by Lisa Wells
She pushed out of his arms. “You and I are a lie. This is something I have to do alone.”
He didn’t argue with her. They were a lie. “Would you like to go for a run with me? It’s a great way to release tension before you drive. You seem too wound up to be a safe driver.”
She gave a somewhat amused laugh. “I hate running.”
“In that case, we could have sex again. You know, purely to help release your tension.” His words were meant to draw a smile. They didn’t work.
“I don’t think my heart could survive another night of sex with you.” With that comment, she started the dishwasher. “Have fun on your run,” she said before sailing out of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adeline let herself into Jack’s apartment around 8:00 p.m. She didn’t expect Jack to be home. She expected him to be out with the guys. Or something. Whatever bachelors do on Saturday nights when their pretend fiancées were AWOL. She expected a chance to take a bubble bath and cry to her heart’s content. An indulgence she hadn’t allowed herself on the drive home. Get home safely and then cry.
“Hi,” Jack said. He was sitting in her pink chair reading a book. Looking comfortable in a pair of gray sweats and a white T-shirt.
She stepped over Dexter, kicked off her shoes, and sanitized her hands. “What are you reading?” She could do this. She would make a little small talk, then say she was tired, and retire to her bedroom.
“Harlan Coben’s Deal Breaker. It was the most dog-eared in your collection, so I figured it must be good.”
She nodded. “It’s the beginning of a great series.” Her voice sounded brittle, but he didn’t appear to notice. Or if he did, his facial expressions didn’t give him away.
He laid down the book. “How was your visit?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She couldn’t talk about the visit. Not and keep her composure. Dottie had been beyond hateful.
His gaze probed her face like a surgeon probing for cancer, no doubt seeing all of the heartache she was trying to hide. “Are you sure? I’m a good listener.”
She shrugged and gave him a lackluster smile. “Things didn’t go well. I even spoke to Dottie in French, but there was no spark or flicker of the good memories.”
He stood and walked to her, holding his arms out. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine your pain.”
She made a muffled noise as he wrapped her in his arms. “It’s horrendous.”
He held her tightly, and she felt like the pieces of her heart that broke into a million pieces this afternoon were being carefully glued back together.
“I love her so much, and she hates me so much.” Before she could say more, sobs racked her body.
“Shush. It’s okay. She doesn’t hate you. Her brain is playing tricks on her. Focus on the good times.”
She shook her head in his chest. “I try. But I can’t. I just want…”
“Want what?” he whispered.
“I want Dottie to love me. Hell, I just want…” She stilled, pulled herself out of his arms. She’d been about to say someone to love me. She couldn’t say that to him. He’d think she was trying to manipulate him into saying he loved her. She gave him a watery smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be blubbering all over you.”
He gave her a gentle smile that crinkled his eyes. “It’s okay. That’s why I’m wearing my softest T-shirt. I’m primed and ready for you to lay your head on my chest and blubber all you want.”
She laughed despite the fact her insides were raw. “Who taught you that trick?”
He took her hand and led her to the couch. “My mom.”
They sat down beside one another, and she laid her head back. Closed her eyes. Still holding his hand. It felt warm and safe. “Dottie would approve of you. You’re good-looking and have a kind heart. She says that combination is hard to find in a man.”
She opened her eyes in time to catch him glancing warily at her. She let go of his hand and sat up straight. “Stop looking at me like you’re afraid I’m going to fall in love with you. It’s not going to happen. If there’s one thing I’ve figured out today, it’s that love sucks the soul out of you, and I want nothing to do with the emotion. From this moment forward, my heart is wearing full combat gear behind a sky-high electric fence, behind a brick wall.”
An emotion she didn’t recognize flickered in his eyes. “You can’t give up on love because of Dottie’s disease. That’s letting the disease win. Where’s your grit? Your backbone? Your fight?” he asked in a penetrating tone. Almost a pissed-off tone.
She pulled her legs underneath her. “I could throw the same argument back at you. You gave up on love because of one woman’s brain fart. Where’s your grit? Your backbone? Your fight?”
His features clouded. He raked his fingers through his hair. “Touché. I’ll take your argument under consideration if you’ll do the same.”
She nodded. “Deal. But not tonight.” She suddenly didn’t want to be alone. She wanted the buffer of his presence to keep her from sinking in a dark hole of self-pity. “Tonight, I want a night with my pretend fiancé. I want date night number two.” Funny, a night of crying in a bubble bath no longer sounded perfect. A night with Jack, however, did.
“Okay. What kind of date night? A public date night? A Netflix movie and popcorn date night? A date night of sitting quietly and reading books? A date night of starwatching on the rooftop?”
She grabbed a tissue off the end table and blew her nose. Sitting side-by-side and reading books sounded wonderful.
He pulled out another tissue, sat down beside her, and gently lifted her chin. “You have mascara where you probably don’t want it,” he said, dabbing at her cheeks.
“Oh.” God. Why was he so perfect? “How about we play a game of Aggravation while we watch another episode of zombies?” That should keep her brain occupied. Away from thoughts of Dottie. Away from thoughts of Jack’s apparent ability to reach through all of her protective shields and touch her heart anytime he wanted.
He dropped his hands to his sides. “I don’t have that game.” He tossed both of their tissues in the trash.
“I have the game in my treasure box.”
“Why is it in your treasure box?”
“Dottie and I used to play the game every Saturday night. She gave me my own edition when I moved away to college. Said me and my roommate could play it on wintry nights.”
He kissed her forehead. “Those are the memories you need to hold close to your heart when you go to sleep tonight.”
…
Jack wanted to make Adie happy. If she wanted to play a game, they would play a game. But he worried that it might not be a good idea for them to play one that would remind Adie of Dottie. Didn’t they need to do something that would distract her from thoughts of this afternoon? Sure, it would distract him from his own thoughts, but tonight wasn’t about distracting himself.
“What are you thinking that has you looking so fierce?” Adie asked him.
While he’d been sitting around waiting on Adie to come home, he’d done a lot of thinking. About his failed engagement. After the humiliation and anger of being left at the altar was over, if he was honest with himself, his heart didn’t hurt like it should. It had been bruised, but in no way broken. Which meant what he thought was love turned out not to be real love.
Those realizations left him wondering if that was why he was so against trying love again. Not only didn’t he trust women, he didn’t even trust himself to know true love when he felt it. What if he thought he was in love with Adie, encouraged her to fall in love with him, and then he decided it wasn’t love? “That I wish I could take your hurt from you so you wouldn’t have to feel the pain.”
She blinked. “Damn it, if you don’t want a girl to fall in love with you, don’t say shit like that.”
Her response startled him. Reminded him of what his sister said. “Thanks for the warning. Kinley would kick my ass
if I broke your heart.”
“She wouldn’t have to kick your ass. I’d kick it before I left you.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “You go grab the game, and I’ll order us a pizza.” He was really going to miss her when their charade was over. When she moved to Paris. How long would she stay there? “What kind do you like?”
“Hawaiian.”
Thirty minutes later, they were sitting on the floor across from one another at the coffee table, using cushions as seats, rolling a dice, trying to get their men out of home base. “Enough about me and my woes,” she said, rolling a six, which allowed her to get one of her guys on the board to victory. She was wearing her Wonder Woman pajamas. She rolled again, because you get to do that when you roll a six, or so she said. “Tell me about your day.” She moved her man four spaces.
He rolled the dice and got a three. He couldn’t get a man out of home base until he rolled a one or a six. He handed her the dice. “I actually had a pretty interesting day. My boss called.” Mr. Carpenter didn’t beat around the bush, asking him who Adeline was, how long they’d been dating, and when the wedding would be.
Adie stiffened. “And?”
“And he wants to meet you. Wanted to make sure I plan on bringing you to the company picnic.”
She grimaced. “So you were right. Debbie’s got a big mouth?”
He sighed. “I’m afraid so.”
She rolled the dice. Moved her man and picked up her beer and took a drink. “Jack?”
“What, darling?” he said, grinning when he rolled a one and got a man out of home base.
“Do you wish we hadn’t had sex?”
He swallowed the lump that jumped into his throat. “Are you regretting last night?”
She rolled two sixes in a row. “We made a promise to one another to keep this simple. There’s nothing simple about sex.”
“There’s nothing simple about you.” He pushed the coffee table out from between them and moved his cushion so that they were sitting together. “But I don’t regret having you in my life.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question,” she pressed.
He placed an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side. They leaned back against the couch. “I don’t regret what we did last night. I wouldn’t regret doing what we did last night every night. But I’m not going to pressure you.”
She turned into him and laid her head on his shoulder. “The sex was fabulous. Top-shelf stuff. But, I think, for the sake of my peace of mind, we’d better keep it to just the one time.”
He cursed in silence. That’s not what he wanted to hear. Calling upon all of his willpower, he said, “I agree. Last night wasn’t ordinary. It was extraordinary. I will honor your desire to leave it to just the one time.”
“Thank you.”
“Let’s talk about our story. The one we’re going to tell my coworkers about how we met, how I proposed. Everything. Because it looks like our third date is going to be a picnic with my work family.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Adeline stared at the house they’d pulled up to for Jack’s company barbeque. Her heart jumped to her throat with the velocity of a kangaroo trying to jump over the moon. Da-amn. Who could afford a place like this?
The house overlooked the Meyer Circle Sea Horse Fountain. A three-story brick house with a front porch large enough to boast four white columns and a half-dozen rocking chairs. And a red-brick sidewalk that was longer than a city block.
She’d never moved in these types of social circles. Someone should be taking bets on how many minutes until she blurted something inappropriate.
Jack handed the valet the car fob and took her hand. She was beginning to get use to holding his hand and having him touch her casually during their conversations. They walked to the front door in silence. It was a beautiful spring day.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked.
She glanced at him, and her heart thumped her ribs. He always looked sexy no matter what he was wearing, but today, he looked over-the-top sexy. And it wasn’t because of anything he was wearing, but more because of a glint in his eyes. A glint that had been there all day. A glint that marked him as a happy man, and a happy man, she discovered, oozed sex-appeal. “Probably not.” Why was he so happy? Was it because he thought the job promotion would happen today?
He squeezed her hand. “You’ll be great.”
Adeline took a deep breath for courage. “Before we go in, I need to tell you something.” After three days and nights of hanging out with Jack, doing things like dancing on the rooftop and reading into the wee hours of the night, she’d come to a startling realization. Saying no to sex with him was like saying no to a steady supply of oxygen. She wanted to change her vote on their sex situation.
He ran a hand down the side of her face. “What’s that?”
The front door flew open.
“Jack. Darling. We were wondering if you’d show. Come, let me meet this woman you’ve kept from all of us.” The gray-haired woman looked like she just stepped out of the pages of Vogue Silver. If Vogue had a Vogue Silver.
She was tall, slender, tanned, and wore a whispery white shirt over a pair of cropped white pants. Her shoes were a pair of red strappy sandals. This woman obviously did not plan on eating barbecue sauce.
She gave Jack a hug and then pulled back to look at Adeline. “Introductions.” For such a little thing, she had a very demanding presence.
“Yes ma’am. Mrs. Carpenter, this is my fiancée, Adeline Rigby. Adeline, this is Samantha Carpenter. The best hostess in Kansas City. And her daughter is the best interior decorator in the area. She decorated my condo.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Carpenter,” Adeline said, sounding stiff and unsure of herself.
“Call me Samantha, or Mrs. C.” She bestowed a kind smile on Adeline.
Adeline held out her dish. “I brought some potato salad. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Of course I don’t mind,” Mrs. C said with admiration in her voice. “It just means your momma raised you right.”
“Oh, I don’t have a momma,” Adie blurted.
Jack’s eyes widened, and he looked like she’d just poked him with a cattle prod.
Mrs. Carpenter didn’t miss a beat. “Well, someone raised you right. I can’t believe how many young people show up to parties empty-handed these days. Jack, take this basket. Place it in the house. Sage will get it set up with the rest of the food.” She turned to Adeline. “Sage is my daughter. I won’t lie. There was a time we’d hoped Jack and Sage might make a match. But, alas, they seem best suited as friends.”
“Your daughter is beautiful,” Jack said smoothly. “She’ll make the right man a wonderful wife.”
Mrs. C turned to Adeline. “You are coming with me. I have a thousand questions for you.”
Adeline watched Jack walk away, and butterflies caused soufflés to collapse in her stomach.
Mrs. C looped an arm through Adeline’s. “Tell me all about your relationship with Jack. Starting with how he proposed. I’m a sucker for a good proposal story.”
Adeline stumbled. She took a calming breath. “We ordered out dinner. Watched a couple of Hallmark movies. And then decided to go for a walk. We stopped for dessert at a new bakery. When I got to the end of my dessert, I saw the words: will you marry me? engraved in the plate.” She repeated the story they’d come up with in short choppy sentences, the words bouncing off of each other like lottery balls in a spinner.
“Oh, darling, that is just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mrs. C said.
Adeline laughed. “It is, isn’t it?” She loosened up. Mrs. C seemed genuine, and didn’t even care that Adeline didn’t have a mom. “And I never saw it coming from the likes of Jack. In fact, I thought it was a mix-up and glanced around the restaurant for another happy couple.”
“Poor Jack,” Mrs. C said. “He was sitting there waiting for you to squeal and you were looking around t
o see who the proposal was really for.”
“I know. Can you imagine?”
Mrs. C nodded. “Go on.”
“At first I felt so bad for the chef who had obviously made a mistake. But there weren’t any other couples. So I glanced at Jack. He smiled and dropped down on one knee.” Adeline forced herself to stop talking. Enough with the embellishments.
Mrs. C placed a hand across her heart. “I love a man who goes down on one knee for a woman.”
Adeline tried not to sweat, but she tended to sweat when she was nervous. And right now, she was full of prickly nerves like she’d swallowed a cactus. She wiped her hands on her skirt. Lucky for them she’d ad-libbed the down-on-one knee part; it seemed to garner some points with Mrs. C
But had she told the right engagement story? They had had a spirited discussion about what the best story would be. And then got distracted by what was happening in the zombie show. Which one had they landed on? Adeline went with his story.
…
“Jack, Adeline seems to be hitting it off well with Mrs. Carpenter. Why don’t you tell everyone the story about how you proposed?” said Debbie. He ran into her in the kitchen, and she’d escorted him outside where everyone was gathered after handing Adie’s potato salad off to Sage.
Jack shrugged his arm away from her. “We spent the day at Worlds of Fun.”
“Can you guys imagine that?” Debbie said cheerfully to the crowd. “Worlds of Fun? I would have never pegged Jack for a guy who would propose at such a locale.”
“Adeline has a crazy attraction to roller coasters,” Jack said, looking around at all of his colleagues.
“I always thought you’d fall for someone more like you. Someone smart and—”
He interrupted Debbie. “Anyway, after surviving a front seat trip on the Mamba, when it came to a stop, I looked at Adeline and asked her to marry me.”
Debbie laughed. “You proposed in a public setting?”
“At that moment, honestly, the rest of the world ceased to exist. All I could think about was how much I loved Adeline.” That was the first time he’d said those words…I love Adeline. They rolled off his tongue naturally. Of course, they were a lie. Part of their cover. Exactly as he’d promised her.