Arielle probably saved Mitchell from an assault charge that day because as soon as the press conference ended, he started wading out into the crowd to go after Monica Matthews for accosting his sister.
The gentle touch of Arielle’s hand on his stopped him from making a stupid decision, and he allowed her to lead him to the back of the promo tent, behind the technicians’ service desk and the curtain that hid storage containers and moving supplies.
Once they were out of sight of the reporters and audience, Mitchell said, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Heck, yeah,” Arielle said. “The alleyway behind the promo booths leads straight to the parking lot. Let me grab my purse and phone from the secure cabinet back here, and we’ll sneak out.”
They slunk behind the other setups and were in Mitchell’s car within minutes.
The trip back to their hotel near the Newcastle Golf Club was an hour and a half drive, so they might as well hash it out while they were in the car.
Mitchell started, “I think—”
“No,” Arielle said. “I need to think about this. I don’t want to talk during the ride back to the hotel. Just concentrate on the road because I need to get this straight in my head.”
Thick traffic getting out of Springfield required Mitchell’s attention, and then the winding drive through the early autumn forest where the tips of the trees were just beginning to brighten calmed him.
He had to call his mother. His mother had to know that somebody had gotten to Emily.
Arielle was texting frenetically on her phone.
Mitchell glanced over. “What’s going on?”
“My phone started going crazy this morning, but I didn’t have time to look at it. That reporter has been talking to everyone. She tried to talk to my parents, but they slammed the door in her face because they sure as hell didn’t want to talk about me dating you. I had to text my parents and ask them. They aren’t really talking to me. She interrogated half the people who are still at the office last Friday.”
“And they waited until now to tell you?”
“People were talking this morning on our office group chat because they just put together that she’s been contacting all of them. So yeah, it looks like Monica Matthews has quotes and sources documenting our timeline, the real one.”
“Dammit. She’s too smart.” Mitchell smacked the steering wheel in frustration. “I still can’t believe she got to Emily. My mother is going to be livid. She doesn’t let Emily go into public bathrooms by herself. My brothers and I have tried to take some of the responsibility for Em, but we literally can’t take her out to lunch because we can’t go into a women’s bathroom with her. I think Peregrine managed to find an ice cream shop that only has a single bathroom that he’s been allowed to take her to occasionally. My mother might look like a Pomeranian, but she has the soul of a German Shepherd.”
When they arrived back at the hotel, Arielle followed him into the elevator but didn’t punch the button for the floor her room was on. It looked like they were going to his penthouse to talk.
Mitchell took a deep breath as soon as the door of the suite closed behind him.
So did Arielle. She said, “I need a break. I don’t want to travel with you for at least a month.”
He said, “I think we should get engaged. Wait, what?”
She flipped her hand in the air like she was referring to the convention center. “We’ll just tell everyone that Elli Gelashvili scared me off. We’ll tell them that we’ve only been dating for a few months, and it was too early to talk about making a commitment. It freaked me out, and they shouldn’t talk about it anymore.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Monica Matthews will assume she’s right, and she will write a detailed exposé about how this is all fake. And if she has that many sources and was trying to provoke a quote from us, she’ll publish soon. Her article will probably be in the Golfers Digest in two weeks. It’s probably all written. Quotes from us are just the capstone.”
Arielle glared at him. “I think we should retreat. All this lying will fall in on us if we keep pushing it further and further.”
“Now is not the time to fold. I want you to know that I had no intention of doing this, but now that Elli Gelashvili has brought it up, an engagement is absolutely the kind of publicity that Match Play needs. Next weekend in New York City, I think I should propose in the middle of the Javits Center during our press conference. We’ll get insane publicity. They’ll use the extra photos from the shoot in California, and we can even do another photoshoot the following weekend for more publicity. We can bill it as the first engagement to come out of the app, whether it is or not. We’ll have to do some research to make sure that’s at least plausible. If it’s not the first, we can just do a ‘yet another amazing success’ type of press release and show proof the concept works.”
Her blond hair swished around her shoulders and down her back as she shook her head. “No way. The contract did not state anything about a fake engagement. It was entirely a fake-girlfriend relationship.”
“The contract states that you need to do anything necessary to ensure the success of the Match Play app that doesn’t violate bodily autonomy. Now that Elli Gelashvili has pushed an engagement and Monica Matthews has evidence that this was all a publicity stunt, we need to push back hard. Those are the two alternatives, and we need to pick the right one to tell the world. Matthews was fishing for quotes today. That’s why she kept talking and talking, hoping one of us would get pissed and say something stupid.”
“You almost did,” Arielle said.
“If we don’t go on the offense before Monica Matthews publishes her hit piece, it will destroy Match Play. I know that you saw it too at the press conference. That’s her agenda: to destroy it. The press builds you up and then it tears you down, and it’s all just for clickbait. You should remember that your parents are getting stock options, not cash. If the company is worthless, those options will be worthless, and all your time pretending to date me will have been wasted.”
Ariel’s hands balled into fists at her sides, and she didn’t unclench her teeth as she said, “I do not want my first proposal to be a lie.”
Mitchell flipped his hand in the air because her argument was inconsequential compared to how far they’d come and that they were about to lose it all. “I’ll buy you a real ring. You can keep it afterward. Think of this proposal as practice for the real thing. We’ve been practicing screwing around for months. This is nothing.”
“It sure as hell hasn’t been nothing to me.”
“I’ll double the percentage of stock options your parents are getting. I will do whatever it takes to save this company and my friends’ futures.”
Arielle rolled her eyes and held her hand flat toward him. “I know. You have a hundred million reasons to keep lying to everyone and double-down on the lies, but I don’t. I will hate myself forever agreeing to deceive everyone like this.”
Mitchell was a blood-and-guts businessman and a hell of a negotiator. “Think about your parents. If they had twice the amount of money we agreed on, they’ll be set for life. They’ll not only be financially secure, but they’ll be able to travel and enjoy their retirement. Isn’t that important enough to get through play-acting a relationship with me for only three more months?”
Arielle shook her head. “Dammit, Mitchell. I don’t know if I’ll still have a relationship with my parents in three months.”
Mitchell bit his lip for a moment, damn near tasting blood from all the times he’d held back from saying it, but then he looked up at her. Sometimes, even business took a back seat. “Look, I know we’re not really in a relationship, but I think of us as friends. As your friend, I’d like to suggest that you might want to consider talking to somebody about your relationship with your parents. Some of my friends have gone through some crap, and it kind of sounds like your parents might be verging on an enmeshed family situation. I’m not saying they are. I’m not saying anything bad about you or your parents. I’m just saying you should talk to somebody about that, somebody professional.”
Nausea boiled in Arielle’s stomach. “What the hell are you talking about?”
This was not where he’d thought the conversation would be headed. “As far as your parents knew, you are in a real relationship with me. From what you’ve said, instead of being happy for you, they’ve only been angry about how it affects them. That’s not normal. It’s not healthy. I’m not saying that you should cut them off or anything. I’m just saying that maybe you should talk to somebody professional about healthy family dynamics.”
Arielle’s eyebrows pinched farther toward the middle. “Sounds like you know a lot about therapy.”
Mitchell nodded. “Having a developmentally disabled person born into a family creates a lot of stress. We started going to family therapy when I was twelve, at least in the summers when we were home from boarding school. That was a different knot that needed unraveling, but we’re okay with it now. My brothers and I have to admit that we got a world-class education and had the contacts to launch stellar careers because we attended Le Rosey. But it hasn’t been easy. Sometimes, loving your family isn’t enough, and you need someone to coach you through it.”
“I don’t want to talk about therapy,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mitchell said. “Therapy takes years, and we don’t have years. We have three months left. Next week in New York, I’m going to propose, and you will say yes. I’ll give you a copy of my proposal speech the night before so you won’t be surprised by anything in it.”
A tear dripped out of the side of Arielle’s eye. Mitchell should bash his head against a wall for causing it. “Fine. It’s within the letter of the contract, and I will do what I have to because it’s in the contract. When you propose, I’ll accept, but there is no damn way I’m going through with a fake wedding. I’m damn serious. No way. And all this other practicing is stopping right now. Don’t knock on my door tonight or any other night. Don’t touch me or speak to me unless there’s a camera around. And on New Year’s Day, I’m done with you.”