by Nicole Casey
“So what do you think?” she suddenly asked me, popping me back into reality.
I looked at her with a look of surprise. I knew I was in trouble. I didn’t hear what the heck she was talking about. “Huh? Oh yeah, yeah.”
“Really?” she scrunched up her face. “You think I’d do good as a porn star?”
Wait a minute, what? I thought we were talking about her and my sister, how did we get to talking about Noelle doing pornography?
“W-well, you’re definitely hot and I bet a lot of guys fantasize about you,” I blurted out, hoping to catch up with the conversation somehow. “I mean, I know I would, seeing how damn gorgeous you are.”
She looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or just you being a pervert.”
I laughed and pinched her cheeks, “You’re beautiful, trust me. However, I don’t think you need to get into porn for money. Why do you need that kind of money anyway? What’s your job right now?”
“I’m a stripper,” she said with a sigh. I could see her blushing and I could tell she was a little ashamed of her current situation.
That was a little intriguing though. “Wait, you’re a stripper? Like a dancing-naked-on-tables stripper? Don’t you earn a lot from that?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “You’d think guys would pay a lot to see me show off my body but the reality is, a good percentage goes to the bar. I’m buried in debts and I don’t know what to do. I’ve seen ads for porn stars and to be honest I’m on the verge of walking into one of those.”
For a moment, I felt really bad, but then she cut my train of thought and suddenly asked, “I thought you were getting married? What was your girl’s name? Janine? Jenna? The one from our school.”
“Jenna,” I answered and gave her a sad look. “We broke up a few weeks ago. It’s my fault, to be honest. I was screwing around with some other girls at Mercury Wild and she caught on.”
Noelle looked at me with a frown, “Well, that is your fault. I just don’t see you sticking to one girl, much less getting married to one.”
Hearing those words made a light bulb flash in my head, “I have a crazy idea. It’ll help me convince my parents I deserve the inheritance and it’ll help you with all your financial problems. You have to hear me out on this.”
“Wait a minute,” she cut in. “Why aren’t your parents being more considerate with you? They just lost their eldest son, their daughter rejected their money and now they want to pry it away from the last son they have left?”
I rolled my eyes and nodded, “My dad’s really old fashioned. He doesn’t want to give the money away if he thinks I’ll just waste it all on fast cars, girls and alcohol.”
“So how’s your genius idea going to help us both simultaneously?”
I rubbed my hands together and just blurted it out, “Okay, before I say it, let me explain a little bit on how this will work. What I’m planning will impress my parents and it is guaranteed to get you out of the financial hole you’re in now. I swear this is going to work out.”
“What is it then?” she asked.
I winked and answered, “Let’s get married.”
5
Noelle
Was he joking? He had to be joking. I nearly choked on my donut when I heard him say we should get married. We just met again like five minutes ago and he was already proposing? How in the world did he get laid with so many girls if his pickup lines were this freaking stupid?
Granted, any girl would love to be in my shoes right now. I mean, come on, this is Daxter! He’s the hottest guy on the planet! If my mind wasn’t so preoccupied with his proposal I’d be thinking of how he could lay me down on hot sand and lick my skin from my belly to my lips… but no, I was too busy wondering if he had completely lost all common sense.
I took another look at him. He was indeed a hot looking man. Daxter always had chestnut hair but he let it grow long and neatly brushed it back, letting it flow with elegance and style. It paired neatly with the bright blue ocean of his eyes. However, while his style was soft and endearing his body was built like a machine; lean for efficiency but ripped with muscles. I could only guess at how often he must have spent working out at the gym.
“Hold on a minute, you were being serious?” I just had to ask to make sure.
Daxter nodded and his hands started waving around as he tried to explain, “Look, it’s not going to be real. I mean, in their eyes and the public’s eye it’ll be real. We’ll do the whole wedding thing and all the papers. However, that doesn’t mean you have to love me or treat me as your husband. We could never speak to each other and it’ll be fine.”
“So kind of like a fake marriage but it’s not?” I asked him. “It’s all for show? I still don’t see how this benefits either of us.”
He took a donut, dipped it in coffee, took a bite and then drank a bit before he continued on. “Well, one of the reasons why my family doesn’t trust me is because they think I’ll spend all the money on girls. That would have been true before. If I marry you then they’ll see I’m trying to be serious for once.”
“I get it,” I finally saw what he was getting at. “Once they see you’re being a bit serious about your personal life they’ll start to trust you with their business too. What’s in it for me?”
This is where Daxter really dropped the bomb on me. “If you marry me, I get to keep my family’s wealth. That means you have unlimited access to all that money too.”
Woah.
For a moment I had to breathe in everything he was telling me. It was like I suddenly got run over by a bus, except I somehow survived and won the lottery too. There was a lot to soak in with his offer but there was also one little monkey wrench in there: getting married.
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” I asked him. I learned in the strip club that a girl should never offer her goods without a down payment. He may not be asking for me to strip and fuck him but he was asking to use me, and in my book that was just about the same thing.
“Here,” he said as he flipped out his wallet. He wrote a check signed for three thousand dollars. “Take this. Use it for whatever bills you still have. If it’s not enough then come back to me but I’ll only give more if you agree to my plan. It’s a fake wedding anyway, what do you have to lose?”
I chuckled, almost to a sarcastic point, and told him, “A whole lot. Just think what people would say about me if we suddenly hooked up and got married on a whim. They’d call me a gold digger.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be too far from the truth,” he told me and I smacked him on the head with my spoon.
“Shut up,” I joked but at the same time, I was trying to be a little more serious. “Look, I appreciate the offer and the money but you can’t possibly be serious, right?”
Daxter looked at me with such big sad, puppy eyes it was like I stepped on his favorite toy or something. “I’m dead serious. Let’s do it. If it doesn’t work out we can get divorced and I’ll give you a million dollars for the trouble. Come on, it’s a win-win situation for both of us.”
I swallowed hard and looked at him for a long while. One million dollars even if it doesn’t work out? Unlimited access to everything he has if it does work out? I could pay all my bills, send some money home and start my own business so I wouldn’t have to rely on him forever. I could quit my job at the strip club and even offer Hannah a job once I got things going in the right direction.
“I am going to kick myself in the mouth for this,” I whispered to myself. I then looked at him and said, “This is crazy. This is absolutely bat-shit crazy. We haven’t seen each other in half a decade and the first things you do is stare at my tits and then ask me to marry you in exchange for mountains of cash. You know what the craziest thing about it is?”
“What?”
I exhaled, shut my eyes and then calmed my nerves before I looked at him once more and said, “The craziest thing here is that I accept your offer. Let�
��s get married.”
Daxter’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He had this really big smile on his face and I honestly felt a little moist between the legs when I saw him sit up straight and flex his muscles. Damn it, why was he such a gorgeous man? The way his eyes glittered just made me want to fall over and kiss him. I was almost willing to forget how insane and abrupt this plan was.
“Thank you!” he told me as he grabbed my hands and gave them a squeeze. “We have to get started as soon as possible. We don’t want to waste time or else my dad will sign the inheritance away.”
I bit my lip and pondered what the next step was. “What do we do now?”
“We have to make an announcement,” he told me. “We can organize something like an engagement party at Mercury Wild.”
I was taken aback a little, “Mercury Wild? That’s an expensive joint, right?”
Daxter nodded and gave back a wicked grin, “I know the owners, Trevor Wild and his wife, Jasmine. They’re actually really good friends of mine. You know, just a while back Mercury Wild wasn’t as successful as it is now. Everything changed because of his wife. It’s starting to make me really believe there’s a woman behind every man’s success.”
“That’s awfully profound but also a little cliché, don’t you think?” I asked him. “But I guess you’re right. If we need to announce it then that’s the place to do it. What else do we need to do?”
“Get a ring, start finishing all the paperwork and then move you into my place,” Daxter told me.
That’s when the blood drained from my face and my jaw dropped. “Wait, I thought it was just a fake marriage?”
He shrugged and reasoned out, “Well, we have to make it look real. It won’t seem real if we still live in separate homes. If you prefer, we can say we sleep in the same bedroom and all but I’ll give you your own room if you want.”
“L-let’s talk about all that later,” I tried to shift the topic and munched down on what remained of my meal. “Let’s get the engagement party done first and see where that leads us.”
He nodded in agreement, and I gulped down my coffee as one question remained cycling in my head throughout the rest of the day: what in the world did I get into now?
6
Daxter
Everything was going well according to plan. Mercury Wild looked its finest. Trevor and Jasmine really got the place spruced up for the big announcement. Some of our other friends even came in to help out fix up some decorations, clean the place and get it all ready for the party.
Of course, this was no ordinary party. I brought in our friend Damon, who was a professional football player in the NFL, and invited my sister’s friends who were all popular writers. Trevor got to bring our friend Preston, one of the richest billionaire celebrities, along with Preston’s new wife Lyla. My sister invited the mayor and with him added, this party was looking like the biggest event in town.
“Well, people are starting to arrive,” I told Noelle. I picked her up just an hour ago and we were here in the hotel room getting ready. I was hoping to bring her to my condominium but we had to go shopping for clothes first since she didn’t have anything formal and this was the closest place to get ready at.
I put on a nice black business suit and I bought her a sexy white outfit. It was probably a little too revealing, being a tight, off-shoulder mini-dress, but it looked amazing on her. She accentuated her look even further by pairing the dress with high heels, looped earrings and a gorgeous necklace we picked out at the mall a few minutes prior.
“Oh God, I can’t believe I signed up for this,” she said as she helped me button my dress shirt. “This is the craziest idea I’ve ever heard. I need to get drunk for this.”
I chuckled, “I have to admit that I’m nervous too. We have to sell this and make it look real. Well, we have to sell it to my parents the most.”
“When they ask what I do for a living, what do we say?” she asked me. She started fidgeting with her hair, unsure of whether to keep it tied in a bun or to let her long hair just flow down. “You can’t say I strip at a club.”
She was right about that. I frowned a bit and pondered what story we could come up with. “How about we say you’re a freelance model?”
Noelle blushed and to be honest I found it really adorable. “T-that could work. I’ve never really done that kind of work before though.”
I shrugged it off, “It’s just like stripping, really, since it’s still all about selling your looks to people except you get to keep your clothes on.”
“Okay, I can roll with that,” she said with a grin. “How do I look?”
I took a step back and gave her a quick look-over, “Wow. You’re smoking hot.”
She punched me lightly in the gut and joked, “You’re just teasing me. Come on, let’s go. We don’t want to make your parents and the rest of the guests wait too long. I can’t believe you got the mayor and Preston Maxwell to come as well.”
“Preston’s a friend of mine,” I explained as I reached for the bedside drawer and took my car keys. “As for the mayor, well, that’s my sister’s doing. She got to know him better when he went to one of her book signing events.”
That seemed to impress her. “Very interesting group of friends you have. I wonder why you’ve just settled to be the proverbial playboy.”
She was admittedly really cute when she was being a fan-girl like that. At least she was smiling when she looked at me. I didn’t know if she just found me amusing or if she at least found me attractive. Either option was fine, I guessed.
“Well, today’s the day that everything’s going to change,” I told her as I took her by the hand and we checked out of the hotel.
Mercury Wild looked more glorious than it ever had. What was once a luxurious bar and bistro was now decorated to look like a Sultan’s grand hall. Even I had to admit that Trevor and our friends really outdid themselves this time.
As soon as Noelle and I walked through the doors and everyone had their eyes on us, I pulled her close to my side and kept my hand on her waist.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise.
“We have to sell this, remember?” I whispered into her ear, reminding her we had to at least look like we were madly in love.
She fidgeted awkwardly but in the end relented and even placed a hand on my chest as we walked through the crowd. We greeted everyone we passed and I even got to introduce her to Jasmine, Trevor’s wife and a key leadership in the J&E Consulting Firm.
As we waded through the crowd, picking up a few glasses of cocktail drinks along the way, I spotted my sister. She was at the VIP table, accompanying my parents and the town mayor. She waved at me as soon as she spotted me, and I took Noelle by the hand and led her that way.
“W-wait, that’s the mayor,” Noelle started to get even more nervous. She clutched my arm tightly and said, “M-maybe you should go first. I can follow in a bit.”
I shook my head, “No, we have to do this together. Come on, just follow my lead. We can do this. Trust me.”
To be completely honest, even I was a bit nervous and unsure. However, I didn’t want to stall this any longer. My father could sign those inheritance papers any day now and I needed to get him on my side.
My father, a tall man with a baldhead and a thick mustache, was the very definition of a stereotypical rich guy. He looked strong, had an aura of authority and always wore the finest clothing that money could buy. My mother, on the other hand, was a little more practical and also more warming to approach.
The mayor, Adam Khatib, was about forty years old and a little hip for a politician. He was the type of guy many respected for his good work managing the city but he was also constantly seen watching live rock bands at local pubs and he loved to play music himself.
“Good evening Mayor Khatib, Mom, Dad,” I greeted as I got up on their VIP corner. “I’d like to introduce my girlfriend and fiancée, Noelle Stanley.”
7
Noelle
I
couldn’t believe I was shaking hands with the mayor… well, at least with my clothes on. I’ve had customers at the strip club who were pretty prestigious people such as prominent lawyers and even a professional basketball player.
“H-hello, good evening to you all,” I greeted as I took a seat between Sonya and Daxter.
“Hello dear,” Daxter’s mother, Carmen, reached out to me. “Have we met before? You seem awfully familiar.”
I nodded back with a smile, “Y-yes ma’am. I used to hang out with Dax back in high school.”
His father, Joel, handed me a drink and said, “Ah, yes, I remember you. You went out shopping with Sonya, once, right? How have you been? What do you do now?”
Oh shit. I took a sip of wine and hoped he wouldn’t notice the tension in my voice as I said, “Oh, I work as a freelance model nowadays. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t but I love it anyway.”
Mayor Adam told us both, “Oh, is that how you guys started hanging out again? Did you meet at the photo studio?”
Daxter picked it up from there, “Well, we’re friends on Facebook and we hang out with the same circle of people. It was just bound for us to reunite in the long run. I guess it was fate too because ever since we did I can’t keep my eyes off her.”
I blushed and leaned in to rest my head on his shoulder. I’d hope this gesture would make it look like we actually spent some time together and were comfortable as a couple. I then felt him wrap an arm around me and hug me in tight.