Page 48 of An Engagement for Erica

She laughed. “What age is that? I think thirty-five based on you wanting to take over when you’re fifty.”

“Thirty-five,” he said nodding. “Old in my grandfather’s eyes. And you?”

“Thirty,” she said. “Getting up there in society’s eyes when it comes to single women.”

“Not really,” he said.

“You’d be surprised. Right about now is when people are looking at you to see if you are at least in a serious relationship or not. In my mother’s eyes, I’ll be single forever if I continue toput work first. But this is from a woman who hasn’t worked that I can remember.”

“My mother worked when she met my father and then stopped when I was born. I think she wanted to raise me as much as my father didn’t want his wife working.”

“You don’t see that as much anymore,” she said.

“I think each couple needs to figure those things out themselves,” he said.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’ll always work. I don’t think I could be a stay at home mother.”

He turned his head to look at her again. “Do you want children? That might come up today.”

He gave her a charming smile. “I’d like at least one,” she said. “Maybe two, but it’d depend on a lot of factors. Like my age.”

“I think thirty is a perfect age for you,” he said, laughing.

“That’s good since it’s what I am. Do we have to get our stories straight on how we met?”

“No,” he said. “I think we go with the truth. You were hired to help us through an acquisition at my old job. My grandfather doesn’t need to know or worry about timelines. We should keep it simple.”

She snorted. “Since when is a fake engagement simple?”

17

THROUGH IT TOGETHER

Erica looked down at the ring on her finger.

It sure looked real to her.

What she was trying to figure out was how she agreed to this.

It was one thing to go in and lie to someone to get them on the road to recovery.

It was another to start using props.

At least in her mind.

“You’ve got a point,” he said. “It’s not simple, but we can make it be that way.”

“We can,” she said. They were almost at the hospital now and she was getting nervous and wasn’t sure this was all that great of an idea.

“Are you okay?” Tucker asked her five minutes later. There had been silence in the car as he was driving. Her mind was wandering on all sorts of things.

“I am,” she said.

“Are you having doubts about doing this? I could make up an excuse and you can just hang out somewhere. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

Erica looked down at the thick silver band and the fake diamond sitting on top of it.

She reached that hand over, the stone flashing when the sun hit it in the car. “Stop,” she said. “You don’t ramble and you are. You sound more nervous than me.”

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