oh. That Romeo. I thought his name was Raymond or something.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I tell her. “I’m in a meeting.”

She glances at Graysen again.

I grind my teeth. Her nipples are still hard, and he’s looking at her.

“This is my brother, Graysen,” I force out.

In a much more polite tone, she says, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. But this is important.”

“Please, don’t let me stop you,” Graysen says.

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