Emergency Engagement (Love Emergency 1)

What she needed right now was a distraction, so she opened her clutch and pulled out the letter. Her heart quickened as she spied “The Solomon Foundation for Art” in gold calligraphy in the upper left corner.

Holy shit. Was she about to catch an actual break? She tore open the envelope and unfolded the sheet of crisp ivory stationery.

Dear Ms. Smith,

Thank you for your interest in The Solomon Foundation’s patronage program. After a careful review of your application, your body of work, and your project proposal, we are pleased to offer you a nine-month fellowship at our facility in Venice, Italy, commencing this January.

Her hands shook, making it hard to read the rest of the page. Compensation—yes, they’d pay her to create her most ambitious pieces to date. An apartment in the historic Solomon Palazzo adjacent to their state-of-the-art glassblowing studio. A collective of skilled hands to assist her. In short, the opportunity of a lifetime, and she could desperately use one at the moment.

She refolded the letter and returned it to her purse for safekeeping. As she did, her phone vibrated. A text from Sinclair lit the screen.

How’s Beau? Everything’s under control here. I cleaned up your room best I could in between basting two turkeys. How much bird do you think we eat?! Also put champagne in the fridge, because I know Mom & Dad will want to celebrate. Any ETA on when we get this party started?

Was her little sister psychic? How in God’s name did she already know about the fellowship? Wait. Realization sank in as she reread the text. The celebration Sinclair referred to was for her “engagement” to Beau. She texted a thanks and told Sinclair to sit tight.

Her sister was right. Their parents did want to celebrate. A ruthlessly honest voice in her head admitted that an engagement to Mitchell Prescott III, Esq., wouldn’t have generated the same unbridled enthusiasm. Magnolia Grove wasn’t Mayberry, and she didn’t hail from a family of bumpkins, but something about him had always struck her as a little overly ambitious for their tastes.

For hers, too, as it turned out. She’d honestly had no clue he’d been dating anyone on the side. Apparently marrying into the firm offered more upside potential than marrying a glass artist grappling with a serious career downturn.

He loved her work. That much she believed. They’d met the evening of her very first Atlanta showing when he’d purchased one of her pieces.

She’d loved him for loving it. How could she not? She literally breathed her life into her creations. They represented her in an intimate, elemental way. His respect for her artistic process, and his genuine appreciation for the result, had captured her heart. Even after her career went off the rails, his steadfast belief she’d be selected for the fellowship had bolstered her sagging confidence and made her think they understood each other on a fundamental level.

A mistake, obviously, and as a result, she’d projected other admirable qualities where none actually existed. Important qualities like integrity and fidelity.

Last night proved he possessed neither. Those deficits would have come to light eventually, but the twenty-twenty hindsight did little to ease the sting of unwittingly wasting half a year auditioning for the role of “other woman.” Her blood still boiled, thinking of him sitting across the table from her in the fancy French restaurant with a smug smile on his face while calmly explaining how an attorney on the fast track to partner needed the kind of spouse who stuck close and projected the firm’s proper, conservative image. Not an “unconventional artist, living in a commune in Europe.”

In this case “unconventional” really meant “unsuccessful.” A humbling realization for a girl who hit town wearing the crown and sash of the next big thing in the Atlanta art world, and quickly fell from grace due to circumstances beyond her control. Stupid her, thinking the potential of her receiving a fellowship half a world away had inspired him to propose, so they could spend the time apart with the security of a strong commitment in place. Instead, the manipulative weasel had twisted things around, implying that her unfortunate choice in gallery representation made it untenable for them to be together. As if her career setback sabotaged their relationship by reflecting badly on him. The man had no heart. No soul. No balls.

The mediocre sex should have told you something.

True. But she’d put his less-than-impressive…ahem…follow-through down to a teensy lack of imagination in the bedroom, and instead let his endless supply of romantic gestures dazzle her.

She’d mistaken the late candlelight dinners, flowers for no reason, and surprise getaways as indicators of his passion for her, and ignored how the sex itself had fallen short of passionate. One-for-Three—Beau’s nickname for Mitch pretty much nailed it. He tended to come first, come fast, and fall asleep as soon as the deed was done. Where the hell was the passion in that?

A practical part of

her had assumed they’d reached the comfortable phase of their relationship, when in fact they’d reached the nonexclusive phase. What a prick.

So be it. She shook her hair out of her face and straightened her spine, while one of her mom’s favorite sayings rang in her ears. No point crying with open eyes. Her eyes were now wide open when it came to Mitch, and she wouldn’t waste her tears on him, but she didn’t look forward to disclosing the whole pathetic mess to her family.

They’d sympathize. They’d console. They’d tell her she deserved better. Then her mother would take it upon herself to find better, and dedicate the holidays to setting Savannah up with every unattached man Mom and the other Daughters of Magnolia Grove could shame into dating her.

Unless she thought you were already engaged…which she does.

Would it be so wrong to let the mistake ride until after the New Year? Her parents had raised her to tell the truth, except where doing so would needlessly injure someone’s feelings. Horizontal stripes never made a friend look fat, a baked-from-scratch dinner always tasted wonderful, and no matter who soloed at Sunday service, the performance always sounded heavenly. Pretending to be engaged to Beau Montgomery for a few short weeks amounted to the same kind of little white lie, didn’t it? A harmless deception. Possibly even a helpful one if it eased his parents’ minds?

You’re considering lying to your family, but at least stay honest with yourself. She wasn’t blind or stupid. She knew hard-core lust when she felt it. Her battered ego basked in the heat of Beau’s stare, and the rest of her wasn’t immune, either. The simple sweep of his thumb over her palm shot her straight into a pre-orgasmic danger zone. Her pent-up body craved more than mere release. It craved complete and total salvation from the lackluster routine of the last several months. But acting on the attraction amounted to skipping through a minefield. Drunk. At midnight.

He lived next door. Their parents called the same town home. They were already waist-deep in a scheme that required they remain on friendly terms for the rest of the year, if not the rest of their lives. Then again, come January she’d board a plane to Italy, which offered a pretty decent eject button.

The door to the waiting area closed with a soft thud. She looked up to find Beau standing before her, his expression unreadable.

“Ready?”

The single word provoked a far-from-harmless flutter in her belly. Was she ready to leave radiology? Sure. Ready to skip through a minefield, drunk, at midnight? She didn’t know.

…