Who Wants to Marry A Billionaire?(6)
Daniel wandered back across the office to where Nina sat perched on the edge of the sofa, looking as if she might flee at any moment. His warm-up act wasn’t working as well as he thought it would. He knew he had to get her to relax a little, if she was going to go along with the plan. He handed Nina one of the glasses in his hands. Out of politeness, she took it with a murmured thank you, but immediately set it carefully on a coaster on the coffee table. She looked up at him expectantly, and as she blinked, Daniel confirmed to himself that she had the most amazing eyes he’d ever seen.
“Mr. Calderon is a bit old fashioned, Nina. He’s a spiritual man—which I respect—and he holds certain ethical and moral principles very dear.” Daniel took a sip of the seventy-year old cognac in his glass. “And one of those things is that he believes settling down to start a family is a sign of maturity, and that it demonstrates that a man is concerned with creating a legacy beyond his immediate needs and pleasures.” He took another swig. “He doesn’t have much tolerance for what he perceives as…frivolousness.”
Parts of the story were starting to click together in Nina’s head. “So the thing with the clowns…so the incident in Cannes was bad enough, but when the paparazzi snapped you looking like a fool right in his own country, it was a little much?” Nina’s hand went to her mouth. Had she really just called a billionaire a fool right to his face? “I’m sorry…that was a poor choice of words.”
Daniel looked a little sad, Nina thought, as he swished the cognac around in his glass. “It’s okay, I did act like a fool in Cannes. And we need to feel like we can be completely candid with one another. The short end of it is that Calderon killed the acquisition deal when the pictures came out, and he told me I could forget about doing business with him until I was ready to behave like a grown-up. So I kind of blurted out something that I probably shouldn’t have.”
Nina furrowed her brow. “What? What did you tell him?”
Daniel took another drink. “I told him that I did have a serious girlfriend, that an engagement would be announced soon, and that I was settling down.”
“That’s wonderful Daniel, congratulations.”
Turning to look out the window, Daniel’s voice dropped to a hush. “It’s…it’s kind of white lie.”
“Kind of a white lie? What do you mean?”
“I don’t have a serious girlfriend…and I’ve never had any thoughts of settling down. But it’s very, very important for me to make this acquisition happen. I need my father to trust me. I need him to take me seriously.”
“Or what?” Nina’s suspicious side suddenly reared up.
“Or Daniel DeVere won’t be making any more trips to Cannes. Good-bye French Riviera, good-bye Wimbledon, Carnivale, Paris Fashion Week. I’ll be chained to a desk in Boston for the next five years.”
Nina’s sympathies suddenly went out the window. Talk about first world problems! All day long she worked with projects that were about improving life in simple but meaningful ways: providing clean water after a natural disaster, helping elderly people get cataract surgery, improving pre-natal care in desperately poor countries. And he was worried that he might miss the next Hollywood premiere? He did need to grow up. He was completely out of touch with reality. The money he spent playing the fool in Cannes would have been enough to take care of all her problems and pay for two hundred cataract surgeries. She was going to be chained to a desk in Boston for the next thirty-five years, and lose everything she’d worked for in the interim too.
Focusing her attention on adjusting her cheap scarf, Nina tried to control the fury she could feel rising in her voice. “Mr. DeVere…why am I here?”
The frostiness in Nina’s voice alarmed Daniel. The panic started to rise; he could feel one more deal going south. He looked at Nina pleadingly and blurted out, “Nina, will you be my wife?”
Nina’s eyes opened wide. Clearly, Daniel DeVere was out of his mind. “Will I be your what?”
Daniel hit his forehead with the butt of his hand. Why did he always leap before he looked? “I don’t mean a real wife…like, like…”
It was impossible for Nina to keep her feelings tamped down any longer. “Oh, of course a girl from Lowell, Mass would never be good enough to be a DeVere wife. You’re as nuts as the tabloids say you are—” Nina stood up to leave. Daniel reached out and grabbed Nina’s arm. “Don’t you dare touch me or I will report you for harassment!” Daniel let go.
“Please, Nina, sit down. None of this is coming out right. I’m prepared to offer you very generous financial terms for playing the part of my wife.”
Nina plunked back down on the sofa. “You want me to pretend to be your wife?”
Daniel nodded his head up and down emphatically. “But first you have to pretend to be my girlfriend, and then my fiancé. It’s going to be a whirlwind romance, though.”
“Let me get this right, there’s going to be…a fake marriage?”
“It’s going to have to look like the real thing, but it won’t be legal.”
Nina nervously picked lint off her sweater to keep from looking at Daniel as her mind raced. “And how long do I have to keep up the charade?”
“Oh, I don’t know, six months, a year, no more than a year, certainly. It’ll be like a Britney Spears or Kim Kardashian marriage, slam, bam, thank you m’am. And then we’ll announce that we’re parting amicably, and request privacy at this ‘very sensitive time.’”