by KB Winters
He smirked. “Why don’t you come over here and check out if everything is functioning…”
I grit my teeth and shook my head, trying to shake loose the lust fairies that clouded my eyes. “All right, fine. But why the rule then? Won’t that be torture? For both of us?”
Was he gambling that I’d relent once I was locked into not having another option for release? That was one risky game of chicken.
“Probably, but it would be worse to know you’re going out at night, fuckin’ some other guy, and besides that, neither of us wants to be humiliated by this whole thing. We’ll cook up the ever-so-tragic details of our divorce later, but I don’t want it to be something that makes either of us look bad and ruins our reputation. If someone sees either of us out with someone else, there’s no way to keep it quiet. Not in the bubble. Or the socialite circus as you say.”
I nodded and stamped out my irritation over his rule. He had a point. And technically, I could rescind my rule…no. Stop right there, Penny. Not an option!
“All right. So, we agree then? One year of wedded bliss, separation, and divorce?” I said.
Miles nodded. “We’ll be so freakin’ happy-ever-after we’ll make people throw up!”
“Excellent. That’s one thing off my bucket list.”
It was an insane plan, but if there was one thing I could do to get back on my mother’s good side, it would be to drag home a trophy husband—if there was such a thing—and Miles Warren was the perfect candidate. And on top of that, he couldn’t get pissed at me for using him, because he was doing the exact same thing to me.
Now, as long as I managed not to fall back into his arms—or let that wicked smile get the best of me—we’d be just fine.
Chapter Twelve
Penny
“Okay, now let’s get into the really sexy stuff…logistics,” I said, laughing as Miles poured us each a second glass of wine.
He took his place on the couch and smiled that damn smile. “Hot. If we talk too much logistics, I might break your first rule.”
I rolled my eyes but laughed along. “I’ll risk it. So, obviously I live here. I have two roommates and we all share the cost on a loft. Jazz and Lo aren’t hurting for cash, but I can’t just bail on them.”
“Right,” Miles paused for a sip. “But it will look kind of weird if we live in separate cities for too long. Do you think you could get everything sorted and move in thirty days?”
“From now?” The idea boggled my mind.
“I have a house in Georgia. You’ll have your own walk-in and separate bath if you want. We’ll buy you a car since it’s not a cab town and I doubt you’d wanna take the bus.”
I laughed. “Right. A car…I should probably learn how to drive one of those…”
Miles slapped a hand over his face. “Okay, adding that to the top of our to-do list.”
I shrugged. “I’ve been here almost my entire life and when I’m not, I’m at my family’s home and they use drivers for everything.”
“I get it,” Miles said, smiling. “But yeah, we’re fixing that. We’ll get you something safe. With lots of airbags…”
I chucked a throw pillow at him. “Very funny. You should go into comedy, ya know. Screw this bike thing.”
Miles grinned at me and set the pillow aside. “I’ll take that into consideration. So what else ya got?”
“Hmm. Thirty days to move. House. Car. Walk-in. What about meeting your parents?”
Miles sat up a little straighter. “Ugh. Good point. I’ll figure that part out.”
“How long are we going to be engaged? Do I get a big rock?”
“Sure.” Miles laughed and relaxed back once we were on a safer topic. “As for the time line, I was thinking twenty-four hours.”
My mouth fell open.
“I have to be back to the base by Tuesday. I think we pop over to Hawaii, get hitched on the beach, and then you fly back here, and I’ll go to Georgia. Then at the end of the month, I’ll have your stuff moved down to my place and you’ll fly down after it.”
“You’ve got this all mapped out, huh?”
“What can I say?” He flashed a cocky grin. “I work well on the fly.”
I nodded and let his plan sink in. It wasn’t fast. It was warp speed.
But, what objections could I have? I didn’t have a job, technically. My photos were all done and ready to be shipped off to whichever publisher Miles could hook me up with. If I had my camera gear, I could start a new project, or work on my website and finish setting up my prints side of the business. Jazz and Lo would miss me, and I them, but we’d be just a few hours away on a plane. It wouldn’t be a big deal to come up once a month for a girls’ night or vice versa. I didn’t have any pets or many other friends—at least not the kind that would miss me.
My mother was in Connecticut and would be happy I finally listened to her and snagged myself a man—a rich man.
Lordie. That right there was almost enough to make me pull the plug on the entire scheme. I didn’t want her thinking she’d finally gotten her way. It would ruin so many years of deliberately doing the opposite…
Oh well. I’d made a commitment. Miles would get his trust, I’d get my book deal, and we’d leave as friends.
What else did I need to know?
* * * *
We stayed up talking through most of the night and before he walked me out, we booked two first class tickets to Hawaii since Miles didn’t want to risk pulling his families private jet. Word would get back to his parents and he wasn’t ready to open that can of worms yet. It was fine with me. I preferred larger planes. Sure, private planes had all the bells and whistles but they lacked a certain…stability…unless you were bonkers rich and had something modeled after the Air Force One.
It was close to one am by the time Miles flagged a cab down for me. All the way back to my high rise I pleaded with anyone listening that Jasmine and Lo wouldn’t be awake, or if they were, they didn’t immediately attempt to stuff me into a straitjacket after I told them my plan. The ride over was just long enough for me to map out a bullet point list of the reasons behind the plan, but I couldn’t figure out a way to make it sound any less psychotic. Not only was I agreeing to marry a complete stranger, but I was agreeing to uproot my life and go start a new one in a foreign city.
Nope, there was no way Jazz and Lo weren’t going to try and butterfly net me.
I rode the elevator to the penthouse and as soon as I stepped inside, Jasmine’s voice—and the smell of her cooking—wafted out to greet me, “Pen, is that you?”
I made my way to the kitchen and stopped at the arched doorway separating the kitchen from the living room. Not only were they both awake, but Jasmine was working over a steaming pot on the stove. Lo was perched on one of the six wooden barstools that were placed on the opposite side of the island, practically drooling over whatever Jasmine was whipping up. “Hey, ladies,” I greeted. “Little late, er, early, for a dinner party, isn’t it?”
Jasmine laughed. “Not a dinner party. Fondue!”
“You guys gotta lay off the Food Network binges. I seriously think we should make a rule that after eight we just turn that shit off.” I laughed softly as I entered the room and took a place at the end of the island. I braced my hands on the flat cool marble and looked down for a moment, channeling the flood of thoughts raging in my mind like a whirlpool.
“Laugh all you want, but when you taste this shit you’ll change your mind.”
I held my stomach. “Not much of a chance I’m going to be able to eat.”
“Dinner was good, then? I always find Paso Doble hit or miss,” Jasmine said. She was a bit of a restaurant snob.
“It was good.”
“Okay, so what’s wrong then?” Jasmine asked.
“You do look a little peaky,” Lo added matter-of-factly.
I looked up at each of my friends’ concerned expressions and tried to smile. “I’m engaged.”
Jasmine and Lo both burst
out in a loud cackle. “Damn, girl! That must have been some date!”
“No, guys, I’m serious.”
Jasmine dropped her metal spoon into the ceramic holder to the left of the stove. “What?”
“Engaged?” Lo repeated. “Like…to go on a second date?”
“No,” I shook my head and sank down onto one of the stools. “Like, to be married.”
Jasmine picked up her spoon long enough to stir everything and keep it from sticking. When she whipped back around, I started the story. They both followed along with the proper moments of gasping and twisted expressions of confusion until I got to the end, where Miles sent me away in a cab with a ticket to Hawaii in my inbox.
“Holy bananas,” Lo marveled.
“Seconded,” Jasmine added. She shook her head slowly. “Okay, so wait, I have a question. Well, I have a lot of questions, but let’s start with this one. I get what’s in it for him. What I don’t understand, is what’s in it for you? Are you getting paid for this? It’s not like you need his money.”
“Well, with my mother you never really know. She could give me the boot at any time.” I rolled my eyes. It was actually a miracle she hadn’t pulled a stunt like the Warrens. “But, your right, it’s definitely not about the money. Well, at least not entirely.”
Jasmine wrinkled her brow. “What do you mean? You don’t really think your mom would cut off your trust do you?”
I shrugged. “She certainly threatened to after that whole E turned me into a wannabe stripper fiasco,” I answered dryly. “But, I’m pretty sure my dad set things up so she couldn’t cut me out entirely. It’s his money, after all. But there’s something that Miles has that I don’t. Connections.”
“To what? Or who?” Lo asked.
I sighed. “You guys know I’ve been trying to get my art book—my Central Park book—published for a while now, but so far no one seems to be interested in it. Miles’s parents are incredibly well connected—even more so than my mother. Miles told me they have connections at nearly every publishing house across the city. If I was their daughter-in-law, then I could damn near be guaranteed one of them would publish my book based on my name alone.”
“Your name being Warren?” Jasmine said.
I nodded. “Listen, guys, I know this is insane. Believe me. Total crazy. But there’s just something about it that seems right. Miles is a super stand-up guy, at least as far as I can tell, and with the way gossip spreads in our circle, you know if he wasn’t, one of us would’ve heard about it by now. Sure, he’s got a little bit of a bad boy thing going on—which by the way—totally hot.” Lo rolled her eyes while Jasmine laughed. “But beyond that, he really likes my art. That’s what made him call me in the first place. He saw my feature in the magazine and wanted to get in touch.”
“Or, he was being blackmailed by his family and needed to find a wife, saw you, remembered you from the holiday thing, and decided to put out a line of bait and see if you’d go for it.”
I stared at Jasmine, mystified as to where my romantic fever friend had gone. “What the hell, Jazz?”
Lo interjected before Jasmine could respond, “Penny, what is it you want us to say?”
“You can say anything you want, but I want real advice, and not a bunch of paranoid serial killer theories. We’ve already gone over that.”
Jasmine sighed. “Right, but that was in regards to going on the date, this is like a million times bigger than that. I think we have a right to ask questions.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry girls. I’m just a little zombie-brained right now.”
“Understandable,” Lo said.
“I need a good night’s sleep.” I pushed up from my seat. “In any case, it’s not like it’s forever. Miles said a year is all he needs. By then, we’ll both have what we wanted and if we don’t want to stay together, we can go our separate ways. Will each have our lawyers draw up a prenup agreement together so that nothing is intermingled. It’ll be a clean break.”
“That’s it?” Lo said. “As simple as you take your clothes and kitchen gadgets and he takes his embarrassing comic book collection and baseball hats and you call it a day?”
“Yup. Easy. Especially because I made a rule that we won’t hook up.”
“What?” both of them said in stereo.
I laughed at their shock and then gave a slight shrug. “Believe me, I want to. I mean the man looks like something that just stepped out of the pages of a cologne ad for crying out loud, but it wouldn’t be smart. If we sleep together then feelings will get involved and when the time comes to end it, it’ll be messy.”
Jasmine flashed a wicked grin. “If it’s not messy, you’re doing it wrong.”
Lo rolled her eyes. “Good night, ladies!”
“What about our fondue?” Jasmine asked, waving a spoon full in the air, coaxing Lo back.
She pouted. “Okay but no offense, I don’t really want to hear about your sex life. Messy or not.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I need to crash anyway.”
“I guess so! It’s not just a big day, it’s the big day.”
“Good night!” I called, walking out of the room before either of them could talk me out of my decision.
Chapter Thirteen
Miles
When I opened my eyes the next morning my heart jumped into a frenzy as I remembered everything from the night before. The events all moved so quickly, like a stack of dominoes tumbling in rapid succession. I blinked a few times, clearing the morning fog from my eyes and then smiled to myself. The plan worked. By some miracle, Penny hadn’t bolted from my hotel room or laughed in my face—well, all right, she had but only just a little—and somewhere lost in my email inbox was the confirmation that in a few short hours, we’d board a plane to Hawaii and when we departed the island, it would be as husband and wife.
“Damn.” I let out a low whistle. Husband and wife? It sounded so heavy. Stuffy.
I swallowed hard against the bubble of anxiety trying to work its way up my throat and told myself it was going to be all right in the end. Penny was unbelievably cool with the entire thing, and while I wasn’t crazy about her no sex rule—okay, I hated it—if it would make things an easy in and easy out, then it would work flawlessly. We’d both walk away with everything we wanted. She’d have her book deal. I’d have my trust fund and bike garage.
I couldn’t have picked a better partner in crime. We’d been about halfway through dinner when I decided that Penny would not only make a good candidate for my plan—but she was damn near perfect. Something I hadn’t expected. Between her independent mindset and her creative drive, we made a perfect match. I could easily picture a life together, traveling to all of the places I wanted to go and along the way, if inspiration struck, she could begin work on a second collection of photographs or even do some kind of press tour. She could be the hottie on the back of my bike by day and I’d be her arm candy by night, going from city to city and promoting her work at art galleries and bookstores. She was fun, with a great smile and an even better ass, and although we definitely hadn’t gone as far as I wanted to before she coaxed me into dropping the ball, there was no question that we had chemistry together.
The fact that she came from old money and that my parents already knew her family was the cherry on top of the perfect hot fudge sundae.
I sighed and got out of bed. During my teen years I’d never been much of an early riser but after spending years in the military it was rare for me to be able to sleep past eight am. I showered, shaved my jaw back to the perfect amount of scruff, and raked a handful of mousse into my hair, before dressing in my favorite pair of jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and my well-worn black leather jacket. With a final glimpse in the mirror, I flashed myself a smile and headed out of the hotel suite.
Penelope had said yes to my indecent proposal and she needed to be rewarded with a giant rock that would make her the envy of any socialite bash. After all, Miles Warren’s wife can’t have anything
but the best.
Miles Warren’s wife. It sounded so strange and foreign.
We’d have to come up with another name for her. Wife simply sounded too formal considering that we’ve only known each other less than eight hours. Hell, it was probably less than that. What time did she leave last night?
I checked my watch, a platinum one-of-a-kind that had been a graduation gift from my parents. Before they found out I’d enrolled in the Army behind their backs…oops. I had two hours before Penny and I were to meet up at the airport to catch our flight. It wasn’t really enough time, considering all the plans I needed to make, but I could do most of it from the back of a cab.
Outside, the city was already raging with activity. The sidewalks were crammed with people all racing off to one place or another. I worked my way into the throng and started down to the corner where I hailed a cab. Once I gave the driver the location—Tiffany’s obviously—I started making phone calls like an overworked secretary. By the time my driver left me outside the iconic jewelry store, I’d booked the honeymoon suite at a five-star resort hotel on the main island, sent an email to the in-house wedding planning department with the details, and arranged transportation to and from the airport.
“Thank you,” I said, pushing out of the cab once the fare was paid.
I paused on the sidewalk and checked my watch again. I had thirty minutes before they would open their doors for the day, so I zipped around the corner to get a cup of coffee and do some online shopping to get an idea of what I wanted to purchase for Penny. I didn’t know much about her taste, but figured that she was of two minds. Her status as a socialite would require something big enough to not get the wrong kind of attention, but personally, she seemed to prefer things to be a little understated. The night before, her only jewelry had been a pair of simple silver hoops. No necklace, rings, or even a bracelet. I’d noticed because it was in contrast to the opulent room around us.
Truthfully, it only made me like her more.
My life was the same way. In Georgia, I was just one of the guys. A soldier. We all shared the same lifestyle and mindset. No one really cared about who had money or who didn’t. Houses, cars, gadgets. They were points of conversation, and sure, maybe some competition, but that was the end of it. When we were all banded together in some bunker or the back of a sweat soaked Humvee, riding over enemy lines, no one gave two shits about what truck was parked in your driveway back home or how much your bank account had in it.