Big Bad Fake Groom: A Billionaire's Virgin Romance

by Tia Siren

  I breathed in and out, remembering the scent of him. He always smelled of football leather and freshly cut grass—the smells of sport and training.

  Beneath that cheerful article, was a second and much less positive article linked. It read:

  Unnamed New York Jets Team Member Face Accusations of Sexual Assault.

  Who was involved? Why is it being covered up? Read on to find out more!

  I read the headline and scowled. It couldn’t be Jesse, I was sure of it. He had been the most trustworthy guy I knew back in high school.

  Except, of course, for what happened to my brother.

  “Hey, Bill,” I said, interrupting his game. “Guess who’s going to be back in town? Your old friend, Jesse Valen.”

  Bill paused his game and slowly turned his gaze to me. As far as I knew, there was very little that would break his concentration while playing, and I was surprised to see that Jesse’s name did the trick.

  “Jesse Valen,” he said, “is no friend of mine.”

  For some reason, his words stung me. “But in high school you guys used to—”

  “I don’t care what we used to do. You know how I feel about that prick. Why would you bring him up?”

  His voice grew louder, more menacing and he put his controller aside. A bad sign.

  “I just thought that—”

  “You thought wrong,” he growled. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here and bothering me all the time? You know what happened. You know what I’ve been through, how hard…”

  My brother’s outburst lit a match in my heart and, like gunpowder, I exploded.

  “You have it hard?” I demanded, leaping to my feet. “I work twelve-hour freaking shifts to put food on the table, pay the rent and my tuition, while all you do is laze around doing nothing!”

  My verbal assault was useless. It broke upon him like a stiff breeze on a stone wall. Bill bent, picked up his video game controller, and resumed playing his game.

  “Then leave,” he grunted, simply and irrevocably.

  It was this, of all things, that made me break into tears. I tried to hold them back so he wouldn’t see me cry, but I couldn’t do it. Eventually, he paused his game again and turned toward me.

  “Look,” Bill said, his voice as hard and cold as stone, “no one’s keeping you here. You can go around feeling sorry for yourself, like I’m making you work so hard, but I’m not. You don’t like it? Then get the hell out of here.”

  He didn’t yell. He intoned as if each word were a hammer blow upon nails that sank into my heart. Unable to contain myself, I fled to my room and dissolved into tears on my bed. My day had been so long—a twelve-hour shift long—and then I had to come home to this.

  As I cried, I remembered my brother how he used to be. Smart. Confident. Strong. Unstoppable. With his whole future lined up ahead of him. Then, that fateful night happened.

  For a moment, I wondered if we would have been better off had the cops shot him that night instead of just arresting him. My parents would have been devastated, of course, but considering that they died in a car crash two years later, they wouldn’t have suffered long anyways. As for me, I would be crying my eyes out right now, that was for sure.

  However, things were as they were and, for the past five years, I had kept the promise I made to my mother’s grave and looked after Bill.

  But now, it was killing me.

  Half-ashamed and half-defiant, I pulled out my phone from my pocket and gazed at the little picture of Jesse Valen on the screen until I fell asleep. He was a man central to the whole mess my life had become and still, even though that tiny picture, his smile made me feel warm inside.

  He was also a man who, for a little while anyway, just might come back into our lives.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, thank God, was my one day off. I needed to use it to clean the house and go shopping. So, at eight in the morning, I threw my hair into a messy bun and began to scrub.

  By eleven, I had done everything except vacuum, but that, unfortunately, would have to wait. Bill was still sleeping, and I knew very well how angry he would be if I woke him up—especially considering all the beer bottles I threw into the recycling bin. I left Bill a note requesting him to do it, but I knew better than to expect anything of it. For the sake of my parents and my promise, I’d just have to do it when I returned.

  Still dressed in an old gray T-shirt and a pair of runner’s shorts, I clambered into our old 1999 Tercel and made my way to the shop. Since I generally ate at the restaurant, the food in the house was almost exclusively for Bill to eat or ignore. Despite my knowledge of my brother’s eating habits, I did my best to buy healthy snacks, rather than the crap he brought home on his rare ventures out of the house. I filled my cart with apples, grapes, celery sticks, and hoped they wouldn’t go bad and uneaten. I knew that the health-loving, muscle-flexing athlete that had once been my brother was still in there somewhere.

  Please, please let him be in there somewhere.

  After carefully choosing and paying for my groceries, I hauled the shopping cart out to my car and got busy unloading its contents into the trunk. After the first several bags, the heat and exhaustion started getting to me. I pressed my forehead against the hatch of my trunk and took several deep, steadying breaths. Finally calm and a little steadier, I groped behind me for my cart to continue unloading it, but my hand only met air.

  “Oh, shit!” I cried and leaped back to see the darn thing trundling away from me, back down toward the parking lot. In horror, I watched as it careened not toward the bushes or some beat-up, piece-of-junk car, but toward a brand new, sapphire-blue Mustang convertible.

  That’s when the injustice of life suddenly struck me.

  Not caring that I was dressed like a hobo, I sprinted to catch up. My breasts bounced. My lungs heaved. But still, I could not catch it in time.

  Smash! I winced as its heavy metal grate collided with the stunning new car. Glistening with sweat and embarrassment, I rushed to retrieve it and spurted apologies to the owner, who was sitting inside.

  As the man got out, I was nervous and expecting that he’d yell, holler, call the cops, or even be super nice and condescending about it which would only make me feel worse. Instead, something even more terrible happened.

  “Uh … hello, Jesse,” I stuttered. “Sorry about your car.

  Jesse Valen, star quarterback of the Jets, long-time friend and then enemy of my brother, and eternal crush of my childhood rose out of that snazzy new convertible like the six-and-a-half-foot giant he was. He blinked at me for a moment, as if confused.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” I stammered again. “I can pay… actually, I can’t. I can apologize for any damage. I didn’t realize my cart was getting away from me and…” I petered out beneath his unchanging, gable-browed gaze.

  After at least thirty seconds, he exclaimed, “Mary? Mary Taft, is that you?”

  Painfully conscious of my messy, lopsided bun and the film of sweat on my forehead, I mumbled an embarrassed, “Yes.”

  “Holy cow!” he cried, scooping me up in a powerful embrace and twirling me around. “It’s great to see you. You look…wow, you look amazing.”

  I sensed his eyes resting momentarily on my large bust, which was clearly outlined underneath my clingy gray T-shirt. This made part of me feel amazing while the other part felt tremendously ashamed.

  “How’s your brother? I haven’t seen him in ages,” he continued, still gazing openly at me.

  I winced at the mention of my brother.

  “He’s well,” I lied. “You know how it is. He has a lot to be getting along with.”

  “I bet, I bet,” he agreed.

  As he leaned close to me, I detected the tiniest hint of alcohol coming off his breath. I looked past him and saw the O’Reilly’s Pub sign glowing next to the grocery store. Through the large window, I saw that the bartender was, at that very moment, cleaning several glasses of beer off his bar.

>   Suddenly, I felt a little less pathetic.

  “I’m sorry about your car,” I said, glancing at where my cart had struck it. I grimaced as I saw two tiny scratches—really, they were no bigger than fingernail marks—marring its perfect paint.

  “Aw, don’t worry about it,” he replied, shrugging. “It’s a rental, and trust me, I can afford it.”

  I bit my lip and wondered what he meant by that. Was he trying to make me feel bad about my and Bill’s abysmal financial state?

  But then, I saw his smile and stopped worrying.

  “So,” I started, “I saw the article in the newspaper. Congrats on making the whole town lose their marbles over your arrival. Did everybody show up to greet you when you got off the train?”

  He chuckled. “Not everybody, but it was close. Mrs. Azelia was there, with a bunch of flowers and about five different cameras. Do you remember her? She used to come to all of my games with her face painted and that stupid cowbell?”

  I laughed. “Yes,” I said. “Then she’d sing, ‘home, home on the range,’ whenever we won.”

  “Yes, yes! Like: hoooome, home on the raaaannnnnnge!” he sang, doing an impressive—if slightly cruel—impression of the drunken, besotted woman.

  I could not help but giggle. Soon, I found myself leaning against his car beside him until our shoulders nearly touched.

  We stood there for quite a while, reminiscing about past games and exploits, my groceries totally forgotten for the moment. As we chatted, I found myself remembering the old days, before Bill’s arrest and when my parents were still alive.

  We had a huge, amazing house with a yard, a hot tub, and everything. Jesse used to come over at least once a week, sometimes to play catch or video games with my brother, other times to bask in the hot tub, moaning about his sore, over-worked muscles. Once, after a particularly grueling practice, he had asked me to climb into the hot tub with him and give him a massage.

  I had been chunky and weird in high school and naturally jumped at the opportunity when the hottest and most confident guy in school asked me to touch him. Wearing an ugly one-piece swimsuit, I climbed into the hot tub, and Jesse settled between my legs. I rubbed his shoulders, biceps, and back for at least an hour until my brother came over requesting a massage as well—obviously, I shot him down with a single look.

  That had been my moment. My body had filled with pent-up, teenage desire, and when I finished the job and left the hot tub, I realized that the area between my legs was wet from more than just the chlorinated water.

  Seized by a sudden daring, I brought that moment up in my conversation with Jesse. “Do you remember all the time you spent in our hot tub?” I asked. “My parents should have charged you rent.”

  “Hell yeah, I do,” he commented. “That hot tub saved my muscles. As did your expert hands, of course. Do you remember all the great massages you gave me?”

  Of course, I did. I remembered every dip and curve my hands had made against his skin. I remembered the way he would moan softly and lean back against me so that the tips of my breasts grazed his shoulders. But I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Yeah, a bit,” I said, hoping my cheeks wouldn’t blush.

  Jesse seemed to sense my lie and inched a little bit closer to me. He must have known how much those moments meant to me. I had wanted to date him all through high school, but of course, he wouldn’t have anything to do with a drama-club dweeb like me. No, he was always too busy gallivanting with the cheerleaders and the dancers to care.

  I was about to open my mouth and comment on how great it was that the old high-school prejudices had fallen away and we could now talk freely to each other when I remembered the fate of his cheerleading ex-girlfriend. She had been there the night Bill was arrested, alongside Jesse and few other friends. While Jesse and the others had come off clean, she and my brother had both been taken in.

  That could have been me, I realized. If I had been dating Jesse at the time, I could have been the one sharing a police car with my brother. As I stood beside him now, I looked up and down that amazing body and thought, would it have been worth it?

  Jesse’s next question shook me straight out of my reverie.

  “You said your brother is doing well, but I was wondering…do you think he might be willing to see me? We didn’t exactly part on good terms, and I was hoping…I don’t know…that we could make things right somehow.”

  Their parting was something I remembered as clearly as I remembered giving him those massages. It had been after the police station, the reporters and the trial. Bill had isolated himself from everyone, including us, but Jesse had begged my parents to let him enter the house and see my brother. With reluctance, they allowed and a screaming match, such as I had never witnessed before, ensued.

  I was not in the room when it happened. I was upstairs with my face buried in my pillow, spilling silent tears, so their exact words were, to this day, murky to me. All I knew was that Bill’s voice had thundered with anger and hurt as he accused Jesse of terrible, terrible things. Jesse’s was filled with grief and regret as he begged for forgiveness.

  As my eyes continued to assess Jesse in the parking lot, I wondered. Was he responsible for what had happened? Was my brother’s demolished future brought about by this man standing before me?

  I looked for clues in his eyes.

  Beneath the cocky grin and the rippling muscles, I saw sadness. I saw a pain almost as profound as my brother’s. Pain, perhaps, as deep as my own.

  “So, Mary, what do you think?” Jesse interrupted my painful moment of reverie. “Could I come over and see your brother?”

  I blinked and thought of the dark dinginess of our home, the gray floors, and my brother’s grayer socks I fought so hard to clean. I imagined my brother’s face, contorted with rage and humiliation, as Jesse Valen, glowing with success, walked into our sad and lonely apartment.

  “No, Jesse,” I said. “I don’t think that would be wise. My brother is still pretty angry with you.”

  Jesse sighed, sagging as if the thunderous might in his shoulders had suddenly vanished.

  “Yeah, I would be, too,” he murmured.

  My heart constricted at his tone, and I ached to open my mouth and ask him what had happened. Bill only spoke of it to lament the effect it had had on his scholarship and team. He refused, obstinately, even to mention Jesse and acted as if they had not known each other at all—had not gotten drunk off my father’s liquor, won and lost football games together, had their hearts broken, plotted silly vendettas that were never carried out. That whole past had been scoured away.

  All of Bill’s past.

  All of Bill’s future.

  Sometimes I understood his wallowing despair, his inability to rise up from the sunken cushions of the couch.

  Other times it just made me mad.

  A reckless daring seized me. I am a woman now, I thought, not just some scared teenager. I pay rent. I support a household. I work two jobs, go to school, and contend with assholes all the time. I can handle talking to Jesse Valen.

  Gulp.

  “Let me make it up to you,” I said and looked at the pub beside the grocery store. “Why don’t we go to O’Reilly’s and I buy you a drink? For old time’s sake? It’s not too early, right?”

  Jesse smiled sheepishly. We both knew he had already had a few, and his apparent need to lean his bodyweight on his beautiful blue convertible was further proof of the fact.

  “Sure,” he said at last. “But what about your groceries?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t buy anything frozen, and it’s not a hot day. I think it’ll be okay for a half hour.”

  “Hey, that’s all the time I need,” he exclaimed suggestively, making me blush and giggle. It was surprising, but also kind of nice that such an obviously manly man could make self-deprecating jokes like that.

  Both scolding and commending myself for my bravery, I waited as Jesse Valen placed my stray groceries into my trunk and then followed
him into the pub.

  * * *

  O’Reilly’s Pub was a lonely and sad place at noon. In the corner, a heavyset man with sad eyes and a newspaper picked at a bowl of soggy French fries, while a woman smoked a cigarette at the other corner of the room. Her frowned upon habit told me this was not the sort of place to be judgmental over ordering a drink this early in the day, and I felt myself relax a little.

  Jesse sat and ordered a scotch on the rocks and then turned a questioning look on me.

  “I’ll have same please,” I responded as I sat beside him.

  After working the late Friday and Saturday shifts at a restaurant for so long, I had learned to drink whatever the bartender snuck my way. Since men like Jesse usually assumed girls didn’t like scotch, or couldn’t drink hard liquor on the rocks at all, I saw this as an opportunity to impress him with my skill.

  Sensing my confidence, Jesse held up his glass, took a large sip, and, with barely a grimace, placed it back down on the table. Then, he gave me a challenging look.

  Buddy, I thought, you try living with Bill for five years, and then we’ll talk drinking contests.

  Matching his look with a cocked brow, I jokingly kept my pinky out as I picked up the glass. I held his gaze, batted my eyelashes, and sipped. Though it burned on the way down, I did not wince or make a face. Instead, I took a little bow and set down the glass with grace.

  “Wow,” he said. “That’s impressive. You can drink like the best of ’em, can’t you?”

  I blushed and sort of shrugged. Was that something to be proud of, really? Congratulations, you’ve pummeled your liver enough times that it can now take a punch.

  Suddenly, Jesse’s demeanor changed. His impressed smile turned into a frown. “These five years have been hard on you, too, haven’t they?”

  The answer was obvious, but I thought it would be ungracious to say so. Instead, I settled on taking another drink.

  “Let’s talk about something else, okay?” I requested, glancing around for a new subject. I noticed a football game playing on the TV to my right. It was muted, but I could tell it was a Jets rerun. “Congratulations on making the team. That’s incredible. Everyone here was so proud of you.”