She was talking to Duncan Frith, the school principal, when she saw Jake shouldering his way through the throng. At first glance he looked ultracivilized—not to mention gorgeous—in his dark custom-made suit and white shirt. Every woman in the place followed him with her eyes. As he neared her, Sabrina realized his expression was thunderous, his mouth set in a grim line that promised zero tolerance for accidental announcements of impending nuptials.
He knows.
His eyes found her, and she had the sense of being lined up in a rifle’s sights. Even as her brain reminded her she needed to speak to him, the instincts honed by a lifetime of pampering told her to run. She would grow up and take responsibility next week.
She’d barely managed to maneuver around Duncan’s considerable girth, when her elbow was clamped in a viselike grip and Jake muttered, “Oh no you don’t.”
“Jake!” She pinned a bright, sociable smile to her lips, while her eyes clung to her destination, the red fire-exit sign gleaming at the back of the room. No longer an option, she conceded reluctantly.
“Jake, glad you could make it.” Duncan Frith shook Jake’s free hand then consulted his watch. “We have ten minutes until the official speeches—let me get you a drink.”
“I need a word with Sabrina first.” Jake tugged her arm.
She could almost smell the damp earth of the shallow grave. She would be insane to go anywhere with him. “Duncan was just telling me how about the senior history curriculum, and it reminded me of your encyclopedic knowledge of Georgia state history.” Under the circumstances, a touch of flattery could do no harm.
“Geography,” Duncan corrected her tolerantly. “We were talking about geography.”
Jake growled. “Excuse us, Duncan.”
Without waiting for a reply, he dragged Sabrina toward the far end of the room, where a cordon marked the end of the exhibition.
She glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t see any gorgeous, sophisticated woman in their wake. “Did you bring a date?” she asked.
He paused in his Neanderthal dragging. “Why do you ask?”
“Neither did I. Rather a coincidence,” she chirped, “that you and I should be single at the same time. Usually one of us is dating and the other…” She trailed off. Not only was she babbling, a habit Jake despised, but she was also revealing that she paid attention to his love life.
He unclipped the cordon, pushed her through and clipped the velvet rope behind them again. As barriers went, it did little to separate them from the masses…So why did Sabrina feel as if Jake had her alone on a precipice?
“Why did a Richard Ainsley call my campaign office and ask Susan when I plan to announce my support for his school for injured kids?” he demanded. “I assume that’s the school you work for.”
Sabrina’s mind raced. “Er…was that all Richard said?”
“What else might he have said?” Jake asked silkily.
She took a slug of wine. “Did he mention my, uh, relationship with you?”
“Relationship?” Jake frowned. “No.” Then, just as Sabrina relaxed, he snapped, “Unless you mean our engagement!”
Sabrina took a step backward. “I can explain.”
“Tell it to my campaign manager,” he said grimly. “I’ve spent the past half hour convincing an ecstatic Susan there’s no engagement. I think she finally accepted it, but your explanation as to how the confusion arose would help.”
Hmm, some backpedaling required with Susan Warrington tomorrow, Sabrina feared. “Susan will be pleased to hear,” she said, “that I’m willing to support you publicly in the race for governor.”
He stilled. “Is this in exchange for me supporting your school?” His hand went to his back pocket, as if he might write a check this instant.
“That…and more.” She finished the glass of wine. “You have to be my fiancé. Not my real fiancé,” she hastened to add. “And not forever. Just until I’m settled in my new job.”
Something dawned in his eyes, and it wasn’t gratitude. “The new job you got all by yourself, the one that proves you’re finally grown-up and independent?”
She swallowed, and wished someone would hurry up and invent the self-replenishing wineglass. “There’s been a glitch. A temporary one. My recent media exposure damaged my credibility as a spokesperson for the trust.”
He snorted. “The Miss U.S.A. garbage?”
“The trust—the directors—said I lack gravitas.”
“Well, you do.”
“Thank you so much,” she hissed, seeing a chance to reclaim the moral high ground. For good measure, she let her lower lip quiver, a tactic she’d been known to employ in her younger days, but one she wouldn’t have resorted to now in anything but the direst emergency.
The quivering bypassed Jake. “Sabrina, you’ve never been serious in your life.” He paused. “Except when you were learning to walk again. You were damn serious about that.”
“That’s how I feel about this job,” she said urgently. “It’s that important. All I need to convince these people I’m more than a pretty face is you as my fiancé—”
“Let’s get this straight,” he interrupted. “You actually told this Richard Ainsley we’re engaged? It’s not some wrong conclusion he jumped to?”
This was it. She closed her eyes, and jumped. “Yes.”
She peeked through her lashes as he flung a wild glance around the room. When he turned back, his eyebrows were a dark, angry slash. “But it’s a lie. A crazy lie.”
“I only told Richard. And the other members of the Trust’s board. I said it’s a secret, but obviously—”
“You lied.”
Did he have to keep stating the obvious? Several people were looking at them. Sabrina leaned into Jake, trying to signal the need for discretion.
“Think about it, Jake, this could be good for both of us. Getting engaged is far better than my endorsement of your campaign. You said yourself I’m more popular than ever thanks to my legs.”
“You would marry me to get this job,” he said, dazed.
“Technically, no. But it will appear that we’re getting married.”
He clutched his head. “You’re sabotaging my campaign.”
“I’m saving your campaign. In the past few weeks, the newspapers have speculated that you’re having an affair with a married woman, that you’re dating a coed, that you’re secretly engaged to the daughter of a former Indian prime minister.”
“None of that’s true,” he snapped.
“Now people will know for sure.”
There was a charged silence while he absorbed her logic.
“All you have to do is say yes to my proposal.” Bad choice of words; Sabrina winced. “Proposition,” she amended.
He rubbed his temples. “This is the kind of idea only you could come up with. Breaking up with you was like breaking out of Fairyland.”
Her eyes smarted, but she said airily,