Free Falling For Her Fake Fiancé (The Beaumont Heirs 5) by Sarah M. Anderson Page B

siblings.”
    “Tell me about them,” he said, taking a perfectly safe seat to her right—not within touching distance. “Since we’ll be in-laws and all that. Will I get to meet them?”
    “It does seem unavoidable.” She hadn’t really considered the scene where the Beaumonts welcomed Ethan into the family fold with open arms. “I have nine half siblings from my father’s four marriages. My older brothers are aware of other illegitimate siblings, but it’s not unreasonable that there are more out there.” She shrugged, as if that were normal.
    Well, it was for her, anyway. Marriages, children, more children—and love had nothing to do with it.
    Maybe there’d been a time, back when she was still a little girl who’d twirled in this office, when she’d been naive and innocent and had thought that her father loved her—and her brothers, their mother. That they were a family.
    But then there’d been the day... She’d known her parents weren’t happy. It was impossible to miss, what with all the screaming, fights, thrown dishes and slammed doors.
    And it’d been Donut Friday and she’d been driven to the office with all those boxes and had bounced into the office to see her daddy and found him kissing someone who wasn’t her mommy.
    She’d stood there, afraid to yell, afraid to not yell—or cry or scream or do something that gave voice to the angry pain that started in her chest and threatened to leak out of her eyes. In the end, she’d done nothing, just like Owen, the driver who’d brought her and was carrying the donuts. Nothing to let her father know how much it hurt to see his betrayal. Nothing to let her mother know that Frances knew now what the fights were about.
    But she knew. She couldn’t un-know it, either. And if she called her daddy on it—asked why he was kissing the secretary who’d always been so nice to Frances—she knew her father might put her aside like he’d put her mother aside.
    So she said nothing. She showed nothing. She handed out donuts on that day with the biggest, best smile she could manage. Because that’s what a Beaumont did. They went on, no matter what.
    Just like now. So what if Ethan would eventually have to meet the family? So what if her siblings would react to this marriage with the same mix of shock and horror she’d felt when she’d walked in on her father that cold gray morning so long ago? She would go on—head up, shoulders back, a smile on her face. Her business failed? She couldn’t get a job? She’d lost her condo? She’d been reduced to accepting the proposal of a man who only wanted her for her last name?
    Didn’t matter. Head up, shoulders back, a smile on her face. Just like right now. She called up the prospectus that Becky had put together yesterday in a flurry of excited phone calls and emails. Becky was the brains of the operation, after all—Frances was the one with the connections. And if she could deliver Ethan gift wrapped...
    An image of him in nothing but a strategically placed bow popped before her. Christmas might be long gone, but there’d be something special about unwrapping
him
as a present.
    She shook that image from her mind and handed the computer over to Ethan. “Our business plan.”
    He scrolled through it, but she got the distinct feeling he was barely looking at it. “Four wives?”
    “Indeed. As you can see, my partner, Rebecca Rosenthal, has mocked up the design for the space as well as a cost-benefit analysis.” She leaned over to click on the next tab. “Here’s a sampling of the promotion we have planned.”
    “Ten siblings? Where do you fall in that?”
    “I’m fifth.” For some reason, she didn’t want to talk about her family.
    Detailing her father’s affairs and indiscretions in this, his former office, felt wrong. This was where he’d been a good father to her. Even after she’d walked in on him cheating with his secretary, when she hadn’t thrown a fit and hadn’t tattled on him, he’d