Page 143 of The Fiancée Farce
Gemma rolled her eyes.
“Jesus,” Mr.Barnes muttered under this breath. “Fine. We have a motion to remove MissAdams and—”
“You can call me Teddy.”
“MissAdams and Mr.Teddy,” Mr.Barnes finished.
“Just Teddy.” Teddy grinned. “Mr.Teddy’s my father.”
Gemma snorted.
Mr.Barnes rubbed his brow. “All right. We have a motion to remove MissAdams andJust Teddyfrom the meeting. All in favor, say yes.”
Only Victor and Sterling spoke. The rest of the room was silent.
“You must be kidding.” Victor’s glare traveled around the table.
“I, personally, would like to hear what MissAdams has to say,” a woman in a pinstripe suit with her hair pulled back in a severe bun chimed in. “I believe her... confession, if you will, could potentially influence the public perception of the company, in light of last week’s bad press. Which, I believe, our shareholders will be interested in.” She shrugged and smiled. “Besides, aren’t you all curious?”
There was a rumble of agreement.
“Most interesting thing to happen at one of these meetings since 1978!” an older man said, nodding.
“MissAdams, you have the floor,” Mr.Barnes said.
Oh God, where was she? Her lie. Right. “Long story short—”
“TL;DR,” Teddy said.
Tansy laughed. “Thanks, Teddy. When my stepmother asked the name of the person I was dating, I—well, I didn’t quite pull the nameGemmaout of thin air, but from a box of romance novels. My lie snowballed and took on a life of its own and the last thing I expected was for Gemma to crash Tucker’s wedding, for her tobe his cousin, for GemmaWestto be Gemma van Dalen. It was a total coincidence, and it worked out in both our favors.”
Victor scoffed. “Are you all seriously buying this drivel?”
“MissAdams has the floor,” Mr.Barnes chided.
“I wish I could bring myself to feel guilty about lying, and maybe a part of me does—the part of me that objectively recognizes it as being wrong, the part of me that knows lying is bad—but I’ve spent my entire life playing by the rules and doing the right thing while people like Tucker do terrible things and get away with it, and frankly, I’m tired of it.” Tansy dried her damp palms off against her thighs. “Mostly, I’m beyond thankful that this bizarre lie I told allowed my life to intersect with Gemma’s. Because honestly? What are the chances? One in a million? More? I can’t regret that.”
Gemma smiled, steeling Tansy’s resolve to keep going.
“I’m not perfect, and neither is Gemma. She’s stubborn and proud and she makes mistakes, but her heart is always in the right place and shecares. She is devoted to her friends and her mother, and I think, if given the chance, she could be just as devoted to this company. She already is.” Tansy shrugged. “She didn’t lie out of spite or greed or any of the terrible reasons her family have probably already spread around, but because she cares about her grandfather’s legacy and she cares about the papers VDP owns and the people who work for them. And she knows what I think you all know deep down: Tucker doesn’t care about this company. He only wants to be president so that he can be the majority shareholder in hopes of profiting from the company’s sale.”
“Conjecture,” Sterling said. “Total conjecture.”
Everyone ignored him, even Tucker, who stared petulantly at the wall, lips twisted to the side in a sour scowl, glitter scattered across his shoulders and lapels.
Tansy turned to the only person in the room whose opinion she really cared about. Gemma stared back at her with wide, glossy eyes and parted lips, the only lips Tansy wanted to kiss for the rest of her life.
“I can’t bring myself to regret any of it, because I can’t help but think that if either of us had done even one thing differently, maybe everything would be different. Maybe we never would’ve even met.” Her eyes burned with the threat of fresh tears. She didn’t want to play the game of what-if, knowing without a doubt that her life was all the richer because Gemma was in it. Richer in a way money had no hand in. “Honestly? I’m not even sorry that Tucker ruined our wedding.”
A murmur went up around the table, and Gemma’s brow furrowed.
Tansy circled the conference table, passing behind Gemma’s father, her uncle, Tucker. She ignored the eyes that followed her around the room, never once taking her gaze off Gemma. “I’m not sorry, because if we had gotten married then, we might’ve always wondered if we had done it because I needed money and you wanted to inherit your family business. But, Gemma, I couldn’t care less about your money or your last name or the mistakes you’ve made. I care aboutyou. I love you, and I love the way you look at me like you’re looking at me right now, like I’m the only person in the whole room, the only person in the world.”
“You aren’t?” Gemma laughed, dragging her fingertips beneath her eyes.
Tansy stopped in front of Gemma, heart beating like a kickdrum against the wall of her chest as she slipped her hand inside the front pocket of her pants, fingers curling around cool metal. “I love the way you make me feel and the way you make me believe anything is possible with perseverance. So, if this is as realfor you as it is for me”—she lowered herself to her knees, both of them, because she didn’t trust herself to balance on one—“will you marry me?”
Gemma gasped as the sunlight streaming through the window gleamed against the white gold bands resting in Tansy’s open palm.
