Best Friend Bride

by Kat Cantrell

  “That sounds like a plan.”

  She shrugged like she could take it or leave it, which raked across his spine with a sharpness that he didn’t like. She obviously wasn’t feeling any of the same things he was. She’d been a half second from calling it quits. Would have if he hadn’t stopped her.

  “Great.” And somehow he’d managed to appease his sense of honor while agreeing to continue sleeping with his wife in what was shaping up to be the hottest affair he’d ever had.

  It was madness. And he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.

  Eight

  If there was a way to quit Jonas, Viv didn’t want to know about it.

  She should be looking for the exit, not congratulating herself on the finest plea for remaining in a man’s bed that had ever been created in the history of time. She couldn’t help it. The scene after the most explosive sexual encounter of her life had been almost as epic. Jonas had no idea how much it had killed her to act so nonchalant about ending things. He’d been shocked she’d suggested backing off. It had been written all over his face.

  That kept her feeling smug well into the dawn hours the next morning. She rolled toward the middle of the bed, hoping to get a few minutes of snuggle time before work. Cold sheets met her questing fingers. Blinking an eye open, she sought the man she’d gone to sleep with.

  Empty. Jonas had gotten out of bed already. The condo was quiet. Even when she was in her bedroom, she could hear the shower running through the pipes in the ceiling—a treat she normally enjoyed, as she envisioned the man taking a shower in all his naked glory.

  Today, she didn’t get that luxury, as Jonas was clearly already gone. Profoundly disappointed that he hadn’t kissed her goodbye, said goodbye or thought about her at all, she climbed out from under the sheets and gathered up her clothes for the return trek to her bedroom.

  It was fine. They’d established last night that there were no rules. No pressure. When he’d gotten on board with convincing her that they could keep sleeping together—which she still couldn’t quite believe she’d orchestrated so well—she’d thought that meant they were going to spend a lot of time together. Be goofy and flirty with each other. Grow closer and closer until he looked up one day and realized that friendship plus marriage plus sex equaled something wonderful, lasting and permanent. Obviously she’d thought wrong.

  The whole point had been to give him the impression she wasn’t clingy. That Independence was her middle name and she breezed through life just fine, thanks, whether she had a man or not. Apparently he’d bought it. Go me.

  The sour taste wouldn’t quite wash from her mouth no matter how much mouthwash she used. After a long shower to care for her well-used muscles, Viv wandered to the kitchen barefoot to fight with Jonas’s espresso machine. She had a machine at Cupcaked but Jonas’s was a futuristic prototype that he’d brought home from work to test. There were more buttons and gizmos than on a spaceship. Plus, it hated her. He’d used it a couple of times and made it seem so easy, but he had a natural affinity with things that plugged in, and the machine had his name on it, after all. Finally, she got a passably decent latte out of the monstrosity.

  She stood at the granite countertop to drink it, staring at the small, discreet Kim Electronics logo in the lower right-hand corner of the espresso machine. Jonas’s name had been emblazoned on her, too, and not just via the marriage license and subsequent trip to the DMV to get a new driver’s license. He’d etched his name across her soul well before they’d started sleeping together. Maybe about the third or fourth time they’d had lunch.

  Strange then that she could be so successful with snowing him about her feelings. It had never worked with any man before. Of course, she’d never tried so hard to be cool about it. Because it had never mattered so much.

  But now she wasn’t sure what her goal here really was. Or what it should be. Jonas had “talked” her into keeping sex on the menu of their relationship. She’d convinced him their friendship could withstand it. Really, the path was pretty clear. They were married friends with benefits. If she didn’t like that, too bad.

  She didn’t like it.

  This wasn’t practice for another relationship and neither was it fake, not for her. Which left her without a lot of options, since it was fake to Jonas.

  Of course, she always had the choice to end things. But why in the world would she want to do that? Her husband was the most amazing lover on the planet, whose beautiful body she could not get enough of. He bought her diamonds and complimented her cupcakes. To top it all off, Viv was married. She’d been after that holy grail for ages and it had felt really nice to flash her ring at her sisters when they’d come to the shop last week. It was the best possible outcome of agreeing to do this favor for Jonas.

  Convinced that she should be happy with that, she walked the four blocks to Cupcaked and buried herself in the kitchen, determined to find a new cupcake flavor to commemorate her marriage. That was how she’d always done things. When something eventful occurred, she baked. It was a way of celebrating in cake form, because wasn’t that the whole point of cake? And then she had a cupcake flavor that reminded her of a wonderful event.

  The watermelon recipe she’d been dying to try didn’t turn out. The red food coloring was supposed to be tasteless but she couldn’t help thinking that it had added something to the flavor that made the cupcake taste vaguely like oil. But without it, the batter wasn’t the color of watermelon.

  Frustrated, she trashed the whole batch and went in search of a different food coloring vendor. Fruitless. All her regular suppliers required an industrial sized order and she couldn’t commit to a new brand without testing it first.

  She ended up walking to the market and buying three different kinds off the shelf. For no reason, apparently, as all three new batches she made didn’t turn out either. Maybe watermelon wasn’t a good cupcake flavor. More to the point, maybe she shouldn’t be commemorating a fake marriage that was real to her but still not going to last. That was the problem. She was trying to capture something fleeting that shouldn’t be immortalized.

  After the cupcake failure, her mood slid into the dumps. She threw her apron on the counter and stayed out of the kitchen until lunch, when she opened for business to the public. On the plus side, every display case had been cleaned and polished, and the plate-glass window between Cupcaked and the world had not one smudge on it. Camilla wouldn’t be in until after school, so Viv was by herself for the lunch rush, which ended up being a blessing in disguise.

  Wednesday wasn’t normally a busy day, but the line stretched nearly out the door for over an hour. Which was good. Kept her mind off the man she’d married. Josie had the rest of the week off, and Viv had approved it thinking she and Camilla could handle things, but if this kind of crowd was even close to a new normal, she might have to see about adding another part-time employee. That was a huge decision, but a good sign. If she couldn’t have Jonas, she could have her cupcakes. Just like she’d always told him.

  After locking the bakery’s door, tired but happy with the day’s profits, she headed home. On the way, she sternly lectured herself about her expectations. Jonas might be waiting in the hall for her to come in the door like he had been last night. Or he might not. Her stomach fluttered the entire four blocks regardless. Her husband had just been so sexy standing there against the wall with a hot expression on his face as if he planned to devour her whole before she completely shut the door.

  And then he pretty much had, going down on her in the most erotic of encounters. She shuddered clear to her core as she recalled the feel of that first hot lick of his tongue.

  Oh, who was she kidding? She couldn’t stop hoping he’d be waiting for her again tonight. Her steps quickened as she let herself anticipate seeing Jonas in a few minutes.

  But he wasn’t in the hall. Or at home. That sucked.

&nbs
p; Instead of moping, she fished out her phone and called Grace. It took ten minutes, but eventually her sister agreed to have dinner with Viv.

  They met at an Italian place on Glenwood that had great outdoor seating that allowed for people watching. The maître d’ showed them to a table and Grace gave Viv a whole three seconds before she folded her hands and rested her chin on them.

  “Okay, spill,” she instructed. “I wasn’t expecting to see you before Friday. Is Jonas in the doghouse already?”

  “What? No.” Viv scowled. Why did something have to be wrong for her to ask her sister to dinner? Besides, that was none of Grace’s business anyway. Viv pounced on the flash of green fire on her sister’s wrist in a desperate subject change. “Ooooh, new bracelet? Let me see.”

  The distraction worked. Grace extended her arm dutifully, her smile widening as she twisted her wrist to let the emeralds twinkle in the outdoor lighting. “Alan gave it to me. It’s an anniversary present.”

  “You got married in April,” Viv said.

  “Not a wedding anniversary. It’s a...different kind of anniversary.”

  Judging by the dreamy smile that accompanied that admission, she meant the first time she and Alan had slept together, and clearly the act had been worthy of commemorating.

  Viv could hardly hide her glee. It was going to be one of those discussions and she finally got to participate. “Turns out Jonas is big on memorializing spectacular sex, too.”

  “Well, don’t hold back. Show and tell.” Grace waggled her brows.

  Because she wanted to and she could, Viv fished the diamond drop necklace from beneath her dress and let it hang from her fingers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but hers was a flawless white diamond in a simple, elegant setting. Extremely appropriate for the wife of a billionaire. And he’d put it around her neck and then given her the orgasm of her life.

  The baubles she could do without and had only mentioned jewelry in the car on the way to Jonas’s parents’ house because he’d pushed her to name something he could do for her. She hadn’t really been serious. But all at once, she loved that Jonas had unwittingly allowed her to stand shoulder to shoulder with her sister when it came to talking about whose marriage was hotter.

  “Your husband is giving you jewelry already?” Grace asked, and her tone was colored with something that sounded a lot like she was impressed. “Things must be going awfully well.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course,” Viv commented airily and waved her hand like she imagined a true lady of the manor would. “We didn’t even make it out of the foyer where he gave it to me before his hands were all over me.”

  Shameless. This was the raciest conversation she’d ever had with anyone except maybe Jonas, but that didn’t count. She should be blushing. Or something. Instead she was downright giddy.

  “That’s the best.” Grace’s dreamy smile curved back into place. “When you have a man who loves you so much that he can’t wait. I’m thrilled you finally have that.”

  Yeah, not so much. Her mood crashed and burned as reality surfaced. Viv nodded with a frozen expression that she hoped passed for agreement.

  Obviously Grace knew what it felt like to have a man dote on her and give her jewelry because he cared, not because they were faking a relationship. Grace could let all her feelings hang out as much as she wanted and Alan would eat it up. Because they were in love.

  Something that felt a lot like jealousy reared its ugly head in the pit of Viv’s stomach. Which was unfair and petty, but recognizing it as such didn’t make it go away.

  “Jonas was worth waiting for,” she said truthfully, though it rankled that the statement was the best she could do. While Viv’s husband might rival her sister’s in the attentive lover department, when it came to matters of the heart, Grace and Alan had Viv and Jonas beat, hands down.

  “I’m glad. You had a rough patch for a while. I started to worry that you weren’t going to figure out how stop putting a man’s emotional needs ahead of yours. It’s good to see that you found a relationship that’s on equal footing.”

  Somehow, Viv managed to keep the surprise off her face, but how, she’d never know. “I never did that. What does that even mean?”

  “Hon, you’re so bad at putting yourself first.” Grace waved the waiter over as he breezed by and waited until he refilled both their wineglasses before continuing. “You let everyone else dictate how the relationship is going to go. That last guy you dated? Mark? He wanted to keep things casual, see other people, and even though that’s not what you wanted, you agreed. Why did you do that?”

  Eyebrows hunched together, Viv gulped from her newly filled wineglass to wet her suddenly parched throat. “Because when I told him that I wanted to be exclusive, he said I was being too possessive. What was I supposed to do, demand that he give me what I want?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Grace clucked. “You should have told him to take a hike instead of waiting around for him to do it for you.”

  “It really didn’t take that long,” she muttered, but not very loud, because Grace was still off on her tangent.

  Her sister was right. Viv should have broken up with Mark during that exact conversation. But on the heels of being told she was “clingy,” “controlling” and “moving too fast” by Zachary, Gary and Judd respectively, she hadn’t wanted to rock the boat.

  Why was it such a big deal to want to spend time with a man she was dating? It wasn’t clingy. Maybe it was the wine talking, but Grace’s point wasn’t lost on Viv—she shouldn’t be practicing her independence but finding a different kind of man. One who couldn’t stand being apart from her. One who texted her hearts and smiley faces just to let her know he was thinking of her. One who was in love with her.

  In other words—not Jonas.

  The thought pushed her mood way out of the realm of fit for company. Dinner with Grace was a mistake. Marrying Jonas had been a mistake. Viv had no idea what she was doing with her life or how she was going to survive a fake marriage she wished was real.

  “I just remembered,” she mumbled. “I have to...do a thing.”

  Pushing back from the table, Viv stood so fast that her head spun. She’d planned to walk home but maybe a cab would be a better idea.

  “What?” Grace scowled. “You called me. I canceled drinks with the ladies from my auxiliary group. How could you forget that you had something else?”

  Because Viv wasn’t perfect like Grace with the perfect husband who loved her, and frankly, she was sick of not getting what she wanted. “Jonas has scrambled my wits.”

  Let her sister make what she would out of that. Viv apologized and exited the restaurant as quickly as she could before she started crying. After not seeing Jonas this morning and the watermelon-slash-red-food-coloring disaster and the incredibly busy day at the store and then realizing that she had not in fact gotten to join the club her sisters were in, crying was definitely imminent.

  The icing on the cake happened when she got home and Jonas was sprawled on the couch watching TV, wearing jeans with a faded Duke T-shirt that clung to his torso like a second skin.

  His smile as he glanced up at her was instant and brilliant and that was all it took to unleash the waterworks.

  With tears streaming down her face, Viv stood in the foyer of the condo she shared with Jonas until whatever point in the future he decided to pull the plug on their marriage and it was all suddenly not okay.

  “Hey, now. None of that.” Jonas flicked off the TV and vaulted to his feet, crossing the ocean of open space between the living room and the foyer in about four strides.

  He didn’t hesitate to gather Viv in his strong arms, cradling her against his chest, and dang it, that T-shirt was really soft against her face. It was a testament to how mixed-up she was that she let him guide her to the leather couch and tuck her in against his side as he held
her while softly crooning in his baritone that she’d heard in her sleep for aeons.

  What was wrong with her that she was exactly where she wanted to be—in his arms? She should be pushing away and disappearing into her bedroom. No pressure, no love, no nothing.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked softly into her hair. “Bad day at work?”

  “I wasn’t at work,” she shot back inanely, sniffling oh so attractively against his shoulder.

  “Oh. Well, I wondered where you were when you weren’t here.”

  “You weren’t here either,” she reminded him crossly. “So I went to dinner with Grace.”

  He pulled back, the expression on his face both confused and slightly alarmed. “Did we have plans that I forgot about or something? Because if so, I’m sorry. I didn’t have anything on my calendar and my grandfather asked me to take him to the airport. I texted you.”

  He had? And how desperate would it appear to pull out her phone to check? Which was totally dumb anyway. It was obvious he was telling her the truth, which he didn’t even have to do. God, she was such a mess. But after he’d disappeared this morning and then she’d come home to an empty house and...so what? He was here now, wasn’t he? She was making a mountain out of a molehill.

  “It’s okay, we didn’t have plans. You called it. Bad day at work,” she said a bit more brightly as she latched on to his excuse that wasn’t even a lie. Sales had been good, sure, but Cupcaked meant more to her than just profits. “I tried out a new recipe and it was a complete failure.”

  All smiles again, Jonas stroked her hair and then laid a sweet kiss on her temple. “I hate days like that. What can I do to fix it?”

  About a hundred suggestions sprang to her mind all at once, and every last one could easily be considered X-rated. But she couldn’t bear to shift the current vibe into something more physical when Jonas was meeting a different kind of need, one she’d only nebulously identified at dinner. This was it in a nutshell—she wanted someone to be there for her, hold her and support her through the trials of life.