by Lila Price
Before I can explain that this epic love story is fake, Dad gestures for me to sit on my bed. I do, and he sinks into the chair by my desk.
“You never said anything about a boyfriend,” Dad says. “Especially a famous one. You never said anything about how you met him, or how it is that I found out about my daughter being involved with him from social media rather than an announcement over dinner from her.”
“Believe me, Dad, this whole thing took me by as much surprise as it did you.” Ain’t that the truth.
He frowns, then adds, “It’s just sudden. You’ve never brought home any boyfriend before, then there was…this.”
Boy—he can’t even refer to Eli as anything other than this. Weirdly, I feel the need to defend the guy. Go figure.
“Well, Dad, there’s been no one quite like Eli before.”
Then something very strange happens: a little of the exhaustion lifts from Dad’s shoulders to reveal a hint of the hope he usually carries. Maybe he’s not exactly happy that his daughter seems to have chosen someone as imperfect as Eli, but it seems that Dad is only waiting for me to tell him that I’m not made of stone after all and there’s a chance I’ve finally discovered that I can have fun like any other girl out there. Maybe he’s even thinking that I can turn Eli around and make him a better man because I’m just that awesome.
My heart bends in my chest. I don’t want to tell Dad the truth right now—that Eli is a prick who thinks he knows how to fix both our lives, even though I want no part of his plan.
My hands are clenching my knees, and Dad reaches over to touch his fingers to the top of mine.
“All you have to do,” he says, “is tell me that Eli Brennan loves you enough to stick up for you. That would be a good enough start.”
“Stick up for me?” With the media? What exactly is Dad talking about?
When he chokes back words and his eyes go watery, I turn my hand over so I can hold onto him. But as I start to speak, he abruptly stands and leaves the room, as if he doesn’t want to lose his composure in front of me. It’s only after he leaves that I see Ivy standing near the doorway.
My sister is sweet sixteen and has light blond hair and big blue eyes. Dressed in her restaurant T-shirt and skirt, she must’ve rushed right home after she texted me. But something no doubt happened between there and here because sadness weighs in her usually bright gaze.
When I send her a confused look, she comes in and shuts the door behind her.
“Randal Preston fired us,” she says. “That’s what’s eating at Dad.”
The news takes a moment to sink in: my family, fired from cleaning Preston’s big house. And after a stunned second, I know the reason.
Preston is ticked off because Eli chose me over his precious daughter Lulu, and he’s making my family pay for it.
Anger boils in my veins. “That jerk must’ve gotten wind of Eli and me,” I say. And now our family business has lost a client we so desperately need. Our budget balances on such a high wire that we can’t afford to lose any business.
Ivy sighs and looks out the window, where the desert sun is waning. “The news couldn’t come at a worse time.”
“Is there ever a good time?”
“There’s been better.” She crosses her arms under the curvy restaurant logo on her T-shirt. “Mom had a bad day.”
She’s been having a lot of those, and I’m not stupid—this means her illness is getting worse. She’ll need expensive meds. The doctors have even been recommending physical therapy in the near future. Our insurance might cover some of that, but with every week that passes, she needs more care, and we can’t afford to hire extra help to cover our cleaning shifts. Soon, one of us will need to quit working to feed her and do everything we can to help her. Then where will the money come from?
Ivy wanders over to the pillows on my bed, where I still keep my old, well-loved stuffed animals. She grabs a teddy bear and hugs it to her, resting her chin on its ratty head. “So is Eli Brennan the kind of guy who’ll stick up for you with his boss? Do you think he can get us hired again?”
I’m speechless, even as I’m thinking, Probably not, but he’s got plenty of work for me…if I would just drop my dignity and take it.
But he got us into this situation, and if he were any kind of man at all, he’ll get us out, especially after I tear into him again.
“He’d better make this right,” I say. “Mark my words.”
Maybe it’s the fire in me that perks Ivy up, because she squeezes the bear to her and smiles. It’s the little-sister smile I’ve seen all my life—one that warms my heart because she thinks I can take care of anything.
“So,” she says in an excited whisper. Now that I’ve reassured her, the subject has changed. “Eli Brennan? You minx!”
“Really, Ivy, it’s nothing to get pumped up about.” I’ll tell her the whole story after I’ve confronted him. Good times ahead.
“How could you not be pumped? He’s hot, Jen. Oh my god, you’ve got to tell me everything, like your first glance, your first smile…” She bounces up and down on her toes. “Your first kiss! Did you meet him when you were cleaning Randal Preston’s house one time? Is that why Preston’s so ticked? Because you were hooking up on the job?”
Pretty decent guess.
She hasn’t stopped for a breath. “You are so bad! And why didn’t I volunteer to clean that house? Then I could’ve met Eli Brennan!”
My hackles rise, and not because I’m jealous. Ivy is just a kid, and although I’m sure Eli doesn’t like ‘em that young, I don’t even want to entertain the thought.
“Ivy,” I say, standing up. “Don’t you have a job to be doing?”
“It was dead at the restaurant, so I left a half hour early. I want to talk about Eli.”
And I need to talk to Eli.
I glance at the window, then at the clock. The sun’s about to go down, cooling things off, and it won’t be too hot if I take a head-clearing walk. It’ll also give me time to yell at Eli on the phone, away from prying ears. After I guilt him into sweet-talking his boss back into hiring us, then I can tell my family what’s really happening.
I can fix this.
After I tell Ivy that I’ll give her the full scoop later, I shoo her out of my room, put on a sports bra, tank top, shorts, and walking shoes, then grab ear buds to plug into my phone. I stop by the family room, where Mom is still watching TV, catching up on shows she recorded on our ancient video player.
She looks so small and stiff in her favorite chair, with its weathered pattern of roses. Her curly hair, woven through with silver strands, is still in the ponytail I put it in this morning when I helped her get ready. She’s lost so much weight recently that I feel as if she might break if she moves too quickly, which she won’t. Not anymore. All we can do is treat the Parkinson’s that has slowed her down and corrupted her body, not cure it, and I’ll be damned if she gets any worse.
As she gradually smiles up at me, she rubs her thumb and forefinger together. “Are you going out again?”
“Just taking a little walk. I’ll be back soon.”
I kiss her forehead and give her one last smile before I go out to untangle the mess we’re now in because of Eli.
I don’t see Dad anywhere as I walk out of our apartment. His car isn’t parked in its usual slot, and he’s probably gone out to pick up a prescription or the few groceries we can afford. The night is still warm, combing over my skin, but there’s a slight, welcome breeze as I head for the sidewalk, already dialing Eli’s number.
The phone rings and I seethe. But it’s not all anger. There’s something else pounding inside of me, because I can’t forget today, the hallway, his hands and mouth on me…
“I knew you’d be calling.” His low, velvet voice smooths over me in forbidden places.
“Did you also know that your boss fired my family?” I ask as I stalk down the sidewalk.
Silence on the other end.
And then I go quiet as I r
ound the corner. Because there, behind a gutted, abandoned convenience store, I see a peek of red.
Eli’s Ferrari?
Heat blasts through me. Did he stealthily follow me home after he pretended to leave and that’s how he knows that this is my neighborhood?
I march toward his car. “Were you here the whole time? Did you think that I’d reconsider and come running to you so you could drive me around town with the sunroof down, having me wave to everyone so they’d post more pictures of the new, happy couple online?”
As I come around the building, I can see he hasn’t gotten out of his car yet.
“Actually,” he says, “I was about to call you. I went to the gourmet market and bought a bunch of stuff your family might like. I figured, why not get into their good graces with some—”
“Titanium balls. That’s what you’ve got, and they’re the size of damned planets. Do you know that Randal Preston fired my family or not?”
After a pause, the passenger door opens, and I see into the car. My breath hooks in my lungs and I stop cold.
It’s not only due to the sight of Eli in the driver’s seat, his silhouette looming in the coming night. It’s because there really is a box stuffed to the brim with bags and flowers. Food. The good stuff. A special delivery of high-class groceries that my family will eat right up since we’ve been existing on dollar-market grub all our lives.
Eli gets out of the car, and my pulse blasts, surging through me like a roll of flame.
“I’m going to make it up to you, Jenna,” he says as he lowers his phone to his side, his gaze cloudy. “You can believe that.”
Chapter 8
I’m not going to let him coo to me and cleverly maneuver his way out of this. Even if he’s standing there with a peace offering, he’s still the reason our livelihood has taken a hit.
“I don’t want anything you have to give me,” I say. “You have no idea how much every client means to us. To lose even one is going to set us back…” I choke on this. I can’t talk to him about Mom.
He glances at the rundown convenience store, its innards exposed because of the crumbling wall. It looks better than the rest of the neighborhood, but Eli seems to know this is actually my community, and I was only pretending when I had him take me a few blocks over to that nicer condo complex.
“Besides everything else you’ve presumed to do today,” I say, “you seem to have followed me here.”
“No, I just did a quick online search. It wasn’t tough to find out more about you.”
I can see something that passes as compassion in his gaze. Even though I don’t spill my life out online for the world to devour, my sister exuberantly over-shares, and I’m cyber-connected to her. She even has a blog about Parkinson’s since she’s taken it up as a personal cause.
“Goddamn, Jenna,” Eli says. “You didn’t say anything to me about your mother today.”
I tense up. “Why would I tell you?”
He looks at the ground. “True. You’ve got some pride. You’ve got a lot of qualities that make you into the woman you are.” Then he squarely meets my gaze. “And that’s exactly why I want you.”
I want you. It’s as if hot bubbles are popping over my skin, sliding down and down, gnawing at me until I’m stripped and utterly exposed. What girl wouldn’t want to be told she’s wanted?
But his meaning encompasses so much more than anything physical.
He still hasn’t looked away from me, and it feels as if there’s a live wire connecting us, sparking at our energy and awareness.
“I’m going to make everything better for you,” he says.
“I’ve heard this before, and what do you know? Thanks to you, things are pretty much worse now.”
“I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars to pretend to be my fiancé for three months. Fifty thousand dollars to do nothing but hang out and live like a queen.”
I can feel my mouth starting to gape, but I force it shut. Did he say what I thought he just said?
Numbers dance in my head, blinding me for a tempting moment. Fifty thousand would change everything. It would wipe away so many of the things that keep me awake at night. It would brighten my dad’s gaze again. It would give Ivy a future. It would slow Mom’s symptoms.
And you’d sell yourself for that? Asks a tiny voice.
I manage to shake my head, denying him. He says nothing. It’s only then that I find my voice.
“I won’t be a prostitute.”
When he laughs, I don’t know whether to be offended or bewildered.
“You’re thinking I’m going to make this proposal contingent on having sex with me,” he says.
“Wouldn’t it involve that?”
He saunters out from his side of the car, his hands in his pockets. “Babe, don’t get me wrong. This is a simple business transaction—at least during the term of our agreement.”
Babe? Business? And what about the hallway this afternoon? Is he seriously saying that he’s not that interested in me and can be abstinent for the duration of a fake marriage?
Then I realize that Eli Brennan wouldn’t be abstinent. An alpha warrior like him wouldn’t be able to handle that, and I’d be a fiancé in name only, unless…
Unless he’s serious about changing his image. Then he might be faithful to this scenario until the three months are up and we never see one another again. Then it’s back to being a man-whore whose life is a string of wild nights.
“Fifty thousand’s a lot to turn down,” he says.
It is a lot of money, and with every mention of it, I feel myself weakening. In a last ditch effort to resist, I say, “All you have to do is call Preston and tell him to do the right thing, to give my family a job again.”
“So he can fire you on a whim in the future?”
Eli seems stern now and, once again, I can see the man he could be on the field, when the chips are down and a win is at stake. He hasn’t always been that guy so far, but it’s in him. At least, I think it is.
He takes his hands out of his pockets and spreads them out, reasoning with me a final time. “All Randal has to do is make a phone call to replace you.”
And that’s it. He’s right. I’m no superstar like Eli. I’m so very replaceable, and I always will be. This deal he’s offering might be the one and only chance I have to turn things around for my family. I’d truly be a fool to resist.
Replaceable, but I do have some value to Eli. As much as I hate this, I can fix my family with his help.
Common sense is still screaming at me to say no, but I block it out. I fist my hands and bite the bullet then I say the only thing I should be saying.
“Let’s talk details.”
During the next hour inside Eli’s air-conditioned car, everything passes by in a hazy daze, especially everything he says after I agree to the deal.
You’ll be paid one-third up front, one-third after 45 days, then the rest upon the completion of 90 days of our engagement…
My lawyer will draw up the non-disclosure agreement and the contracts…
By the way, I need you to be seen with me by the paparazzi and press at all times, so you’ll need to move into my place…
Strings are definitely attached to this proposition, and as it turns out, I’m now a willing puppet because there’re fifty thousand wonderful reasons for me to dance to Eli’s tune for what amounts to three short months out of my life.
Fifty. Thousand. Reasons.
During the day’s most surreal moment, I bring Eli to my family’s apartment, where I introduce my “fiancé” and he presents the boxes of flowers and food to them. Dad, who has long since returned from picking up Mom’s prescriptions, quietly assesses Eli with a mixture of fatherly guardedness and pride that his little girl has made a football superstar fall for her. If only he knew.
Ivy is beside herself, and she clutches the flowers the entire time she stares at Eli. Mom only sits in her chair and smiles at him, and I promise all of them that, soon, we’ll have
a family dinner so they can all get to know my honeybun.
It’ll never happen though. I don’t want Mom, Dad, and Ivy to form even the slightest personal attachment to Eli, and he has already agreed with me.
After I pack a few necessities, he drives me to his lawyer’s office in downtown Vegas, where the staff is working overtime on the non-disclosure agreement and contracts. I even wonder if Eli started having the paperwork drawn up this afternoon, after he got this wild idea (obsession?) about recruiting me. Then we’re off to his place in Seven Hills, where my family cleans more homes. My head spins as fast as the wheels of his car, because here I am, one of the privileged people now, and not someone who’s invisible to them.
At least it’ll be that way for the next three months.
He parks his car in a garage that holds five other collectible vehicles and then joins me again in the courtyard near the burbling fountain. Under the romantic moonlight, he pulls me over to him, raising his camera to capture another selfie. I put on my best couple smile. I’ll have to get good at that every time we go out in public, so I might as well start now.
Before we enter his house, which looks like a Tuscan villa with a sweet bloom of flowers draped over the walls, he sweeps me up and into his arms.
I gasp, automatically linking my fingers around the back of his neck. My heart beats against his hard chest, our mouths only inches apart. My lips throb as I glance at his, then slide my gaze back up to his pale blue eyes.
“Got to carry the bride over the threshold,” he murmurs.
“I’m your fiancé, not your bride.”
“Tomato, tomah-to.”
And he’s right. There’s no real difference between the two terms for us.
He carries me into his house, and once we’re in the foyer, I unlink my fingers from behind his neck then slip down his body, inch by muscled inch. He’s like marble, cut in beautiful lines, smooth and strong. I ache to press against him, just like I did in the hallway of the Hula Shack.