by Brie Kraus
Chapter 5
Emma’s chest heaved as she slammed the door behind; her pulse racing, she felt a strange metallic zing in her mouth that she couldn’t get rid of. She had to mentally slap herself.
She didn’t know why she reacted like this. He had only seen her in her underwear, but the way he had looked at her had been so…personal.
That’s it! It was time to nip this in the butt!
Not that Emma didn’t enjoy being checked out by sexy, men. She was human after all and no girl in history would have a chance of resisting the smile Julian had sent her, but he was just so arrogant!
The way he had looked at her when she said she didn’t know who he was told her that he didn’t believe it was possible that someone had no clue as to his identity. Could he be more vain?
Though, not long ago, Emma wouldn’t have cared if someone as gorgeous and heart stopping as Julian Brex had flirted with her a few weeks ago. She probably would have already tattooed his name on her arse, but now she knew what it was like; she knew how arrogant, good looking guys treated you and Emma had no intention of repeating her mistakes. So it didn’t matter how sexy he was, it didn’t matter that his smile made Emma want to rip the clothes off him and run her hands over his—UH!
Emma shook her head, reminding herself that she had to get her mind out of the gutter and back to fixing her already messed up life. She sighed and put on some dry clothes. At least no one knew where she was, that at least was going her way. a sharp, perky knock rattled the door.
God! Did he not get the message that she did not want to see him?
Emma stomped to the door, hoping that Julian heard her furious footsteps and ran back to his room. She yanked it open at the same time hissing, “Julian, I thought you got the message, leave me alo—”
But the insult died in her throat and a frenzied, half strangled sob rose up in its place because standing in front of her was not Julian, the annoying, sexy rock star from next door, but someone else with curly, black hair and stubble, well on its way to being a beard, deep set, brown eyes, with thin lips that curved up into a malicious sneer upon seeing her.
Luke.
He shoved his way into the room before turning with deathly ease.
“Hello, Amanda, or should I say, my wife?”
Chapter 6
Emma wanted to run and would have bolted out that door and as far away from the hotel as possible if her feet hadn’t been frozen to the floor. He looked at her, mocking her shocked expression; one side of his mouth tilted up and Emma was reminded of those Animal Planet shows where the animal grins right before it attacks its prey.
“Don’t call me that.” she said in a much braver tone than she felt.
“Oh well you’re right there I suppose. I can’t actually call you my wife, now, can I? You ran away from our wedding,” he said, with a smile, but Emma noticed the silent threat behind his words.
“You expected me to stay?” Emma only took a second to push past her fear of him. Who was he to come here and bully her around? Oh, that’s right, he was her fiancée.
“Seeing as I proposed to you and you agreed then, yes, I would say I expected you to stick around.”
“Well then, Luke, you would be an idiot. Nothing between us was real.”
He glared at her. “Oh, it was very real. Just because it didn’t fit your dreams doesn’t mean that it wasn’t going to happen—isn’t going to happen.”
Emma glared at him. “I will never marry you.”
He laughed so hard that his black curls bounced. “A few days ago you were begging me to marry you.”
Emma flushed to her forehead, remembering how she had gone to him and told him how excited she was. How they were going to spend the rest of their lives together, happy and in love. That had been before, before she had learned that she was the only person in that relationship who had thought it was real.
“That was before I found out that you and my father had decided for me a long time ago.” Emma’s hands curled into fists as she remembered the feeling of betrayal and humiliation. She’d been so sure that he had loved her.
Luke looked frustrated; a wrinkle appeared on his forehead, the same one that Emma had noticed for the first time the day she told him to stay away from her. “I don’t see the problem here, Amanda. You love me. We marry.”
“No!” Her teeth gritted. “I don’t love you! And for the last time, my name is Emma.”
He waved his hand like it was of no importance. “Whatever. It really doesn’t matter to me whether you love me or not. Tonight we are flying back to New York and then tomorrow we are getting married.”
“No.” Emma said.
Luke quirked a heavy eyebrow. “This is not a discussion.”
“I will never marry you.”
Before Emma could even blink Luke was across the room and shoved her hard against the wall. His hands squeezed her shoulders, bruising her skin before he loosened them and stroked her arms. She shuddered.
“Listen carefully, Amanda. I have been very patient with you, but the fact is you have come to be something I want very badly.” He ran the tips of his fingers along her chest as he spoke. “And while you are your father’s little princess, you know he won’t try to stop this marriage. You’ve run out of excuses.”
Emma pushed him away from her and stormed over to the window. Looking down at the bustling, foggy streets of London she felt like crying. She hadn’t cried in years, not since her mother’s death.
She felt stuck and hopeless. There was no point running again; the bastard had found her in less than a day. There was no point pretending that her father would protect her. Without a good excuse he would never let Emma call of the wedding with Luke. To her father, “I don’t love him” was not a good reason.
Emma gave a cranky sigh as she felt arms slide around her waist and another kind of sigh as she was pulled back against a firm chest and a tender kiss was placed on her neck. She spun around. What was Luke playing at, being nice all of a sudden?
But when she turned around it was, “Julian?!”
He just smiled at her, that same smile that had almost turned her into human Jello earlier that day.
Over his wide shoulder Emma saw Luke cross his arms. “And who are you?” he demanded.
Julian turned with Emma still clasped firmly in his arms and smiled at him.
“I’m Jules. Emma’s fiancée.”
Emma gasped. Rock Star say what?
Chapter 7
Jules spun Emma around in his arms so it looked like they hugged in a lover’s embrace, but all he did was press her face into his chest so that Like couldn’t see her look of absolute horror. He knew what she must have thought; and guessed that, in her head, she screamed “WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH THIS PYSCHO?!”
Jules’ own thoughts were not that different.
What was he thinking?! He couldn’t just come in and pretend to be some random girl’s fiancée, particular a girl who has made it very clear she hates him, not to mention the fact that he did not know her very well.
But he couldn’t explain it. One minute he was coming over to her room to—he couldn’t explain that either—and the next minute he saw Emma standing there in prime defensive mode while she called some guy, who looked like he’s just stepped from the set of a mafia film, an idiot.
Jules had laughed at first. This girl really didn’t take crap from anyone and when her stunning little face pouted like that, it did strange things to his stomach. When he heard Luke talk about marrying her and pressed her to the wall, Jules had seen red. Of course, he had not planned to say that he was her fiancée, but when he saw her go to the window she just looked helpless. It was like the tough, spunky Emma fell away and all that was left was a girl that Jules had only met a few hours ago, but knew he had to protect. He knew it.
Suddenly, Emma’s little hand touched his cheek and brought his face towards hers. To an outsider, Jules knew that it looked like an intimate gesture, but he knew that it wa
s only so that she could hiss in his ear a second later.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jules kissed her cheek and whispered back, “Just go along with it.”
She looked up at him and Jules’ breath caught in his throat. Up close, her eyes went from being a deep brown to a dark blue, so dark they were almost midnight. Lyrics spun around in his head and his fingers itched to find a pen and paper.
Emma sighed and twisted in Jules’ arms until she was faced Luke, who irate facial expression burned through the space between them.
“Luke, I’m sorry,” she said in an unapologetic tone, “but I do have an excuse for not marrying you: his name is Julian.”
Chapter 8
Luke’s eyes narrowed as Jules’ arm wrapped around her waist and then ran back up to Emma’s face before his eyebrows lifted up. He didn’t believe them.
Emma knew he wouldn’t; there was no way that she and Julian looked as though they were engaged. Despite he attempts to lean against his muscular body, she found it difficult to pretend to be engaged to someone she had met 12 hours ago, and wanted to murder. Not to mention that she had never been good at lying to Luke, who continued to stand there looking like the anti-Christ about to burn her at the stake.
“Hello.” Jules said brightly, “and who are you?”
Luke crossed his arms. “I’m Emma’s fiancée, Luke, or should I say, other fiancée.”
“Oh, you mean Emma’s ex? Emma, love, you didn’t tell me that Luke was in London.”
Emma stammered. Jules sounded so confident. “I—I didn’t know he was.”
“Well that would explain it then,” Jules smiled.
“You know who I am?” Luke asked, his arms uncrossing.
“Of course. Emma was upset yesterday, after what happened, but she knew that she could count on me to cheer her up. I can’t tell you how happy I was when she came all the way to London to see me.” Jules looked down at Emma’s stunned face and traced her jaw bone with his fingers.
“You came to London to see him?” Luke’s mouth thinned.
“Yes,” Emma replied. “Why else would I come here? You know I hate the cold.” As she said it, Julian pulled her further into his chest as though to warm her, and Luke noticed.
“And how did you know Julian Brex before? He’s not exactly someone you forget you’re dating.”
Emma gritted her teeth, AH! Even Luke, her stone faced, stuck in the last century ex-fiancée was a fan! She heard Julian chuckle into her neck and Emma almost fumed over. “None of your business,” she snapped.
“Now, now, dear,” Jules said. “What she means to say Luke, is that we met before last year, when I was touring, but—” his face darkened and for a second Emma thought he was actually in pain—“I’m sorry to say, that I left. So we were never really together, at least, not like we wanted to be.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed even further.
“So you can see why when Emma came back to me, I just couldn’t let her go again.”
Emma smiled at the glower on Luke’s face. Wow, Julian may be an arrogant arse, but that boy was good, she thought.
“I see,” Luke said. “Emma, are you really going to do this?”
Emma looked at Luke, and the message that she would be his in them, before glancing at Julian; she had no idea why he did this for her, but in that moment, she trusted that he would protect her. “Yes, I’m going to be with Jules.”
Luke smiled. “We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 9
“What the hell are we going to do?” Emma asked for the third time as she paced up and down her room.
Luke was downstairs, checking in because, of course, he would have to extend his stay to make sure Emma was “properly protected”.
Julian laughed from his relaxed position on the couch near the window. “Why do we have to do anything?”
“Be serious!” Emma shot back at him.
She tried to think, and it didn’t help that Julian sat there looking like some kind of fiery god, angel man as the light bounced off his hair and made his gray eyes shine. Emma huffed in frustration.
“I am being serious,” Jules said with a smile. “It’s simple. We keep pretending to be engaged for a while and glary boy downstairs bails back to whatever dumpster he crawled out of.”
Emma huffed again. “What part of that is a simple plan? And Luke happened to have crawled out of upper Manhattan, and I fear you underestimate his determination to get me back there, too.”
Julian raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back with him?”
Emma stopped. “As appealing as it is to get away from you, I would sooner lick the sidewalk than go with that A-hole.”
“Well then,” Jules chuckled. “I really don’t see the problem.”
“The problem is that you just announced that we are engaged and we haven’t even known each other a day. And since we met, I’ve wanted to decapitate you six times, how could we possibly pretend to like each other enough to get married?”
“I like you.” Jules replied with a sly smile.
“You don’t know me.”
Jules looked at her. He eyed her curvy but slim figure, her tousled brown waves still damp from the rain hanging between her shoulder blades, her high cheekbones and little rounded chin, and her eyes which called him to take her to bed. She’d do just fine.
“I know I like the look of you,” Jules retaliated.
Emma stopped pacing again and fixed him with a glare that should be able to kill him.
He smiled. “Just listen, angry boots. You can’t have thought that this would have no benefit for me, did you?”
Did she? Emma hadn’t thought about what he might be getting out of this; she just presumed he was generous in a freaky kind of way. “How could this possibly help you? I don’t imagine your fans are going to rejoice if they hear you’re off the market.”
He smiled again. “No, but that’s exactly what I need.” He paused seeing Emma’s confusion. “I need some boundaries. I love my fans, but they are a bit intense.”
Emma huffed. “I have the bruises to prove it.”
“So for a while, I thought that a girlfriend might dissuade them from me, but, then there was the problem of finding a fake girlfriend who wouldn’t end up falling in love with me.”
“You really are arrogant.”
“Exactly! That’s why I need you. You despise me. It fits perfectly,” he said, satisfied with his answer.
“Okay.” Emma agreed. “So, basically, if we did this, we would be each other’s shields?”
Jules nodded.
“There’s still one little problem. I’m not a good actor. How exactly am I meant to pretend I love you?”
Jules stood up. “You don’t need to fake affection—just passion.”
“What do you mean?” Emma asked as he approached her, making her feel like she should take a step back, but she couldn’t move.
“I mean this.” Jules said, pulling her to his body and his mouth cupped hers.
Julian Brex, the rock-star from next door kissed her and Emma’s heart spluttered, before exploding.
Well, she thought, passion wouldn’t be their problem.
Chapter 10
From Emma’s experience Julian was good at three things: music—there was no denying that, despite his teen-bopper following, he played guitar like Hendrix and sang like a smoky Paulo Nutini; looking better in a pair of jeans than any man had a right to look; and…kissing.
As soon as his lips touched hers Emma felt like she was on fire. It was highly unlikely that she was of course, but Emma would blame the fire for the reason her hands ran up and into his hair, one getting lost in the silky locks, while the other fell down to grab his t-shirt from his shoulder. Whether to push him away, or pull him closer, she wasn’t sure.
Jules couldn’t deny this was unexpected. He was a seasoned kisser; he knew what he was doing as he had done it many times, but he hadn’t inten
ded this. Jules had just wanted to give her a little taste of things to come, just a tease, but as soon as Emma’s soft lips parted under his, and she half whimpered, half moaned, Jules couldn’t stop. He had to pull her closer, had to kiss her a little bit more, had to—
Emma pushed him away. Jules stumbled backward until he fell, ungracefully, onto the couch. “Okay!” she said, then coughed, trying to clear the gruffness from her voice. “You’ve made your point.”
Jules ran his eyes from her flushed face all the way down to her knotted hands. “Oh, I haven’t even started making my point.” He stepped towards her. “Why don’t I finish?”
“No!” Emma held up her hands like a shield. “I am not a play toy. If you can’t reign in your libido then go get your frisk on with one of the 20 groupies camped outside the hotel.”
Jules smiled. “I can’t, remember. I’m off the market.”
Emma glared at him. “Sorry honey, I forgot.”
He chuckled.
“From now on let’s just keep the touching to what is strictly necessary.”
“Whatever you desire, my dear.” Jules quirked an eyebrow and Emma shot up in flames all over again when his voice slowed on the word desire.
There was a moment of silence as Jules looked at her with those laughing eyes and Emma contemplated punching him to make him stop.
“You should go get changed,” he said.
“Why?” Emma placed her hands to her hips.
“Because I’m hungry and have a very good reason for going out. Publicity.”
Emma cringed. She didn’t like photos; for some reason her face always ended up looking puckered and squinty. But she knew that she owed Julian this, and was relieved that he got something out of it. Not that she expected his plan to work—those groupies from the hall earlier were not lightweights. It would take more than a skinny, little American to ward them off of getting their hands on a piece of Julian meat.