Page 570 of Manhattan Bossholes

It was at that moment Dominick, glued to his phone as usual, opted to take a step toward me but tripped instead, careening against my back. The jostle sent the ring flying from my hands, and I immediately dropped to the floor to snag it.

I wound up on my knees in front of Felicity as I grabbed it. She had her hands clutched over her mouth because she knew tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds had just clattered across the marble.

“Ohmygosh, please don’t move you two! This is gold.” Lucy’s desperate voice rang out. “I’m taking a gazillion photos! Now put it on her!”

Felicity giggled at the influencer’s insistence, which got a smile out of me in spite of myself. How ridiculous was it that we looked like I was doing a real proposal?

“What Lucy wants, Lucy gets,” Felicity said. She flipped her hand out to me, and I slipped the ring on her finger as quickly as I could, then stood up. I was about to make a joke about what had happened, but I glanced at Felicity and discovered her staring at the ring with round eyes.

“Oh,” she breathed as she examined it. “It’s absolutely perfect.”

“It’s my favorite,” I admitted.

I gently grasped her fingertips to pull her hand closer, so I could examine how the ring looked on her. It was no surprise that it was perfectly at home on her finger, like it was made for her.

“Okay you guys, call me crazy but I have the best idea,” Lucy said as she skittered over to us. “Celebrity couples are totally my thing, but what if for this campaign we brought things a little closer to home?”

Sandrine drifted over to listen.

“And how would you do that?” I asked, a sinking feeling settling in my stomach as her gaze danced from me to Felicity over and over.

“I’m so freaking brilliant for coming up with this,” she squealed. “You two are ridiculously adorable together, so we could follow your love story, from the design table, to the ring selection, to the proposal, to the wedding rings…your romance could be so perfectly integrated into what I normally do! You’re obviously not celebrities, but given what you do for a living, you guys would totally get a pass. And you’re both gorgeous, so…” she scrolled through her phone and showed the photo of me on my knees in front of Felicity. “You look incredible in pictures.”

Felicity and I leaned closer to look at the image, and in that moment, we did indeed look like two people utterly besotted with one another—which just went to prove that photos lie. Felicity wasn’t caught up in a romance, she was smiling at me because I had to crawl around on the floor to find the ring.

“We’re not a couple,” Felicity said quickly. “We barely tolerate one another.”

I tried to hide my frown. I was now tolerating her just fine. Did she not feel the same? Whatever—I didn’t need her to like me. I just needed her to do her job. “Exactly. It’s a working relationship, nothing more.”

“What?” Lucy shrieked. “No way, that’s unbelievable, you two have crazy chemistry! You totally fooled me.” She paused for a moment, and a smile cracked her face. “And maybe that’s what we could do! If you could make me believe you’re the real deal without even trying, then I’m sure you could fool the world!”

“Oh, now hold on,” Felicity said quickly. “That was for like three minutes. There’s no way we could do that long term.”

Did the woman actually shudder at the thought of it?

“It’s not a bad idea,” Sandrine offered hesitantly. “There are so many ways to commodify a fake relationship. We could totally control the arc of your love story.”

“And I’d make it seamless for you,” Lucy added. “You’d leave all the planning to me and just show up looking gorgeous.”

I didn’t like where things were headed. I could barely handle a real relationship, so trying to muster up emotions for a fake one was off the table. Sandrine and Lucy were already discussing churn metrics and watch times while Felicity listened with a shocked expression.

She kept touching her thumb to the diamond on her hand, like she was checking that the precious ring was still there.

“Excuse me, can I get a word in here?” I finally interrupted. “This brainstorming session is supposed to focus on the rings, remember? Then we need to determine whether a partnership between Dubois Enterprises and Veritique is even in the cards.”

I felt like an asshole for dangling the contract over Lucy’s head, but I needed her to know that I steered the ship. I didn’t like it when things spiraled out of my control. I turned to Felicity.

“Ring, please,” I said, holding my hand out in front of her.

Her mouth turned pouty for an instant, then she wrenched the thing off and slapped it into my palm.

“Clara? Let’s move on to the Soleste, please.”

I needed to focus on something other than the way Felicity’s hand had felt in mine.

7

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