The only sign of change in him was a white line around his lips. “What makes you think that?”
She lifted his hand from out of his lap and studied the palm. His hands were long and lean and tanned, just like the rest of him, no jewelry to mar the perfection of his digits. She traced the path of his fate line right down the center, lifting her fingertip at the break in the middle, where the heart line intervened. “Because it says so right here in your palm.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true! Right here. I can read it clearly.” She moved her finger as if following a line of text. “It says, As he approaches middle age, Jake Montgomery will be homeless and desperate, and only fake true love can save him.”
“I’d hardly call myself middle aged.”
“You’re thirty-one. Compared to me, you’re practically an old man.”
He snatched his hand back. “Compared to you, I’m practically a saint. You’re nothing but a con artist. You don’t read horoscopes or tea leaves or palms. You make things up and cloak it in the occult so people believe you.”
“Oh? Then tell me I’m wrong about the needing a place to stay part.”
He didn’t, because he couldn’t. She almost laughed at his frustration upon finding himself stranded at the crossroads of disbelief—a place the devil rarely tread. How easy it was to write these kinds of predictions off as silly and unfounded, an ideal hobby for a woman as deranged as her. But what Jake didn’t understand was that there was more to reading fortunes than chance. She paid attention. She understood pain. She knew how to take what the universe gave her and make it fit in real life.
And she was right much more often than she was wrong. That meant something, whether he believed in it or not.
“How did you really know?”
She sighed. Jake obviously wasn’t in a place to accept anything more than the obvious, so she rationalized it the best she could. “You moved your bags into my apartment this morning, Jake. I’ve never known you to stay anywhere but in one of your family’s hotels.”
“It’s not that,” he said, his voice grumbling in a way that indicated she’d hit her mark. “Well, not just that.”
She waited to see if he’d offer the rest without prompting. She wasn’t disappointed.
“There might also be this tiny bet I’m trying to win. And before you start yelling at me, let me clarify that it barely qualifies as a bet—I’d define it more as a matter of pride. Monty thinks it’s impossible for a man to survive in this world without gainful employment, and I’m trying to prove him wrong. That’s all.”
“And to win, you thought it might be a good idea to get engaged?”
“So it seems.”
“Are you serious right now? Your bet-winning survival method is to trade gainful employment for a sugar mama?”
“I never said it was a good method.”
Becca burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. She’d been about two minutes away from a forced return to rehab, and here Jake was, making nonsensical wagers in an ongoing rivalry with his older brother. And everyone thought she was the messed up one.
“It’s not that funny,” he said with a glower.
“It’s pretty funny. You could have just asked.”
“I was going to. Things got complicated.” He continued his close examination of his hands. “We don’t have to do it if you don’t like it. I was only trying to help back there, and it seemed like the easiest way for us to both get what we want.”
“Oh, we’re doing it. We’re totally winning.” Was he kidding? Not only had he saved her from Tranquility Ranch, but he was offering to be her live-in bedtime companion for the indeterminable future. Madame Pernaud had nailed this one. A temporary partnership with Jake was exactly what she needed right now. She could sleep again, relax again, be herself again.
And maybe, just maybe, I can finally put Sara to rest.
She scooted closer, running her hands over the front of his shirt, reveling in the hard wall of chest under her fingertips. And a wall it was—not because of the delicious dips and lines of his musculature, but because he wasn’t moving. Not even to breathe.
She dropped her hands. “What? I wasn’t going to do anything. Your chest was right there. I only wanted to touch it a little.”
“If we go through with this,” he said, his voice low and intent, “can you promise me something?”
“Well, I’m not giving you my soul, if that’s what you had in mind.”
His expression wavered between laughter and impatience. The impatience won. “I mean it. This is serious. I can only do this in good conscience if you promise me you won’t get attached.”
Her urge to laugh wasn’t quite as strong this time. Of course that was what worried Jake, why he was refusing all her overtures, why he’d become a sexual fortress. Not that he was uninterested in sex or because he didn’t want her. He was afraid her instability might leak over and sully his hands.
Poor guy. Her instability did that a lot.
“Don’t worry so much,” she assured him. “I can safely say I don’t stand in any danger of getting attached. You’re the last man on earth I’d ever marry.”
“What?” His question came out as a bark. “Why?”
“Well, for one, I don’t particularly want to. You’re controlling and condescending and will probably treat your wife like an accessory only to be worn with the right outfit.”
These qualities were fantastic when viewed through a temporary lens. Controlling and condescending men made incredible—if precise—lovers, and she had no objection to being a bit of arm candy from time to time. But long-term?
No way. She wasn’t putting her happiness into the hands of a man like Jake. Even if he did somehow transform his entire way of life and become an ideal husband, love with someone who maneuvered his emotions as if they were chess pieces was far too risky. That kind of love—the painful, fruitless, never-ending search for more—was what had killed Sara in the end. She’d given up on ever finding it.
Which was why Becca didn’t intend to start.
“I’m not that bad,” Jake muttered.
“You’re pretty bad—when was the last time you dated anyone who wasn’t a supermodel?”
“I can’t help that the only people who find me attractive are tall, elegant, photogenic women. I have to take what I can get.”
Becca laughed and shook her head. She was definitely neither elegant nor photogenic, yet they both knew he could have her for the asking. “That was only my first objection anyway.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask about the second one,” he said. “What is it? Does it make you feel dirty to lust after your nephew? Do you have your sights set on a remorseless assassin from the wrong side of the tracks?”
“Nothing quite so exciting as that. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it all boils down to fate.”
“Fate?” The word practically burned on his tongue.
“Yep. You’re a Virgo and I’m an Aries. It’s the worst possible matchup under the stars.”
Jake waited for the punch line, staring at Becca as if he could will her into confessing something more—that maybe she had a secret husband already tucked away, or there was some kind of strange will in place that forbade her from marrying or she’d lose her billion-dollar trust fund forever.
But it didn’t come. She just sat there and smiled, purring against his side like a contented kitten, warm to touch and soft to pet. And that was it. The end. The incompatibility of their astrological signs was her actual reason for not wanting to marry him.
And he had no clue how he was supposed to defend himself against that kind of insult. No, I wasn’t born in the month of August? No, everyone wants to marry me because I’m irresistible?
He didn’t get an opportunity to come up with a third
option because Becca started moving again. Never content to stay where she was for long, she’d wriggled herself into a more interesting position and was worming her hand inside the front of his shirt, her fingers walking a dangerous line down his abdomen. He was inclined to let her keep going, to show her how little she affected him, but at the first graze of her fingertips under the lip of his belt, his nerve endings got up to make their demands.
They wanted more. And they wanted it right fucking now. It was dark, he and Becca had been drinking, and they were surrounded by pillows. They were also grown adults who’d performed a similar act in the past. There was no earthly reason why he couldn’t act on the urge to pull her on top of him and force her to scream his name.
Unfortunately, the only screaming taking place today was inside his balls. As much as it pained him to admit it, he’d somehow fallen headfirst into the only rabbit hole in the world where sex was forbidden to him.
He couldn’t bring himself to take advantage of Becca. Not when he was already taking advantage of her.
He lifted her hand away and, with a very clear tap of his fingers against his opposite wrist, managed to get himself under control again.
“Want me to give that a try?” she asked coyly. “I can think of somewhere else I might tap.”
“Goddammit, Becca,” he said. She was killing him here. “We’re definitely going to need to have a talk about personal boundaries for the duration of our fake engagement.”
“But I was just getting started down there. Give a girl a chance to prove herself.”
“When I want you to touch my cock, I’ll tell you.” He pinched her chin, drawing her close. So she thought he was controlling, did she? She had no idea. “And you’ll do it without a word of protest. Understand?”
Her pupils widened as she bit down on her lower lip, assent written in the flush of her skin. She’d do it too. She might have all sorts of ridiculous reasons why the incompatibility of their birthdates meant they could never be life partners, but if Becca was good at one thing, it was playing along. She’d play all the way to the bedroom and back again.
He bit back a groan. What had he gotten himself into?
“Of course I’ll do as you say.” She batted her eyes up at him. “Your wish is my command, Big Papa.”
He released her and sighed, any and all of his power in this conversation fleeing as suddenly as it had come. He should have known better. In order to get a normal, female reaction out of her, Becca would have to be a normal female.
“No way.” He held up a warning finger. “Not Big Papa. Anything but Big Papa.”
“Love Muffin?”
“Not if you value your life.”
She winked at him and rose to her feet. Without a care as to how much of her skin she flashed at him, she adjusted her skirt, transforming herself from a seductive, half-dressed mess to a seductive, half-dressed woman ready to face the collective weight of the world’s disapproval.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Pookie Bear.” She flashed him a serene smile as she gathered up their things. “I’ll find it. Just give me time.”
Chapter Nine
“I cannot believe you’re seeing Jake Montgomery and you never said a word.” Livvie pointed at Becca with her champagne flute, which contained much more sparkling wine than orange juice. “You sly thing. I could have sworn you went home with one of the Parker twins just last week.”
Becca brought her own glass to her lips with a smile. Brunch with Livvie was a fairly new tradition—part of her one-woman campaign to get her friend to occasionally emerge during daylight hours—and it had already become one of her favorite rituals. It was such an ordinary thing to do, eating and gossiping and flipping off the camera guys who’d camped out across the street, waiting for them to leave. It almost felt normal.
“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m seeing him,” she hedged. That was technically the truth. She was doing both a lot more and a lot less than that. Too much more, and too much less. It was an odd conundrum. “Think of us more as allies united for a common good.”
“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
“It’s not. Unless, of course, you consider it romantic for a man to spend three hours rearranging your closet while calling you the most useless human being ever to touch a coat hanger. He didn’t even make me dinner afterward.”
Livvie looked incredulously at her. “Are you serious? A friend of mine dated him about four years ago, and she used to tell us these stories about the lengths he went to for romance. Whisking her away on a private jet to dine in Paris. Kidnapping her and taking her aboard his yacht in the dead of night—and I mean that in the best possible way. Silk restraints, blindfolds, everything.”
Becca tried to ignore the twinge of jealousy these images evoked, of Jake binding her hands and using his obsessive compulsive powers for good. Of course he’d pull out all the stops when he was wooing a supermodel. That sort of thing required finesse. What the two of them had was a deal, an arrangement, a temporary partnership, just as Madame Pernaud foretold.
“Our relationship isn’t like that,” Becca said firmly. “He’s mostly looking out for me because we’re related.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re like his grandma or something, aren’t you?”
She laughed and brought a bite of mango to her lips. “Close enough.” There was no need to explain all the gritty details. One of the first things she’d come to learn about Livvie was that nothing could surprise or shock her. At twenty-five, she was only a year older than Becca, but she and her perfect cheekbones had been modeling for at least a decade. No one grew up faster than a teen model in New York City. Some of the stories she told made Becca’s heart hurt.
“If I tell you something, can you promise to keep it secret?” Becca asked.
“Of course. You know you can count on me.” Livvie smiled, flashing her teeth. “I’ve worn your underwear, Becca. There’s no going back now.”
She laughed again, so loud she startled the quietly conversing couple at the table next to them. With an apologetic grin, she scooted her chair closer to the table. “I thought we weren’t going to mention that ever again.”
“You’re so cute when you’re being a prude,” Livvie said. “Remind me to tell you some time about when a few of the girls and I got trapped on the Prague Metro overnight. You don’t know female kinship until you’ve survived that. I’m pretty sure I’m pledged to bear children for at least two of them.”
In that moment, Becca would have willingly worn any item of clothing her friend passed under the table. This feeling of affinity was a good one—much too rare these days—and she planned on cherishing it for as long as she was able. She didn’t do this sort of thing nearly enough. In the months leading up to Sara’s death, life had been such a whirlwind of parties and prior engagements that Becca had only seen her friend a handful of times, most of them in a social setting that made any real conversation difficult.
Never again. There weren’t many people who understood what it was like to live under the constant glare of stadium lights, but Livvie was one of them. Becca didn’t care if she had to blackmail her into coming out to a restaurant every few weeks. They would meet. They would talk. They would bitch about the men in their lives and discuss their fears and even share their goddamned underwear.
They wouldn’t get so lost they forgot there were people who cared about them.
“Jake and I are going to pretend to be engaged,” she said, watching with satisfaction as Livvie’s already colt-like eyes widened. “He’s not getting along with his family right now, and my mom is threatening to disown me if I don’t clean up my act, so we’re banding together in not-so-holy matrimony for a few months.”
“Pretending to be engaged? In actual public?”
“That’s the plan.”
“We’re talking about
the same man who has never dated any woman for longer than two weeks at a time?”
“I know.”
“The same man who was quoted last year as saying marriage is ‘the weakest, most easily dissolved contract in modern society?’”
“I know.”
“The same man who once broke up a wedding because he winked at the bride too suggestively and the groom took offense?”
“First of all, that one was never proved. And second of all, since when did you become such a Jake Montgomery fangirl?”
Livvie shrugged. “He’s cute—and his family’s hotels are everywhere. You know how much easier it would be to travel if I had a penthouse waiting in every port?”
“I guess relationships have been founded on less.” Becca laughed. “Our relationship is founded on less.”
As expected, Livvie was neither surprised nor shocked by the revelation. “Well, I think it’s genius, to be honest,” she said, and kicked back the rest of her drink. “Movie stars are always fake dating to get publicity, and you can enjoy all the perquisites of an engagement in the meantime. I bet Jake has fantastic perquisites.”
On that subject, Becca remained silent—and it was only partially due to the fact that Jake’s perquisites were off-limits to her. For all that he refused to consider the possibility of warming her bed in more athletic ways at night, there was an odd intimacy about the way his even breathing lulled her to sleep, and she was hesitant to shine a light on it just yet.
Since Livvie gave every indication she’d be happy continuing a discussion of Becca’s sex life—or lack thereof—for hours, she maneuvered the conversation to less dangerous waters. “Oh! You’ll never guess who was at my mom’s tea the other day. She’s part of the reason all this happened, actually. Do you remember Lulu? Lulu Callahan?”
“Hmm.” Livvie tapped on her teeth, her gaze thoughtful. “Tall, right? Great legs? Her family’s in finance?”
“That’s her. I was thinking it might be nice to invite her to brunch one of these days, if you don’t mind. She just got back from some kind of charity work in Somalia, and she seems a bit out of her element. I thought she was going to pass out during tea—and that was before I started attacking people. I’d like to make it up to her.”
When I Fall Page 10