Page 59 of Surprise! I'm Engaged To My Boss
“Yeah, we've already bumped into each other at a few events.”
“Beyoncé? The supreme diva, queen of the world, Beyoncé?”
“Oh, do you like her?”
“Everyoneloves Beyoncé.”
“Maybe one day I'll be able to introduce you to her.”
I couldn’t even find the words to reply. Michael started laughing, then teased me by singing along with the song. I joined in. We were both equally off-key, actually — though I had a strong suspicion he was even worse than I was.
“I can imagine how horrified the girl at the bead stand must have been with us singingEndless Love,”I commented at one point.
“It must have been terrible!” he agreed, laughing. “I love music, but I’m a terrible singer. I could never win someone over with a serenade, for example.”
“Thank goodness!” I said. “Few things in life are as tacky as a serenade.”
“I agree. You have to be desperately in love to do something like that.”
I was going to make some comment about it, but before I knew it, he was already pulling up in front of my building. The trip had been so quick that I hadn't even noticed the time passing. At the same time, it seemed like much more time had passed than it actually had because of the way we had managed to talk about so many things and nothing in particular at the same time.
“Don't you want to come up?” I tried, hoping that this time he would accept. “My grandmother is always asking about you.”
“Mrs. Jenna is a sweetheart. Tell her again that I send her my love and that I'll come visit her sometime.”
“Well, you know you have no obligation to do this. Our agreement is that our families believe we are engaged, nothing more.”
“It's not part of the deal, but I really like your grandmother. I think you're very lucky to have her in your life.”
I had no doubt about it. My grandmother was the kind of person who could easily win over anyone with her grandma-from-children's-programs manner. And she also liked people very easily, and that was the bad part of it all.
When Michael and I finished our ruse, she would inevitably miss him.
The worst part of all is that it probably wouldn't just be her.
I heard a whisper coming from the sidewalk and turned my eyes there, finding a group of residents of my building, including Nora Williams – the proud grandmother of four grandchildren – and Evelyn's mother, along with two other neighbors who were just as gossipy. They were looking directly at me, but they tried to hide it when I turned my eyes in their direction, although they continued to whisper which was clearly about us.
“Is there a problem?” Michael asked, seeming to notice my gaze on the group of women.
“Gossipy neighbors,” I summarized. “They're probably suspicious of our relationship because of my reputation for being forever single. Well, it doesn't matter what they think.”
“And what do you think they think?”
“The same as the people at the company, probably. That I'm a gold digger.”
“Isn't that a bit outdated?”
“You're my boss and I've always been a completely career-focused person, that's their logic.Well, that doesn't really matter. See you on Saturday for Alice's birthday.”
“Yes, but we'll probably see each other before then. If it's not a problem for you, I can bring you home more often. You know, just to give your gossipy neighbors more to talk about.”
I laughed and agreed. Not that I had any interest in being the focus of more conversation for those women, but the ride had been quite pleasant.
I opened the door and started to get out of the car. I had barely found myself standing on the sidewalk when I heard the sound of the other door opening and I turned to see that Michael had also gotten out of the car and was coming towards me, stopping right in front of me.
“I was thinking...” he began. “It's not good for people to be suspicious of our relationship, don't you think?”
“Well... it's not, but... There's not much that can be done in that case.”
