by Jae
Oh shit. Lana didn’t want to drag her friends into this charade, but how could she refuse without having Jill smell a rat?
Let’s hope that Claire worked on her improv skills since last week. Apparently, they would have to start their acting sooner than expected.
Lana had lived in LA for more than ten years, but she’d never been in this part of the city. Not that she’d ever have reason to be in such an upscale neighborhood. Palm trees and elegant homes lined the street. Her beat-up Volkswagen Rabbit stuck out like a sore thumb among the BMWs, Audis, Bentleys, and other luxury cars when she parked at the curb.
She glanced at her phone on the passenger seat to double-check the address Claire had emailed her.
This was it.
Lana peeked through the side window.
Behind a manicured lawn lay a sprawling Spanish-style one-story house. The reddish-brown terra-cotta tiles on the arcaded front patio gleamed in the afternoon sun and made the snow-white walls seem even whiter. Arched columns flanked the front door.
Wow. Maybe that cohabitation clause in the contract wasn’t such a bad thing after all if she got to live in a house like this. It certainly beat the tiny apartment that she shared with a roommate.
Lana took a deep breath and climbed out of the car.
Crash let out a low whistle as she jumped down from behind the wheel of her midnight-blue SUV. “Wow! Looks like Lana’s got herself a sugar momma!”
“Crash!” Jill came around the SUV and slapped her shoulder.
Lana winced but said nothing. Crash’s joking remark hit a little too close to home since Claire was indeed paying her. But it was too late for moral scruples. She’d made her bed; now she’d have to lie in it. Hopefully not literally. From what Claire had said, they’d have separate bedrooms.
Each of them took a moving box and carried it along the tiled path, with Lana in the lead. She didn’t allow herself to look around much, trying to pretend she’d walked that path a hundred times already.
Well, if she had, she would have known that the sprinkler system on the lawn was set to go off at this time.
A sudden hiss warned her, but with the moving box weighing her down, she couldn’t duck out of the way. The spray of water hit her front, drenching her T-shirt and soaking the cardboard. She stood there for a second, frozen. When the next spray hit her, she let out a yelp and ran up the three steps to seek cover on the porch.
Water dripped onto the tiles. She shook herself. “What a welcome!”
Laughing, Jill and Crash joined her on the porch.
The moving box pressed to her chest with one arm, Lana willed her fingers not to tremble as she reached out and rang the doorbell.
“You don’t have a key?” Jill asked.
“Uh, not yet.”
The door swung open.
Claire was two inches shorter than Lana’s five-foot nine, but there was one more step leading into the house, so Claire had a slight height advantage. For several seconds, she looked down at Lana and her drenched T-shirt as if Lana were delivering a package she had never ordered.
Lana gave her an Oscar-worthy infatuated smile. “Hi, honey.”
“Uh, hi.” Claire’s gaze traveled over Lana.
Was is just Lana’s imagination, or had she lingered on her breasts for a second?
Lana peeked over her shoulder at Jill and Crash. No time like the present to test her faking-a-relationship skills. She put down the box on the porch and wrapped her arms around Claire in what she hoped looked like a tender embrace.
Claire’s slim body tensed in her arms, so Lana decided not to try to kiss her. Getting slapped would destroy the illusion of them as a couple. But she couldn’t resist pressing close—not because of how surprisingly good Claire felt against her but because she wanted to make Claire’s shirt wet too, as a little punishment for not playing along.
When Lana finally let go, Claire stepped back and pulled her now-damp white blouse away from her skin with two fingers. “Uh, you’re wet. What happened?”
Lana couldn’t help herself. Teasing someone as uptight as Claire was just too much fun. She leaned forward with an impish grin and whispered just loud enough for Jill and Crash to hear, “That’s what happens every time you’re close.”
Claire narrowed her eyes. Her lips twitched into something that looked more like a facial spasm than a smile.
Oh boy. If she doesn’t lighten up and play along, it’ll be a long two or three months!
Luckily, Jill cleared her throat before the silence could become awkward. “Actually, your sprinkler thought my smitten friend here needed to cool off.” She stepped next to Lana and studied Claire. “So you are Wonde… I mean, Claire. I’m Jill, and this is my girlfriend, Kristine. But please call her Crash, or she won’t answer.”
Claire’s eyebrows rose up her smooth forehead, but she didn’t comment on the nickname. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’d shake your hand, but…” Jill nodded down at the moving box in her arms.
“Oh. Sorry. Come on in, please.” Belatedly, Claire moved aside to let them in.
Lana was the first one to enter. Her wet sneakers squelched over the cream-colored tiles. The entryway opened up into a spacious living area, which in turn flowed into a dining room.
She tilted her head back and stared up at the high vaulted ceiling. A skylight and two huge arched windows made the living room look even larger than it was. A burgundy leather couch and a matching recliner faced a seventy-inch flat-screen TV mounted to the wall. Two bookcases flanked a stone fireplace, and a sliding glass door led to the backyard.
Somehow, this open, airy house didn’t seem to fit Claire, who stood by stiffly while her guests took in the living room.
Oops. Lana realized she wasn’t doing a very good job playing the unimpressed girlfriend who’d been here many times before. Thankfully, Jill and Crash were just as busy staring and hadn’t noticed.
Under the pretext of putting down the moving box, Lana looked around some more. Jeez, this place was as clean and tidy as a museum. The only things lying around were a few copies of the Journal of Couples Therapy on the coffee table.
Claire used the toes of her stylish loafers to push the sodden moving box out of the living room and onto the tiles of the entryway. “Um, would you mind taking off your shoes?” She pointed at Lana’s sneakers, which had left drips of water all over the immaculate hardwood floor.
“Oh. Sorry.” Lana toed off her wet sneakers and set them down next to the moving box. “I should go change.” She glanced around. Where the hell was the bathroom…or her bedroom for that matter?
“Why don’t I come with you and, um, say hello in private?” Claire said.
Lana grinned. Nice rescue. Maybe Claire wasn’t totally useless when it came to this charade. “Good idea, honey.” To Jill and Crash she said, “She’s a little shy when it comes to PDAs.”
Claire looked as if she wanted to kick her. “Um, if you’ll excuse us for a minute. Put down those boxes wherever you want, and make yourself comfortable. We’ll be right back.” She grabbed Lana’s hand and dragged her through an arched doorway.
As soon as the door of the guest room closed behind them, Claire dropped Lana’s hand.
How could a little spray from the sprinkler do so much damage? Claire could only hope that her fake fiancée wasn’t always so accident-prone, or she would embarrass her in front of the Wishing Tree Publishing staff. With her locks plastered to her head, Lana looked like a drowned rat.
Okay, admittedly, she looked more attractive than a drowned rat. Her white, nearly see-through T-shirt clung to her ample chest. Droplets of water dripped from her tangled hair and onto the floor. A single drop slid down her throat and pooled in the V of her shirt before sliding down into her cleavage.
When Claire noticed that her gaze had followed its path, she tore her e
yes away. Heat climbed into her cheeks. She tried to tell herself it was just annoyance at the careless way Lana had treated her pristine hardwood floor. It certainly wasn’t that she was in any way attracted to her fake fiancée. She liked sophisticated women like Abby who kept fit and dressed well.
“I’ll, uh, get you a towel.” She ducked into the guest room’s bath and used the few seconds alone to get herself together.
“Thanks.” Lana took the towel she handed her.
Claire tried not to watch as she dabbed it over her scarred arm and the front of her almost transparent shirt. “I’d get you some dry clothes, but I don’t think any of mine would fit you.”
“Well, I brought my clothes. I just have to figure out which box has my T-shirts.”
“You didn’t label the boxes?”
Lana shook her head, spattering the mirror above the dresser with drops of water. She didn’t even seem to notice.
Claire grimaced. Ignore it. They had more important things to focus on than a bit of water. “Why didn’t you hire movers, like I suggested?”
“Why waste money? It’s just a few boxes. My friends and I can handle it.”
“I would have paid for the movers. Dragging your friends into this,” Claire waved her hand back and forth between them, “wasn’t necessary. The fewer people who know, the better.”
“What was I supposed to do—move away without telling them?”
She’s got a point there. Claire rubbed her chin. “No, of course not. But you didn’t tell them about our…arrangement, did you?”
“I signed a non-disclosure agreement, didn’t I?”
“You’re deflecting.”
Lana groaned. “Not you too. Can we amend the contract? No psychobabble while we’re living together. You’re supposed to be my lover, not my therapist.”
“Deflection is not necessarily a psychological term. It’s—” She snapped her mouth shut. Arguing about terminology wouldn’t get them anywhere. “All right. I’ll try to tone it down. So, what did you tell them?”
Lana hung the towel across her shoulders. She didn’t try to finger-comb her messy locks, but somehow, this tousled, carefree look suited her. “That we’re madly in love and can’t stand to be separated for even a second, so you asked me to move in with you.”
Claire stared at her. “And they bought that?”
“They were surprised, but…yeah.”
So Lana had a history of falling in love at the drop of a hat and making rash decisions? They’d have to come up with a different story for her own circle of friends because Claire wasn’t like that at all. “You didn’t tell them we’re engaged, did you?”
“No. I doubt they’d buy that.”
Claire exhaled. So Lana did have some common sense. “Good. My friends and colleagues wouldn’t buy it either. I think we should use the fiancée story only with the publisher and simply introduce you as my girlfriend to everyone else.”
“Um, Lana? Claire?” came Jill’s voice from outside. “We brought in the rest of the boxes. Could you maybe wait with the moving-in sex and show us where to put them? Do you want them in the living room, with the others?”
The tips of Claire’s ears went hot. They stared at each other.
Of course, Lana’s friends assumed they would share a bed, so she couldn’t direct them to the guest room. “I’ll show them to the master bedroom. We’ll move the boxes over here later.”
As they slipped from the guest room, Claire had the feeling that her life would never be the same again—at least not for the next few months.
Jeez, what did I put into this box? If she hadn’t known any better, Lana would have thought it held several bars of gold. Huffing and puffing, she lugged the box down the hall toward the master bedroom—and nearly collided with Claire, who stepped through the doorway.
“Oh. Excuse me.” Claire circled around her, giving her and the moving box a wide berth.
Lana stared after her, and the contrast to earlier, in her apartment, hit her. The way she and her fake fiancée interacted was so different from the way Crash had kissed Jill’s neck before squeezing past her.
They really had to step up their game, or no one would believe they were a happy couple.
Jill was already throwing questioning gazes her way when she entered the bedroom with another box. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You look…ambivalent about moving in.”
They stacked their boxes next to the neatly made, king-sized bed. The satin sheets were free of any wrinkles, as if they were freshly ironed.
“It’s just a little overwhelming, you know? Living here will take some getting used to.” While she liked the house, it was full of things she could never afford. She glanced around the room with the lush oriental carpet, the French doors leading to the backyard, and two oak nightstands that matched the bed.
Then her gaze fell on the photo on one of the nightstands. It showed a slender, blue-eyed woman with flowing, blonde hair beaming into the camera, clearly enamored with the person who’d taken the picture.
Oh shit. Why the hell did Claire still keep a picture of her ex around? If Jill saw it, it would be game over. No way could she explain away the photo of another woman on her supposed girlfriend’s nightstand.
Under the pretense of needing a break, she flopped down onto the bed, glanced at Jill to make sure she wasn’t looking, and then shoved the picture beneath the pillow.
Phew! Her heart thumped against her ribs, and she fought against the urge to press her hand to her chest.
Jill finished her perusal of the room and turned back toward her. She laughed. “I’d be afraid I’d break something. You know how clumsy I get when the MS acts up.”
“Speaking of which…” Crash joined them, put down her own box, and wrapped one arm around Jill. “You really should take a break, or you’ll overheat—and not just because of my sexy presence.”
Lana had expected Jill to protest, but instead she leaned heavily against Crash’s strong body and sighed. “I know, I know.”
Claire rushed into the room as if an army of fire ants were after her. She was carrying Mr. Cuddles, and she plopped the pink plush bear down on the bed hastily, as if she couldn’t wait to get rid of him. “You really don’t need to stay. We can finish the rest of the boxes ourselves.”
Crash and Jill exchanged gazes.
“Are you sure?” Jill asked.
“Of course,” Claire said. “Just put the rest of the boxes at the curb. No one will steal them in this neighborhood. The two of us can handle carrying them in and unpacking without a problem.”
It would have been more believable if she’d been dressed for moving day. For the past twenty minutes, she had lugged around moving boxes in tailored slacks and a crisp, white blouse. Lana was starting to wonder if the woman even owned a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
But at least she was helping, even though she probably did it only to hold up the impression of the loving girlfriend.
“She’s right. We’ll manage.” It was better to get Jill and Crash out of here, just in case there were more pictures of Claire’s former fiancée lurking around the house.
Lana got up from the bed and wrapped one arm around Claire, mirroring Jill and Crash’s loose embrace. “Right, honey?”
Claire stiffened, but then she put on a smile and put her arm around Lana too. “Right.”
Should she kiss her cheek or something, to make it look more believable?
Just as Lana leaned in to kiss the fair cheek, Claire seemed to have gotten the same idea and turned her head. Their lips nearly collided, and both flinched back at the last second, ending up with an awkward brush of Lana’s lips against Claire’s cheekbone.
Oh boy.
If Jill and Crash hadn’t been busy staring deeply into each other’s eyes, their
little charade would have been over before it really began.
“Okay, then,” Jill finally said. “We’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. Call if you need anything.” They walked to the door, and Jill added back over her shoulder, “Don’t be a stranger, and let’s have dinner sometime so we can get to know Claire.”
“Uh, sure.”
Their steps faded down the hall, and then the front door fell closed.
Lana and Claire dropped their arms from around each other and stepped back.
“Finally alone,” Lana said to interrupt the awkward silence.
Claire grimaced. “God, that was awful. I should have thought this through much better. I suddenly remembered Abby’s photo on the nightstand. That’s why I came charging in.” She looked around for the photo.
“I hid it before Jill could see it. Look beneath Mr. Cuddles.”
“Uh, Mr. Cuddles?”
Heat rose up Lana’s neck. “My plush bear.”
“Let me guess… A gift from a former girlfriend?”
Lana shook her head. “My father gave it to me when I was two.” It was the only thing she had from him. She lifted the bear and pulled out the framed photo from beneath the pillow.
“Phew. Thank you. I wanted to put it away weeks ago, but then, um, kind of forgot.” Claire took it from her and looked down at the picture before putting it into the bottom drawer of her dresser, sliding it beneath a stack of neatly folded socks.
“So, when will our first big performance be?” Lana asked.
“Excuse me?”
Lana hefted Mr. Cuddles onto her hip. “You mentioned a meeting with an editor at the end of June. Is there any event before that, or will we just…play house until then?”
“My boss, the clinical director of the Renewed Spark Counseling Center, is having a party the week after next. I’ll need you to come with me, plus maybe one or two other events. All of them should be in the evening. I can email you the details.”
“Email?” Lana grinned. “We live in the same house now. Why not just talk about it over breakfast?”