I guessed that was how we differed. Damon was in the business of taming wild things. I preferred to let them run free. Life was more fun that way.
My brother wasn’t a perfectionist, he just secretly enjoyed intimidating people. It was why every poor employee in this building thought he was Lucifer incarnate. Of course, I knew the real Damon, so I wasn’t scared.
Damon set his phone down with a click on the table and steepled his fingers, glaring toward me. “Are you ready for this?”
“Which part? The part where I have to keep my cock sheathed for several months or the part where I have to put up with some failed influencer following me around like a puppy and pretending to be my fiancée?”
“Both.”
I leaned back and threaded my hands behind my head. “I’ll survive.” I waited in silence for a short while as my brother went back to typing something on his phone. When the door opened, I was expecting to meet “Mindy,” the woman we hired to play the part of my fiancée. I didn’t even bother to turn and look at her. The truth was I still didn’t know much about her, except that she wanted to be some sort of online personality—the kind that does videos of themselves giving money to homeless people and acts like they’re doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Other than the few hundred thousand dollars we promised, Damon said her “platform” was why she agreed to this. Tangling herself with me would be good for her brand, or so she believed.
I did a double take when I saw the woman who set her bag down across from me. She smoothed her dress—the one with the pockets—and sat. She glanced at me, then quickly looked away.
Holy shit. What was Belle doing here?
Then it clicked. Wedding planner. She was a fucking wedding planner. And she was flying to New York because she had a meeting with me. To plan my fake wedding. But Damon had made it clear that nobody except me, Damon, and Mindy could know that the engagement was bullshit. From the moment Mindy walked into this room, I was supposed to play the loving fiancé.
This was going to get interesting.
“Hello,” I said.
Belle met my eyes but couldn’t seem to keep looking at me. She focused on some papers she was pulling from her bag, then spent a few seconds dropping the stack against the table to straighten the edges.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I wondered if she was still commando. I knew I probably was still wearing some of her arousal on my cock, and the thought immediately made me hard. I wasn’t technically fake engaged yet…
I slid my foot out of my shoe and did an exploratory prod under the table. My big toe led the charge, seeking out flesh. My brother’s fake jerked up suddenly. He bulged his eyes at me like I’d just started pissing in the flowerpot.
Whoops.
I cleared my throat and brought my leg back. “Tight hammies, sorry,” I said.
Damon looked like he was seriously considering jumping over the table and trying to throttle me, but he finally put his focus back on his phone.
No footsie for now, then.
“It’s nice to meet the wedding planner I’ve heard so much about,” I said.
Damon looked up, then squinted slightly as he moved his gaze between us. I could see the calculations in his head running. Has my idiot brother already hooked up with this woman? Did I make a mistake by hiring an attractive wedding planner? Yes, Damon. Yes, to all of the above.
“How was your flight?” I asked
“It was short,” she said.
I stared in disbelief, then confirmed my suspicion that she was toying with me when the hint of a smile flickered on her face. “That’s too bad,” I said. “I’ve been told the flight from there to here is extremely long. I also was told the aisles were some of the widest you’d ever see. Girthy, you could say.”
Damon was full blown incredulous now. I could tell he was trying to decide where to even start, but Belle spoke before he could jump in.
“The stories were exaggerated. Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything special.”
“Were you an actress before you were a wedding planner?” I asked suddenly. “I feel like I’ve seen you in something before. Or maybe it’s just that I can picture how you’d sound if you were thoroughly enjoying something.”
“Okay,” Damon said, slapping his palms down on the table. “What the hell is going on?”
Without missing a beat, Belle shrugged. “I have a strange sense of humor, Mr. Rose. I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. I find it’s easier to plan a wedding for clients when I get to know them first. And what’s a better way to do that than joking around?”
“I could think of a way,” I muttered.
They both shot me a look. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “My darling fiancée should be here any moment, shouldn’t she?”
I watched Belle for a reaction. She was a good actress, but not perfect. Her eyes twitched, and in a brief moment of clarity, I could see what was going on. She felt like I mislead her. Tricked her into helping me cheat on my girlfriend, who was not my fiancée. And why should she think otherwise?
The problem was I couldn’t clear the air without fucking up the plan. Everybody needed to believe this engagement was real. My career might depend on it, at least if my brother was worth believing.
“Maybe I should ask your fiancée for pointers,” Belle mused. “I’m sure she has a lot of experience with that short, lying, asshole of a flight from Texas to New York.” She didn’t even look up from some crumpled sticky note she was writing on with a teal gel pen. Writing was an understatement, actually. She looked a little like she was trying to murder the note with her pen one angry scratch at a time.
This woman…
Damon frowned. “A lying, asshole of a flight? What are we talking about here?”
Mindy saved the situation by swinging the door open at that moment. She was holding her phone held out as she smiled and struck a quick pose. “Guys,” she said in an almost theatrically well annunciated, loud voice. “I think it’s about to happen!” She did a little squee of delight, kicked up one heel, and then shut off her phone.
Mindy was wearing a cropped white top that showed off her tanned stomach, high waisted beige pants that fit tight around her ass and was holding her bag in a way that said it was probably expensive and by some designer I should know and be impressed by. I turned my head toward Damon and glared. “Really?” I mouthed.
Damon gave a little shrug, and I saw there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes. The bastard was messing with me. He knew the kinds of women I could hardly tolerate, and he’d gone and found their poster child for my fiancée.
Then again, I could picture my brother being out of touch enough to think he’d saddled me with some attractive, successful woman who I might actually fall for. If that was your game, Damon, you couldn’t have missed more badly.
Mindy surprised me by leaning in, planting a kiss on my cheek, and holding out her phone to take a selfie of us. I already felt suffocated by the scent and the busyness she seemed to carry with her. It felt like the room had just become impossibly crowded, and I wished I could scoot my chair a little farther away from her.
Belle was watching the two of us with a mixture of disgust and anger. I couldn’t blame her. She probably thought she was looking at the woman I’d just cheated on with her. I nearly blurted out that this was my first time meeting Mindy—that everything she was about to hear and see was a big, elaborate act my brother and I had cooked up to save my career.
But I knew the stakes. I knew how much was riding on this working. So I clamped my teeth together and let the acid of the way Belle was watching me sink in and start to burn.
Damon had gone over what I was supposed to do about a hundred times, so I started to psych myself up for it.
“Who’s this?” Mindy asked. She was looking at Belle. Of course, Mindy knew the plan too. My brother made sure of that, but I had to give Mindy credit. Her acting was pretty spot-on, and I almost wondered if Damon had forgotten to tell her
what was about to happen.
I took one last look at Belle. If she didn’t completely hate me yet, she was about to, and that thought shouldn’t have stung like it did.
“I know I said the ring might not be finished for a few more weeks, but…” I got out of my chair and sank to one knee.
5
Belle
I could kill him. Chris Rose was currently on his knee with a gaudy diamond ring the size of a malignant tumor. He was holding it up to Miss Influencer and her perfect hair.
No. Stop that, Belle. You’re not petty. You’re not the catty type who is going to tear some innocent girl down just because she has something you want.
The girl was breathtaking, though, and it made me feel beyond embarrassed about what I’d just done with Chris on the plane. What must he have thought when he looked at me if that was the woman he came home to?
Except I shouldn’t care. Because there was a mountain of a difference between someone telling you they’re going to be off the market in a few hours and this. Chris had completely lied. Either he already proposed, was about to, or something in between—I was still trying to figure it out. I wasn’t sure if it was tacky or sweet to have the wedding planner already present at the proposal, but it was certainly a first for me.
All I really knew was he’d let me sleep with him when he was in a relationship, and now I felt like the scum of the Earth.
It felt like my world was spinning. Things had gone nuclear in Texas, and I still hadn’t even stuck my head out of the dirt to get a real sense of the fallout from that. I could imagine my website was already being flooded with nasty reviews from the bride’s friends. I’d probably have dog shit waiting for me on my front porch. And Lance… I had no idea what he was thinking right now, but I knew it was all a disaster I’d be trying to clean up for years.
This job was supposed to be an escape, and now it was turning into an even bigger mess than Texas.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I realized things had been going on while I was lost in thought, and the beautiful girl with the silky brown hair and the adorable little perky nose was wearing his ring now. She was also cuddling Chris’ muscular arm, and I couldn’t help thinking about how those same arms had been all over me just a few hours ago.
Stop that, Belle.
Damon had some papers out, and—oh shit.
“Belle?” Damon said. “Is that going to work?”
“Y-yes,” I stammered, hoping I wasn’t agreeing to anything too crazy. “Could you run the details by me one more time though, just to be sure?”
Clearly annoyed, Damon flipped the page back and started to read through what I realized was a list of things the bride and groom wanted for their wedding.
A venue in Europe. Designer dresses for the bride and all the bridesmaids. Guest list of over one thousand. Enough floral arrangements to clean out the florists within a hundred-mile radius. Famous musicians for the reception.
I nodded while the cash register sound dinged repeatedly in my head. This was going to dwarf the biggest wedding I’d ever put on, and if I pulled it off, it would cement my career. I’d already made a respectable name for myself in the five years I’d been planning weddings, but what happened in Texas was probably already on its way to undoing all that work. Chris’ wedding, if I could stomach being around the lying human turd that was Chris Rose, would change all of that.
Within a few minutes, I was inking my name at the bottom of an agreement to plan the wedding.
Chris was watching me with a strange expression, which was good. He was probably wondering if I was already planning his murder. Yes, Chris. I am. And it’s going to be cruel and unusual.
“Well,” Chris clapped his hands and stood up, which meant “Mindy” followed because she was still attached to his arm. “This was fun. I’ve got to get home though and get some rest.”
“Yeah,” Mindy agreed. “We need to get you home. Maybe I can rub your feet before you have practice tomorrow. I know how you like that.”
Oh God. Please kill me now.
Chris smiled a little awkwardly. “Uh, yeah. Maybe.”
The two of them left the room, and I felt a fresh wave of nausea when I thought of him going home and lying to her about what had happened on the plane.
“Is everything okay?” Damon asked when we were alone.
“What?”
He gestured, and I realized I’d just been sitting there in stunned silence. The normal thing to do probably would’ve been get up and leave the room. “Y-yeah. I’m okay.”
“You’re sure? This is an important job, and if there’s something wrong, I’d like to know about it.”
I pressed my palms over my eyes and groaned. “No. No. It’s not okay, because your brother? I just got done sleeping with him in the bathroom of our plane on the way here. He didn’t tell me he was about to get engaged!” I was standing up now and my chest was heaving.
Whoops. So much for playing it cool and protecting the only job opportunity that could possibly save me from the negative backlash of my last wedding.
Damon took the news a lot better than I thought he would. All he did was rock back in his chair and cup his chin. “And you’re feeling guilty?”
“Guilty. Pissed. Murderous. Confused. Should I keep going?”
Damon gestured for me to sit. I took his offer, plopping back down in the chair and letting out a shaky breath.
“Listen,” he said after a few moments of silence. “They had a special arrangement, Chris and Mindy. Both of them are… interesting. They were taking a break. No rules. Like a final hoorah before they tied the knot. Neither of them wanted to know anything about what happened during the break, but all bets were off. Okay? So, yes, he should’ve told you the full truth, but it’s not as bad as you think.”
“What kind of screwed up marriage is preceded by a free for all fuck spree?”
Damon grinned. “I never said my brother was a normal person. But this wedding is a big opportunity for you. If you can look past it, this will be good for all of us. So I hope you’ll still work with us.”
I nodded. I still didn’t feel like I’d quite caught up with everything, but what Damon told me helped. Even if it was only somewhat. I thought maybe I could downgrade myself from homewrecker to just feeling dirty and gross for getting tangled up in their strange little web.
“I’m still in. And I should go.” I tapped the list he’d given me and forced a quick smile. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, right?”
6
Belle
A metallic whack jolted me from nearly falling asleep. My father shielded his eyes, watched the golf ball disappear into the blue sky, then grunted with appreciation.
I followed the ball as it curved sharply and disappeared into the trees. “Tough luck,” I said.
“Hm?” My dad asked. He was in his mid-sixties with salt and pepper hair I knew he meticulously maintained with specialty hair and beard dye kits. He looked like that guy from “the most interesting man in the world” commercials might’ve looked if he’d spent his life chasing political appointments. In other words, if he was “the least interesting man in the world”.
“Looks like you hit the trees,” I said, pointing to where I’d seen the ball land.
“We may need to get your eyes checked. It was right on the fairway.”
My big brother, Asher, had come along, and he shared a knowing look with me. Our dad was a notorious cheat, and we made an unspoken agreement to watch him like hawks and catch him in the act.
Asher hopped in the driver’s seat of the golf cart. We’d both taken our shots already, and mom hadn’t touched a golf club in decades. She had a firm grip on the martini she’d picked up from the clubhouse before we got on the course. She was in her forties now, and she wore a wide-brimmed sun hat to keep the wrinkles at bay.
Dad hopped in the back of the golf cart and we headed toward the fairway, where Asher and I’s shots had actually landed.
&
nbsp; My dad hopped out of the cart before we even stopped, smoothly pulled a ball from his pocket, and dropped it. He tapped his toe over it to keep it from bouncing conspicuously, then spun to wave at us. “See? Dead center.” He let out a triumphant laugh.
Asher and I rolled our eyes at each other but didn’t bother calling him out.
Family golf time wasn’t about winning. It was about putting our time in with the family unit in a setting where our dad was mildly distracted enough to not be a pain in our asses. Mom was also probably going to be too tipsy to nag us about the usual topics.
Asher lined up for his shot. He was always the better golfer in the family, but that was hardly a surprise. My brother was good at everything he ever did. It was why I wished he’d resisted my father’s urge to get recruited into the world of politics.
Personally, even the word politics made me want to take a long nap. But I’d absorbed enough incidental knowledge to know that my brother was on the fast-track to high places. He was extremely handsome, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a smile that had always let him get away with murder. Of course, he had the brains for policy and all the manipulation required, too. Asher was all the things my father probably wished he’d been.
I didn’t have to wonder if my father wished I was more like my brother, because he’d told me as much several times.
We wrapped up our game and headed back to the clubhouse to get lunch together. Once my dad was done boasting about the game of golf he’d “won,” the conversation devolved into some boring business talk about delegates and other political buzzwords.
I pulled out my phone and double checked all the details for tonight. I’d arranged for seven designer wedding dresses to be shipped out on special order to a wedding boutique in the city called Delilah’s Gowns. Mindy and Chris would meet me there tonight, and we would hopefully find at least one she was in love with.
My (Mostly) Fake Wedding Page 3