Breaking Up with Barrett: The English Brothers #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series - The English Brothers) Read Online Free Page A

posing as my fiancée. I will supply one ring, two dresses, and one pair of shoes so that you are appropriately attired for such engagements. I will always have a car pick you up and drop you off at your apartment so your safety will never be compromised. I will not require anything untoward whatsoever. I just want your occasional company for the sake of appearances. That’s all.”
    “You want to pay me to go on business dates with you?”
    He nodded. “As my fiancée.”
    Emily was so turned around by the course of their conversation, she took a brief glimpse over her shoulder to see if Alex English was hiding behind a tree, taping this exchange as some sort of family prank.
    No Alex. Back to Barrett.
    “Do you mind if I ask why?”
    “I don’t trust that many people, Emily, but I trust you.”
    She didn’t want it to matter that he’d said that, but it did. It was a rare show of feeling from Barrett, she sensed, and the direct way he had said it made her heart lurch with hopefulness. She looked down at her lap, finding it easier to compose herself when she wasn’t looking into his searing blue eyes.
    “Don’t you have a dozen women you could ask to do this? I mean, in your world?”
    He shrugged beside her. “It could get messy. I don’t want messy. I prefer neat.”
    And that lovely surge of happiness had evaporated into thin air. Of course. He was an English, and she was an Edwards, and he was merely hiring her to do a job. Further, he was basically saying he had no romantic interest in her and never would, so she was a perfect choice for non-messy, fake-fiancée employment.
    Though Barrett had never been more than a far-reaching fantasy, it still hurt Emily’s feelings a little that he should be so frank about how unappealing and unsuitable she was. She sensed he wasn’t purposely trying to hurt her, but it did make her decision to refuse him easy, because she knew in her heart that even though she wouldn’t be messy for him , he could be potentially messy for her .
    “I don’t think so, Barrett. I’m a first-year doctoral student. Even over the summer, I have to keep up with my studies. I tutor undergrads. I’m interning for one of the professors this summer. I don’t, you know, I don’t really date much. I’m working on my—”
    “I’ll pay you a hundred dollars an hour for your time.”
    Emily’s jaw dropped as her lungs emptied like the wind had been knocked out of her. For a struggling student, that was an unthinkable amount of money for occasionally sitting next to him at dinner. She had stared at him for what seemed like an eternity before taking a deep breath and raising her hand to him. “Where and when?”
    His lips twitched as he gave her a brief, inscrutable smile, then took her hand and shook it, causing a delicious current to trail from her palm to her wrist, up her arm and down her back, tripping the pulse in her neck.
    “I’ll be in touch,” he had said, looking down at their clasped hands for a long moment before pulling his away.
    Since then, Emily had been on seven dates as the future Mrs. Barrett English, always at The Union League Club, always with different business associates of Barrett’s and always wearing the “engagement” ring Barrett had sent her via courier before their first date with the incredibly romantic note attached that read: It’s paste, but it’s good paste. Don’t lose it. –B
    Twisting her light blonde hair up into a chignon for date number eight, Emily looked at herself in the mirror. From the respectable distance of her station while growing up at Haverford Park, she’d had a front row seat to every English family soiree, every important social gathering at their Blueberry Lane estate, and a close-up look at every girlfriend brought home by the five handsome brothers.
    Emily had learned how to dress, speak and act to fit in with the English family, who, when they encountered her, treated her like an almost-forgotten second or third cousin,