by Noelle Adams
“It won’t work,” she said. “It’s the terms of my ridiculous trust. I can’t take out that amount of money to invest in anything but a family business. My family business. Which means I need to be connected to it by marriage. That’s the only loophole I’ve been able to find. If the company is Lincoln’s, it won’t work.”
“Why the hell did your grandma set up the trust that way?” Lincoln looked vaguely outraged.
“Because she came from a different time. She was afraid I’d be taken advantage of by men trying to get at my money. She thought I was too nice. Not strong enough. That I’d be too easily misled. I’ll have full access to the money when I turn thirty-five, but not before then.”
Lincoln made a frustrated sound, but he didn’t question her further.
Of course it was a ridiculous trust. It was framed in a way that treated her like a child even though she was a thirty-one-year-old woman with a career and intelligence and maturity. She’d tried for several years to find other legal loopholes around the restrictive clauses, but there was nothing she could do.
If she wanted to invest a lot of money in a company, she had to marry into it.
“I know,” Carter said abruptly. “I know what we can do.” He looked strained and unnaturally controlled and not at all like himself.
He looked like a desperate man and not like the Carter she’d always known.
“What?” Summer reached for his arm, wanting to support him since it felt like he might fall apart at any moment.
“You can marry Lincoln instead.”
“No!” Summer responded sharply.
“No!” Lincoln said at the exact same time and with even more vehemence.
“Why not? It would work. The marriage is just going to be on paper, no matter who it is you’re married to. Nothing will change. We have the prenup already made up. We’d just need to switch my name to Lincoln’s. Then you’d be able to use your trust fund for the investment. The acquisition would go through. And you could get divorced exactly as planned.”
“You’re not thinking straight right now,” Lincoln said, taking a step closer in that intense way he had. “I know how much you’ve put into this deal, and I know what it means to you, but you can’t ask your best friend to marry a man she despises. You can’t do that to her.”
“It doesn’t matter if she likes you or not. She doesn’t have to live with you. You just need to be married on paper. Right?” He turned toward Summer with a look that was achingly anxious.
She swallowed hard, looking between Carter and Lincoln. “I... guess.”
“Don’t you dare do this, Summer,” Lincoln muttered. “Don’t you dare agree to it. There have got to be limits to the extent to which you’ll sacrifice yourself on his altar.”
“I’m not sacrificing myself.” Her mind was still whirling. She wasn’t sure why she was saying those words. She wasn’t sure why it felt like she meant them. “I’m not. Carter is right. It’s just on paper. What does it matter?”
Lincoln was almost choking on his outrage. “What...? How...?” He turned away abruptly with a throaty sound of absolute frustration. “I’m not going to do it. You can both be stupid all you want, but I’m not going to go along with it. You can have the company. It’s yours. But I’m not going to go through with this farce of a marriage.”
“Yes, you will.” Carter straightened up to his full height and met his brother’s eyes. They were the same size. The same breadth of their shoulders. They stared each other down. “You’re going to do it.”
“I will not—”
“You owe me.” Carter’s tone was stone cold. Summer had never heard anything like it from her friend before. “You know you do. You owe me, and this is how you’re going to repay the debt.”
Lincoln froze for a few seconds. Then his face twisted dramatically. “Damn it all!” The exclamation was rough. Loud. Focused on an empty spot in the air.
“Do this one thing. It won’t hurt you or Summer or anyone else. Do this. Save Wilson Hotels for me. I’ll never ask for anything from you again.”
For a minute Summer wasn’t sure what Lincoln would do. He looked torn into about a million pieces. But he finally nodded. Narrowed his eyes. Murmured, “I’ll do it. It’s a mistake, but I’ll do it. But you never get to call on that debt again.”
“Deal.” Carter let out a long breath. He leaned over to kiss Summer’s cheek. “Thank you so much, Summer. I’m going to call Harold and have him get the contracts changed.”
Summer was dazed and a little dizzy as she watched Carter step to the other side of the room and pull out his phone to call the family attorney. She gulped and turned to look at Lincoln.
He was shaking his head and glaring at her with narrowed eyes. “Are you completely insane?”
“I’m not insane. It’s fine. What difference does it make if the marriage has your name instead of Carter’s? Neither one of them would be a real marriage.”
“He’s not himself. He’s not thinking straight, and clearly neither are you. Surely one of you can see how bad this is. You hate me. And yet you’re agreeing to marry me.”
“I don’t have to like you. Why are you taking it so seriously? I thought you went through life not caring about anything or anyone.” She would be a lot more relaxed about this whole thing if Lincoln was acting like his normal obnoxious self.
“I’m taking it seriously because one of us has to.” He reached out and gripped her upper arms with his hands. His fingers were tight. Almost too tight. He held her still and met her eyes. “Listen to me, Summer. You tell me right now if you have even the slightest amount of doubt about this. You tell me if even part of you doesn’t want to do it. Because I’ll call this off right now. I’ll tell Carter it’s my fault. He’ll never know that you were the one to back out. I’ll let him hate me forever for it. I’ll do it right now. Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to marry you unless it’s really what you want.”
The oddest thing was that, even two minutes ago, she would have had doubts. She would have been worried and not sure if this was a good idea. She couldn’t have answered Lincoln’s questions truthfully.
But the fact that he was serious—that he would take all the blame on himself to get her out of this situation—eased the anxious twisting in her gut.
Lincoln wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t a nice one. But he wasn’t going to take advantage of her in this.
It was fine. She could do this for Carter and finally do something good with the fortune she’d inherited. She could maybe feel a little less guilty about having so much when other people had so little. Plus it would be over in just a few months.
She nodded. “I’m sure, Lincoln. I want this. If you pull out of it, it has to be because of you. Because I’m all in.”
He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Then he gave her a faintly mocking eyebrow arch. “All right then. I’m in too. But I’m telling you right now it’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made.”
Maybe it was.
But she was going to do it anyway.
Two
A WEEK LATER, SUMMER was carrying an armful of her clothes up the side stairs in the Wilson mansion to the east wing where her bedroom suite was located.
As long as she’d known them, the Wilson family had lived in an over-the-top Edwardian-style mansion on the lakefront in one of the two large gated communities in town, not far from the marina and country club. It was prime property in Green Valley, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson had refused to sell it, even after the financial downturn of their company. Carter had moved out to go to college and grad school, but when he returned to town to work for the company, he’d moved back in with his folks.
Lincoln had been renting a loft apartment above his bar ever since he’d broken ties with his family, but he’d moved into the mansion a few days ago after they’d decided no one was going to believe their marriage was legitimate if he and Summer weren’t living under the same roof.
Summer wasn’t goin
g to do a full move-in. She was only going to be married to Lincoln for a few months—for as short a time as possible, as far as she was concerned—so there was no reason to move more than the clothes she would need and her personal items. But she didn’t want to give her trustee any grounds for doubting the nature of her marriage, so both she and Lincoln would live in the mansion with Carter and his mother for the (short) duration of their marriage.
She still couldn’t really believe this was happening. She was going to marry Lincoln Wilson, whom she’d slapped just last week. Who’d made her so angry she’d actually thrown up. Who’d spent years exasperating and infuriating her. Who was as obnoxious as a man could be.
What the hell was she thinking?
She’d had more than her share of sleepless nights since she’d agreed to Carter’s proposition in which she’d reasoned herself out of the stupid decision. It made no sense. She was letting Carter take advantage of her love and loyalty. She was going to live to regret it.
But every morning when she woke up and prepared to tell Carter she’d changed her mind, she remembered all the years he’d spent working for his father, struggling futilely to earn his respect and prove he was worthwhile.
His father had died before Carter had ever gotten any kind of affirmation that his father had even loved him. This acquisition—saving his family business—was the only thing he had left. The last remaining gesture.
She wasn’t going to take it away from him.
It would be fine. Lincoln had been less annoying than usual for the past week. He’d kept mostly to himself, and Summer had only talked to him in the company of other people as they made plans for the marriage. It was all set. They had the marriage license. They would get married at the courthouse tomorrow. They’d announce to Green Valley that they fell madly in love and married on a whim. A few months from now, they’d fulfill every expectation of their friends and acquaintances when they fell out of love and got divorced as all the gossip would predict.
It was all good.
There was no problem.
She didn’t need to like Lincoln. They wouldn’t be forced into any sort of intimate situation or even have to hang out much together.
All they needed to do was get married on paper and make a few public appearances together to confirm their cover.
She could give Carter this gift before she moved on with her life.
Her bedroom was large with high ceilings, polished floors, and beautifully carved crown moldings. One wall was covered with gorgeous dark red embossed wallpaper, setting off the dark wood of the antique bed. She’d always loved this room, and she was happy that Carter had given it to her.
At the moment, every surface was covered by piles of clothes and shoes and accessories dumped out of the baskets and boxes she’d loosely packed them in.
Carter had offered to hire professional movers, but she’d thought that was a ridiculous waste for a few loads of clothes.
Between her, Carter, and Lincoln, they’d carried everything up in ten minutes.
“This is the last of it.” Lincoln’s voice came from behind her. She turned to see him coming into the room with a laundry basket full of her nightgowns and pajamas. “Carter’s parking your car in the garage.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She smiled at him politely. She’d been making an effort to act friendly and natural so this arrangement would be easier for both of them.
Lincoln raised his dark eyebrows in a skeptical expression. He looked ridiculously sexy today in a black V-neck shirt and a pair of jeans that fit him exactly right. His hair needed trimming. He hadn’t shaved this morning.
“What?” she demanded, her civil smile turning down into a frown.
“I didn’t say anything.” He pushed over a pile of coats so he could set the basket down on a corner of the bed.
“You didn’t have to say anything. You were giving me that look.”
The corners of his mouth twitched irrepressibly. “What look?”
“You know what look. That smug, I-know-better-than-you look. In case you weren’t aware, it’s one of the most obnoxious expressions I’ve ever seen on a human face.”
“Really? That is a claim to fame. Lucky me.”
She rolled her eyes and stifled a groan. He obviously wasn’t going to tell her what he was thinking, and her asking him would only give him an advantage. To distract herself, she started sorting through the coats he’d pushed aside, hooking a couple of them back on their hangers.
“Have big plans for this little number, do you?”
She turned back at his voice and gasped when she saw he was holding up a pretty black chemise with lace on the straps and neckline. She snatched it out of his hands and shook it out.
“Trying to get the cooties off now?” There was laughter in Lincoln’s voice.
She snarled. “I thought you were trying to be good.”
“Why did you think that? When have you ever known me to be good?”
“Well, you’ve been acting a little better than normal for the past week, so I was hoping...” She was still holding the chemise, staring down at it idly.
He reached over to lift her chin and make her meet his eyes. “Never put your hopes in me, Summer. I’ll do nothing but disappoint you.”
Her breath hitched at the intensity of his held gaze. She clenched her fingers into the silky fabric she held. “I know that,” she replied in nothing more than a whisper.
His eyes flickered, and his face transformed back into his typical mocking expression. “But if you ever want to give that lingerie a whirl, I’m your man.”
She stepped back and scowled again, the sudden shift in mood disorienting her. “You can’t possibly think I’d ever wear this for you.”
“Well, no. Obviously not. I’m sure you packed that with visions of wandering the halls in it at night to get a book or a drink of water and accidently running into my brother, who will be so blown away by unleashed desire that he carries you to his room for a night of passion.”
“Bastard,” Summer hissed. She wanted to take a few steps backward since he was invading her personal space again, but as always, that felt like a defeat. She held her position and glared up at him. “Clearly it never occurred to you that I might wear pretty things for myself.”
“Oh yeah? So you like to give yourself a real good time?”
Her first instinct was to yell at him. To whirl around and get away. But she must be getting better at holding her own with him because she managed to keep her voice cool as she replied, “Of course I do. It’s better than making do with the dubious skills of a man like you.”
She’d surprised him. She could see it on his face. But if she’d hoped he would be annoyed or subdued, she was doomed to disappointment. He gave a soft huff of dry amusement, his green eyes softening into something akin to appreciation. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For that image.” He leaned forward and murmured into her ear in a thick voice that made her shiver with pleasure. “Now I can give myself a real good time by imagining you.”
She flushed hot and turned back to her coats. “What you do in the privacy of your room is your own business. As long as you know it’s never going to happen in real life.”
“You say that now, but one day you might realize the truth.”
She turned back toward him with a jerk of her head. “What truth?”
He gave her an almost wicked smile. “That there’s nothing in the world hotter than hate sex. And there’s no one in the world you hate more than me.”
SUMMER MARRIED LINCOLN Wilson the following day on her lunch break.
It was a quick, no-nonsense ceremony. Carter was present, as was Summer’s best female friend, Nona. Summer went back to work afterward, feeling strange and unsettled and oddly incomplete.
But it was done. She was married. And they were a step closer to being done with this ridiculous scheme so she could start her real life again.
That evening after work,
she returned to the Wilson mansion, which was going to be her home for the next few months.
Lincoln wasn’t home. Since he was a bartender, his shifts were in the evenings. It worked out well because it meant she wouldn’t have to see him very often. Things would be better that way.
She’d had heated, restless daydreams all last night prompted by that one sexy conversation she’d had with him in the bedroom while she’d unpacked. The less time she spent with him, the better.
Carter was getting home at the same time she did, and she found him at the bar in the living room, pouring himself a glass of bourbon.
“Drinking already?” she asked, smiling at him as she approached.
He looked tired. He’d taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. “One of those days.”
“Is everything all right?” She wasn’t a big drinker, so she shook her head as he gestured toward the bar as a wordless offer to pour her a drink.
“It’s fine. It’s just been a long week. And I’m starting to feel kind of bad.”
“Bad about what?”
He met her eyes with his sober brown ones. “About bullying you into this thing.”
“No! You didn’t bully me into it, Carter. I knew what I was doing, and I agreed.”
“I know you did. But you agreed because you felt sorry for me. Right? I guilted you into it.”
“Not on purpose. I mean, yeah, I felt bad for you. But I also knew this would help. And it’s not really that big a deal. I was going to marry you for the same reasons. Why shouldn’t I do it with Lincoln?”
“Because Lincoln’s an ass. He’s always teasing you and flirting with you. I know it makes you uncomfortable.”
Summer licked her lips, trying to find the best words to respond. “Well, yeah, he is kind of an ass. But I’m getting used to him, and the teasing isn’t a big deal. It’s just his way. I don’t take it personally. It’s hardly a marriage at all. I won’t have to see him very much.”
“He’ll be living right next door to you.”
To protect their cover, Lincoln took the bedroom that connected to Summer’s by a private door, just in case anyone wandered through the house and questioned the legitimacy of their marriage. “Who cares about that? I’m never going to unlock that door. It won’t be any different than if he lived on the other side of the house next to you. It’s fine, Carter. It really is. I can put up with a jerk for a few months. I want to do this. I want to help you.”