It Happened on a Lie by Hannah Kane

Author:Hannah Kane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romantic, contemporary romance, romantic relationship, romantic entanglement, sassy heroine, romantic contemporary romance, billionaire romance novel, billionaire bachelor romance, romantic misunderstanding
Publisher: Crimson House Books

Chapter Ten

“I think Saturday two weeks from now is a good date,” Elaine declared, when they had placed their orders.

Aiden looked at his mother, baffled. “Good date for what?”

“Your engagement party, of course.”

She had spent the entire drive here expressing her displeasure about the whole affair, so her announcement stumped him. He glanced at Zoe, who looked equally horrified. “That’s a bit soon, isn’t it?”

“Soon? It’s very late. If you’d handled the affair more openly from the beginning, we wouldn’t need such haste.”

Aiden raked his mind for a way to prevent his mother from throwing a party, but he couldn’t come up with anything. Luckily Zoe wasn’t equally slow.

“You know, we can hold the party ourselves,” she suggested carefully. He reached for her hand under the table and pressed it to express his appreciation, and she smiled warmly back.

“Nonsense. The groom’s family arranges the engagement party, and the bride’s the wedding.”

“Surely there’s no need for such formalities, in our day,” Aiden said, but his mother was adamant. It was important for her to follow the rules she imagined those born to the upper classes followed to the letter. He occasionally suffered from the same, so he didn’t try very hard to persuade her.

“I want the guest list by Wednesday so I can have the invitations made.”

Cold sweat began to run down his spine at the thought of involving his friends and colleagues in this charade.

“I’d like to talk to my brother first,” Zoe said calmly. “I’m not having an engagement party without him, and his schedule isn’t flexible. He had yesterday off and I doubt he’ll have a free Saturday again for a month.”

Aiden felt the tension in his shoulders ease, but his mother looked displeased. “A month! But it’ll be September by then.”

“That can’t be helped,” said Aiden, seizing the out Zoe had arranged for them. “I won’t have the party without my future brother-in-law present. How would that look?” That argument finally convinced his mother to postpone the engagement until further notice. Their reprieve was short.

“Where is your engagement ring?”

Zoe glanced at her empty ring finger. “It, ah, was a bit too large. It’s being taken in.”

“Well, as long as my son presented you with one.”

“Yes, everything was as it ought to be.”

“So how did you propose?”

Aiden stared at his mother. He had no idea how he would propose to a woman, let alone Zoe.

“Oh, it was very romantic,” said Zoe. “We went to have a picnic at the shipyard he recently bought. It’s by the Thames and the view is nice. We got caught in the rain and had to seek shelter in a hurry, and there he popped the question.”

Aiden smiled, and she smiled back. It was a nice little story that had some seeds of truth in it. And it sounded like something they would have enjoyed.

The rest of the lunch was more pleasant, but they both sighed in relief after they had returned his mother home. “I need to clear my head,” Zoe said, looking a bit bewildered still.

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