Page 31 of At Your Service
“Why? You were doing just fine here starting your business. You can’t always put the cart before the horse, Nina. Growing a business takes time. I don’t know why my girls always want everything with such urgency. Never want to take the time to see how things will turn out, just like...” His words trailed off and Nina tried not to feel the bite of the comparison he’d almost made between her and her mother.
“I’m not doing this just for me. I want you to be able to move into that facility we looked at a few months ago.”
He was quiet for too long and she braced herself for an explosion of temper. Although it didn’t happen frequently, Jacoby could yell and argue just like his daughters.
“If I wanted to go into that facility, I could. I’ve got some money saved up. You don’t need to worry about me. I want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted was for all of my girls to be happy.”
And by “all” of his girls, Nina knew he was including her mother. Lynn hadn’t been happy with the man she’d married and the three children she’d given birth to. But that wasn’t their fault. Nina only wished her father would finally come to that conclusion. She also wished that everything her mother had done didn’t affect everything she was doing now. Nina needed to believe that if she wanted a relationship for herself it could flourish. But the demise of her parents’ marriage had a much bigger impact on her than she’d ever believed before she’d met Major.
“Your savings isn’t enough, Dad. There are ongoing expenses and we have the portions of your medical bills that the insurance doesn’t cover. I’m just trying to do what’s necessary for my family. If relatives help each other, what evil can hurt them? You taught me that.” Tossing old proverbs back at her father might not be the best idea, but it was all she had. She wasn’t going to let him talk her out of what she’d started.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” he said quietly. “And I definitely don’t want you degrading yourself in any way to help me.”
“I’m not. I promise. Major is a good guy and this is a wonderful opportunity for my business to get the exposure it needs.”
“If he’s such a good guy, why can’t he find himself a real wife?”
Nina didn’t have an answer for that. In fact, hours after the conversation with her father while she lay in the dark bedroom, she let herself think about Major finding his real wife and how she would ultimately feel knowing it wasn’t her.
Maybe if she were a different type of woman, one who hadn’t been showed so early in life the devastation that failed love could bring. Perhaps then she could allow herself the dream of falling in love with a man like Major and him falling in love with her. But that barrier she’d had no choice but to build around her heart just wouldn’t allow her to trust those types of thoughts. It wouldn’t allow her to hope for something that just couldn’t be.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Major said when Nina was escorted into the den at his parents’ house on Sunday evening.
He hadn’t been avoiding her this time. Something had come up at Brand Integrated that had taken him all weekend to deal with. But he’d wanted to see her.
Major had also been dealing with the engagement ring. Among all the other plans, that detail had somehow fallen to the wayside. It had taken six days for the ring Major wanted for Nina to be ready and it had been delivered to his apartment yesterday morning. He’d refused to address why he felt a jewelry designer was required for a fake engagement, but he wanted the ring on Nina’s finger before their next public appearance.
Now, she was here, in the house he’d grown up in, looking around the room, one hand to her chest before she settled her gaze on him. “Sorry, still trying to catch my breath from that magnificent foyer I just walked through. That staircase is breathtaking, and I’ve never seen anything like the brown-and-gold marble floor.” She gave her head a little shake and then cleared her throat, dropping her arm to her side. “But yeah, your mother invited me to dinner while we were at the fitting yesterday,” she said, waving to Maurice and RJ who were sitting in chairs behind him.
“She was at the fitting?” Was that on the itinerary?
“Yes, Mom was at the fitting. Everything doesn’t have to be on the itinerary, Major. It’s all right to be impulsive sometimes,” Riley said as she entered the room. The smile on his sister’s face solidified the feeling of dread in the pit of Major’s stomach. “We had a wonderful afternoon. The gowns were all so beautiful on Nina. We had a terrible time deciding on the final one.”
RJ stood and went to the bar in the far corner of the room to fix himself a drink. “Why? It’s not like there’s really going to be a wedding.”
The room went silent for a few seconds and Riley chimed in again.
“The name of the game is to get customers to buy into the whole process, which is why we haveInfinitydoing the six-page spread for June. The dress is the center of any wedding, so it made sense that we start there. Next week there will be coverage of our venue hunt and talking to artists about the reception.” Riley, wearing a long, pleated green skirt and casual T-shirt, sat on the coal-colored couch, leaning back on its huge fluffy pillows.
RJ shook his head as he dropped ice cubes into his glass. “For all this effort, I sure hope this fake wedding campaign works to our advantage.”
“Oh come on, RJ. Man, you were just talking about the bump in orders in the casual wear sections,” Maurice said.
“I saw that, too,” Nina added, excitement clear in her voice. “Since the media has decided that, in addition to the wedding, they want to do stories on who I am and our business partnership, I took a chance and ran a digital ad on some of the fashion blogs and did numerous posts on my Instagram page, tagging fashion groups and other influencers.”
Major noted how lovely she looked in a long animal-print skirt. He wondered if she and Riley had conferred on their attire for tonight. Her plain tan T-shirt was also on the casual side, as well as the three-quarter dark denim jacket she wore over it. For a few seconds he wondered about the beads riding low on her hips beneath the clothes she wore.
“That was a great idea,” Maurice continued. “Customer service reported some mentions in their feedback box when we met with them Friday morning.”
“That’s in the area of the app. I’m talking about this engagement sham,” RJ continued before taking a swallow of the vodka he’d just poured.
Marva wouldn’t like that he was drinking before dinner, but Ron would defend his oldest son, claiming if a man worked hard he had every right to drink hard whenever he wanted to. As long as the work was done and above reproach—that was always the unspoken part of anything their father said to defend them. He could condone just about anything if RGF came first. A fact that had Major’s jaw tightening.
Nina moved around him to take a seat in one of three brightly colored and mildly disgusting salon chairs his mother had added to this space a couple years ago. He realized he hadn’t offered her a seat and had basically left her hanging in a room full of siblings. To compensate, he moved over to the chair as soon as she sat. “Can I get you something to drink while we wait for dinner?”
“That would be great. I’ll have a—”
“Cranberry juice with lime,” he said before she could get the words out, and the room went silent once more.
