Once Upon a Proposal Read Online Free PDF

Fairchild’s voice rose slightly, a true indicator that she was genuinely perturbed.
    If there was one person in the family to perturb the normally unflappable, elegant woman, Bobbie knew it was she, Cornelia’s youngest daughter. The one who was entirely flappable. And decidedly in elegant.
    A pain was beginning to form between her eyebrows. “I’m not—” she broke off, lowering her voice again. “I’m not engaged,” she said in a half-whisper.
    â€œThen why is Harry so certain that you are?”
    There could be only one reason, Bobbie knew, though she really couldn’t fathom why Tim Boering would have immediately trotted out the story for her honorary uncle. Only a few hours had passed since then, for heaven’s sake. “It’s just a misunderstanding,” she assured. She lifted the roses out of the plastic pitcher that she’d stuck them in, and dumped them in the trash.
    â€œHarry sounded perfectly clear to me, Bobbie. He said you and this Gabriel person were engaged!”
    â€œHonestly, Mom—” her voice rose despite herself “—do you really think I would be seriously involved with someone and not tell you?”
    Cornelia’s silence was telling and Bobbie pressed a finger to that pain over her nose. Yes, over the years, there had been a few things she hadn’t told her mother. Mostly because she knew it would just make Cornelia worry. And Bobbie had already caused her mother enough worry to last a lifetime.
    â€œI promise you,” she said more quietly, “I am not engaged.” Particularly not to the eminently kissable man who was working on her door not twenty feet away from her, probably overhearing every word, even though she was nearly whispering.
    â€œIt’s not the idea of you being engaged that alarms me, Bobbie,” Cornelia countered smoothly. “It was the fact that I thought you hadn’t told me first. I would be delighted to think that one of my daughters is finally settling down.”
    The pain went from a dull ache to a sharp throb. “You mean that I was finally settling down.” Sticking with something. Anything.
    â€œDon’t put words in my mouth, darling. That’s not what I meant at all.”
    Bobbie paced the confines of the small kitchen. She was twenty-seven years old and kept telling herself that she should be past the need for her mother’s approval.
    But saying it and feeling it were two very different things.
    â€œI’m not even dating anyone, Mom. I haven’t since—” She broke off. There was no need to finish. Her mother knew what she was referring to, and Bobbie had no desire for Gabe to overhear that her love life had as much altitude as Death Valley. A state of reality since the beginning of the year, ever since the man she’d been in love with—Lawrence McKay—had thrown her over for an entirely more suitable woman to stand at his side while he took the political scene by storm. A woman whose hair didn’t look like she’d stuck her finger in an electric socket and who didn’t need to stand on a stool just to reach the shelves in her own kitchen cabinets. A woman who was cool and elegant and who always had the right words for any situation.
    A woman just like Bobbie’s mother. Or her sisters, for that matter.
    She pinched the bridge of her nose. Zeus started whining. She heard her mother sigh again. Faintly.
    â€œAll right. I’ll just have to call Harry and correct his misinformation.”
    â€œI’ll call him if you want me to,” Bobbie offered. Herhonorary uncle was an eccentric one, but she had a soft spot for the man anyway. After Bobbie’s father died when she was little, Harrison Hunt had been one of the few males left in her life. Whether it was the fact that he’d been childhood friends with George and Cornelia, or the fact that George had later married Cornelia, or even that George had