Page 21 of Surprise! I'm Engaged To My Boss
“Exactly. And it was going well, until they filmed us at that party. My daughter’s grandparents want to use this as proof that I’m not responsible enough to raise a child. And that’s why I need your help. Only you can help me now, Camila.”
Maybe calling her by her first name was a low blow, but I needed to go there. She looked away for a moment, thoughtful.
“So you want to convince the judge that we are engaged?”
“I will no longer be a party-loving womanizer who got drunk with an employee of my company and took her to bed. I was just drinking with my fiancée, andsince the party ended late and I am too responsible to drive drunk, we chose to spend the night in the same hotel as the party.”
She paused, finally seeming to understand and sympathize with my situation. However, she still wasn't convinced.
“Mr. Turner... I'm sorry you're going through this, I really am. And I know you're my boss, but... what you're asking of me is too much. I can't lie to a judge.”
“Well, it won’t exactly be a lie, will it? We really did get engaged, remember?” I raised my right hand, showing off the beaded ring I still had on my finger.
She grimaced, as if it didn't bring back fond memories.
“Sorry... I'm sorry, but I can't do that. It's a crime, I could go to jail.”
Oh, come on? Everyone has done something illegal in their life. She couldn't be that proper...
“I’ll protect you. And pay you. I will pay you very well. If you think five hundred thousand is too little, I can increase the amount.”
She seemed offended by my argument.
“I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but I have to agree with something I vaguely remember hearing you saywhile we were drinking. I’m not sure if these were your exact words, but I recall you saying that not everything in this world can be bought with money. Or am I mistaken?”
“And you told me that was nonsense, didn't you?”
“Maybe because I thought we were talking aboutthings, notpeople. Sorry, butI'm not for sale.”
She stood up and I did the same, trying to argue before she left:
“I don't want to buy you, Camila. It's just payment for a favor.”
"First of all, favors aren't something you can pay for. And second, asking me to spend three months pretending to have a relationship with you — one that doesn’t exist — and even lie in front of a judge? That’s not exactly what I’d call a simple favor. In case you didn’t know, lying in a legal proceeding is a crime. And I’m not going to do something like that."
"Come on, no need to take things so seriously."
"If you had takenyour lifea little more seriously, you wouldn’t be this desperate now to fabricate a fake image of yourself."
With that, she turned around, starting to walk towards the elevator. I opened my mouth to argue, but no words came out, simply because... hell, shewas absolutely right! I was exactly what Alice's grandparents wanted to prove me to be: a fucking irresponsible playboy.
As the children of a famous architect and a former Hollywood star, my life and that of my siblings have always been in the spotlight, practically since we were born. However, unlike the super responsible Logan and Sebastian Turner, I’ve always wanted to enjoy my days to the fullest.
I had decided that I was going to change, but I ended up at a bar, drinking so much alcohol that I completely lost my mind and took an employee from my company back to my room. In fact, I drank so much that I didn't even manage to finish what we had set out to do, since I had simply passed out from sleep, I was so drunk.
Collins' voice brought me back from all those thoughts:
“By the way, you can give the promotion back to Smith, because I'm resigning.”
She couldn't do that...
“Do you think it will be easy to get a new job?”
I didn't mean to sound presumptuous or intimidating, I was just being honest. Besides all the shit my life was stuck in, the last thing I wanted was for the girl to be unemployed because of me.
“Who knows?" With her back to me, she kept pressing the elevator button over and over again, as if that would make it arrive any faster. "Like you said so yourself, my portfolio and my projects are amazing. I don't even know why I wasted so much of my life insisting on staying in this little office that doesn’t value its employees."
‘Little office’ was quite a pejorative way to refer to the most famous and sought-after architecture firm in the country, but I didn’t have time to dwell on wounded corporate pride.
