Page 22 of The American

Jo kissed the lips he offered and Thad had to smile. Their relationship was inspiring to him. If he could have the same unity and love and care for Torren, he and his wife reaching for dreams and accomplishing individual goals, he would be happy.

Jo said, “We will hear all about this new love when it’s his turn to report.”

Nico leaned back with hands behind his head. “Then by all means, let’s begin with him. The far wall pulled up a video of Thad’s song in Times Square. It had several million hits already.

Thad was surprised. “Wow, some of the commentaries must have picked it up. Fan sights and blogs?”

“And twitter. You have several fake accounts and all of them have picked it up.”

Thad nodded. Excellent, better than he’d hoped.

They watched the song to its conclusion. He winced when Sage began singing. She really could not sing. But he gave her extra points for trying anyway. For some reason he was shocked to realize she couldn’t carry a tune and that reminded him he knew very little about her. The thought made him nervous. He had had to remind himself multiple times through the night that all this was for show and that his real relationship was moving at a slower pace.

When the song finished, his family turned to him. He looked from face to face. He missed them. Being a Valdez was something special. He didn’t want to be far from them for most of the year.

“So, that is Sage.”

“She has a lovely singing voice.” Lucan covered his mouth and coughed.

Jo scowled. “Oh stop. She was darling to sing anyway. She didn’t know that was coming, right?”

Thad laughed. “She had no idea. I’ll tell you, she’s a brave one. I brought her to the center of Times Square and started singing. Ha, I’ll never forget her face.” He paused. Every one of his family had raised eyebrows. “I do like her, you know.”

“We couldn’t tell.” Nico smiled.

“But here’s the situation with her. I’m sure Lucan already knows.”

As usual he didn’t confirm or deny any knowledge.

“They hired me to be this CEO figure head type person, to up their marketing with a royal at the head of their company, but, they had already begun conversations with Sage and so Zachary hired us both. We are co-CEOS.”

“Did you know she was part of the deal?”

“No. Unfortunately, Zachary isn’t confident that my lack of experience can truly run a company. So Sage is there to make sure we actually act like CEOs.” It grated, but he tried to understand from a business perspective that he was a risk.

“And…” Lucan tried to hide his smile.

“And. Then some cameras caught us at a nightclub and afterwards walking along the water, and they took off with a story about us having a CEO-ship or something.”

The brothers heckled him for a few minutes. Their mother said, “Do you really like her?”

He thought about the answer. “I do. I see the complications of us ever being together but I really like her, enough that I was thinking of seeing where it could go before…”

“Before?” His mother smiled encouragingly. She was not going to like the rest of the story.

“Before Zachary roped us into pretending we are in a relationship to continue to ride the publicity.”

“What? No, surely Sage didn’t agree to such a thing?” Their mother’s mouth was pinched in a full front of disapproval and Thad was reminded of her days as queen of Torren.

“She has no choice mother. Her reputation and total career is at stake with this. I am sure at times she wishes she had never entered conversations with the company at all.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We are riding it out, and we worked out our whole story for the press, start to finish. Zachary is calling for a wedding.”

“What! No, how could you countenance such a thing? What would our citizens think? With a divorce soon after?”

“No, mother. We told Zachary no.”

She settled back in her chair, but Thad could see this conversation was going to fester for days.

“So, that’s my report. As far as Torren press, everything seems to be going according to our normal routines. If I need to, I’ll make some statements about my situation in America, but there seems to be enough going on of real importance that they are leaving me alone for now.”

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