Keeping Kennedy Read Free

they
don’t.”
    She shook her head. “I can’t let them think
I’ve failed. If I don’t show up with a fiancé they’ll all know the
truth.”
    “So, tell them your fiancé is on assignment
somewhere and couldn’t come along.”
    Kennedy faced him, determined to make him
understand the full ramifications of the problem. “I have to show
up with a real, live fiancé. I want to be absolutely positive that
they all believe my…my story. Don’t you understand? I won’t see
most of these people for another ten years. By then, this will all
be ancient history. But right now I have to do this. It’s a matter
of principle.”
    “Don’t you mean pride?”
    “Whatever.” She released a beleaguered
sigh.
    “Okay, okay,” he relented. “I get the
picture. Now, what does this have to do with me? You want me to
find you a fiancé or what?”
    “Nooo!” she protested, planting her hands
firmly on her hips in frustration.
    “What then?” he prodded, his gray eyes
searching hers a bit too closely, a hint of amusement shimmering in
their clear depths.
    She pinned him with a look that had won over
more than one stubborn client at the public relations firm where
she worked. “Because I told my parents that you are my
fiancé.” She almost laughed at the look of unadulterated disbelief
on his face, but there was nothing remotely funny about any of
this.
    “Me?”
    She nodded. “You.”
    He choked out a laugh, then closed the
already too small gap between them. He considered her in a way that
could mean a number of things—none of which she wanted to
deliberate at the moment. “You told your folks, who told all your
friends, that I’m your fiancé?”
    “What are you, dense? Yes, that’s what I told
them. When they asked for a name, yours is the only one that popped
out.”
    He gave his head an odd little shake and
stifled another distressed chuckle. “But you and I have never
even—”
    “Dated,” Kennedy supplied before he could day
something coarse. “I know.”
    “Okay,” he said slowly, maintaining that
irritatingly intent eye contact. “I need you to tell me exactly
what it is you’re asking me to do, Kennedy.”
    He wasn’t making this easy. He had to know
what she wanted—needed. She’d never even contemplated that he might
actually say no. But that seemed a distinct possibility now.
Persuasion was her business, and she was a master at her craft. She
could do this. She had to do this. “I’ve taken the week off
from work…”
    He lifted one dark eyebrow in skepticism.
“You’re joking, right?” A grin tugged the corners of his full lips
upward. “Sidney T. Booker, public relations wizard, is going to let
his number one spin doctor take a whole week off. Have they
evacuated the White House? Closed down Capitol Hill? How will D.C.
politicians survive without you around to keep them smelling like a
rose after they dive headfirst into a barrel of sh—”
    “I’m not the only damage control expert in
our firm,” Kennedy interrupted curtly.
    He leaned in closer. “Ah, but you are the one
the President himself asked for on two different occasions in the
last year.”
    “Back off Drake, you’re in my personal
space,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
    Still holding her gaze without so much as a
blink, he retreated a step.
    “Why do you do that?” Kennedy glowered at
him. They had gotten completely off track. The man could be so
infuriating. How could she ever spend an entire week with him? She
should just hire someone to play his part. Except she couldn’t. Her
parents had seen his picture.
    “Do what?” Fake innocence radiated from his
distractingly handsome face.
    “Crowd me. You always invade my personal
space. Eighteen inches, Drake. Don’t you know anything? You are
completely uncouth,” she added for good measure, then realized her
mistake. She was supposed to be winning him over to her side, not
pushing him away.
    That metallic gaze suddenly sparkled with
mischief.