A Pretend Proposal: The Fiancée Fiasco / Faking It to Making It / The Wedding Must Go On. Элли Блейк

money for our endowment fund?”

      “Not exactly,” Elizabeth hedged.

      She sipped her coffee, her fourth cup so far, and tried to think of a less damning way to explain the “deal” that Thomas had proposed. She still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around what he’d suggested … er … proposed. Much less the fact that she had agreed. She told herself it was the agency’s needs that caused her to tell him she’d do it, but every time she recalled that kiss in the parking lot, she knew she was lying.

      She replayed it now, remembering the feel of Thomas’s mouth when it met hers. He’d watched her carefully—curiously?—not closing his eyes until the last moment. Elizabeth knew this because she’d kept both of hers wide open, afraid even to blink lest she find him and the entire evening a figment of her imagination.

      But a figment didn’t kiss like he did. No one she’d ever met had kissed like he did, evoking responses and tugging forward needs she didn’t know she possessed. Thomas had ended the contact before things could progress too far. She’d wanted to think that he was being considerate, chivalrous even. The man was so courteous. His expression, however, said otherwise. He looked surprised, a reaction that could be taken a couple different ways, unfortunately, one of them not so flattering.

      “Earth to Elizabeth. Earth to Elizabeth.” Mel was snapping her fingers. Then she demanded, “What exactly does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

      “Well, what it means is … um, it means—”

      “That I haven’t presented her with the check yet.”

      Thomas stood in the doorway, his expression infused with amusement and something else Elizabeth couldn’t quite decipher. Was he embarrassed? Uncertain? Was he recalling that kiss that he’d said had been intended to put both of them at ease? And—God!—what if it actually had put him at ease?

      “Mr. Waverly!” She shot to her feet. Her hip bumped the table’s edge and her coffee spilled, spreading over the tabletop in a brown wave and threatening to drip into Mel’s lap.

      “I thought we agreed you would call me Thomas.” His smile was engaging and just this side of intimate, no doubt for Mel’s benefit. Before either woman could react, he walked over, took the handkerchief from his pocket and laid it over the puddle of java to prevent further damage.

      Not that the coffee was what held Elizabeth’s attention. No. It was the man and the ridiculous effect he was having on her. One simple smile—calculated for maximum impact, most likely, since everything between them was intended for show—and her insides were whipping around like the blades of a ceiling fan stuck on high. But who could blame her? Look at him. He was gorgeous. The lean cheeks and square jaw. The blue-green eyes set off by slashing dark brows. The tidy hair that was just this side of black. And that build. She couldn’t help it. She sighed.

      No matter what he wore, he wore it well. Already, she’d seen him in casual attire and a three-piece suit. Today, he’d paired a herringbone jacket with dark jeans, managing to look more put-together and sophisticated than men who were going for just that effect.

      Meanwhile, she was back to wearing sackcloth. Well, not exactly. But she might as well have been. Her stint as Cinderella had ended, and Mel’s borrowed clothes had been returned. In their place, Elizabeth had tucked a plain white blouse into a navy pencil skirt. The strand of imitation pearls around her neck added little in the way of embellishment to an otherwise boring outfit.

      The sad thing was she’d picked it out with care that morning, hoping for simple sophistication. Now, she merely felt plain, especially sitting next to Mel, who wore a leopard-print wrap dress tamed by a black blazer.

      “I wasn’t expecting you yet. You’re early,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at her wrist before realizing no watch was strapped to it. She’d opted to leave it off today since it was a little clunky.

      Mel cleared her throat, reminding Elizabeth of her manners.

      “Oh. Mr…. Thomas.” She managed a smile. “This is my good friend Melissa Sutton. Mel’s in charge of Literacy Liaisons’s volunteers, both recruiting them and then training them to tutor our clients.”

      Elizabeth held her breath after the introduction, well aware of the effect her best friend had on men. Not that it mattered in this instance. From a purely practical standpoint, however, it wouldn’t do for him to be attracted to other women if he was trying to convince his grandmother he’d fallen head over heels for Elizabeth.

      He smiled politely and pumped Mel’s hand. A cadre of bangle bracelets jangled. Thomas, however, showed no outward sign of being interested.

      Hmm. This was a first. Elizabeth had witnessed men of all ages—married, single and every status in between—come on to Mel in one form or another with no encouragement whatsoever. A young seminary student had opted not to pursue the priesthood after meeting her, such was her friend’s natural allure. But Thomas’s only interest in Mel apparently was to point out, “My handkerchief didn’t cover everything, I’m afraid. You’ll be wearing some of that coffee if you don’t move.”

      “Oh!” Mel glanced down and managed to shift out of harm’s way a second before coffee dribbled over the table’s edge. She divided her gaze between Thomas and Elizabeth as she rose. “I’ll just go get something to clean this with.”

      “It was nice meeting you,” Thomas said.

      “The same.” Mel offered a cheerful smile. She waited till she was at the door and Thomas’s back was to her before she mouthed to Elizabeth, “Oh, my God!”

      “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time,” Thomas said. “I did say nine.”

      The clock on the wall read eight forty-five. He was early again, which she should have expected. But Elizabeth had been running uncharacteristically late all morning. She hadn’t slept well. In fact, other than a couple of hours just before her alarm went off, she hadn’t slept at all. Who could blame her? Forget Thomas’s “proposal,” it was that kiss that had caused her insomnia.

      She touched her lips now, remembering it, savoring it. Lost in recalling exactly how his mouth had felt pressed to hers, it took her a moment to realize that the man responsible for that kiss was smiling at her. She pulled her fingers away.

      “Nine. Right. You said nine.” She nodded, mortified at the way she was acting. “I remember that now.”

      He nodded, too. Then, when the silence threatened to become awkward, he spread his hands wide. “So, this is Literacy Liaisons.”

      Work. Good. Excellent. It was the center of her life, what she poured most of her time and effort into, which meant it would be easy to talk about. And that would help take her mind off how sexy Thomas looked in that herringbone blazer and crisp blue oxford shirt sans necktie.

      “Let me show you around,” she suggested.

      She started in the main meeting room, which resembled a classroom, with the letters of the alphabet posted on the walls along with pictures that corresponded to the sounds those letters made. Instead of rows of desks, however, there was a large conference table. Elizabeth had found that adults responded better to that setting than the more traditional one. Some of them had had bad experiences with school. Others were embarrassed by their situation. A conference table made it seem more like a workplace. Even though they were students in the true sense of the word, her clients also felt more like respected adults here. She explained that to Thomas.

      He glanced around, nodding in appreciation. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”

      “It’s not an issue for some people, but when we realized it was for a lot of our clients …” She shrugged. “The goal is to make them as comfortable as possible so they can focus all of their attention on learning to read.”

      “How exactly do you do that? The teaching, I mean.”

      “There are a variety of different methods. For instance, the Barton Reading and Spelling System has