She smacked his arm. "You knew you were coming straight home, and you know I'm allergic."
"Yeah, but I didn't know I'd be kissing you."
Or that I'd enjoy it so much.
"You're right." Sighing, she shoved her fingers into her hair and flipped it to the other side of her head. "I'm so sorry about all of that." She waved a hand toward the living room. "When I asked you to play along, I had no idea he'd force us to kiss."
"What was that all about, anyway? What's going on between you and your father?"
When he met them both at the wedding, he thought they had a good relationship, but there was certainly tension between them today. Her father was the reason she was here and avoiding her life in Spokane indefinitely.
"Kennedy didn't tell you?"
Rudy shook his head. "She just said you were going through some stuff."
“That’s putting it mildly.” Eden snorted, then flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Have you ever heard of Laurent Jordain?"
"The tech guru who's worth a bazillion dollars?"
"That's him. Have you heard of his son, Tristan Jordain?"
Rudy's brow furrowed as he searched his memory. "Can't say that I have."
"He's a major playboy, living it up with daddy's money. He shows up in the tabloids occasionally, but he's all-over social media, always with a different woman and usually at a party or on a bender."
When Eden stopped talking, Rudy responded with a drawn out, "Okaaay?" to prompt her to continue.
"Laurent wants Tristan to shape up and step up within his company." She rolled her head to the side to look at him. "Laurent and my dad have decided I'm the one who needs to help him clean up his act."
"And how are you supposed to do that? He's a grown man, he's going to do what he wants to do."
Although with a woman like Eden in his life, Rudy had a feeling he could be persuaded to do a lot of things he might not otherwise do.
"Exactly. He's not going to suddenly change his ways just because we pretend to be engaged."
"Engaged? Wait, what?"
Eden let out a sigh that sounded like a huff. "Our dads are in cahoots. Laurent will help Dupont Analytics get exclusivity rights with some bigwig companies, if I pretend to be Tristan's fiancée."
"Meaning you have to be seen out in public with him at all the right places?"
She stared back up at the ceiling. "Yes, Laurent's hoping if Tristan is engaged, he'll stop messing around with every woman he sets eyes on. But I know Tristan, and it would only be a matter of time before he's caught slinking around with someone else."
"And your dad is not concerned about how that will reflect on you?"
Eden blinked rapidly, as though fighting tears. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. "No, he's only concerned with how much money this deal could make the company."
"Is that why you quit your job? To spite him?"
She looked at him again. Weariness covered her face, and sadness filled her eyes. "I quit because I'm tired of being his puppet."
"How so?"
Was Eden not the shallow, selfish Daddy’s girl he thought she was?
* * *
Eden satup on the bed and tucked one leg under her. She pulled lip gloss from her purse and rubbed it on her lips that still tingled from their kiss. Then she took the cinnamon-flavored breath mints from her purse and put one in her mouth. It wouldn't erase the memory of that incredible kiss, but maybe it would distract her mouth a little.
