“Of course I know that!” she snapped before dropping her head, but not before he saw the glisten of tears in her eyes. “But I also remember Mum telling me you should always hold on to love,” she muttered.
“Not when it causes pain. You cut it loose,” he said bluntly. Not that he had any experience of love of course. “You always were a dreamer, Izzy.”
She lifted her head again, determination back in her eyes. “Dad wants to come home. He’s anxious to know when the work will be finished so he can come back. It’s up to me to make it happen.”
He sighed. “Look around you. This is a huge task.”
“I know that. I paid for the electricians but I can’t afford any more trades at the moment until I earn some more money.”
“You can’t do this alone. And why the hell isn’t Ellie helping?”
“Ellie has her own problems to deal with. The whole world seems to know about those.” She sighed. “Besides she has helped,” she added with her tone defensive. “She recently paid off the money we owed for Dad’s care and the next two months fees. That’s a huge help. I don’t know how we’d have managed otherwise.”
Interesting, he thought, rubbing his fingers over his jaw as he pondered his next actions. The chair scraped loudly on the bare floor making her flinch as he pushed himself back and rose to his feet. “I’ll make some coffee,” he said, watching her mouth open about to protest and instead turning into a weak nod of agreement. He wasn’t surprised, she looked exhausted.
He turned to the sink and filled the kettle before flipping the switch on and locating two mugs from the exact same place they’d always been kept in. He placed them on the counter before he spoke. “When did you last see Ellie?” he asked with a calmness he had to will.
His shoulders tensed as he waited for her response. “Ah...it was three days ago. She made a quick visit. Is this the part where you tell me she’s in lots of trouble?” she asked anxiously. He was quite sure from her responses today that Izzy was completely in the dark about her sister’s plans.
“Not exactly,” he said, grateful that he had his back to her as he spooned sugar into their mugs. And he didn’t even take sugar. “Do you know where she is?”
“Wait.”
He didn’t turn but he sensed tension soar through her body.
“You’re asking me? From what Ellie tells me she sees more of you than she does me and Dad. What’s going on? Is she...is she using again?”
He spun on his heel then. “It’s not that.” Thankfully Ellie’s drug exploration had been brief. The unfortunate loss of her career had been a wake-up call.
Izzy’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, thank God. Then what?”
“I need to know where she is, Izzy.”
“And I need to know why,” she responded equally as forcefully as he had. “When did you last hear from her?”
He leaned against the back of a chair, gripping the wood until it dug into the heel of his hands. “Two weeks ago.”
“I don’t hear from her for months usually, so how the hell is that a problem?”
He paused to take a deep breath. “We’re getting married.”
Izzy gave a humorless laugh as she squeezed her eyes tightly closed. “Oh God, I’m much more tired than I thought. For a minute there I thought you said you were getting married.” Her shoulders began to shake then as a giggle burst from her lips.
Jack clenched his jaw. “You heard right.”
She was silenced for a moment as she peered up at him through widened eyes. Her mouthed twitched at the corners before laughter broke free in earnest.
“It’s no joke. We’re getting married in two weeks.” Or so he hoped anyway. If not...
The laughter continued. “But you...and Ellie... Married?” she managed to choke out.
Jack fought back his impatience as her body shook with unsuppressed humor. At his expense.
“You didn’t get her pregnant, did you?” she asked.
“God no,” he ground out. “Let’s just say she got us into a sticky situation and the only way out is to get married.”
Her hand pressed to her chest as though she were struggling for control. “You don’t mean a marriage of convenience?”
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth, although he failed to see the convenience of it.
“Oh, this gets better.” She laughed as tears spilled over her cheeks, tracking through the dust on her cheeks. “Jeez, what century are you living in?”
“This was Ellie’s idea not mine.”
“And you were stupid enough to go along with it?”
“I have to.” He paused as he gripped the chair until his knuckles whitened. “And if I can’t find Ellie then you will have to take her place.”
And just like that she was silenced.
Chapter 2
He was clearly delusional.
“You are joking, right?” Izzy asked, although Jack’s unflinching mask of granite face and fixed gaze already confirmed the answer she didn’t want to hear.
He shook his head.
“So what the hell did you two get yourselves into this time? Or did you change your mind about marriage being worse than death?”
Those steely eyes flared to life. “You really do have a good memory, except I actually said that marriage is a death sentence. And,” he growled, “you mean what did your sister get me into this time.”
“And you let her? Did she steal your big boy pants?” she scoffed. Since when did anyone get the upper hand on Jack?
“Thanks for the sympathy. Sleep deprivation doesn’t become you, Izzy. Makes you as grumpy as hell.”
“What? My mood has nothing to do with sleep. Maybe I resent the fact that I haven’t seen or heard from you in years, and when I do it’s only because you’ve got into another mess with my sister!”
He straightened from the chair and folded his arms, drawing attention to his height and the breadth of his shoulders. It was a fine view but she hated looking up at him, it multiplied his presence ten-fold, distracting her as she tried to retain her anger toward him.
His face softened and he smiled. “You missed me, Iz,” he said in a husky voice that she couldn’t decide if it were laced with question or smug satisfaction. She guessed it was the latter.
“No,” she snapped. “Yes,” she admitted with a grudging sigh. “I did miss you. You left without saying goodbye. I know you and Ellie were close but I was your friend too.”
“I had to leave,” he said softly, his gaze breaking away and fixing itself on the floor.
“I know. I understand that, but you kept in touch with Ellie, bailed her out a few times too she told me.”
“It wasn’t intentional. I thought you would be better off without me.”
“That should have been my decision. I would rather have heard about your life from you, instead of reading about it in some glossy magazine and from Ellie’s words.”
“You read about me?”
“It was hard not to. If you wanted to keep a low profile, modeling probably wasn’t the best career choice.” In fact, it was a surprising one. Despite his couldn’t-care-less attitude about school, he always proved to be studious and continuously got excellent grades. She often imagined him as a lawyer, or an architect…anything he put his mind to really. He certainly never cared about his looks. He didn’t need to, the girls in school paid attention to those for him. And sometimes he didn’t seem to like that attention.
“It was necessity, not choice. I left here with barely a penny in my pocket and nowhere to live.”
The harshness of his tone deflated her temper, dragging her taut shoulders down with it. “You could have stayed with us,” she said in a thickened whisper.
He shook his head. “No. No, I couldn’t. So when I was approached by a modeling agent offering me much needed money, I took it. I hated doing it, but along with a multitude of other jobs, I earned enough money to finally be where I am now. My own boss. Dependent on nobody but myself.”
“And that makes you happy?”
“Happier than I was living here with my family.”
“You know they don’t live here anymore, don’t you?”
His nod told her he knew and didn’t care.
“And you’re willing for marriage to take away that independence?”
“Not exactly willing, no. It’s necessity. A temporary arrangement.”
“Temporary? A marriage of convenience makes a mockery of vows, Jack, but to use it as a temporary fix…” She broke off as she shuddered.
“So you still waiting for your Prince Charming, hmm? Take away the hearts and flowers and marriage is just a legal bind. An expensive piece of paper.”
She pinned him with a glare. “Not for those who do it for the intended reason. Love!”
“So if it’s so great why haven’t you tried it yet? Lecture me about love and marriage when you’re not single and you know what it feels like.”
“And what makes you think I am single and not feeling it?”
“If you were in any kind of relationship you would be getting help here right now. Also last night you would have been in his bed and not as uptight as you are now.”
“Uptight?” She planted her hands on the table, pushing forward until her ribcage painfully met wood. “Uptight! What do you expect when you turn up out of the blue and demand marriage from my sister?”
“I didn’t demand marriage from her, that’s already arranged. I just need her whereabouts.”
“I couldn’t tell you that even if I wanted to.”
“And you don’t want to.”
She folded her arms across her chest as she noticed her breasts were showing their anger too, trying to fight themselves free of her unbuttoned shirt. Not that Jack would have noticed. She lifted her chin as she tilted her head to the side. She couldn’t breathe with him looking down on her.
“You haven’t given me reason to,” she muttered.
“Then allow me to try.” Jack dragged a hand through his hair, giving a sigh almost as weary as her body felt and sat down again. “I was about to secure a property deal—a very important one—when Ellie turned up at the club unexpectedly. Later I decided I needed to take her home, and unfortunately, because of the celeb guests, the paparazzi were out in full force and me and Ellie were photographed—”
“Stop!” Izzy yelled as she held up her flattened palm. “Please spare me the details.”
“What?”
“Allow me to fill in the blanks. You were caught in a compromising position right? As in the up-against-a-wall kind?”
“How did you...”
Izzy swallowed against the dryness of her throat. Just the dust she told herself. “Remember I told you the last I saw of you was your bare behind? That was the last time I saw you in person,” she amended as she shifted the position of her feet. “The last time I saw you was a few weeks ago.”
“Ah, you saw the picture in the papers?” he asked with a grimace.
She fixed him with a nonchalant stare. “You mean the one with you and Ellie pressed up against each other down an alley? Oh yeah, I saw it. There wasn’t enough eye bleach available for that one.”
Jack’s dark head lowered toward her. All expression was removed from his face but she could see the grind of his jaw. “That wasn’t what it looked like either.”
“Really? The picture clearly showed you with your hands on her bare thighs, and your legs tangled.” She knew because she’d studied the picture over and over, wondering why Ellie hadn’t told her about it and, if she was honestly wishing she was her sister. She’d envied Ellie for knowing his touch. Craved the feel of his hands on her naked skin.
She loved her older sister, she really did. But when she opened the newspaper and had seen them together, pictured embracing in an alleyway with Jack’s hands beneath Ellie’s short dress, it was like a punch to the gut.
“She was drunk, Izzy, and upset.”
Was it the same day as the anniversary of the loss of their mother? Izzy couldn’t help but wonder. It would explain why she hadn’t spent the day with her and their father.
“My car was parked in the alley and Ellie was stumbling everywhere. I couldn’t find my keys—”
“So your hands stumbled up her dress to find them?”
“No,” he ground out. “My keys were in my pocket and I couldn’t reach them and hold Ellie up too. I leaned her against the wall and the next thing she was throwing her arms around me and sliding down the wall. I had to stop her from falling.”
“With your tongue?”
“She kissed me. I don’t think she even knew who I was at that point.”
“Not even when you were between her thighs?”
“You jealous, Izzy?”
She snorted. “You wish.”
“Then would you have preferred it if I’d let her fall? I heard somebody coming and I tried to shield her from view. Would the picture have looked better with her on the ground and her dress around her waist? I don’t think she needs more of that kind of publicity, do you?”
Although she wanted to disagree with everything he said she had to admit he was right about that. Ellie had had a slow rise to fame, and a whiplash-inducing crash to the bottom only years later. And unfortunately the media had short-term memory and the crash of her career was all they remembered.
“No.” She sighed. “But it still doesn’t explain why you have to get married.”
“Part of that property deal is me showing what a moralistic person I am. Sentimental fool will only sell to someone with good intentions toward the property.”
“So buy something else.”
“No. I have to have this, Izzy. It’s personal.”
“I assume he saw the pictures?”
“Yes. I saw a flash but it could have been anyone. I didn’t expect it to be plastered in the papers the next day. I guess ex bad boy model and shamed singer still garners attention.”
“Couldn’t you talk to the vendor and explain?”
“I would if I’d known I had to. I took Ellie home with me because she wasn’t safe to be left alone. It was the weekend so I went into the office early, unaware of what was unraveling. Daleford wanted an explanation and called my apartment instead of my office. Ellie knew I had this deal going through and introduced herself as my soon-to-be wife and apologized on our behalf.”
“And he didn’t accept this?”
“He did more than that. He invited himself to the wedding!”
“Broken engagements happen all the time. Surely you could talk your way out of it.”
“No. He told me how delighted he was for me and how marriage would prove how family orientated I am. More worthy of his property,” he said with derision, making her wonder why he was going through the effort.
“And this property deal is worth all of this?”
“Yes. So you see, no Ellie, no wedding, and no deal. If you can’t persuade her to come back and go through with it, then you will have to take her place. You look enough like her to get away with it.”
“The hell I will! Ellie has no obligation to marry you and neither do I.”
“Really? How about the money I paid her?”
“You bribed her? How could you?”
“Izzy.” He gave a harsh sigh. “It was her idea. Her plan. She came to the club that night to ask for money. I said no. She was in a drunken state and I wasn’t sure what frame of mind she was in to know if it was to be used wisely. So when she told me how delighted Daleford was with our news, and how she’d convinced him we were in love, she named her price.”
Izzy dropped her head into her hands, her pulse pounding in her ears and stifling her thoughts. “Then you deal with Ellie, not me. This crazy idea has nothing to do with me.”
“But it does. Where do you think the money came from to pay off your debts? If I can’t find Ellie then that debt becomes yours.”
“I owe you nothing!”
“I either get marriage or my money back.”
>
“But I have no money.”
“Exactly.”
She took great pleasure in plastering a smug smile on her face. “Unfortunately, there are huge flaws in your plan. One, I don’t lie. Two, I won’t sacrifice what should be the best day of my life for your mistakes. Three, I don’t lie. Four, I’m pretty sure signing my name on a marriage certificate intended for someone else is illegal. And five, I don’t lie! I can change my looks, but I can’t change my name. I have work lined up I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Not when you see the amount.”
The heat of anger scalded her cheeks. Why should I pay for my sister’s mistakes? “I can’t believe you would do this to me, Jack.”
“I don’t want to, Izzy, but I have no choice.”
“You two talked your way out of everything in the past. Forged signatures at school, fake ID, fake stories. Why the hell couldn’t you have a fake wedding?”
* * * *
Izzy’s gaze finally tore away from his. The brown of her eyes looked like molten pools of dark chocolate flecked with gold and the accusation of hurt. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but if he looked into those wounded eyes any longer he feared he would sway from his path, and that wasn’t an option.
“I’ll finish making that coffee,” he muttered as he stood up and walked slowly over to the kitchen sink, wanting to gain as much thought time as possible. He glanced back, satisfied that her only response was to drop her head onto her flattened hands. They both needed time to think.
How could he have not seen his plan was unworkable? He didn’t make mistakes. Especially ones like this. Of course they couldn’t be legally married with Izzy using her sister’s name.
Staring out of the window, he frowned as his gaze perused the overgrowth of the once much cared for garden. He averted his eyes from the tree house sitting in the corner, ironically still strong in comparison to the house, and as comforting as the day they’d built it together. He huffed out a sigh. He couldn’t dwell on memories, he had to forget the nights he’d snuck in there to sleep and the days he’d spent in there with the two girls who accepted him as friend and in turn accepted him as an unofficial protector. The big brother they’d never had.
Best Fake Day Page 2