by Lexi Ryan
“Shit. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I don’t really talk about it,” I say. He searches my face, as if he can tell there’s more to the story and he’s trying to read it on my skin. I hope he can’t. “Those months after were like nothing I can explain. It hurt, and I was reckless and made bad decisions. When I moved here to start over, I promised myself I’d never be with a guy whose job puts him in danger every single day. So, yes, I’m attracted to you. Last night was fun, and I am thinking about how good it would feel to keep going down that road.” I lick my lips. “But you’re my friend, and I like that. If we started sleeping together . . .” It would be too easy to fall for you. You would be so damn easy to love.
But Carter isn’t offering me love. He’s offering me sex, so I choose my words carefully. “I would worry and make you crazy.”
“So you’re saying I can only kiss you when other people are watching?”
“Exactly.” My gaze drifts away from him—from the temptation of his mouth and those dark eyes that seem to devour me. Myla’s friends are talking to each other and don’t seem to notice that her expression has slowly morphed from mischievous to sad. As she tucks her phone back into her purse, I realize what I’m asking might be much more complicated than I anticipated. This isn’t the same as taking a guy to a wedding at home and pretending he’s my boyfriend. It’s not even the same as pretending to be together for a night in front of a crowd of strangers. My family is coming here. To Jackson Harbor—the place we go about our individual lives that are very much not romantically entwined.
“Maybe this is a bad idea,” I say. But the alternative? Being under the same roof as Rich Nasser and letting him know I’m single? Giving him any hope that he might be able to win me back? The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I wish it didn’t scare me as much as it does. “You wouldn’t be able to date anyone or even tell anyone who you can’t trust one hundred percent.” I nod toward Myla. “Before you agree, you need to consider who might get hurt.”
“I’m not dating anyone, so it’s not a problem,” Carter says. He shrugs, as if I’m asking to borrow a cup of flour and not for him to test his acting skills. “We carry on with what we started last night. I certainly owe you after that. But can I ask why?”
“Because my parents think we’re together, and that’s the way they are. If their daughter is dating someone, they want to meet him and . . .”
“They’re protective of their daughter and want to know if I’m worthy. I get that, but why do you need a boyfriend? Why not tell them the truth about last night and go to the wedding without a date? It doesn’t seem like you to deceive your family.”
“It’s not, and I hate it. But . . .” But you don’t understand Rich. You don’t know how well he manipulates people into doing what he wants. You don’t understand how disappointed my parents are that he and I didn’t end up together. “Do you remember the last time I asked you to pretend to be my boyfriend? About a year ago?”
“The ex who was in town.” He chuffs out a laugh. “That’s the favor I was calling on last night. Of course I remember.”
“His name is Rich, and he’s going to be at the wedding. And staying at the mansion. He’s the reason I need a fake boyfriend.”
Carter
I grip the back of my neck, squeezing on the knots forming there. I only briefly met Rich that one time, but it was enough to know I didn’t like him—enough to know that whatever past they had together wasn’t good. If it was that obvious to me, surely her family knows how she feels too. “Why was he invited?”
She grimaces. “Rich and I were high school sweethearts. My parents adore him, and I know if they’re bringing him along, it’s because they want to reunite us.”
“And you . . .”
“Would rather chew on poisoned rat carcasses than be with him again.”
“That’s oddly specific and pretty intense.”
She shrugs. “It’s honest.”
“What did he do to you?” I ask softly. I’ve wanted to know since the day I met him, but she refused to tell me then, and I can tell by the determined set of her jaw that she’s just as unlikely to tell me now.
“It doesn’t matter.”
A shock of protectiveness surges through me. I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave her vulnerable when she’s scared of this guy. “I’ll do it. Be your devoted boyfriend, stay at the mansion, whatever you need. I’ll do it.”
“Are you sure?” Her gaze darts to Myla again. I can’t decide if she’s jealous of Myla or worried she might blow our cover.
“I owe you.”
“Do you? Doesn’t last night make us even?”
“Last night was . . .” So good. I can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop the memory from playing on a loop in my mind.
She’s put together tonight in her red sweater and fitted jeans, her dark hair pulled back in a clip, and she has colorful hoops dangling from her ears—the antithesis of what she was this morning in her robe and the little she had on beneath it.
I like her both ways. I want her both ways. But I’m going to have to let that go. Despite what Jake seems to think—despite how I acted last night—I know she isn’t a convenient lay I can use to numb myself without worrying about emotional entanglements. She’s a friend, an honorary Jackson, and we’re already entangled.
“Last night was what?” she asks, and I realize her gaze has drifted to my mouth again. Fuck me, but I like that she keeps doing that. Love it.
“Last night was a bigger favor than you realize.”
“Oh, no. I felt all those eyes on me when you called me up onstage. I realize how big it was. Huge. You owe me so big.” She laughs, not serious at all.
“I should have warned you. And I would have if it had occurred to me before that moment on the stage. So, yes, I owe you. But I can’t lie to my family.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” She mutters a curse. “It all seemed so simple before, but maybe it’s not. Your family will see mine. We’re doing a beer-tasting tour that includes a stop here, and the reception is at the banquet center.” She clenches a fist in her lap, and I don’t say anything because I can tell she’s thinking out loud. “The lie is already out there. Can it really hurt to keep it up? Do you think your family would play along?”
I nod slowly, imagining the conversation, my mom’s reaction and subsequent hope, Jake’s judgment, and Shay’s knowing grin. “If they think it’s important, they will. They care about you.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important,” she says.
I straighten and close the distance between us. Sitting on the barstool, she’s nearly eye level with me, and she stays perfectly still as I wrap a hand behind her neck. “I’ll have to touch you like this.” I graze the tender spot behind her ear with my thumb, then follow the path I kissed last night to the light purple bruise at the base of her neck. Some base, possessive part of me likes seeing my mark on her. Wants to mark her in other spots too—over her hipbones, on her inner thigh, her ass . . .
“I’ll have to endure it, I suppose.” Her lips twitch. “To make it believable.”
“But no sex,” I say, my gaze glued to her wicked smile.
Her smile falls away, and she lifts a hand and threads it through my hair. When she speaks, her lips nearly brush mine. “No sex.” For a beat so brief I almost miss it, her gaze flicks to Myla.
“Are you jealous of Myla Quincy?”
“Why would I be jealous? You and I are just friends. This is all for show, but I don’t want anyone thinking that you’re cheating on me with her.” She swallows. “Or vice versa.”
“Understood.”
“Is it too much to ask you not to see anyone else until after the wedding?”
“Consider it done.” I’m surprised how little I hesitate, but I’d agree to anything to protect her from a man who terrifies her the way Rich so clearly did the day he was in town. “Any other rules?”
<
br /> “Only one.”
I arch a brow, waiting. “Name it.”
“Don’t ask me about Rich. Don’t make me explain.”
Carter
One year ago . . .
One minute I’m standing at the bar at Jackson Brews, talking to Jake about his newest IPA, and the next someone grabs me by the shirt and molds her body to mine.
Not just someone. Teagan Chopra. She balls a fist in my shirt and tugs me close as she backs against the wall. It’s instinct to follow. Instinct to lean in and feel every curve of the body that’s starred in a good number of my fantasies. In fact, I might be dreaming, because I’ve had more than a few start like this—so many that blood is racing to my dick. Just. Like. That.
I’m not going to look the fool, though, so I arch a brow and play it cool. “Can I help you with something?”
She guides my head down until my lips are only a breath from hers. “Could you play along? Please?”
Play along as in . . . kiss her? Or play along as in stand here, painfully close to the mouth I dream about on a regular basis?
Her lips are bare tonight. No red lipstick or shiny gloss. Just naked pink lips so close to mine that my stomach knots with the desire to taste.
I flatten a palm against the wall behind her to steady myself. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Pretend to be my boyfriend or . . . something?” Her gaze slices to someone across the room then back to me.
I smile slowly. “What’s in it for me?”
I’m not an ass, but what she’s asking is going to cost me. Every time she inhales, her breasts brush my chest, and her citrus and lavender smell is filling my head and making me think about the last time we were this close. At my family’s cabin last summer, swimming in the lake. We were laughing. Flirting. I thought it’d be a good idea to pull her into my arms and kiss her. Arrogant fuck that I am, it never occurred to me that she’d react so badly when I lowered my mouth to hers—her panic more appropriate for a woman who was about to be shoved underwater than one who was about to be kissed. That memory makes me want to back up and forget how good she smells, how soft she is under the palm that’s slid toward her ass of its own volition.
I yank away my rogue hand as if I’ve been burned. Shit.
“I’ll owe you, okay? Any favor you want at the time of your choosing.”
I arch a brow. “Anything?”
“Please?” That’s when I see the fear in her eyes.
I swallow. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” So I step closer, lean in, and tilt my head, as if we’re in the middle of an intimate conversation and not two friends who have agreed to stay that way. I drag my knuckles up her side and feel her shiver under my touch. “Who is he?” I want to turn around and see him for myself—him, because I have no doubt this is about a guy—but I won’t look. I’ll stand here and play along. For her.
“An ex.” She wraps her arms behind my neck and buries her face in my chest. I hold her close, even when Jake flashes me a questioning glance behind the counter, even when I feel the eyes of the stranger behind us.
“Teagan?”
Her beautiful olive skin pales at the deep male voice. I keep my body angled toward hers but slowly turn my head.
Here’s a fun fact about guys who lift: we notice when other fit dudes are around. Measure ourselves against them. And the guy staring at Teagan right now makes me feel small. He’s not just built, he’s musclebound in a way that reminds me of the little brother from A Christmas Story. “I can’t put my arms down!”
I don’t recognize the guy as a local, but she clearly knows who he is—knows enough to want me to act as an emotional shield between them. Maybe a physical one, too.
Dismissing him with little more than a sneer, I turn back to Teagan and lower my mouth to her ear—a lover whispering a secret. “Need me to get rid of him?” I ask softly.
She shakes her head and shivers again. She’s not trembling from my touch or in anticipation of my kiss. She’s terrified, and that alone is enough to make me hate this man. I press my body closer to hers, the need to protect as instinctive as my pull toward her.
I hold her close, whispering, “I’ve got you. I’m here, okay? You’re safe.”
“Teagan, is that you?” the guy asks.
She swallows, and I can feel the faint tremor of her shaking hands as she grips my arms. In the next moment, she pastes on a smile and turns her attention to the ex. As if noticing him there for the first time, she steps out from between me and the wall. “Oh my goodness! Rich? Is that really you?”
The bastard’s gaze is all over her. I understand the instinct—she’s gorgeous, and tonight she’s wearing black shorts that show off her legs and a Jackson Brews T-shirt that stretches tight across her chest. Any hetero, red-blooded male would struggle not to look twice. But there’s an ownership in the way this guy looks at her that makes my blood boil.
Teagan takes my hand and squeezes hard. “Carter, this is my old friend, Rich. Rich, this is my”—she stumbles for a beat—“Carter.”
I extend my hand to Rich, who takes it in his meaty fist and tries to crush my bones. I smile and give him my typical firm handshake. Unlike Meathead here, some of us don’t need to crush bones to convince people we have functioning dicks.
Rich drops my hand and smiles at Teagan. “Much more than friends during the good times,” he murmurs.
She stiffens beside me, but her only response is a noncommittal hum.
“Can we talk?” he asks, nodding toward the booths at the back of the bar.
“I . . .” Her eyes dart to mine, panicked. “I would, but . . .”
“We’re celebrating our anniversary tonight,” I say. “We’d love to catch up another time, man, but tonight is about us.”
“Anniversary?”
Teagan nods and steps into me. I wrap my arm around her, flattening my palm against her stomach.
Rich’s expression wavers between disappointment and disbelief. “Your mom didn’t tell me you were seeing anyone.”
“It’s . . . new,” Teagan says.
“New?” He folds his arms. “You just said you were celebrating your anniversary.”
“Two months,” I say before dropping my mouth to her ear and stage-whispering, “The best two months of my life.”
“I’m here for a conference,” Rich says, eyes searching Teagan’s face. “Maybe we can meet for breakfast before I head home tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? I . . . well . . .”
“We’d love to,” I say, unreasonably satisfied by his scowl when I invite myself, “but Teagan has to work.”
“I do.”
“Coffee on your break, then?” he asks.
Dude can’t take no for an answer.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says softly.
“I miss you.” He steps forward. “We all miss you. Your parents want you to come home.”
“She is home.” Everything else about this conversation might be an act, but those words couldn’t be truer. Jackson Harbor is where Teagan belongs, and it wouldn’t be the same without her. I smile down at her. “We should plan a trip to see your folks soon. I can’t wait to meet them.”
She swallows. “Yeah, they’d love that.”
Rich gives her a final hard look. “I don’t need to leave until lunch tomorrow. You know how to reach me if you change your mind.” He holds my gaze as he backs away. “Happy anniversary.”
I pretend I can’t hear the derision in his voice. “Thanks, man.” I pull Teagan fully into my arms, like holding her is the most natural thing in the world. It kind of is.
I hold my friend until her panic subsides. Until fear I’ve never before seen in her eyes fades away and she steps back. “He’s gone. He left. Thank you.”
“Who is he?” I’m cold everywhere her body touched mine.
“A mistake,” she says, shaking her head. “And the man my parents desperately wanted me to marry.”
Damn. “Do you
want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” It’s not her words as much as her body language—the stiff posture and the space she puts between us—that informs me I’ve been firmly shoved back to my side of the friendship line she’s drawn between us.
“Hey.” I want to chase after her, to drag her into the light somewhere so I can see her face and have a clue what she might be thinking. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. We should probably find Jake and explain before he tells Ava and the rumors start flying.”
Teagan
Present day . . .
“Okay, mister, how’s the pain level this morning?” I ask as I head into my latest admit’s room.
Isaiah Goldright turns his sleepy eyes on me and gives me a wide grin. “Better now that I’m looking at you.”
Shaking my head, I check his vitals and IV fluids. “I’m sure.”
This kid has been charming the pants off the pediatric nurses since he came in through the ER. I know what brought him here—the blood-alcohol level of point-one-two that made him steer his car right down the side of the hill and into a tree at sixty miles per hour. Still, the social worker and ER both gave him lectures already. It’s not my place to pile on, even if that means biting my tongue every time I walk in the room.
“Your vitals look good.” I step over to my laptop to add details to his chart, but when I turn, I see he has a visitor I didn’t notice before. “Oh. Hi.”
“Good morning,” Carter says. I haven’t seen him since I left Jackson Brews last night, after he agreed to be my fake boyfriend for my sister’s wedding. It was harder to leave than I want to admit. I was worried that the second I left, Myla would be all over him, but if we’re going to do this, I have to trust him.