“I know. I know more than anyone what she does. She doesn’t give you a choice or a chance. I know she wasn’t always this way, so it’s hard for you to look back and not see the mom she used to be.”
“When did you get so good at reading people?” she asked, shaking her head with a small smile on her face.
“I’ve always been good at it. Plus, Holland and Ethan always keep me on my toes, so I’m getting better at understanding people. I still don’t understand why you let them do what you do, but I get it.”
“If you get it, then you do understand. And if you don’t understand, then you don’t get it.”
Lincoln snorted. “Fine then. Deconstruct my grammar. I see how it is.”
“You just came over here to check on me?” she asked after a moment.
“You’re my cousin. Practically my sister. Of course, I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” he said before kissing her temple again.
The doorbell rang as he pulled away, and Madison froze, having a feeling she knew exactly who it was.
“I didn’t realize you were meeting him here. I assumed you’d be going to the café. Or meeting in an open space. Not where you’ll be all alone with Aaron.”
She raised a single brow, just like Lincoln had. “Excuse me? Why would you have an issue with that?”
“Because you’re my baby sister. Sort of. And I can do what I want.”
“Don’t get all growly with me. It’s just Aaron. Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.” She had a feeling that he didn’t believe her in the slightest. And, honestly, she wasn’t sure she believed herself.
She went to the door and opened it, then did her best not to swallow her tongue. After all, it wouldn’t be good for anybody if she swooned right in front of the man she’d had the sex dream about. No, scratch that. A foreplay dream. Right?
“Hey. Is this the right time?” Aaron asked before his gaze widened. Madison knew that Lincoln was right behind her, hovering. She could feel him, and from Aaron’s look, he was either surprised to see Lincoln, or Lincoln was making some kind of rude gesture. She knew the two were friends, but it was still a little worrisome how her cousin was reacting.
“Aaron.”
“Lincoln,” Aaron said, mimicking her cousin’s deep and skeptical tone.
Madison just wanted to crawl into a hole and pretend that none of this was happening. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything.
She looked up at Aaron and did her best not to imagine him as he had been in her dream. After all, that had only been a figment. The idea of everything they had talked about while he was trying to save her behind had simply come back to her in a weird, subconscious way. It didn’t mean she actually wanted to sleep with Aaron Montgomery. It just meant that her brain was having a field day trying to figure out how to get out of the situation she was in.
“This is perfect. Come on in. Lincoln was just leaving,” she said, putting steel in her voice. She looked over at her cousin, who just rolled his eyes.
“I was. But now I kind of want to stay and see what happens.”
“Lincoln. You have work to do. And you don’t need to be here for this.”
“So you say. But I think I’d have more fun here.”
“Out, you brute.”
“Ouch,” Lincoln said, winking. And then he looked over at Aaron and narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t fuck with her.”
“Lincoln!” She gasped.
“What? I already said you were practically my sister. You’re going to do this to keep the folks off? Fine. But, Aaron? You touch her in any way? You hurt her? You will deal with me.”
“I get you. I’m not going to fuck this up.”
Madison wanted to crawl into a hole and die. She also wanted to beat somebody up because the embarrassment was almost too much to bear at this point.
“I can take care of myself. I do not need this show of masculine…whatever the hell is going on between you right now.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” Lincoln said, kissing her on the temple.
“No, you’re being a jerk. I’m not going to mess this up,” Aaron said again, his gaze on Lincoln’s face for a moment before meeting hers.
“I know. I trust you. Plus, it would be kind of horrible if I had to maim you, considering I’m in a relationship with your brother.”
“Yes,” Aaron said dryly. That would be horrible.”
“At least we understand each other. Let us know what happens,” Lincoln said as he walked out. Madison closed her eyes, groaning as she ended up alone with Aaron.
“Well. I was not expecting that,” Madison said after a moment, looking up at Aaron as he made his way fully into the house.
“Honestly, I was,” Aaron said, and she frowned.
“What?”
“Of course, Lincoln would want to make sure that I don’t fuck things up. I’d do the same thing for Bristol. I did do the same thing for Bristol. To the point where it kind of got me in trouble with the rest of the family, but somebody had to make sure that Marcus didn’t screw things up.”
“Bristol and Marcus are best friends. They weren’t going to screw things up.”
“Well, you and I are friends. Therefore, we’re not going to do it either.”
Madison paused. “Okay.” She took a breath. “That was a weird way to start this. Whatever this is.”
“Yeah. But now that I’m here, we can figure it out.”
“Are we just going to end it? Forget it ever happened?”
“I don’t know.” Aaron stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked around her small home.
She liked her place, it was hers—and the bank’s, but it was mostly hers. Her parents hated it, for the most part because she didn’t dress it up with antiques or anything they considered classy. It was a little unconventional, a bit thrift store, but it was all hers. One day, she would have all new pieces rather than things she found secondhand, but for now, this worked for her. After all, she spent most of her time and money on her store rather than herself. And she was just fine with that.
“You know, I’ve read a few romances that started like this.”
Madison groaned, knowing that Aaron loved reading romance novels and thrillers. Basically, anything that was the written word. She admired him for it. She knew that his brothers and some of the other guys came to him for romantic advice, but this was nothing like that. This was something entirely different.
“You know, so have I. But it never really ends well, does it? And we’re not in one of those books. And I won’t be fucking with you. Okay?”
Aaron’s brows rose at her tone. “Fine. We won’t fuck. But maybe we can still play around.” He winked, and Madison just stared at him, blinking. “What?”
“I’m just saying. We can be smart about each other and how we do this. And we can make sure that we don’t kiss. Don’t touch. But we can still do what we need to, to keep your family off your back.”
“Oh.” She was so confused. “What do you mean?”
“We don’t have to fuck, or kiss, or do anything like that. I was just kidding about that. Really.” He stared at her then, and she swallowed hard. “That’s a different way to tease.”
“I’m not going to touch on the whole teasing thing. I think the clearer we are with each other, the easier this will be.”
“There’s nothing easy about this.”
“You’re right. There isn’t. But if you need time to figure out how you’re going to get your mother off your back, I’m here. We can do whatever we need to, to make your family see exactly who you are.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She was worried, but she didn’t say anything. She was so grateful that she could stand up to her family, and she had to, but this was so out of the blue that she knew her mother would never leave her alone about it. She ha
d already ignored seven phone calls from her mother that morning. There were probably more since she hadn’t looked at her phone since she woke up.
Her mother would never let this go. And unless Madison was ready to walk away fully from a family that had been such a huge part of her heart, she needed to figure out how to get her mother on a new path.
“What happens when this falls apart?” she asked, looking at him. He gazed at her. Her eyes fell to his lips as his tongue peeked out to lick them.
She needed to stop looking at his mouth.
“Then you dump me.”
“They’re still going to blame me, you know. That’s sort of what they do.”
Aaron’s jaw tightened for a moment before he gave her a tight nod. “Then we’ll make sure they know you, at least. Not the woman they want you to be. Or…you just walk away. Your choice. But this at least gives you the space to breathe. To figure it out. And it could be fun. Get your mind off the fact that your mother is fucking crazy.”
“She is that. I just don’t know what will happen.”
“Like I said, this gives you time to figure it all out. And it really could be fun. Something to get my mind off my work, too.”
“Really? I’m just a distraction?”
“You’re anything but, Madison. I can be your friend. And I guess your fake fiancé for now.”
She let out a breath and held out her hand, swallowing hard. When Aaron looked at her for a moment, she was afraid that he wouldn’t touch her, but then he slid his hand into hers and gave it a squeeze and a shake.
“Okay. This is the weirdest way to begin an engagement. But then again, there might be weirder. So, let’s come up with a plan.”
They started talking about fake dating and dinners, and precisely what was going to happen.
She did her best not to look at him, not to stare.
And she sure as hell made sure not to think about that damn dream.
Chapter 4
Aaron scowled at the sketch in front of him, angling his pencil so he could add more shading and get it to the point where he could figure out what he wanted to accomplish with the project.
He had to go into his workshop and start working on this piece soon for a client who only said they wanted something red. Didn’t matter what it was, they just wanted something by Aaron Montgomery, and they wanted it to be red. And that meant he had to figure out something that wasn’t just a red blob. At this point, that was the only thing he could come up with.
He set down his notebook and ran his hands over his face, annoyed with himself. There was a reason he couldn’t focus, why he couldn’t get in the mood to get anything done. And that reason was the person he had somehow become engaged to. He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but he knew it was all his fault. Of course, it was his fault. He was the one who’d started this whole thing, and the one who wanted it to happen.
But why? To be the savior? To be the one who fixed things? That wasn’t him. Not really. That was his other brothers, and hell, even his sister to some degree. Aaron wasn’t the fixer of his family. He was the one who smoothed things over once the jagged pieces were brought back together by the others. At least, that’s what his mom had told him once. The idea had stuck with him.
It didn’t matter in the end, though. Because he had a feeling that if this whole fake fiancée thing didn’t work out, it would blow up in their faces. And he wasn’t sure what he would do.
He pushed those thoughts from his mind, set down his notebook, and went to the other side of his workshop. He had his blowpipe, and his furnace, and everything else set up. The installation had taken a huge chunk of his savings—at least at first. It had been worth it, though. Not having to rent a space or even leave this property to work was priceless. Because, sometimes, he got an idea in the middle of the night. With the workshop here, he could hype himself up on coffee and get to work.
Even if it was two o’clock in the morning.
Somehow, he’d been able to purchase the land and build the furnace and everything. Not many places would let him do that. But he had been lucky. He’d found a foreclosed building that needed a lot of work and a lot of care, but it had been the perfect price for him.
And, thanks to his career, he had been able to pay it all off. But he had been worried at first that he’d taken too big of a leap.
Now, he was able to work from home, create art, and figure out what pieces he’d like to sell off, which ones he wanted to give as gifts, and others that just ended up on the cutting room shelf.
He never put them on the floor unless they were too large. He had one eight-foot-tall piece that he had named Wheat, that he still wasn’t done with. He had a feeling if he wasn’t careful and didn’t find more inspiration for it, it would stay there forever, taunting him with his failure.
He sighed, looked around at what he needed to do, and shook his head. No art would get done today. He might as well work on his books, sketch some more, or call it a day and catch up on Netflix.
Because for now, work just wasn’t happening.
He headed back into his house and frowned.
He wanted Madison. That was the problem with all of this. He’d wanted her from the moment he saw her. Had fallen for that smile of hers, those curves, the way she laughed with him—and sometimes at him.
He had felt that maybe they could become partners in crime, given their large families. Well, not her family so much as the fact that she was now part of the Montgomerys through Lincoln.
And that counted.
Madison had always been hot as fuck in Aaron’s eyes, even if her mother was a bitch who did her best to degrade and put Madison down whenever she could. Aaron had always had the hots for Madison but had never acted on it. After all, she was off-limits. The fact that she and Lincoln were even allowing this charade at all told him that things were far more dire than he even realized. Or, they were just too surprised by everything, so somehow, this was all happening.
He didn’t know. But in the end, he would do his best to make sure that he didn’t fuck this up. Madison deserved happiness. Even if that wasn’t with him in the long run, he could still do his best to ensure that she didn’t get hurt right now.
He had no idea how to go about that, though. Because he had a feeling that even if he didn’t hurt her directly, her mother would somehow.
He couldn’t fathom how a woman could be so casually cruel, but there it was. And he was going to do his best to make sure that Madison never had to deal with that horror again.
His doorbell rang, and he frowned, thinking who could be at his house after dinner.
He looked down at his phone. No one had called him. He shrugged and made his way to the front door.
He opened it and should have figured who would be there.
Liam, Ethan, and Lincoln made their way inside, pushing past him without even saying a word.
So, this was it. Aaron was either going to get his ass beaten, or they would want details.
And from the glowers on the men’s faces, looks mixed with curiosity, he figured it might be a mix of both.
“Guys.”
“Hi there,” Ethan said, raising a single brow.
“Anything you’d like to tell us?” Liam asked, amusement in his expression. Amusement was good. Amusement meant that he might not get his ass kicked. Right?
“Yes, let’s talk,” Lincoln said.
Aaron met each of their gazes. “What do you want to know? We already talked at the show and earlier today.” He swallowed hard, a little nervous but also not wanting to get into it too much. After all, this was between him and Madison, and no one else.
Okay, so that was a complete lie, considering who was at his door. But he could tell himself that it was just him and Madison. And, in the end, it was just her. He’d do anything to keep from hurting her.
“Why don’t you tell us exactly what you were thinking?” Lincoln said, taking a seat on the couch. The others did the same, taking up positions on
different furniture pieces. Aaron stood, feeling like he was on display. He probably deserved it.
“I don’t know. I only know I’m an idiot.”
“You just said I don’t know, and I know,” Ethan said. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking other than that I wanted to make Madison happy.” There was silence, and he threw his hands into the air. “Did you hear her mom?”
Lincoln scowled. “I always hear her mom. She’s a bitch. And you know I hate using that word.”
“We all hate using that word,” Liam said.
“I shouldn’t have gone in there without a plan, but I saw what her mother was doing, and I felt like I should do something. Even if it was idiotic.”
Ethan leaned forward. “It does sound pretty idiotic. To come up and lie about being her fiancé out of the blue?” Aaron looked at Ethan.
“I know. And I can’t go back and not lie about it now, because it’s already out there.”
“You’re right. The lie is already out there. So now you’re going to have to deal with it,” Ethan continued.
“Did her mom believe it?” Liam asked.
Aaron looked at Lincoln. “Did she?”
“I don’t know,” Lincoln said, rubbing his jaw.
“Well, that’s not very helpful,” Aaron said and then winched at Lincoln’s look.
“I think she wants to believe it because she wants her precious daughter to be married to a Montgomery.”
“Really?” Liam asked. “Why?”
That made Aaron snort. “You’re a former model turned best-selling author. I can give you a few million reasons why.”
“Ouch,” Liam said.
“Excuse me, I should be the one saying ouch,” Ethan said. “Just because I don’t make the kind of money you two do, doesn’t mean I’m not a desirable catch.”
“Of course, you are, baby,” Lincoln said, and Aaron snorted.
Before he could say anything else, though, the doorbell rang. Aaron narrowed his eyes, looked around the room, and nodded. “It must be Marcus.”
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