Just Good Friends (18 page)

And, as if also on cue, Tiffany’s
parents got that wistful look in their eyes. Tiffany quickly said,
“Zoe and Brad were talking about trying for a child.”

“
Oh, didn’t you see Zoe’s
post on Facebook?” her mother asked.

“
I don’t get on Facebook
much,” Tiffany replied, especially when she was rushing all over
the place acting as if she was married.

“
Zoe said she’s going to put
off having children until she gets a higher position in her
company.”

“
When did she decide
this?”

“
Just the other
day.”

“
Personally, I think that’s
a mistake,” Nathan said. “There’s always some reason to wait to
have children, but before you know it, you’re forty and suddenly
the time you thought you had is gone. The best time to have
children is now. Life will find a way of working the kinks
out.”

“
Your situation doesn’t work
for everyone, Nathan,” Amy called out.

“
Of course, it does. I could
have waited until my wife decided she wanted to quit working to
have a child, but I didn’t. I had one right away. Now, can you
honestly look at that adorable little girl and say it was wrong for
me to have her as soon as possible?”

Amy groaned. “Nathan, this is too much.
I insist you stop at once, and,” she shot him a pointed look, “I
love my job. I plan to stay here until I’m too old to work
anymore.”

“
And that’s fine with me
because I figure we’ll try for another child next year.” Undeterred
by her loud sigh, he smiled at Tiffany’s parents. “So you see,
nothing is perfect. But you just work through things as they come
up.”

He went over to Amy and picked Amber
back up. After giving Amy another kiss, he returned to
them.

“
Are you ready to continue
the tour?” he asked.

Tiffany fought the urge to roll her
eyes. This wasn’t a tour of his business. This was a sermon on why
her parents should get super excited about the prospect of having
grandchildren. And it really couldn’t come at a worse time since
Zoe changed her mind about having her own children right away. It
was the one thing Tiffany had been counting on. Now when she told
her parents the whole marriage to Tyler was a sham, they’d be even
more devastated.

Nathan turned to her. “I can only fit
your parents and Amber in my car. Do you mind following us in
yours?”

“
Will Tyler be there at any
part of this tour?” she asked.

“
Sure, he will. I wouldn’t
dream of giving this tour without including him.”

“
Okay. Then I’ll
come.”

“
Oh, how adorable,” she
overheard her mother whisper to her father.

No, it wasn’t adorable. She was in
serious danger of committing murder, and unless Tyler was there to
calm her down, she just might run Nathan over for what he was
doing. When Tyler had warned her that Nathan could be manipulative,
he’d been underestimating just how good Nathan was at it. The man
knew how to get people to bend to his will.

If someone had given her a great
discount on airplane tickets, a grand hotel to stay in, and made
her dreams seem like they were within reach, she was sure she’d
have the same starry-eyed look her parents had right
now.

Tiffany waited until Nathan led her
parents back outside before turning to Amy. “Do you know what all
that was about?”

After a moment, Amy said, “I think he
wants you and Tyler to get married for real.”

“
Why?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he thinks you’ll
be good for Tyler?”

“
I’d go along with it if I
were you,” Danielle said. “Tyler makes good money, he’s good
looking, he’s nice, and he’s friends with someone who spends a lot
of money on people he likes. Why wouldn’t you want to be married to
someone like that?”

Ignoring her, Tiffany hurried after
Nathan and her parents.

Chapter
Fifteen

Tyler drummed his fingers on his desk
as he waited for his cousin to answer his video call on Skype. He
glanced at the time on the computer monitor and wondered when
Nathan planned to pick up Tiffany’s parents. He had wanted to do
it, but Nathan called him while he was shaving and told him he
needed to get on Skype with Ryan first thing in the
morning.

When Tyler arrived at work, Nathan was
nowhere in sight, and Tyler couldn’t help but think Nathan was up
to something. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what it
was.

Ryan answered Tyler’s Skype call, and
Tyler turned his attention to the video on his computer screen. “I
thought Nathan wanted to talk to me this morning,” Ryan
said.

“
He said he had to take his
daughter somewhere, so he asked me to fill in,” Tyler
replied.

“
Okay.” Ryan gathered some
papers on his desk and turned back to the computer. “Well, the
initial results of the study he asked for have come in, and it
looks like he’d be better off running commercials and ads geared to
senior citizens in mid-to-late summer if he wants them to think
about heading to warmer climates in the winter.”

Tyler frowned. “Why would he ask you to
run a study like that? The research team here could do
it.”

“
That’s what I told him, but
he was adamant that Jacob and I do it.” He shrugged. “I don’t know
why Nathan does what he does. He’s your friend, not
mine.”

Tyler drummed his fingers on the desk
again. Something didn’t add up. He had no idea what Nathan had
wanted with Ryan but figured it was more important than telling him
the results of a survey Nathan’s people could have easily done. And
Ryan’s specialty was commercials, not surveys. “I think this is a
decoy.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
I think you are supposed to
distract me while he does something he knows I wouldn’t
like.”

“
Like what?”

The answer was so obvious that Tyler
kicked himself for not putting the pieces together sooner. Nathan
wanted to pick up Tiffany’s parents, and for some reason, he didn’t
want Tyler to be there when he did. And if he guessed right, Nathan
took his daughter along to convince them that they wanted to be
grandparents.

“
I need to go,” he told
Ryan.

“
Hold on,” Ryan protested
when Tyler was ready to end the video call. “Aren’t you going to
tell me what’s going on?”

“
It’s a long
story.”

“
Does it have something to
do with you and Tiffany being married?”

“
I hope you’re not going to
tell her parents that we’re not really married.” Then, thinking of
the other thing Ryan could blab, he added, “I also hope you’re not
telling anyone else in our family that we are.”

Ryan chuckled. “No on both counts. Beth
explained everything to me. She also said she will be going to the
zoo with Tiffany and your non-in-laws.”

“
You’re enjoying this,
aren’t you?”

“
Yep. It’s nice when someone
else has meddling parents instead of me.”

“
Well, in this case, it’s
not my parents or hers. The meddler is Nathan.”

“
Yeah, but I heard about her
parents and Thanksgiving weekend.”

“
Okay. That’s true. In that
case, they do meddle.”

Ryan chuckled again. “I’ll let you go
so you can track Nathan down and minimize the damage he’s
doing.”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “Lucky
me.”

After saying good-bye, he ended the
video call and got up. He grabbed his coat and walked over to
Carmen who was on the phone.

“
Six thirty.” Carmen wrote
the time down on a memo sheet. “I’ll let him know. Thank you.” She
hung up the phone and looked up at Tyler. “Is there something I can
help you with?”

“
Nathan didn’t happen to
tell you where he was going this morning, did he?”

She shook her head. “All he said was
that he had to take Amber somewhere.”

“
Great.” So he could be at
the hotel right now or already be at the building where Tiffany
worked. “Does he still have that cemetery plot in the city
dump?”

“
Yep. Why? You think he
needs one in a sewer, too?”

“
Probably, but even I can’t
confine him to something that disgusting.” Even if he deserved it.
“I’ll be out until I find him.”

“
You really think he’s up to
no good?” she called out as he went to the elevator.

He pressed the button and turned to
her. “This is Nathan Rudolph we’re talking about.”

“
Good point. Who do I send
the sympathy card to?”

“
Tiffany Clark.”

The elevator doors opened, and he
stepped into it. He got to the lobby just in time to see Nathan,
who was holding his daughter, open the door as Tiffany’s parents
and a less-than-happy Tiffany entered the building.

“
This is where it all
began,” Nathan told them. “Of course, back then, it wasn’t this
big, and it wasn’t this specific building. I rented this one when
my company expanded to the point where I needed it.” He glanced
over at Tyler and waved. “I think you’ll recognize someone over
there.”

They turned to him, and since Tiffany’s
parents were watching him, he forced himself to remain calm enough
so he wouldn’t barge up to Nathan and demand to know what he
thought he was going to accomplish by interfering in his
life.

“
Good to see you this
morning,” her dad said as he walked over to him.

“
Good to see you, too,” he
forced out, hoping his irritation with Nathan wasn’t as obvious as
Tiffany’s was.

“
How did your meeting with
Ryan Jackson go?” Nathan asked.

“
Probably the same as it
would have if you had our research team do it,” he replied, hoping
Nathan understood that Tyler knew full well that the meeting was
bogus.

“
Ryan is Tyler’s cousin,”
Nathan told her parents. “I like to throw a little business his way
from time to time. Not that he needs it, of course. He has one of
the most successful advertising companies in the country. But I
like to support those I like.”

“
Support,” Tyler mumbled.
“That’s what you call it?”

Nathan glanced at him as if he couldn’t
believe Tyler even had to ask the question. “That’s exactly what I
call it.” Then, without missing a beat, he gestured to the
elevator. “However, as Tyler has pointed out, we do have a research
and marketing department right here in this building, and I’ll be
happy to show it to you right now. It’s on the second
floor.”

Tyler let the excited parents pass him
so he could walk next to Tiffany.

She sighed and looked up at him.
“You’ll never guess what he’s doing,” she whispered.

“
I don’t think I want to
know,” he whispered in return.

They stepped into the elevator, and
Amber reached for the button Nathan was going to press. He guided
her hand to the right button and helped her select it. “There you
go.” The girl giggled, and he grinned. “She hasn’t been to the
second floor before. But there’s no time like the present. My dad
always told me there’s no time like now to start doing what you
love, and I can tell she’s going to love running this
business.”

Tiffany rubbed her forehead, and Tyler
sensed Nathan’s seemingly innocent comment had a hidden message
underneath it. He’d probably know what it was if he had started
this tour with everyone else. But really, it was for the best he
didn’t know.

The tour through the second floor was
easy enough. Nathan seemed straightforward enough with the
information he was giving them. He even told some jokes that made
Tiffany’s parents laugh.

He used the same jokes with anyone he
hoped to gain on board for business purposes. It was something
Tyler always admired about him. Nathan had a way of winning people
over without seeming to put any effort into it. And just as his
business prospects had been charmed by him, her parents were
charmed as well.

Tyler didn’t know why it bothered him
that her parents seemed so taken by him. Sure, he didn’t like the
fact that Nathan was sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong,
but he couldn’t help but wonder if her parents would have preferred
it if Nathan had been their son-in-law instead of him.

He stopped himself before his thoughts
went any further. It was silly, of course. He wasn’t really their
son-in-law, so there was nothing to worry about.

By the time they made it to the top
floor, her parents were laughing at just about everything Nathan
was saying. If they were business prospects, they would have signed
a contract with him already.

“
And this is the end of the
tour,” Nathan said as he led them off the elevator. “Over here is
my wonderful secretary, Carmen. She’s been with me since I started
this business almost twenty years ago.”

“
Yes, and I assure you, he’s
an even bigger pain now than he was back then,” she said with a
teasing grin. “He’s let the money and fame go right to his
head.”