Legacy of the Divine Healer

CHAPTER 7: Pretending to Be Her Boyfriend

The coffee cup was still in her hand. The leather bag was still on her shoulder. Her composure was impeccable,exactly the kind of composure that takes real effort to maintain when you are standing on a Manhattan sidewalk looking at the man you put in a hospital bed less than twenty-four hours ago.

"You" she started.

"Still in one piece," Ethan said. "In case you were wondering."

Something flickered across her face, relief, embarrassment, and something that might have been amusement, all happening at once and very quickly suppressed.

She glanced at the plaza behind him, where nine hundred and ninety-nine roses were arranged in a heart around a Porsche, and the man in the tailored suit was scanning the crowd with the impatient energy of someone waiting for their entrance cue.

Then she looked back at Ethan.

"Okay, I need a favor."

"Good morning to you too."

"I'm serious." She stepped closer, dropping her voice. "That man in the plaza. His name is Ryan Ashton. He has been pursuing me for four months and he will not stop, and right now he is about to make a very public scene in front of my family's building, and I need you to"

"Borrow money?" Ethan guessed.

"What? No."

"Just checking. Go ahead."

She inhaled. "I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend. For approximately ten minutes. Just long enough for him to take his flowers and his Porsche and leave."

Ethan looked at her.

She looked back with the direct, unapologetic gaze of a woman who is asking for something she considers completely reasonable under the circumstances.

"I have a girlfriend," he said.

Charlotte's expression shifted. She studied him for exactly two seconds.

Then she said, very calmly: "I stopped by the traffic authority's office this morning. They have surveillance footage of Fifth Avenue from yesterday. The camera angle is quite good. Clear enough to see someone step deliberately into the path of a vehicle."

A pause.

"Ten minutes," she said. "That's all I need."

Ethan looked at her.

She looked back.

"Where do you want me to stand?" he said.

---

The crowd in the plaza had been enjoying the spectacle for twenty minutes and was ready for the next act. They got it.

Charlotte walked into the plaza with Ethan beside her, her hand tucked around his arm with the practiced ease of someone who had decided if she was going to do this she was going to do it properly. Ethan matched her pace without being asked. He had a natural stillness about him that read, in context, as exactly the kind of quiet confidence that annoyed men like Ryan Ashton.

Ryan saw her immediately.

His face lit up and then processed the arm, and the man attached to the arm, and the lighting changed.

He crossed the plaza toward them with the easy, ownership-flavored stride of someone who has never seriously considered that he might not get what he wants.

"Charlie." He held the blue roses forward like an offering. "These are for you. I had them flown in from"

"Ryan." Charlotte's voice was pleasant and completely flat. "How many times have we had this conversation?"

"I thought.." He tried to explain.

"I have a boyfriend."

Ryan's eyes moved to Ethan. He took a slow inventory the practical clothes, the absence of visible luxury, the face that was undeniably good-looking in a way that required no product or effort. His expression settled into something that wasn't quite contempt but was being neighborly with it.

"Charlotte." His voice dropped to the register people use when they're performing patience. "Come on. I know your situation. You don't have a boyfriend."

"This is Ethan Vale," Charlotte said. "He's been my boyfriend for.."

"Three months," Ethan said.

Ryan Ashton looked at him properly for the first time.

"Ethan," he said, with the specific pronunciation of someone turning a name over in their mouth to check its weight. "What do you do, Ethan?"

"Medicine," Ethan said.

"Mm." Ryan's chin lifted slightly. "Resident? Attending?"

"Independent practice."

"Right." Ryan allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. He turned back to Charlotte, gesturing at the roses, the car, the considerable production he had assembled in the plaza. "Look. I'm not trying to be difficult here. I just want to be honest with you about what I'm offering."

He held his arms out slightly, indicating himself, the car, the roses, all of it.

"My family's real estate portfolio is north of two hundred million. I'm VP of Ashton Development, that's not a title, that's operational control of six active projects in Manhattan alone. This car" he glanced at the Porsche "new. Registered in your name as of this morning, title in the glove box."

The crowd had gone very attentive.

"Three million dollars," someone near Ethan murmured. "Just like that."

"A man like that doesn't grow on trees," someone else offered.

Ryan had someone planted in the crowd, Ethan clocked it in under thirty seconds, the man slightly too close to the action, laughing slightly too readily. The orchestrated cheer started from his direction.

"Say yes! Get together"

A few genuine bystanders picked it up, because crowds do that, because it's easier to go along than to think.

"Get together! get together"