The Boyfriend Arrangement: A Fake Marriage Romance

by Lara Swann

  She was quiet for a long moment, just looking out at the sea, and her usually cheery face had taken on such a serious tone that I almost asked what was wrong before she turned back to me. She pulled the deck chairs closer and leaned forward to touch my leg, looking at me intently.

  “You need to tell your father, Bella.”

  My gaze snapped up to her and I frowned. This wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have.

  “That’s nothing to do with you, Kay. We’ll…work it out.”

  The idea of my father knowing still sent terror running through me, even now that I was pretty sure which side of that argument I’d come down on. Maybe especially because of that.

  “No - listen to me. The wedding’s in a week and a half. There’s no more time to work it out. You have to tell him.”

  The urgency in her voice was bothering me, scratching at the same awareness inside me that had been there all along.

  “Leave it to us, Kay. We know we need to—”

  “Babe, you don’t understand. You have to tell him before the wedding. This way, it’s a bit of a mess, and sure he’ll be mad, but at least it’s something that happened before you were ever related. You weren’t sleeping with your brother. If you wait, it will be all scandal—”

  “It will anyway, Kay. Seriously—”

  “Fuck it, Bella. This is important - there’s a big fucking difference between screwing him now and when he’s your stepbrother!”

  “Will you shut up?!”

  I looked around, angry now, and afraid that she was going to make the whole point moot anyway.

  “Not until you listen, babe. If you don’t tell him, someone needs to. Or you don’t have a chance.”

  “What the hell? Just what are you saying?!”

  “I care about you babe. I want you to have this - it’s crazy how happy you look together, the way you moved together last night...the stuff of fairy tales, right?”

  Kaylee had always been unashamedly sentimental, but the idea that someone else saw the same things I felt had my heart skipping a beat.

  “And you need to tell your father. Before the wedding. Don’t let that sour it.”

  My heart was beating a hundred times a minute and I glared at her.

  “Last time, leave it the fuck alone.”

  “No. Not if you’re too blind to see it yourself. I’ve always looked out for you, babe.”

  She stood up at that, looking down at me with a strange mix of emotions in her eyes that for once I couldn’t read. But instead of continuing the argument, she turned to leave. Somehow, that made the nerves in my stomach redouble far more than if we’d spent another hour arguing.

  “Kaylee—”

  “Tell him. For once in your god-damned life take what you want. And do it before Seth becomes your stepbrother in truth.”

  Then she walked out, leaving me sitting there as frozen as the ice in my too-cold glass. Despite the warm summer sun, a chill swept over me, and I couldn’t help the waves of fear and anger that pounded through my heart.

  We would tell him. Before the wedding. We just needed to work out how.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Seth

  “Seth!”

  I turned at my mother’s voice calling out from one of the side-rooms I’d just passed.

  Just my luck.

  And I’d been hoping to find Bella before anyone saw me. Refraining from sighing, I made my way back to that room.

  From the looks of it, it was the “decorations, napkins, and random ideas” room. Bella and I had taken to naming them based on their role in the wedding, and the varied samples laid out within them.

  “Hey Mom, how’re you?”

  She turned and grinned at me before coming over for a brief hug.

  “The wedding’s only a week away, Seth! I don’t know whether to be excited or terrified! Maybe I’m both.”

  She giggled and headed back to what she had been looking at laid out on the table. I tried not to get irritated - at least this time she had genuinely put a lot of effort into it, and she seemed to get on well with Terence. It was understandable for her to be excited about her own wedding. Whatever I thought about it.

  “I need a man’s opinion. The tailor just called and said that they’re out of this cream colored cloth for the tables, which would have been perfect with all the other place settings. So we need to decide between these and I don’t know whether going with a lilac would be too feminine—”

  “Mom, I don’t do this stuff. You know that. Why don’t you ask Terence?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then sank into the chair with a sigh.

  “He’s busy. He’s always busy, Seth! I mean, I know he’s an important man, but it’s our wedding and…”

  Personally, I didn’t think any guy would be interested in debating cream or lilac tablecloths, their wedding or not, but my mother had always been a little insecure.

  “I’m sure it’s fine, Mom. He’ll be happy with whatever you pick.”

  “Yeah. Probably. You don’t think he’s getting bored with me, do you?”

  I looked at her with surprise as her mind darted in another direction. I shifted uneasily, suddenly wondering whether this was what she needed a man’s opinion on.

  “I’m sure he isn’t. Usually guys say what they mean - and from what Bella’s said, he’s always been busy with work. It’s nothing unusual.”

  She nodded, but it was a little disheartened.

  “I just…I really want this to work, Seth. It’s been so great for all of us, don’t you think? And Terence is a wonderful man.”

  I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to convince herself or me, and I felt the familiar doubt creep in as she continued.

  “And it’s been simply wonderful having you around so much. You seem to be getting on handsomely with Bella, too. Isn’t it so good that in a week we’re all going to be one family?”

  She seemed to dart from uncertainty to excitement faster than I could follow, and I stopped trying to process it all, cutting myself off before snapping at that sentiment.

  It made me feel a little guilty, knowing that the reason I’d been around had nothing to do with her, or with becoming a family. There was only one kind of way I wanted a family with Bella, and it fucking wasn’t as her brother.

  Still, it was obvious how much she’d changed, and we hadn’t really talked about it…

  “I’m sure it will be fine, Mom. Look, I know where we came from and how different all this is for you. I never said, but I’m glad you finally took that advice.”

  The beaming smile she gave me had me shaking my head slightly, but she was already off at a mile a minute.

  “You are? Ohh Seth, you don’t know how much that means to me! I wanted to. I wanted to make everything better for us. I’m just worried—maybe I’m not doing it right?”

  There was nothing I could say to help with that, and I’d pretty much given all the reassurance I felt able to.

  “Why don’t you talk to Terence about it, if you’re concerned?”

  “Oh no, you know guys - they don’t like to talk about things like this.”

  Well, I’m sure as hell not appreciating it…

  But it was more than that - my mother had always liked drama. Attention. Excitement. Even if it was everything failing and falling to pieces, it seemed to make her happier than calm and stability. It was part of the reason it was so hard to get over what she’d done to my childhood.

  She must have known that a businessman like Terence, with his rich lifestyle and calm, controlled manner wouldn’t be able to provide that. I’d thought for a while that maybe she’d been beyond it - she seemed beyond the booze and crazy highs, after all. But now I couldn’t help wondering.

  And I couldn’t help thinking that maybe, if it didn’t work out, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  It was a pretty terrible thing to think, but my mother had had her shot at happiness. A good dozen or so times.

  Surely someone who
would actually take it seriously deserved that chance?

  I shook my head. I wanted Bella. She wanted me. Whatever our parents did, we were going to make that work.

  I extracted myself from any more of my mother’s concerns - I was pretty sure if I wanted to give her the time, she could continue for another hour or so - and picked out a random ‘masculine’ beige to replace the cream. That seemed to make her happy enough and I managed to leave without getting tangled up in anything else.

  When I let myself up into Bella’s room, though, it was empty.

  Instead of wandering around looking for her when she could well be out, my eyes lighted on the bookshelves and I figured I’d explore some of her interests a little more.

  * * *

  “What are you looking at?”

  Bella had come in and shut the door as I was still glancing through one of the well-used paperbacks that had been shunted to a small corner of her bookshelf.

  “A regency romance novel, from the looks of it.”

  She shrieked immediately, grabbing it out of my hand as her face went a quite remarkable shade of red.

  “Hey! You can’t just go looking through my stuff—”

  I just laughed, grabbing her and bringing her into a slow kiss that stifled the objection. Her cheeks were still flaming when I let up.

  “I’m not sure why you’re so embarrassed. There wasn’t even much sex in it - that I could see, anyway. Did I miss the good bits?”

  She slapped her hand against my chest, then collapsed against me in what I thought was laughter.

  “You’re terrible.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “It’s just…they’re silly things. Not like the other stuff I read. I don’t even read them much…”

  I raised an eyebrow, looking at the dog-eared book and she flushed again.

  “Okay, maybe every so often. I told you - I always liked those fanciful true love notions.”

  I laughed and kissed her gently, one hand running down her back as the other brought her head back up.

  “If they put you in a certain mood, I’m not going to object, baby-Bella.”

  She looked at me suspiciously, as if not convinced I wasn’t going to mock her. Seeing that, I couldn’t entirely resist.

  “Of course, it does explain a lot.”

  “What?”

  “Military guys…uniforms…”

  I kissed her as I said it and she writhed against me, some combination of amusement, arousal and embarrassment that set my pulse racing. Then again, most of what she did had that effect on me.

  “Maybe. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Secret’s safe with me, babe. Just so long as you’re not expecting some knight in shining armor. I don’t do that shit.”

  She flushed again, but as we moved back towards the bed - our natural motion - she gave me a speculative look and halted the advance.

  “I don’t know, Seth. You wouldn’t belong on a round table, but I reckon you’ve got your own code of honor. I’ve seen how hard you fight for those you care about…how protective you are. Maybe a special kind of knight. Mine.”

  For some reason the words affected me more than I’d thought they would. To so many people, I’d only ever been a bad guy out looking for trouble - and hell, I’d enjoyed my share of that. But the idea that she saw me as something more…it made me feel unexpectedly warm, and I smiled back at her, laughing at the silliness of the notion.

  “Sure thing, babe. Your badass Navy SEAL knight. If that’s what gets you going.”

  And from the look in her eyes, it seemed to, as I pulled her back with me onto the bed and kissed her again.

  “Missed you babe.”

  “It’s been a day, idiot.”

  “Are you trying to say you didn’t miss me?”

  She laughed and pushed at me.

  “Okay, okay, maybe I did.”

  She started showing me just how much, but then I interrupted with the other thing I’d wanted to ask.

  “What did Kaylee want, anyway?”

  Her laughter died and I sat up with concerned as she looked at me. She bit her lip, then answered.

  “Well, she knew about you, of course - so she wanted all those fun details. But she also wanted me to tell my father about us. She was quite insistent about it, in fact. Seemed to think it would make a big difference whether we told them before the wedding…and time is running out for that.”

  I stilled, thinking it through. That Kaylee had guessed at us was no surprise, and in truth her advice made sense - even if it might have been a little strong for Bella’s liking. I knew we had to tell them soon, I’d just wanted a little time to think about how to do it. We both had.

  I nodded and took her hand again.

  “She’s right, baby. We need to tell them soon - just…let’s take a day or so to get our thoughts together. Then we’ll let them know, and hope to hell everything doesn’t blow up.”

  She smiled at the language, but the disturbed look in her eyes worried me, and I leaned in again to kiss her and make it better. It didn’t take too long before that started to develop into other things, before she pushed up again and cursed.

  “Damn, I promised I’d meet Cora in a few minutes. She wants to go and visit the cake shop, check nothing has gone wrong. I only came up here to grab my bag - wasn’t expecting to find you sneaking around.”

  I growled slightly at that.

  “I wasn’t sneaking, and don’t tell me she’s dragging you into this as well? I swear the next week is going to be hell…”

  Bella muttered something in agreement, but resisted my attempts to drag her back.

  “Alright, alright. I’ll try again tomorrow then. I’m going to start thinking you’re getting bored of me.”

  “All the time. Every moment. Definitely boredom on my mind.”

  She blew a kiss, grabbed her bag and left without another word and I tried not to laugh.

  It was hard to stay pissed off at my mother for getting in the way when I had such soft, sweetness to enjoy most of the time. I let myself out of her room and headed back out to the truck, wondering whether there was anything useful I could be doing at base. At the least, I could see some people I guessed. Now that I wasn’t snarling at anyone and everyone, they were fairly willing to have me around.

  I smiled as I twirled the keys around my fingers, feeling ridiculously happy.

  My step had a lightness to it I wasn’t used to, and some stupid part of me felt like I was behaving like a silly teenager all over again. Or, since I’d never been one of those, perhaps for the first time.

  Strange how some fiery eyed girl could do this to me, but for once in my life I wasn’t going to doubt and question. I was just going to take what was given to me and enjoy it.

  My thoughts were cut off by the buzz of my phone and I flicked it up to see Dale on the ID. Frowning, I answered.

  “What’s up, Chief?”

  “It’s Ryan. He’s MIA.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Bella

  I finally climbed to my feet after a lovely meal I’d eaten too much of, stretching and turning for the hall. My father and Cora were still seeing guests out, but I’d been excused from that duty and I felt more than ready for bed.

  With the wedding less than a week away now, my father had wanted to have a small celebration with some of the neighbors first, which Cora had been very enthusiastic for. In truth, the evening had been pretty nice, but I couldn’t help the feeling of dread that was starting to come over me with every moment we moved closer to this wedding.

  At least having Kaylee and her father here had made things easier for me - though the cheery man was looking a bit more hagged than usual, and didn’t quite have his usual humor.

  I sighed.

  Maybe it was just me. I probably wasn’t in the best of moods for socializing. I was feeling a half-panicked sense of urgency - that hadn’t been made any better by Kaylee’s meaningful glances all evening - and I wasn’t
sure what to do. We needed to talk to my father, and soon.

  But I hadn’t seen Seth for a couple of days now, after a terse message about an emergency back at base. It brought to life how these things would usually be - disappearances for months on end without explanations or end dates. But still - he wouldn’t have been deployed without letting me know, would he? The idea of him leaving for months now of all times had me jittery, but I couldn’t really believe it would be anything like that.

  He loved me. He knew how important this was. He’d be back to tell my father with me soon.

  “Annabelle.”

  I looked up at my father’s voice, not having paid much attention as I’d moved towards the staircase. He nodded to one of the smaller drawing rooms and I followed him inside with a frown.

  “Yes?”

  He perched on the end of a desk in there and clasped his hands on the end of it as I stood by one of the warm leather couches.

  “Kaylee mentioned I should ask you about Seth. What did you mean by that?”

  Horror shot through me.

  She didn’t!

  She hadn’t!

  Fuck.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  I leaned back myself now, perching on the arm of the sofa and closing my eyes, as my father’s expression sharpened.

  “Annabelle?”

  This was not how I wanted to do this. I wanted Seth here with me. I wanted to have an argument, a plan, a structure.

  I sure as hell did not want to have this conversation now. Alone.

  Some friend, bitch. How the fuck could you do this to me?!

  The anger was only a momentary distraction as the dread that had been building at the thought of the wedding overcame me. I was silent for a long moment, wondering what the hell to do, and there was some stupid part of me that still wanted to deny it all - to say I didn’t have a clue what she meant, even if my expression had given me away. To run away and not have to face this.

  But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted Seth. And I was damn well going to have him.

  Letting that thought, and the strength of my desire and love for him, sustain me, I straightened and looked my father in the eye. He was frowning now.