From Best Friend to Fiancée

by Ellie Darkins

  He pulled on her hand and she thought he really might be the best man she knew. Which was precisely why she wanted him in her life permanently—which meant as a friend. Where he couldn’t break her heart. Couldn’t make her love him and then take it away again when she gave in and loved him back. She didn’t want to lose him, which meant she was never going to hope for—want—more than she had now.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘COME ON THEN, sötnos,’ Jannes said, one arm around Lara’s waist as he helped her from the taxi. ‘Let’s get you upstairs before you do something disgusting in this nice man’s car.’

  She laughed, as he knew she would.

  ‘I told you: don’t be all Swedish and charming. I’m too drunk not to find it adorable.’

  He hoisted Lara against his side as he went through her bag looking for her keys, a job made somewhat more difficult by the fact that Lara kept sinking down, threatening to slip from his grasp every time he thought he had a hand on her keys.

  ‘And I told you hours ago to stop calling me adorable. Here we go,’ he said, wrapping her arms around his neck for extra safety as he finally got hold of the keys and opened the door to her apartment.

  All in all, the day hadn’t been too much of a disaster. Lara had managed to keep a smile on her face throughout the speeches, including the one that Gloria made in place of Pip and Lara’s conspicuously absent father, and as the wine had made her looser and more morose, he had simply wedged her against him in the corner of the dance floor so it would look to anyone who took an interest that they were simply too besotted with one another to be dragged apart rather than the fact that by nine o’clock Lara could no longer stand unassisted. But she’d achieved the status of falling-over-drunk with more panache and style than he’d seen anyone manage before. And he was nothing if not impressed by her stamina.

  He staggered through the door with one arm clamped around her waist, and it was more awkward to stoop than it was to simply straighten up and carry her, her toes just brushing the doorjamb as he manoeuvred them into her apartment. He shouldered open the bedroom door and dropped her on the bed, both of them letting out an undignified ‘Oof!’ as he dropped her. Good job no one was trying to impress anyone. If this had been a normal date...

  He batted away her hands as she tried to unbuckle her sandals and pulled them off for her and then averted his eyes and escaped to the kitchen while Lara wrestled out of her jumpsuit. By the time he returned with a pint of water and a couple of paracetamols, Lara was in bed with her hair pulled into a messy bun and the lace-trimmed strap of a tank top slipping from her shoulder. He pulled the strap back into place and the duvet up higher, before handing her the pills and the water.

  ‘You are the best boyfriend I’ve ever had,’ she said as she took the pills from him, and he laughed. But she shoved his arm. ‘Don’t laugh. It’s true. I owe you. You really took care of me tonight. You are an excellent friend and I love you.’

  He bit down on his lip to stop himself laughing again—Lara was clearly not in the mood to find her drunken rambling amusing. He kissed her on the forehead with a murmured, ‘Goodnight,’ and grabbed a blanket from the bottom of the bed. With the amount of wine she’d put away tonight, she was going to be in no state to make the cup of coffee he knew she’d be gasping for the minute she woke up tomorrow, and he had no intention of losing that boyfriend of the year award he’d only just won.

  He walked back through to the living room to the sound of Lara snoring and glanced at the notifications on his phone that he’d been ignoring all day. There was one from his manager, asking how many tickets he wanted for the awards show next week. He replied that he’d need a plus one, and could his manager sort out accommodation for them? If tonight had been a test of concept, he was pretty sure they’d passed, and one more fake date couldn’t do any harm.

  Today had been fun. It wasn’t exactly hard to pretend to enjoy hanging out with his best friend. All they had to do was keep this up a little longer and he would be the reformed bad boy. Tamed by the sweetheart of the social media influencer world.

  He lay back on the sofa cushions, pulling the throw blanket from Lara’s bed over himself and falling, satisfied, into sleep.

  * * *

  She was dying. It was the only possible explanation for this experience in her mouth. It went beyond taste. It was...stale and...furry and...if she didn’t think about something else right now she was going to throw up.

  She looked round at the sound of a tap on the door and scrunched up her eyes at the sight of Jannes in the doorway. How did he look so fresh this early in the day? Bastard.

  ‘Good morning, sunshine,’ he said with a smirk that totally deserved the pillow that she launched at his head. ‘Careful, that’s your coffee you’re spilling.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ She scrambled upright, arms hooked around bent knees. ‘Gimme. Please?’ she added when all he did was raise an eyebrow at her.

  ‘So, yesterday went well,’ Jannes said, sitting on the edge of her bed and putting the coffees down on the bedside table.

  ‘You’d have to tell me. Did I disgrace myself?’

  ‘You were wonderful. You always are. Everybody loved you.’

  ‘You’re being very nice,’ she said suspiciously, sniffing at her coffee and trying to decide whether her stomach could handle it yet.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m still hoping for that second date. I told my manager I’m bringing a plus one to the awards. Is that still okay?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably?’ she said, leaning back on her pillows. ‘Am I still drunk?’

  ‘Possibly. You were far enough gone last night to agree to go to at least one more wedding and a christening this summer. I’m making you another coffee and a bacon sandwich. Then you’re having a shower.’

  ‘Ugh, why did I do that? Why did you let me do that? And is that a hint?’ she asked, trying to discreetly sniff herself.

  ‘Nope, it’s an order. You smell bad. And you agreed to those other events because you are a very good person.’

  She collapsed back on the pillows, arm across her face. ‘I take it back. You’re the worst boyfriend ever.’

  She let the water run over her head into her eyes, and by the time she was squeezing her hair dry with a towel she felt almost human again. Jannes was in the kitchen when she emerged, dressed in comfy cashmere pants and a sweater. She could smell bacon and coffee, and the toaster popped as she walked past it, making her jump.

  ‘Tell me more about this awards thing,’ she said, taking the coffee he held out to her.

  ‘I’m presenting one of the awards,’ Jannes said. ‘All you need to do is show up, hold my hand. If anyone asks maybe tell them I’m the best boyfriend you’ve ever—’

  ‘Worst boyfriend.’

  ‘Best boyfriend you’ve ever had. I’m getting it embroidered on a pillow. Just stand with me for a few photos, look madly in love with me. Post them on your social media feeds so people get the general idea of how wonderful and dependable and not flaky I am.’

  ‘And that’s it,’ she clarified. ‘Just the awards ceremony and then we’re done?’

  ‘If you want it to be,’ Jannes said, but a couple of fine lines appeared between his eyebrows. His thinking face. ‘Or, if it goes well,’ he went on, ‘perhaps we carry on playing rent-a-date for each other. Like, at the other family events you agreed to yesterday? I can come to those, if you’d like, when I’m home. And you can come to work things with me. We have fun—you know I love hanging out with you. And, not to be too mercenary about it, but the longer this goes on, the better I look.’

  It was her turn to frown, and she rubbed at her forehead, where the throbbing headache she’d woken up with was starting to ease. ‘What happens when we don’t want people to think we’re together any more?’

  ‘Then we gracefully part ways and decide that we were better off as friends. Behind close
d doors, nothing has changed.’

  Lara nodded, finishing one cup of coffee and pouring herself another. ‘And are you sure...’ How should she put this? ‘... I’m not going to be stepping on anyone’s toes if we do this? I don’t want to find myself as the other woman,’ Lara said.

  Jannes crossed his arms. ‘Are you asking me if I’m seeing someone?’

  ‘Seeing anyone, sleeping with anyone.’ Lara waved a vague hand. ‘Sending suggestive messages on dating apps to anyone. I mean, you can do what you want, but even if we’re just pretending, I don’t want it to ever look like we’re cheating. At—’

  ‘I’m not seeing anyone,’ Jannes said, his expression hard. ‘And I won’t, as long as we’re keeping this up. I wouldn’t have agreed to yesterday if I was.’

  She took a deep breath and passed him a knife as he reached for the butter. ‘Okay. I knew that. I think I knew that. I just had to be sure.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He didn’t look as if it was fine. And right here was the reason that she didn’t date for real. Because she’d had to ask that question, even though she knew that she could trust Jannes. Even though she knew he’d never be any less than honest, she’d still had to ask the question. Because she’d known that she could trust her father too, and look where that had got them. She’d put that hurt look on Jannes’s face, and she had no interest in doing it again. ‘I understand why you had to ask,’ he said, which didn’t change the fact that he was hurt that she couldn’t just trust him.

  The ease that had been there between them when she’d woken up, when he really had been boyfriend of the year, and she’d been happy to let him, had disappeared. She’d pierced it with this reminder that she would never be able to trust, and that eventually that scar in her soul always ended up with her pushing away anyone who got too close. The closer she let Jannes get, the more she was going to hurt him eventually. She had to remember that.

  ‘So what happens when you meet someone?’ she asked, moving the focus of the conversation away from herself, making sure that their terms for this relationship were crystal clear. If they had everything on the table from the start, there was no way that this could become something that it shouldn’t.

  ‘What, before Saturday?’ Jannes crossed his arms as he looked at her, and she could see him trying to understand the change in the atmosphere. ‘If I meet someone, or you do, we’ll talk to each other and work something out. I won’t hurt you, Lara. I won’t ever hurt you.’

  She nodded, took another sip of coffee. ‘I know you won’t. So how does this work? You’ll pick me up?’

  ‘It’s in Liverpool. I have to be there early to go through the presenting stuff. I don’t want you to have to sit around getting bored. I’ll get them to arrange a car for you. Meet you there. Does that work for you?’

  ‘Fine. Fine. I guess I’ll see you there.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  IF THE BACK of Lara’s wedding jumpsuit had been sent to test him, then surely this dress was going to end him. He was talking to his manager when she arrived. From the corner of his eye he had spotted long tanned legs, and it was only when his eyes had reached her face that he realised he was looking at Lara. He stopped talking abruptly, and when he heard his manager call his name for the third time he realised he’d been staring.

  At the top, the dress was positively demure, cut high on the neck with sleeves past her wrist bones. Midnight-blue crystals covered her body, down over her hips to the top of her thighs, where the dress stopped abruptly, revealing those long soft thighs and the same strappy sandals he’d slipped from her ankles last Saturday night. She waved when she spotted him, and he forced his legs to move.

  ‘Hey, you’re here,’ he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek, remembering at the last minute that she was meant to be his date. He kissed her on the lips, but pulled away before he could be tempted to turn it into anything more than the lightest peck, a mere brush of skin against hers, gone practically before it had started.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, eyes fixed on her face now. Her eyes were wide, lined with smoky black and grey, with long, long lashes that fluttered when she blinked.

  ‘You don’t look too bad yourself,’ she said, leaning back and tweaking the lapel of his dinner jacket. ‘I always loved you in black tie.’ He was just at the point where he was going to have to start untangling which parts of this were real and which were for show when his manager clapped him on the shoulder and held his hand out to shake with Lara.

  ‘You must be Lara. Glad the car got you here okay.’ He looked from Lara to Jannes with a smile on his face. ‘Okay, I’m going to let you guys catch up. Jannes can show you to your table. Look forward to talking to you more later, Lara.’

  Jannes looked her up and down again, trying to form just one coherent thought and turn it into words.

  ‘You look amazing,’ he said.

  She laughed awkwardly. ‘We did that bit already. What else have you got?’

  ‘Um, let’s find you a drink?’

  ‘Ah, much better,’ Lara said with a laugh. ‘But let’s make mine a sparkling water. If I’m the wingman tonight, I’m going to need to stay sober.’

  ‘Of course, the squeaky-clean image I’m meant to be cultivating,’ Jannes said. ‘But you don’t have to do or not do anything on my behalf. You’re perfect as you are,’ he said. ‘Just be yourself.’

  ‘Ah, there you go with the boyfriend of the year script again.’ But her cheeks had pinkened. Yes. Right. Because they were faking this. He loved her—as a friend. His hormones were briefly confused by the fact that they had kissed. But they weren’t doing any more than playing a part here—if he forgot that, Lara would end up getting hurt, and he wasn’t prepared to risk that. ‘You get the credit for briefing me in advance.’ He guided her towards the bar with a hand on the small of her back.

  ‘Well, if we’re going to make it look realistic...’

  Because this wasn’t real, and he could never forget that he had good reasons for that. He had learned the hard way what happened when you cared more about someone than they cared back. He’d learned it when his parents had shipped him off to boarding school so that they could continue the travelling that they had put on hold when he had been born seven years earlier. He had spent his holidays with his mormor, his grandmother, in London. And saw his parents whenever their travel schedule allowed, which was something like twice a year by the time he was in his teens.

  Which was why he could be sure that he could commit to this fakery with Lara. Even if he met someone who made him wonder if things could be different, he had long since given up acting on those feelings. What was the point when he already knew how it would end? So why hadn’t he just said that to Lara? Because it just seemed sad, somehow, to admit that at the age of thirty he was so afraid of being left—or of hurting someone to stop that happening—that he never even started a relationship. This thing with Lara was nothing like that.

  She couldn’t leave him if it wasn’t real, if they were only acting. He couldn’t hurt her when they both knew that they were going to stop pretending just as soon as their arrangement was no longer convenient. He had to make sure he remembered that.

  He showed Lara to their table as the ballroom started to fill with people, and he introduced her to his manager, agent and teammates. She saw the sidelong glances being thrown their way and wondered what they made of the situation. There was something about the knowing looks on his colleagues’ faces that made her wonder if she was missing something.

  The room hushed as the lights dimmed and the awards ceremony began.

  * * *

  Lara was hyperconscious, now that she was sitting next to Jannes, of just how much skin her dress left exposed. Because every time Jannes leaned in to whisper something about one of the nominees or winners, the soft fabric of his trousers brushed against her bare thigh and made her shiver in response. It was just a
n involuntary physical reaction, she told herself. A reflex. Practically a sneeze. It shouldn’t make her think about his hands touching her there. She had to stop letting her brain do this to her. She was meant to be in charge here. And yet her body and her brain kept ganging up on her and trying to make her believe that indulging these fantasies about Jannes were a good idea. And if both her brain and her body were working against her, she didn’t know which part of her was meant to fight these urges.

  He was her friend. That was what made this whole ‘date for a date’ thing a good idea. Neither of them had unrealistic expectations of the other. Neither of them had to air their commitment issues, because it wasn’t real. It was company and it was convenient and it didn’t need any more consideration than that.

  Jannes went and did his presentation thing: she clapped him enthusiastically as he took to the stage and received his kiss on the cheek when he returned with hardly a flutter where she shouldn’t be fluttering.

  In fact, she was just congratulating herself for how very responsible she was being when she realised she’d spaced out for a minute and missed something. Because on the big screen behind the stage was a picture of Jannes, soaking wet in a white dress shirt, and she couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t drooling a little. She snapped her mouth shut and smudged the corner of her lips with her finger, hoping it would look as if she was just fixing her lipstick.

  She glanced across at Jannes and found him staring at her and thought that maybe she hadn’t got away with it after all. She looked back at the screen and kind of wished she hadn’t, because now Jannes was shirtless, still dripping wet, and more ripped than his narrow frame suggested. It didn’t exactly hurt that he was hanging off the side of a racing yacht, in a photoshoot that made it look as if he was in the process of winning one of those trophies that took up an entire wall of his house.

  She worked out what was going on before Jannes did, which was perfect, because it meant that she got to watch as realisation dawned and just the very tips of his ears went red as he was announced as the winner of the special achievement award. The assembled guests burst into applause and whoops of celebration as she pushed Jannes to his feet. She stood too, and gave him a little push towards the stage. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips and she didn’t know whether it was because he was dazed or doing it for show or...she didn’t know why else. He was just maintaining their story, keeping their pretence going. It wasn’t real. It didn’t mean anything. She had to remember that, because at this minute her feelings were all too real.