Chapter 21 - Max
Naomi’s face is plastered all over the newspaper. She looks gorgeous, obviously, but that’s not the point. She shouldn’t be on the newspaper in the first place. None of us should! Why do people care about my engagement anyway? This stinks of a set-up. The photos look almost staged. How would reporters have known we were at the restaurant last night?
“Did you orchestrate that article?” I ask, reading the headline over and over.
I hear my mother sigh through the phone.
“Max,” she starts.
“Did you?”
“You know how the press are.”
“You’re not answering the question.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me if you set this up!” My voice is getting louder, and I pace back and forth in my living room. “Naomi and I were blindsided!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” she huffs. “You’d have to announce it sometime.”
“Yes, Mom,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. “We would have to announce it. On our terms. Not have it spilled all over the tabloids like this.”
“It’s hardly a tabloid.”
“Mom—”
“Well, it’s done now. Everyone knows. I’m already fielding phone calls from everyone. I’ve got a PI looking into her background. To be honest, that would have been better to get done before the article came out, but that’s okay.”
“You’ve got what?!”
Fuck.
“Well, Max, you didn’t think we’d let you marry just anyone without looking into her, would you?”
“I do not want you to investigate my fiancée!”
“Max, be reasonable.”
I feel like a cartoon character with steam blowing out of my ears. My face feels red and hot. This is infuriating. I take a deep, shaky breath and try to keep my voice steady.
“Mom, stop. I do not want you to put a private investigator on my fiancée! This isn’t about you! This is my life!”
“Oh, grow up, Max,” my mom says, finally losing the mask of benevolence that she wears so well. “Of course this is about us. Who do you think will inherit the company? Who do you think will be representing us from now on? And I know you spoke to your father about your new position! So how could we not investigate her! We’re just looking for skeletons in the closet, Max. If she has nothing to hide, she has nothing to worry about.”
She’s not the one with something to hide. What if they find the contract? What if they find out about the engagement?
“It’s wrong, Mom.”
“Well, it’s too late. The PI is already on it.”
“Call him off!”
“No.”
The word feels like a door slamming in my face. I sink down in a chair, dropping my head in my hand. I hang up the phone and take a deep breath.
What am I going to do? If I fight this too much, she’ll know something is up. I can’t come clean now, because then they would definitely cut me off and fire me, not to mention how they would treat Naomi. All I can do is hope for the best and tell Naomi that we need to be extra careful.
I just need a couple of weeks. Once this acquisition goes through, we can split amicably and I’ll already have the new job. Naomi will get her money and hopefully her mother will recover. My parents will leave her alone, and they’ll have no choice but to keep me as the head of the new division.
All I need is time.
But with a PI snooping around Naomi, how much time do I really have?
What is he going to find?
I brush the thought off as soon as it enters my head. Of course he won’t find anything—Naomi is as straight-laced as they get. Maybe something will turn up about her mother—Naomi said she was a hippie, after all, and that would be exactly the kind of thing my parents would be looking for.
But it doesn’t matter.
I’m not marrying her mother, I’m marrying her.
I tap my phone until Naomi’s name comes up, and my hand hovers over the keys. Should I tell her about the private investigator?
My heart starts thumping and my eyebrows draw together. I should tell her. I should be open with her. But what if that spooks her? What if she backs out now that she knows how serious my parents are?
The PI won’t find anything, so it’s not a problem. He’ll hand my parents a generic report about her college life, her criminal record or lack thereof, and then the report will go in the bottom of a drawer, never to be looked at again.
Telling Naomi about the PI would only worry her more. She’s got enough on her plate between my parents, her mom, and pretending to be engaged to me. When she called me about the news article, she seemed upset. She doesn’t need anything else to worry about. It’ll only upset her more.
My parents are overbearing and intrusive, but knowing just how intrusive they are might be too much for her to handle.
I click my phone’s screen off and slide it back in my pocket.
Once the decision is made, it’s easy to rationalize it to myself. I stand up, grabbing my keys and heading out the door. I dial Naomi’s number on the way out.
“My mom set up the photo shoot outside the restaurant,” I tell her, closing my apartment door.
“What?!”
“I know,” I say as my chest squeezes. “I’m sorry.”
“You really need to stop apologizing for things your parents do.”
“Sor—I mean, you’re right.”
Naomi chuckles, and then sighs. I imagine her biting her lip and staring off out the window. Maybe she’s scratching the back of her head like she does when she’s deep in thought.
“Oh well, it’s done now. My mom knows about the engagement.”
My jaw drops slightly as I press the elevator button. “Oh. How… is she okay with it? Does she know, or she just knows?”
“She doesn’t know. If you know what I mean.” Naomi laughs. “She thinks it’s real. She’s getting her head around it.”
“What did you tell her.”
“I told her that I wanted to marry you.”
And do you?
The question jumps to the tip of my tongue just as the elevator dings open. “I’m about to get in an elevator, I’ll call you later.”
“Alright. We got any other public appearances coming up?” I can hear the grin in her voice.
“Not that I know of,” I chuckle. “I’ll try to get a heads up if that ever happens again.”
“Thanks.”
The elevator beeps as I hold the door open, and I let the words tumble out of my mouth. “You wanna hang out sometime? I mean like, dinner? Friday?”
“Your parents want to grill me some more?”
The elevator is beeping constantly now, with the doors banging on my arm as they try to close. “No, just me and you. As an apology for yesterday.”
Naomi sighs. There’s a pause, and then she chuckles. “What the hell, sure. Friday it is.”
“I’ll pick you up at your place.”
I finally drop my arm and let the doors close. I can’t keep the smile off my face. I’m going on a date with my fiancée.