Making Him Believe

By: Julie Jordan

Part One

Chapter One

Their first meeting was a whirl of colors, smells, sounds. When she thought back on it, Megan could see how she'd become such good friends with David. He was honest and kind to a fault, not to mention devilishly charming and mythically handsome. His charm failed to bring her to her knees, but enchanted her mind nonetheless.

"I have a proposition for you, Megan Murray," he said, walking into the tiny office where she was getting ready to be a guest lecturer to a college classroom. He tossed her the bottle of water she'd requested and fell into a chair near the desk.

"Does it involve the trip home to Maine for Christmas that you've mentioned twenty times today?" she asked sweetly, raising delicate eyebrows.

"Come on Megan! You have to help me!" David begged, falling to his knees and staring up at her with hands clasped. That was another thing she loved about David, he was one of the silliest people she knew.

"I don't know, Dave. You're going to have to explain this proposition to me." She gazed into the mirror and applied a few swipes of mascara to her smoky-black eyelashes.

"I don't even know where to start," he moaned, dropping his hands and staring up at her.

"How about with the beginning?" she suggested closing her makeup bag and addressing the nice black suit she wore.

"My mother," he sighed. "She thinks I have a girlfriend."

"You don't," Megan murmured, she shook her head and turned her green-eyed gaze back on him.

"But I told her that I do. My proposition, therefore, is that you come with me to Maine and pretend to be my girlfriend." He wanted her to play make believe? A children's game that Megan Murray never dreamed she'd be playing at the age of twenty-four. She stared at David Preston, her closest friend, with shock. "Come on, Meg. Please help me out!" David was back to begging, his hands clasped again. It made her smile even as she shook her head at his outlandish desire.

"Wait, explain this fully to me. Your parents think you have a girlfriend?" Megan asked, crossing her arms over her chest and gazing at him with narrowed green eyes.

"Uh huh," he smiled with a boyish innocence that she didn't believe for a moment.

"How did they come under this illusion, David Matthew Preston?" She checked for the third time that her hair was secure and her makeup flawless. David rose and dusted off his knees.

"You look fine, stop worrying. And I might have told them six months ago that I was dating a girl." He brushed a bit of fluff off her sleeve and gave her another hesitant smile.

"Were you?" Megan inquired, straightening the colorful lapels that adorned her otherwise black suit.

"Does it matter?" he replied, fixing the collar of her gray shirt. Megan raised her eyebrows and stared at him. "Alright, yes I was. But she wasn't serious and I told Mom she was." None of David's girlfriends were ever serious, something that Megan gave him endless grief over.

"So, in six months you couldn't find the tiniest moment to undeceive them?" she demanded, placing her hands on her hips.

"Um, no." David wore such a comical expression that Megan felt some of her frustration diffuse.

"It isn't really that hard, Dave. Just call your mom and tell her you broke up with the girl." She turned around and started to gather her notes from the side table. "Or that she broke up with you," she added, shrugging

"Please Megan? I'll do anything!"

"Why can't you just admit the truth?" she asked, opening her water and taking a sip.

"My mother is scary," he muttered, scowling at the floor.

"Why me, then? I'm sure you could find ten other women willing to play your girlfriend for a month." She scanned over his heart-stopping physique and his beautiful face for a moment. He could probably find twenty women willing to be on his arm for a month.

"Yeah, I could," he replied with a smug grin. "The problem is that none that have known me for six months or longer. Plus I'd scare away any self-respecting girl with just my story." He flashed another boyish grin and winked.

"I must have very little respect for myself then," she quipped, narrowing her eyes and glaring at him. He smiled again and gave her a shove towards the door beside them.

"Everyone knows that you do not lack respect and self confidence. We'll talk when you're done out there." She smiled back at him and left the office. He walked along at her side as she made her way to the lecture hall.

"I don't want to talk about it, Dave. Call your mother and tell her the truth," she growled, pulling the door to the lecture hall open and stepping inside to give a lecture to a class of four hundred students about the merits of attending fashion school and what she had learned there.

Megan collapsed on her couch three hours later with a sigh, she was tired. After the lecture, she had fled from David, not wanting to give him an answer without thinking about what he was proposing. It was a deception beyond any that she was capable of doing. She could barely lie without blushing, let alone pretend that she'd been dating him for six months. The amount of trickery required to fool David's parents into thinking that she was his girlfriend would be unprecedented to her, and she couldn't even imagine how to begin to think about it.

Rufus, her black and white Chihuahua, jumped up next to her on the couch to lick her wrist. She absentmindedly stroked his head and her eyes drifted closed. As she slipped closer and closer to sleep, her cell phone rang, jarring her out of her peaceful doze.

"Hello?" she asked, yawning and trying to keep her eyes opened.

"Megan," his stern voice filled the other end of the line. "You left me after the lecture. I waited outside the lecture hall for an hour." His voice sounded fuzzy to her ears.

"David?" she sighed wearily. "I'm sleeping Dave."

"Sorry, but I need to talk to you about this. Will you let me in?" She rolled over and looked at her front door. It was so far away.

"Where's you key?" she moaned, closing her eyes and letting the sleep swampy her.

"It's at home, let me in!" His voice startled her out of her sleep again.

"The door is unlocked," she murmured, not really sure that it was, but not caring. Ending the call, she rolled over and hoped sleep would claim her again.

David came inside and glanced around. Megan's tiny apartment always felt comfortable to him. The rooms were dark, only lit by the small lamp by the side of Megan's couch. She was stretched out across the couch, still in her suit. Rufus leapt off the couch and launched his furry body at the man's feet. Megan didn't react, except to curl tighter against the couch. Flipping the living room light on, David pulled his black coat off and laid it on the kitchen bar as he passed. He noticed that Megan squeezed her eyes closed tighter as the light tried to wake her.

"You know, front doors are supposed to be locked when you sleep," he drawled. Megan turned over to glare at David with her startling green eyes. It was the first thing he had noticed when they met, that her eyes were such a vivid green they almost shimmered.

"People aren't supposed to come over when you are sleeping," she insisted through clenched teeth. David knew from experience that she wasn't mad yet, just annoyed.

"Very true, but people have a nasty habit of showing up when not wanted." He sat down near her feet and pulled Rufus onto his lap.

"Like you?" she queried.

"No, like my parents and their meddling in my love life. This brings us back to my problem." He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

"Tell them you broke up," she grumbled, rolling over and resting her head on a pillow.

"Well, you see, there's a problem with that." His tone made her head whip around.

Megan turned her sharp green eyes on him. David looked nervous. He cleared his throat as if to speak and then stopped. It was strange to see this self-possessed man looking so worried. He had always come across as completely in control of every situation. While it was amusing to see his arrogance brought down a notch, it made her nervous too. Megan had known David for four years, and in that time she had heard about his father, his brother, his cousins, and his grandparents. She had heard nothing of his mother, whom he seemed wary and afraid of.

"A problem, David?" she asked when he cleared his throat for the third time. He looked at her for a moment and then blinked his blue eyes slowly.

"I kind of already told them you were coming out with me." He smiled sheepishly. Then he reached around to take the black heels off her feet. "How can you sleep in that suit?"

"Please tell me that you did not tell your parents that I am your girlfriend. Tell me that you didn't use my name," she snapped, sitting up to stare at David and ignoring his hands that massaged her aching feet.

"You look pretty," he commented, grinning hopefully and reaching out to push the strand of hair from her face.

"Go find another Megan, you idiot." She whacked him in the head with a pillow and lay back down on the couch. He took the pillow from her hands and tossed it across the room. Rufus ran after it with a delighted yelp.

"Come on, Meg. I'll do anything for you! Please don't make me face my mother alone!"

"Are you going to beg me?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and hoping that he did. It was always fun to make David beg.

"I'm not too proud, my dear." He fell to his knees beside the couch and clasped his hands to his heart.

"Have you always been this dramatic?" she sighed, but felt the smile tug at her lips. As annoying as he could be sometimes, he really was a dear.

"Megan, pearl of my heart, dimples in my smile, song in my soul. Please?" His words caused the desired effect, Megan giggled.

"Which is it? Am I a pearl, dimple or song?" she asked, chuckling. She knew she was being charmed, but how could she resist when he did it so well?

"All of them, sweetheart. Megan, I swear, if you do this for me, I will do anything for you. What do you need?" He took her hands in his and grasped them tightly.

"Nothing right now," she sighed heavily. "If I say yes, and I'm not saying I am, what would we have to do?"

"Lie to my parents," he replied with a shrug. Rufus came skittering back with the pillow in his mouth. David took it from the dog and tossed it again.

"I've got that one, David. What else?" she asked stiffly.

"Well we'd have to fool my mother, which is easier said than done. We'd need to memorize details and such."

"Like…"

"How we met, our first date, stuff like that."

"Well I guess it would be best to stick to the truth, as much as we can."

"Is that a yes?" He jumped up and pulled her into a hug. Suddenly, he started to laugh. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," he repeated like a mantra, relief clear in his voice.

"I haven't said 'yes' yet," Megan reminded him dryly.

"But you're going to," he murmured happily and leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Thank you!" She watched him with amused eyes as he stood and walked into the kitchen to pour two glasses of wine.

"We can start practicing, but I still can say no, if I decided it's too risky."

"What could you be risking? If my mother discovers our plot, she'll be angry, but mostly at me. You will come back here and never have to think about her again."

"Until she comes out here to visit you," Megan replied as he handed her a glass of wine. She took a sip of the cabernet and smiled. "I'm not a very good liar," she added, finally voicing her biggest fear of the adventure he proposed.

"I know it, but you know me well, and your blush when they ask about your feelings for me will seem more of an innocent thing than a liar's tell." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry, sweet."

"I do," she muttered, sighing when he shook his head.

"Again, what do you have to risk?" he asked with another grin. She looked him over and wondered what she did have to risk.

Alright, so my editing of Making Him Believe begins! I am excited for I have many ideas on how to change this story and make it all the better! I hope you enjoyed the read! Please drop a review for me! I would appreciate it!