A Deal With the Devil by Abby Matisse Page B

now she had it, but what had possessed her to think she could pretend to be engaged; pretend she no longer felt anything for the man she had hoped to marry one day.
    She could still back out. Maybe. She bit her lip and tried to remember if their contract included an out clause. As her eyes drifted to his face, she swallowed hard and searched for the right words to say to him.
    “Open it,” he said, back to his normal cool, relaxed demeanor. He seemed completely unaware of her inner turmoil.
    She looked down at the box, in part to conceal her anguish as she said, “Jake, I . . . do we have to—” She glanced up at him and held it out, willing him to take it as her eyes pleaded with him to understand.
    “If we want this to look real, we do.” His expression made it clear he’d broach no arguments. “Open it. Go on.”
    She drew in a long breath and opened the box to reveal the largest, most ostentatious diamond ring she’d ever seen. “Jake! This is too . . . too over the top for this thing we’re doing.”
    “It’s necessary,” Jake said. “My grandfather will expect a ring of this magnitude. Put it on.”
    She lifted the cushion-cut diamond ring from its velvet perch and slipped it on her finger. Then, she turned her hand and inspected the setting from different angles. Delicate pave stones embedded in platinum surrounded the oversized center diamond which appeared to be at least four carats. She based this estimate on Kate’s ring, which equaled two and a half carats and wasn’t nearly as large as this. The ring looked so completely outrageous; it actually seemed the perfect symbol of their engagement sham.
    “It’s a little much, don’t you think?” She didn’t know whether to grin at his audacity or cry at such an over-the-top mockery of her former hopes and dreams. “Besides, I thought you didn’t have any money.”
    He shrugged.
    She cleared her throat and tried to pretend it didn’t bother her in the least. “I hope Tiffany’s has a good return policy,” she declared with a toss of her hair.
    “It’s on loan. In instances like this, being a Lowell comes in handy. Are you ready?”
    She nodded, but she didn’t feel ready. The unmistakable weight of heavy platinum encircled her finger like a noose, making her feel like she was being led to the gallows. Her jitters morphed into a mild case of nausea. She pressed a palm to her queasy stomach and briefly considered a dash to the bathroom. She might need to throw up.
    “Are you okay?” Jake regarded her with concern. “You’re white as a sheet.”
    She wasn’t. But she nodded, because she didn’t have any other choice but to be okay. She’d signed a contract and now, to use one of Kate’s favorite phrases, it was time to put on her big girl stilettos.
    This deal might be hard to contend with, but it would be worth the emotional price she might pay. Worth it because their agreement had delivered a financial freedom she feared might never come—at least not for a very long time. Now she wouldn’t need to repay her debts over the next ten or twenty years. As of this morning, most of her debt was—as Kate would say—gone, pfft, finito. She just needed to fulfill her end of the bargain and deliver a world class performance tonight. And for her own sanity, she needed to keep her distance and not be seduced into thinking of Jake as anything more than her fake fiancé. They weren’t the couple in love they’d once been, no matter what they portrayed to others. They weren’t anything but business partners and she’d do well to remember that.
    As they walked outside, Jake hailed a cab and a nearly-silent fifteen minutes later; the car pulled up in front of Max’s Gold Coast condominium. They strolled across the lobby and into the elevator where Jake punched a code into the keypad. It whisked them to the sixtieth floor, where the bell sounded and the doors opened and they stepped into the travertine-tiled foyer of Maxwell Chesterfield