Page 58 of Maid For Each Other

We started walking around the tented areas of the park, Declan chatting with everybody, and I was glad I was there for him.

Because it seemed like the colleagues closest to his age and at his level within the company were all present and they all had spouses.

Most of them had children, actually, and they were happily participating in this adorable family event. Looking at it all spread out in front of me, I totally understood why he was seen asless thanwhen it came to the business. All these people appeared to be fully fledged adults with their lives together. Kids in bouncy houses, dogs leashed to strollers, Volvos with car seats; they wereit.

Declan, on the other hand, was young and attractive. Alone. It made sense that they would look at him and see somebody who might be brilliant at the moment but not necessarily a long-term leadership solution when so much of his life had yet to be carved out.

It was an archaic way of thinking, totally unfair and biased (and an absolute HR violation), but I could see why he’d feel pressured intothis.

When I left his side to grab an apple from the refreshment table, I watched him.

He looked so comfortable talking to everyone, like there wasn’t an awkward bone in the man’s body. He was open andfriendly as he engaged with spouses and children, and he was the same with his colleagues, though his face got a little more “business intense” when he spoke to them.

Which made me think of his phone call last night.

Were he and Roman…upto something?

I didn’t know anything about what he did in his role, but since Roman didn’t work for Hathaway, it seemed weird to me that they’d be on what had sounded like a pretty serious work call at two in the morning.

What was that about?

What did their “investments” entail? I’d overheard Roman say they were a two-man operation, which was absolutely bizarre, but I didn’tneedto understand.

They were two rich dudes, doing rich-dude things, clearly trying to make themselves even richer.

By the time I went to sleep that night he’d be out of my life forever, so it was of no importance to me whether Declan Powell was scheming.

I picked up a Granny Smith, watching him as he conversed with a silver-haired guy and his wife, and a feeling of pride came at me out of nowhere. We were nothing to each other in real life, but he’d still made me a priority when I’d needed him.

Which was something I wasn’t used to.

When I joined him, I wrapped both my arms around his right arm and smiled up at him.

“What?” he said, smirking down at me.

“Nothing,” I replied, still smiling. “You just look very handsome this morning.”

I looked at the silver-haired woman and said, “He’s very handsome, don’t you think?”

“Oh, very handsome,” she agreed, beaming as if we were the most lovely couple she’d ever met. “He looks a lot like his grandmother.”

I didn’t agree withthat, because Declan actually smiled sometimes and was capable of kindness.

From what I’d seen so far, Nana Marian was the opposite of that; kind of a wealthy old battle-axe.

I spent the rest of the time at the park being a dreamboat of a girlfriend, pointing out my necklace and gushing about how thoughtful Declan was. I was pouring it on thick, but as far as I could tell, everyone believed it.

And Declan looked like he was absolutely on board.

His hands never strayed far from me, little touches to my elbow or my back, and occasionally pushing back a stray tendril of my hair when it blew across my face; all the sweet, subconscious things that somebody did to their significant other when they cared about them.

It was top-grade acting, and if I didn’t constantly remind myself that the man was indeed pretending, I might’ve been in a little trouble.

When we finally got to the car, I buckled my seat belt and said, “Just try and tell me I wasn’t the best girlfriend ever this morning.”

His smile disappeared and he looked anything but pleased as he turned the key. “The best girlfriend ever wouldn’t put herself in harm’s way for a meaningless 5K. The best girlfriend in theworld wouldn’t let herself get into a health crisis because she was too nice to say anything.”

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, shocked by how upset he looked.

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