As soon as the words were out of Daniel’s mouth, Sabrina gave him a surprised look but immediately turned back to their hosts and flashed them a charming smile. Why hadn’t he stuck to his original plan? Why suddenly upgrade her to fiancée?
After exchanging handshakes and greetings, they started to make small talk.
“You don’t sound like you’re from New York, Holly,” Nancy remarked.
“I’m not. I’m from the Bay Area.”
Martin gave Daniel a knowing look. “I see. So my company isn’t the only acquisition you’re making in San Francisco.”
Daniel grinned and led Sabrina’s hand to his mouth, planting a small kiss on it. “Guilty as charged.”
The kiss was unexpected and made Sabrina’s heart beat faster. She smiled at him briefly, but the kiss hadn’t affected him at all. It seemed he was used to pretend things that weren’t true.
“What do you do, Holly?” Nancy asked.
***
When Daniel heard Nancy’s question, he flinched. Damn, they hadn’t discussed a back story at all. He glanced at Holly trying to catch her eye, wondering whether she could improvise, but her mouth was already in motion.
“I’m an attorney,” she offered. He blinked his eyes shut for a second as if waiting for a bomb to drop. Hell, she’d trip herself up with a statement like that. There were more lawyers in the hall than at a legal convention in Las Vegas. He should have briefed her before their arrival. This was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Let’s not talk business, shall we?” he cut in, trying to save the day. “Champagne, darling?” He stopped a waiter and took two glasses off the tray, handing her one. Too late: Nancy had already waved a man to them. Daniel recognized him. He was one of the attorneys working on the acquisition.
“Bob, you know Daniel already, but let me introduce his fiancée to you, Holly Foster. She’s an attorney.”
Shit. Daniel almost choked on his champagne. How would his pretty escort handle this? Bob was never one for small talk. All this lanky attorney ever talked about was his work.
“Nice to meet you, Holly. Which school?” As Daniel had predicted, Bob went right down to business.
“Hastings,” she replied without hesitation.
“Wow, what a coincidence. Class of ’99. Is Bunburry still teaching?” Bob was in his element. Perfect, the whole charade would blow up in his face in the next two minutes, Daniel was sure. Couldn’t she at least have chosen some obscure little school somewhere out in the boonies, rather than Hastings School of Law, which even he as an out-of-towner knew, was right in San Francisco? She probably didn’t know of any other law school. Figured. God, he was so screwed.
“He retired last year, finally,” Sabrina answered confidently.
Bob nodded understandingly. “About time.” Lucky guess, Daniel reckoned.
Before he could disrupt the conversation and steer it in another direction, Martin interrupted him to introduce a beautiful redhead.
“You have to meet Grace Anderson. She sits on practically every charity board in the city. Grace, dear, this is Daniel Sinclair.”
Grace blew a kiss into Martin’s direction and immediately locked onto Daniel. He’d seen that look before. He was being sized up by a woman who knew what she was looking for: a wealthy husband. Glancing back, he saw that his pretend fiancée was in deep conversation with Bob. Bad timing.
“Nice to meet you, Ms Anderson.”
Daniel shook her hand and let go of it as soon as he could.
“Why so formal? Please call me Grace.” Her saccharine sweet smile was nauseating. This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. He felt like a caged tiger, just a little less tame. Her suggestive smile told him unmistakably that she was going to make a move on him as soon as he let his guard down.
“Which charities are you involved it?” He had to make small talk, even though he had no interest in talking to this woman at all. She was a carbon copy of Audrey: shallow, pretentious, and out to find a rich husband. Funny, how now that he’d broken up with Audrey, he could see her for what she truly was.
Daniel barely listened to the woman’s chatter and instead tried to hone in on the conversation between Holly and Bob, but they were too far away for him to pick up any snippets over the din of voices in the hall.
He realized that Grace had stopped talking and asked him something, when he suddenly felt her hand on his forearm.
“Don’t you think so?”
He gave a non-committal smile and wondered how he could get out of her clutches.