by Cari Quinn
See? She wasn’t at all freaked out about sleeping with him. Especially since right then she was too busy being freaked out by talking to Bryan.
Vicky shoved her cell into her bag and tried to shake off the conversation. Just what she didn’t need tonight—an interrogation by her older brother.
He’d heard about the photos from their sister and was afraid that she was doing something dangerous to her mental health by dating Cory. Which, of course, had reminded her of the secret she was keeping from him and Melly.
One day soon, she was going to have to tell him about their mom’s reentry into her life. Their lives, if he’d let their mom back in. And this time, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer if either of her siblings didn’t want to hear her out. She’d sit down with him and Melly after he had a firm diagnosis for his knee situation.
By then, the first issue of the magazine would be put to bed and her fake relationship with Cory would be as dead as her withered heart, if she didn’t get a handle on her mushrooming feelings for the jerk. Having fantastic sex with him hadn’t exactly been a cure for them, either.
Sap.
Why were men such stubborn pains in the ass? Was it in their DNA or their penises? Or just her bad luck?
One man at a time. First she had to deal with Cory. She’d vowed to save him from his workaholic tendencies by forcibly injecting some cheer into his world, and she would.
By ensuring that he kept his job and got his parents off his back by pretending to be his fake girlfriend.
Hmm, maybe he’d be better off if she left him in the lurch and he ended up jobless. Maybe then he’d relax once in a while. Though lots of sex had its therapeutic qualities as well. She grinned. She’d be happy to “heal” him however she could.
When his Lexus pulled up, she was ready. So ready, in fact, that she didn’t bother waiting for him to come up to the stoop.
“Are you okay?” he asked when she pulled open her door and slipped inside.
“Don’t I look okay?” Shamelessly fishing for compliments, she held open her thin coat and enjoyed his slack-jawed expression at her dress. The sweaterdress made the most of her curves, even enhancing ones that were barely there. She’d accessorized with subtle makeup, modest jewelry, and leather ankle boots. Very demure all the way around. “Do I look appropriate to be a hardware mogul’s girlfriend?”
“You look beautiful.”
“You sounded more authentic when you said that at the gym, and I was all sweaty,” she teased.
“I was referring to Friday when I asked if you were okay. You missed our magazine meeting.”
“Oh, that. Sorry. I had a headache.” A small fib. She still hadn’t recovered from his disappearing act so soon after they’d had sex in the yoga studio and hadn’t been ready to see him yet. It wasn’t like her to blow off a meeting, but she hadn’t had her shields in place. That old fear of being left behind had come raging back, and it had taken her until today to sort herself out. “We can reschedule whenever you would like.” She knew he’d fit her in. Besides, he was the one who’d totally thrown her off-balance by showing up unannounced after her class.
She wasn’t the only one thrown off, she could tell. The darkness didn’t allow her to see his face, but she could tell he was stressed. He sat ramrod straight beside her and he gripped the steering wheel in a tight hold.
If that wasn’t enough, she could just make out the dark scruff along his jaw. Cory only neglected to shave when he was worn out. Lately that was happening more and more often.
“I hope you’re feeling better now.”
A sly smile crossed her face. Eureka. Maybe she could sex him into forgetting about her missing the meeting and his overloaded plate of work.
And that they were about to pretend to be in love, which was ludicrous.
She leaned up to suck on his earlobe. His audible grunt made her grin. “I’m hoping you’ll make me sweaty again soon,” she purred.
“About that.” He eased away and gave her an almost accusing glance. Funny how she had no trouble seeing that in the dark. “Though I don’t regret that it happened, I think we can both agree once was adequate. I’m hoping we can move on.”
Adequate? She’d come so hard she’d worried her eyes would stay permanently crossed, and that’s what he had to say for himself?
After many years of experiencing irritation at what left Cory’s mouth, the hot spurt of aggravation was far from surprising. What did surprise her, however, was how quickly it passed.
“I’m sorry to disagree,” she said pleasantly. “Once was not adequate for me, and I think the chances of moving on while I’m pretending to be your girlfriend are slim to none.”
“If you’re not comfortable in that role—”
“No, you’re the one not comfortable.” She reached down to cup his cock through his trousers and delighted in his frustrated growl. “Let me know if I can be of some assistance with that,” she added, pulling away when he scowled.
Her mask of confidence slipped as he reversed, wordlessly heading to his family’s farm outside of town. What if Tuesday had been the biggest mistake she’d ever made?
“Put your belt on.”
She sighed and did as he’d asked. “Yes, Grandpa.”
He grunted and lapsed into silence.
Fabu. Traveling to his parents’ place outside Haven took half an hour under the best of circumstances. With the thin, wispy fog now obliterating the road ahead of the headlights, it would add on another ten minutes at least to traverse the hilly country roads. And the fall air inside the car was even chillier than it was outside.
Not that she was one to give up easily.
“So…how has your weekend been?”
He arched a brow. “Fine. Busy.”
“I imagine it usually is for you. Isn’t that why you’re an insomniac? Never have much time to sleep, so your body doesn’t know what to make of it when you do make time.”
“Who said I was an insomniac?”
“You,” she said simply, fluffing her hair to avoid staring too hard at his sulky face. Though she knew he’d balk at that description, in this case it would be true. His concentration level for driving in the fog had added that little forehead wrinkle she could just barely see in the light from passing cars. “So what do you do when you’re up all night? You can’t work constantly.”
“No,” he admitted finally. “Sometimes I make lists.”
“Like of stuff you need at the store?”
“Hardly.” She didn’t need to look at him to hear the quirk of his lips in his voice. “It’s a simplified explanation, but for you, I’ll call them to-do lists. More like time projections.”
“For me. Ah, yes. Me who got a perfect score on my math SATs, almost a perfect score on English and skipped two grades. Right. Please do talk down to me.” But she wasn’t irritated. This conversation was just her and Cory returning to their natural conversational balance.
“Also,” he added, “I work out. Something you seemed to appreciate on the balcony.”
Only Cory could talk about his own physique and only amuse her rather than make her think he was a conceited ass. Okay, so he was a conceited ass, but she liked him that way.
A lot.
“I appreciated it at the yoga studio too,” she reminded him.
He stared straight ahead and gripped the wheel with more force. Soon his knuckles would crack. “Other times I chat online,” he said, evidently deciding he’d rather discuss his free-time exploits with her over ones of a sexual nature, including those she’d been party to. No matter. She’d work with whatever material he gave her.
“Oooh, porn?”
“Right.” He sniffed at her. “Astronomy porn.”
“Really?” She made her voice smoky. “Now you have my attention. Do tell.”
“Nothing to tell. There’s a local astronomy group, Celestia, that convenes online. They have a chat room.” He shrugged. “It’s better than watching bad movies on TV.”
“You know, some people do other things when they can’t sleep at night,” she teased, elbowing him. “You could always give me a call.”
Just like that, he lapsed into silence again.
Sighing, she laced her fingers together, hating the huge gulf that had opened up between them. Even when they’d spent years fighting over petty shit, it had felt natural to gripe at him. This did not. He’d offered her a couple moments of normalcy followed by an arctic blast meant to stonewall her until she gave up trying. As if.
So she decided to blast right through the wall.
“Do you throw yourself at women in gyms often or was I just lucky?”
He didn’t spare her a glance. “You got lucky.”
“That part I knew. I was there, remember? I just meant it seemed so untamed for someone as controlled as you. Did you up your intake of Metamucil or something?”
His quick grin shocked the hell out of her. “I know what you’re doing.”
Do you? Because I sure don’t. “What’s that?”
“You’re trying to get me to forget what we’re about to do.” He reached over to grip her hand. “I appreciate it.”
“Actually, no, I was trying to work my way around to apologizing for missing our meeting Friday, but this works, too.” She swallowed thickly, fixated on the sight of his big hand holding hers. If holding hands made butterflies whirl in her belly, what it would be like to have his arms around her? “I sort of lied about having a headache. I just wasn’t ready to see you, in case things were weird. I know that’s totally unprofessional of me, and it won’t happen again. I just thought I should be honest. Since we’re kind of friends and all.” She risked a look at him. He stared straight ahead. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes,” he said gruffly. He didn’t seem terribly enthused about the idea, but his agreeing at all was progress. “Which is exactly why I don’t want to ruin what we have.”
“We have something?” She hated how unsure she sounded.
“Don’t we?”
“We work together. And we have great sex together.” She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles and marveled that he didn’t tug his hand away. “Something I think we could perfect if given the chance.”
“With my schedule right now, I can’t—”
“I know,” she said quietly.
God, did she ever know. Already those old fears about ending up like her brokenhearted dad after her mom left home were trying to poke their way through. So much for thinking she’d dealt with all her abandonment issues. And she’d thought getting into a sexual relationship with a workaholic was a good idea, why?
Oh yeah, right. She hadn’t thought. She’d just gone for it. Now she had to deal.
“Then you understand why I have to keep this platonic. It’s less messy.”
Messy was one way of putting it. “I understand lots of things. I’m your friend, remember? You just said so and you can’t take it back.”
His small smile made her smile back. “I won’t.”
“You’re the one who said we had to work hard to be convincing with your family.” Even she could hear the overbrightness of her voice. She couldn’t let him say no, not when she’d finally pried open a minute fissure in his façade. “If we really can’t keep our hands off each other, that should go a long way to making it seem realistic, right?”
She wasn’t lying. She could totally have sex with him and not expect more. Since she hadn’t expected even that, she wasn’t about to borrow trouble.
She never did that. Drama llama? Absolutely not.
“Let’s just see how things go tonight, okay? Then we’ll proceed from there.”
She didn’t fight to hold on when he pulled back his hand. With the weather, he needed both for the wheel.
The next half hour passed in a blur of white-knuckled traveling, and once they arrived, introductions and chitchat. She knew all of his immediate family but she’d never met the entire assortment of family friends who were present.
“Trial by fire,” he said in her ear, guiding her from one person to the next.
Happily, everyone seemed pretty nice and no one appeared to have a vested interest in dubbing her a stinking liar right out of the gate.
Vicky soon found herself stuffing her face with crudités from the fancy setup on the sideboard in Cory’s parents’ dining room while watching her fake boyfriend out the window as he fed carrots to the horse in the pasture.
Though the rest of his family and friends congregated in the large kitchen, Cory stood in his dark jacket, gray sweater, and black pants, legs spread, unaware he was being observed. He looked cold. And so lonely that her heart ached.
“So, you and Cory, huh?” She glanced over at Dillon, who was filling his plate up with finger foods. “When did that happen?”
“Tuesday at six o’clock,” she said without thinking, her gaze still on Cory.
“What?”
“Nothing. Sorry.” She smiled cheerily. “I’m easily distracted today.”
Dillon popped a peanut butter-filled stick of celery into his mouth. “Staring after him already? That can’t be good.”
She forced a laugh. “You know how it is when you’re enjoying that first flush of infatuation.”
“You mean the go-all-night period? Yeah, I have some experience.” He grinned and licked peanut butter off his thumb. “With Cory that’d probably last about ten minutes in between appointments.”
“He’s an amazing lover. Just so you know.”
Dillon lifted his brows. “A little TMI, but glad to hear it for your sake. He blindsided us with you. Totally.”
Shit, Dillon was already staring at her with suspicion. She’d known him too frigging long. “I’ve been blindsided too,” she muttered, chomping on a cracker harder than she’d meant to.
“How did it happen? Just too many hours sequestered together working on the magazine?”
How did it happen? She’d traced the roots of her lust for him back to her first ninth-grade dance, but what was their “official” history? They’d have to coordinate stories. “Do you remember when I’d come over with my Girl Scout troop? You know, the field trips to see the horses and learn about how a small farm operated.”
“Uh, yeah.” Cue the first strange look of many, she was sure.
“He used to watch us come through, giggling as we always did.” She’d stayed with the Scouts right through high school, despite it falling out of favor with her friends. Not only had she been two years younger than the others in her grade thanks to skipping a couple of grades in elementary school, she’d needed the stability after her home situation had gone to hell. “Standing off to the side, just glaring. As if we were disrupting his ordered existence.” Sighing, she crumbled her cracker on her plate. “He always fascinated me.” Truth, all pathetic truth.
“Sure he wasn’t staring at you? He used to do that a lot.”
Her head whipped toward Dillon. “He did not.”
“You should ask him. Since you’re so close now, he’d tell you, wouldn’t he?” He clapped her on the shoulder. “So happy for you crazy kids.”
She frowned at his back as he strolled away, whistling. Yeah, he was humoring her, that much was obvious. He clearly didn’t think they were lovers. Dammit.
The first person she had to convince and she’d botched it. She’d have to do something to prove they were positively consumed with each other.
But what?
Chapter Seven
Cory shifted away from the shapely hip that seemed to be inching closer with every passing moment. Victoria hadn’t been dissuaded by his speech when he’d picked her up. Fine, half speech, since the moment she’d touched him he forgot how to form words. He’d been dismissive, almost rude, and except for a quick flash of hurt in her baby browns, she’d hardly stepped off-stride.
But it was early innings yet, and he wasn’t giving up. His parents wanted him committed to someone, so he’d put on a good show for them.
Assuming he
managed not to be committed himself before they left.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Raymond Santangelo announced, defying convention by toasting at the end of the meal rather than the beginning. Leave it to his family to be different.
Raymond waited while everyone picked up their goblets of wine, with the exception of Alexa’s sister-in-law Nellie, who had a belly roughly the size of a hot air balloon accentuated by her fluffy sweater. She and Alexa’s brother, Jake, had been invited to dinner as well, along with several of the neighbors from up the road, and various other stragglers he couldn’t identify.
One thing he could identify was the tension between Dillon and Victoria, which he assumed probably had to do with his fake relationship with her. Was Dill getting suspicious already? He was doing his best to ignore the palpable sense of unease between them, mostly coming from Victoria’s side. Wading into drama usually led to more of the same. He’d pass when it came to both that and the creamed corn.
“Hope you’re all feeling fine this lovely fall eve,” Raymond boomed, eliciting cheers.
Everyone fit easily at his mom’s ocean-sized dining room table, and miraculously she even had china and silverware for every person. Now they all stared at Raymond, who held court at the head of the table and was—oh, goody goody—smiling at Cory and Victoria.
She’d moved one of her wandering hands to his thigh. Hands, he noted, that were currently tipped in long, glossy red nails. His cock twitched in protest. There were limits to a man’s sanity, and Victoria’s long red nails scraped right up against the boundaries of his.
“I’d like to thank everyone for coming out to help commemorate one of our last dinners in our family homestead. Our wish was that one of our boys would move in and raise their own family here, but they have their own lives and have chosen to remain in their own homes, as is their prerogative.”
Cory gulped wine and stared at his stepfather. Looking anywhere else was dangerous. Bad enough Victoria’s nails were now skimming closer to his semi-erection. Silently taunting.