The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero: The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero

And that was okay, because she enjoyed being with him and talking to him and maybe, as they spent more time together, she would gradually stop acting like a silly schoolgirl with a crush on the captain of the football team.

Except that every time he touched her—a casual touch of his hand to her arm or an accidental brush of his shoulder against hers—she couldn’t help thinking about the not-so-casual or accidental full-body contact that had occurred at Ashley and Trevor’s engagement party.

Just the memory of the kiss they’d shared had enough power to steam her glasses, even when she wasn’t wearing them.

After the movie, they went for pizza.

While they waited for their medium deep dish with hot sausage and hot peppers, they chatted casually about current events. While they ate, the conversation veered to work topics, and Megan asked him, “When you were growing up, was it always your plan to work at Richmond Pharmaceuticals?”

Gage shook his head. “First I wanted to be a firefighter, and then a baseball player … or maybe it was a baseball player then a firefighter.”

She smiled. “Seven-year-olds are so indecisive.”

“I was eight,” he told her.

“And when you got a little older?”

He thought about the question, about the career options he’d considered through the years. There had been several, though none that he’d considered too seriously—aside from the microbrewery his friend Brian wanted them to start in college, when beer was very serious business to them. And he knew that he’d never thought too long or too hard about anything else because Richmond Pharmaceuticals had always been there.

The insight made him uneasy, but he responded casually to her question. “When I got a little older, I decided I would rather be a doctor or a rock musician.”

“A doctor or a rock musician?”

“It was a tough call—help sick people or get lots of girls?”

“And somehow you manage to do both while working at R.P.”

His smile was wry. “So the rumor goes.”

“Does it bother you—being the subject of company gossip?”

“It didn’t used to,” he admitted. “Or maybe I was just unaware of it before. But recently it seems to have become an impediment to my career advancement.”

“How so?”

“I had a conversation with my father recently,” he admitted. “And he told me that my inability to commit to a relationship has given some members of the board cause to question my maturity and commitment.”

He didn’t specifically mention Dean Garrison’s retirement because an official announcement hadn’t yet been made—and because he realized, perhaps belatedly, that Megan might very well be his competition for the job.

“So long as you do your job well—and no one could argue against that—your personal life should be irrelevant,” she said.

“I agree,” he said. “But there are others who don’t, and their opinions carry a lot of weight.”

“How are you supposed to counter that?” she wondered.

“Show them that I can make a commitment.” It was something he’d been thinking about since his conversation with his father and a decision that he hadn’t made lightly.

“You’re going to get married to impress the board of directors?”

“I have no intention of letting things go that far,” he assured her. “I wasn’t thinking of exchanging wedding vows but of getting engaged. At least temporarily.”

“I don’t think you can rent a fiancée as easily as a tuxedo,” she cautioned.

“You’re right, of course. But I was hoping, of all the women I’ve dated, one of them might be willing to do me a favor.”

“That’s quite a favor.”

“I know,” he agreed. “And even if I knew someone who was willing, the truth is, none of the women I’ve dated in the past is the type of woman I would settle down with.”

“What does that say about the type of women you’ve dated?”

“None except one,” he clarified.

She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin, then dropped it on her plate. “It still seems a little drastic to me,” she warned.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Then I’ll wish you luck.”

He appreciated the sentiment, but he didn’t need luck.

What he needed was to figure out a way to convince Megan to go along with his plan.

One of the reasons Paige went into her office on Saturdays was for the quiet. With the answering service handling all of the calls and most of the other lawyers and support staff away, she was able to focus on her work and catch up on anything that had slid during the week while she was busy with court appearances and settlement conferences and client meetings.

In each successive year since she’d started at Wain-wright, Witmer & Wynne, she’d been given more clients and greater responsibilities. She enjoyed the work and believed she was providing an important service to her clients, many of whom were too emotionally distraught by the breakdown of their marriages to think clearly about their rights and entitlements. But the side effect of her professional success was personal disillusionment with respect to marital relationships.

This realization was weighing heavily on her mind as she drove out of the parking lot beside her building and spotted Trevor Byden walking down the street. Going to work, she assumed, since her cousin’s fiancé’s office was a few blocks north of her own.

But then she saw him stop to talk to a woman who had come from the other direction, and take the grocery bags she carried. The woman smiled and rose up to kiss him—full on the lips.

The honk of a horn alerted Paige to the fact that she was stopped at a green light. She tore her gaze away from the disturbing scene and pulled through the intersection. As she merged with the traffic on the highway, she began to doubt what she had seen.

Maybe it hadn’t been Trevor.

It couldn’t have been Trevor.

Because Trevor was engaged to Ashley and she trusted that he was in love with and faithful to her cousin.

Still, she thought about what she’d seen the entire way home, and considered whether or not to mention it to Ashley.

But what could she say?

“I saw a man who I thought was Trevor kissing another woman?”

Because the truth was, she’d caught a glimpse of his profile, and the sense of recognition combined with the proximity to his office had made her think he was her cousin’s fiancé.

She wasn’t 100 percent certain the man was Trevor and she couldn’t tell Ashley it was, not without proof.

And she didn’t want any proof. She wanted to believe Trevor was truly devoted to Ashley.

But as a family-law attorney, she’d dealt with far too many cheating spouses. Whether infidelity was the cause or effect of the marriage breakdown wasn’t her judgment to make, she only knew that, far too often, there was a third party involved. And she was determined to ensure that Ashley not end up an unhappy statistic.

If it wasn’t Trevor that she’d seen, then her cousin’s fiancé had nothing to worry about. If it was Trevor—

No, Paige refused to acknowledge the possibility. She wanted to believe that her cousin’s fiancé was one of the good guys, because she needed to believe that there were at least some of them left in the world.

Over the next few weeks, Megan and Gage spent a lot of time together. Most of it at the lab, as the clinical trial for Fedentropin finally got under way and they both put in a lot of overtime hours, but they began to hang out after work, as well, frequently going somewhere to grab a bite to eat or, if they’d ordered in at the lab, just for a drink to chat and unwind. It was never anything formal or fancy—certainly nothing that she would say qualified as a date—but she believed they were becoming friends.

So Gage’s invitation to a barbecue at his parents’ house didn’t seem any more significant than any other meal and more shared conversation. Until she made the mistake of mentioning it to Ashley and Paige at one of their scheduled Friday night get-togethers.

It was Paige’s night to cook, which meant actual home cooking. When it was Ashley’s turn, they usually ate something that advertised “from freezer to oven to table” on the box, while Megan generally opted for pizza or Chinese or something else that could be delivered.

Paige was putting the finishing touches on her lasagna when Megan told them of her plans for the following night.

“He’s taking you home to meet his parents,” Ashley said, and while the statement wasn’t inaccurate, there was something in the way she said it that made Megan think the words were all in capital letters and flashing lights.

“He invited me to a barbecue at their house,” Megan clarified. “It’s not a big deal. His brother’s family will be there, too.”

“The extended family,” Paige said, in the same capital letters, flashing lights tone.

“It’s not a big deal,” Megan said again.

“Who are you trying to convince?”

“Gage said it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Because he didn’t want you to get all freaked out about it,” Ashley guessed.

“Or maybe because it’s really not a big deal.”

“Are you that oblivious?” Paige asked her.

Megan frowned. “Oblivious to what?”

Ashley shook her head. “How long have you been dating now?”

“We’re not dating.”

Paige sprinkled grated cheese on top of the sauce. “You’ve been going out together after work at least two or three times a week. What would you call it?”

“Going out with a coworker after work,” Megan insisted stubbornly.

“But when that coworker is a sexy, single guy whose kisses pack enough heat to melt the polar ice caps, it’s called dating.”

“I might have to agree with you if I’d been getting any of those kisses.”

Now it was Ashley’s turn to frown. “You haven’t?”

Megan shook her head.

“All of those nights you’ve spent together?” Paige pressed.

“Nada.”

“What is wrong with that man?”

“Nothing’s wrong with him—he just doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend. Which is why I’m certain this dinner at his parents’ isn’t a big deal.”

“He hasn’t kissed you once?” Paige asked incredulously, not able to get past that fact.

“Not since Ashley and Trevor’s engagement party.”

“That does put a different spin on things,” her cousin mused.

“Maybe he’s just taking it slow,” Ashley suggested.

“Or maybe he just wants to be friends,” Megan said again, still unwilling to let herself hope they could be anything more.

It was a Friday night and instead of being out on a date or watching a game with some friends, Gage was surrounded by females. While he generally appreciated women of all shapes and sizes, he felt decidedly out of his element and outnumbered with his four nieces.

It was only supposed to be for a few hours, while Craig was at a late dinner meeting because Tess was away on a two-day business trip. After the first hour, Gage was at his wits’ end because Gracie hadn’t wanted to stop chatting online to come to the table for dinner, Eryn and Allie were grumbling because he wouldn’t take them to the movie theater to catch a show with their friends, and Lucy had fallen off of the bathroom counter after climbing up to try and catch a particularly nasty-looking spider.

So when the pizza box was empty and the plates and cups loaded into the dishwasher, he decided to entertain them the only way he knew how: he taught them to play Texas Hold ‘em.

He emptied the change out of the cup holder in his car and divvied it up so they had coins to wager with and he spent the next hour and a half teaching them the intricacies of this particular variation of seven-card stud. Lucy had just raked in the jackpot when her father finally walked in the door.

“Daddy, Daddy. I won!”

Craig’s eyes glinted with amusement as he glanced around the table, noting the drinks and snacks and his four daughters in their pajamas.

“How much?” he asked Lucy.

She beamed as she finished counting. “A dollar thirty-two.”

“Big stakes.” He looked at his brother. “I hope you didn’t hide the beer and cigars on my account.”

Gage shook his head. “Turns out your girls prefer gin, and Gracie took one puff of a Cuban and turned green.”

“I did not,” Gracie said, then frowned. “A Cuban what?”

Craig chuckled. “Never mind. Go brush your teeth and get into bed.”

Gage gladly tidied up the cards and snacks while his brother handled the bedtime routine.

When Craig came back downstairs, he disappeared into the kitchen for a moment then came out with two bottles of beer.

Gage took the one offered to him and studied the Millhouse Brew Co. label for a moment before he twisted off the cap. Millhouse was the company his friend, Brian, had been trying to convince Gage to invest in with him. But he’d declined, because he was a Richmond, and Richmonds made pharmaceuticals, not beer.

He lifted the bottle and took a long swallow, and had to admit that it was really good beer.

Craig propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Well, you survived,” he said to his brother.

“Barely.” Gage tipped the bottle to his lips again. “Don’t they drive you insane?”

“Every day.” His brother grinned. “And I couldn’t imagine my life without them.”

Gage knew it was true, but still, he wondered. “Did you ever worry—when Tess got pregnant, I mean—did you ever worry that you might not be able to stick it out?”

“Every day,” Craig said again. “I guess that’s not surprising, considering what we went through with Charlene.”

Gage nodded, acknowledging the complete lack of maternal instincts possessed by the woman who had given birth to them.

“And then, the very first time I held Gracie in my arms, I stopped worrying. Because I knew that nothing could ever matter more to me than my family, and nothing could ever make me leave them.”

“Like Dad,” Gage said. “He stuck with us even when she made his life hell.”

“Do you remember that? You were hardly more than a baby.”

“I don’t remember a lot,” he admitted. “But I’ve heard enough stories through the years to put the rest of the pieces together.”

“Why are we talking about this now?”

“I guess I was just wondering if it’s some kind of genetic defect that made Charlene incapable of really loving someone.”

“And wondering if you inherited that genetic defect,” his brother guessed.

“I’m thirty-two years old and I’ve never been in love,” Gage admitted.

“What about Beth?”

He scowled at the reference to his ex or maybe he was scowling at his own naïveté in ever believing that he’d been in love with her. “Beth was a leech masquerading as a human being.”

“That’s a pretty harsh assessment.”

“But not untrue.”

“No,” his brother agreed. “But you loved her, anyway, didn’t you?”

“I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love,” Gage admitted. “You and Tess had recently married, and I thought—for a while anyway—that I wanted what you had with her.”

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