Shopping for a CEO's Fiancée

“Why, though? Really.”

“What? You can’t believe you’re really the cure?”

“It’s not just me.”

It is.

“You are so raunchy.” A bubbly laugh, deep and smoky, pours out of her. “Between my legs.” She shakes her head, giving me an up-and-down look. “Do you know how porny that sounds, coming from you in that get-up?”

“Is that arousing?”

She whacks me.

“I’m driving!”

“You’re vulgar!”

“I’m honest. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

“What?”

“You want me to tell you how I feel. Just did. And I get hit for it.”

“You told me the cure for your fear was my…you know…”

“Vagina.”

“How in the hell is a vagina a cure for anything?”

Women really are from another planet. I let out a long sigh and just drive.

I did my research on Mr. Darcy, thank you very much. Aside from having been forced to read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice five different times in various classes throughout high school and college, I read an executive summary on it this week, and watched the pivotal pond scene on YouTube.

I am practically a scholar at this point.

Walden Pond is the perfect location for an idyllic re-creation of the Colin Firth scene. As we stroll along the shoreline at dusk, I begin to loosen my cravat.

“Is the temperature a touch too warm for you, Mr. Darcy?” Amanda jokes as I slide out of my tailcoat and hand it to her, along with my cravat.

I begin pulling off my boots, tugging just hard enough on the strings below the knees to make the entire assemblage of breeches pull on items further north. My eyes water.

Could these pants be any tighter?

“I, Ms. Bennet, strive for historical accuracy.”

She eyes the water, her bonnet framing her face and making those eyes seem impossibly larger. Amanda becomes a historical re-enactor of a Regency-era Powerpuff Girl.

“You are not!”

“I am.”

And with that, I race toward the water and do a shallow dive, the long tails of my shirt pulling out of my pants, causing drag but giving me a little breathing room in my waistband.

In the water, I am me. Technically, I am supposed to be Mr. Darcy, but right now, as I do the butterfly stroke that made me a conference champion for my college swim team, I’m Andrew McCormick. Within minutes, I’m a quarter mile into the clear, otherwise-placid lake, the water revitalizing, welcoming me home.

Swimming wasn’t my first sport. It welcomed me when I learned about my wasp allergy, taking my football-honed body and turning it into a sleek water baby. I hated making the change at first, but in time I learned to love it. Being here in the water, using rhythm and muscle memory to come back to Amanda with a push and a roar, makes me break surface and stand, laughing in the waning sun, watching her watch me as she claps and giggles.

Courting.

Turns out she was right.

“Mr. Darcy, I can’t keep my eyes off your wet chest underneath that soaked shirt,” she says in a sultry voice that is about as close to Elizabeth Bennet as Marie is to the Queen of England. “But I never took you for a show-off!”

I’m standing in waist-deep water, watching her on the shore as she laughs.

“‘Where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.’”

“Oh, God, you’re quoting the book again, aren’t you?”

“Just substitute ‘swimming’ for ‘mind’ and it’s correct.”

She closes her eyes and quietly says in a slow, halting voice, “‘Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.’"

“That’s my line!” In fact, it’s one of the five I memorized. Damn.

“‘I could easily forgive your pride, if you had not mortified mine.’”

I’ve gravely underestimated Amanda’s knowledge of this book.

I am starting to think I gravely underestimate everyone.

“‘I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow,’" I counter. Hah. Take that.

Her expression is one of approval.

I walk slowly out of the water, suddenly stripped of the desire to continue the charade, wanting only her. Now. Here.

The masquerade has been fun and silly, but it is just that: a mask. A shell, a suit of armor designed to call her bluff in a memorable manner, but the bluff’s been called. We’re done with the cute ritual, and while I know Amanda didn’t want—or expect—any of this, it’s symbolic.

We don’t need this.

We just need each other.

The water brushes against my bare ankles and I emerge, watching her as she stands on shore, still in the silly bonnet, mouth open with a belly laugh, a single curl escaped and flowing over her eyebrow. She’s in my arms, squirming as my wet body presses against hers, the dress made for costume and thinner than an authentic Regency-era frock would be, and I’m thankful as my thighs capture the warm swell of hers, my belly against hers, those sweet breasts smashed against my wet shirt.

My pants tighten.

“Ever had sex outdoors, Mr. Darcy?” she whispers while biting my earlobe.

“No.” Not a fantasy. Not even close.

Her hands are on my breeches flap, trying to unbutton me.

I can be flexible. The patch of greenery behind that bush on the shoreline has potential.

“Did you glue these on?” she asks with a grunt, both hands on the left-side button of the weird flap that passes for a “fly” on my pants. I pivot, because the ring is in the other pocket.