Her Fantasy Husband (Things to Do Before You Die)

by Nina Croft

  “You just think you love me,” he said. “It’s not real. You’ll get over it.”

  Josh had convinced himself he was incapable of love. Or maybe that he didn’t want it, wouldn’t risk it. And she wasn’t strong enough to get through that barrier.

  Everything inside her ached.

  She had to get out of there, before she broke down and begged him to give her a chance, not to cut her off. How could she go through the next six months being close, but not allowed to touch him?

  Somehow she had to find the strength. She shook her head and got to her feet. “I take it lunch is off.” She half hoped he’d say something to stop her, but he was silent as she left the room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lexi spent an hour wandering the streets, trying to get her head straight.

  She needed…she wasn’t sure what she needed. What could help her right now? Finally, she went home because the place always had the effect of soothing her. She sort of hoped the place would be empty, but as she pushed open the front door, she could hear voices from the kitchen. It sounded like the whole gang was here. She tried to tiptoe past, needing the sanctuary of her room, but the kitchen door opened before she reached the stairs.

  “Lexi?” It was Jean, and Lexi turned reluctantly to her. “Are you all right?”

  She plastered a smile on her face. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  Jean gave her a strange look. “Josh called. He said you were upset about something and wanted to know if you’d gotten home okay.”

  He had? She stamped on the little flicker of hope that woke deep inside her. “I’m fine.”

  Jean came out and hustled her into the kitchen. “Come and sit for a minute. We’ve hardly seen you the last week.”

  Tom and Sarah sat at the table, both with worried frowns on their faces. Luckily there was no sign of Harry, and his Porsche wasn’t in the drive. She didn’t think she was up to any pretense right now.

  “Honestly, guys, I’m fine.”

  Jean pulled out a chair for her and pressed her gently on the shoulder until she sank down. Tom got up, grabbed a bottle of red wine, uncorked it, and poured her a huge glass, pushing it across the table toward her. “Drink.”

  She drank.

  “We want you to know we’re here for you,” Sarah said. “You took us all in, helped us when we needed it.”

  “You’re our family,” Tom said.

  Aw.

  She really wished they weren’t being so nice because tears were pricking at her eyes and heat was rolling over her, and she really didn’t want to break down in public.

  “You’re strong,” Jean said.

  “I am?” She didn’t feel strong. She felt all wishy-washy and about to fall apart.

  Jean nodded. “You help everyone else, but you don’t think you need help. But everyone does, honey, at some point.”

  Lexi took a gulp of her wine, then another. Tom reached across and refilled her glass. She chewed on her lip. Drank some more. Took a deep breath. “I’m in love with Josh.”

  There, she’d said it.

  She waited for the cries of disbelief. Peered around the table. Tom looked…sad. Sarah was nodding as if she’d said the most sensible thing ever. Jean pursed her lips then sank down in the chair next to Lexi and took her hand.

  “Love’s a bitch,” she said. “And he is one good-looking guy.”

  “And he is your husband,” Sarah added.

  “My pretend husband.” Lexi almost smiled. “And he doesn’t believe in love, or he’s scared of love or…” She shrugged. “Whatever. He doesn’t love me anyway. Told me he’d never love me.” She sniffed, blinked, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She emptied her wineglass in one go and held it out for more. Tom hesitated, and she glared. The wine was creating a nice buzz in her brain. “And it hurts because he’s sooo perfect.”

  “No man is perfect, honey.”

  She rested her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand and sighed. “I don’t mean he’s actually perfect.” Though waking up with him deep inside her came as close to perfection as she could imagine. “But I never knew it could be like that, and now he doesn’t want me anymore.”

  “I’m guessing he wants you. He’s just told himself he can’t have you.”

  “He’s damaged goods. He told me he’s broken.” She took another gulp. “He said I go around fixing people.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Except he doesn’t want to be fixed.” She sniffed again, and someone passed her a tissue. “I’ve got to let him go, and I don’t want to. He’s right. I want to fix him so bad that it hurts.”

  “Aw, sweetheart, you’ll get over it.”

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  “He’ll still be around, because we need to stay married for another six months, but how am I supposed to be around him and not…”

  Touch him. Hold him. Love him.

  “Keep busy,” Tom said.

  She sighed, wiped away her tears, cried some more, and let Jean pull her into a huge hug. She wasn’t much used to hugging—her family really hadn’t done much of that—and the warmth and the scent of Chanel—her mother had worn the same perfume—tipped her over the edge, and she was bawling.

  Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

  Great. More people to witness my breakdown.

  She peered over Jean’s shoulder. “Uncle Jamie.”

  “I knocked on the door, but no one came.”

  She pulled free and hurled herself out of her chair and into his arms. They tightened around her for a moment, and then he held her away from him, studying her, no doubt taking in her red eyes and tear-blotched cheeks.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing really. Just a tough day.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Your grandmother still in town?”

  She nodded and took a deep breath. “So what are you doing here?”

  They made a point of seeing each other at least twice a year, but usually by arrangement. She wasn’t sure exactly what Jamie did, but it took him out of the county for long stretches of time.

  “Can’t I just want to see my favorite honorary niece?”

  “Yes, but I bet that’s not the case.”

  “A bit of both actually. There is something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She looked around at the people listening avidly. “Let’s go through into the sitting room, and we can talk.”

  She led the way out into the hall and then into the small sitting room at the back of the house. It was all chintz and ornaments and hadn’t been touched since she moved in. She waited until Jamie sat down and then perched on the sofa opposite.

  “Are you really okay?” he asked. “I’ve never known you to cry before.”

  “I’ve been better. But I’ll be okay.”

  He studied her for a minute. “You’ve dealt with your grandmother for years, and she doesn’t reduce you to tears.”

  “No, she makes me angry.”

  “So is it Slater?” When she didn’t answer, because she wasn’t sure what to say—she didn’t want to get Josh into trouble; Jamie could probably send a black ops team to assassinate him or something—he continued, “I know he moved in here with you.”

  “You do?”

  “Slater called me to let me know and to ask something.”

  Why had he done that?

  “So has he upset you in some way?”

  She shook her head and decided on the truth. “I fell in love with him.”

  “With Slater?”

  The look of astonishment on his face almost made her giggle. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s an ice cold son-of-a-bitch. And a loner. It was one of the reasons I picked him when you needed someone.”

  “I didn’t say he’d fallen in love with me.”

  “Ah.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Hence the tears.”

  “Don’t worry. I was having my five minutes of misery. It won’t happen again. I’m
a big girl.”

  “It’s for the best. He’s a good man, but he’s also damaged goods.”

  “So he told me. And I’ll get over it.”

  She just wasn’t sure when. A hundred years or so might do it. “So what was the other thing you wanted to talk about?”

  “Slater mentioned that your grandmother and Daniel were in town. He was worried for you, didn’t trust them. Slater was one of the best men I’ve ever had—if his gut tells him something, you listen. He suggested I get an audit done on your trust fund.”

  “Why? I have the accounts done annually anyway. And I trust my accountants. There’s no way Grandmamma could touch it now.”

  “Not now, no. Slater suggested I look into the early years.”

  “And did you?”

  “I requested the accounts and got an immediate audit.”

  “She knows you were doing this?”

  “I’m not sure. I actually had the rights under your father’s will. I never did anything, because I knew you were finding things hard, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. Plus, it never occurred to me that your own family would steal from you.”

  “And was she?”

  “Oh yes. Hundreds of thousands. And she hardly bothered to hide the theft. I don’t know how she got away with it.”

  Arrogance, Lexi presumed. “I won’t prosecute my grandmother.”

  “You don’t need to. Slater suggested that if we have something on her, then she’d back off. He reckoned you were worried.”

  So he did care a little. Just not enough. “Is this sufficient to make her back off?”

  “Plenty. She could be locked away for years if you took her to court. And I’m guessing the threat of releasing the information to the press would be enough to make her not interfere with your life.”

  It was a lot to take in. But the knowledge was like a weight lifted from her. She’d been so worried her grandmother would make things difficult, would lock up the money so Lexi would be tied up in court for years. Now that would never happen. Josh had done this for her. It occurred to her that maybe he’d been looking for a way out, so he could get his divorce and go have his nice no-strings sex, no doubt with women too savvy to make the mistake of falling in love with him.

  “Have you got the proof?”

  Jamie opened his briefcase and pulled out some papers. “This is a summary. There’s more, but if you want to scare her off, then this should do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  She tried to smile. She should be happy. Earlier she’d wondered how she could get through the next six months having to spend time with Josh and not being able to get close to him.

  Now that was no longer a necessity. She could go set the divorce in motion.

  It hurt. But she loved him, so if this was what he wanted, she would set him free.

  …

  Logan looked rough, worse than rough, and Vito was no better.

  So Josh wasn’t the only one having a hard time with his life changing vow, regretting the decision he had made while floating in that lifeboat, drinking far too much scotch and trying to forget his leg hurt like a bitch and that they’d just come an inch from death

  Hell, he’d felt better then than he did right now.

  Why the fuck had he decided he needed to get laid? He couldn’t remember.

  The thing was, facing death had a way of changing a man, making him think about how things could be different. But he’d been in pain, half-drunk…how was his brain expected to work the way it should at a time like that? How could he rely on the decisions he made being the right ones? The sensible ones?

  Go get laid, he’d thought. How complicated could that be?

  They were sitting in a booth in the VIP section of Logan’s nightclub. The place was crawling with gorgeous women. They kept up a constant stream, passing close to the table, their smiles making it more than clear they’d welcome an invitation to join the three of them. And he’d bet they’d all be more than willing to engage in a little no-strings fun afterward.

  And he couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

  And it wasn’t because he was married.

  Well, in a way it was. It was because he couldn’t get his wife out of his head.

  She loved him.

  She hadn’t admitted it.

  He’d phoned Jean again just to check. She’d told him Lexi was home and she was fine. She’d also gone on to tell him that he was a bastard, and he should leave Lexi alone.

  Hell, wasn’t that what he was trying to do?

  The right thing. Because he was no damn good for her.

  He glared at the other two men. This was their fault. “Things to do before you die…whose fucking idea was that, anyway?” he said, throwing back the whiskey and slamming his glass down on the table. Logan reached across and filled it from the bottle in front of him and topped off his own at the same time. Vito’s was still full.

  “I think it was yours,” Logan said.

  Had it been? He tried to remember back through the whiskey haze already buzzing in his head. “Never. Not in a million years would I have put myself in this situation. Besides, I had a broken leg at the time. Why would the two of you listen to a man who was in pain and obviously not thinking straight?”

  “I take it things are not going well with your…wife?”

  “Things are going shit. And I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to drink.”

  “How about you?” Logan asked Vito.

  “I’m not drinking. I have a gut feeling that drunk, I will make a decision that I will later regret. So I’m staying sober.”

  Josh eyed up Logan. “Give us some good news. How’s your fantasy girl?” Logan had gone hunting for some one-night stand he’d had eleven years ago. He’d found her, together with the ten-year-old daughter Logan had known nothing about. “Is she everything you dreamed of?”

  Logan was silent for a moment; he didn’t look like a man who had found the woman of his dreams. He drained his glass and exhaled. “Nothing like I remembered.”

  “Sorry, mate.”

  Fantasies were merely fabrication. Look at him and Lexi. She’d admitted he was her fantasy husband, and she hadn’t even known him. How could it be based on real life? If she spent more time with him, she’d soon find he wasn’t anyone’s dream husband. More like a nightmare.

  Logan shrugged. “Some things should be left alone.”

  “You get laid yet?” Vito asked.

  Josh shook his head. He didn’t want to think of Lexi in terms of getting laid. It seemed somehow wrong. “Still working out the divorce.”

  “I thought you were getting an annulment.”

  “I was. Now I’m not. And like I said—I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Seems like we’re all fucked royally,” Vito said.

  “Yup.” Josh agreed. “Let’s get pissed.”

  Vito took a deep breath. “Fuck this.” He picked up his drink, swallowed the contents in one go, and pushed his empty glass toward Logan. “Fill it up.”

  Three hours later, Josh tried to push himself up, almost managed it, and collapsed back to the table. “I’m heading home. If I can get up. I need to call a cab.”

  “I’ll get Mark to take you,” Logan said. He waved a hand, and the most enormous man Josh had ever seen walked up—tall and broad with tattoos crawling up his neck and over his shaved head.

  “And I need to get back to my hotel,” Vito said.

  Josh made another effort to get up, this time managing it. “Come back with me. Lexi likes taking in lost causes. You’ll be right at home.”

  They lurched across the floor, and he held onto Vito for balance. Shit, he couldn’t remember when he’d been this pissed. Not since he’d left the army, that was for sure. Vito swayed from side to side, and Josh grabbed him before he fell over.

  “You sure it will be all right?” Vito asked.

  For a moment Josh had no clue what he was talking about. How could anything be all right? Lexi love
d him. It was a goddamned disaster.

  “Me coming home with you?” Vito prompted when he remained silent.

  “Of course it will. The more the merrier. And I’ll even introduce you to Prudence. She’s this really hot chick.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Lexi woke the next morning, she was alone.

  Josh hadn’t come back last night. Had he gone home or somewhere else?

  She’d tried to get hold of him to tell him that he was off the hook, and that her lawyer was looking into the quickest way to sever the knots that bound them.

  Sally had told her Josh had left the office and she had no clue where he’d gone. Lexi had called his home number and his cell but gotten no response.

  She tried to feel cheerful. Now she could start to live. Date even.

  In some ways she’d been in limbo for the last few years. Her whole adult life, in fact. Except it hadn’t felt like that. She’d loved her life for the last five years. She was guessing that at eighteen she wouldn’t have been ready for relationships. She’d been very naive for her age. This time had given her a chance to grow up, to understand what she really wanted out of life.

  Thank you, Josh.

  What she wanted from a man.

  An image of Josh naked flashed up in her mind, and she pushed it back.

  Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

  She huffed out a breath and then crawled out of bed and into the shower. She was wearing one of Josh’s T-shirts because she hadn’t been able to find any clean pajamas last night. And who was she kidding?

  Loser.

  She’d wanted to feel close to him. Now she dragged it over her head and stuffed it in the bottom of the laundry basket so he’d hopefully miss it when he came to pick up his stuff.

  Not that he’d made a lot of clutter. He was so tidy. Everything in its place.

  How could she fall in love with someone that tidy?

  He was an aberration.

  No, she was definitely better off without him.

  She dressed in jeans, a tank top, and flip flops. She didn’t have to go into the office today, but she did have to confront her grandmother. Just the thought made her tired, but it would be good to not have to worry anymore. She couldn’t wait to get over her broken heart so she could really appreciate her newfound freedom.