This isn’t my bedroom.
Oh, shit. This is bad.
In surprise, I jerk back, stopping when I feel a warm, thick, hard presence nestle against my ass.
Ohmyfuckinggawd. What did I do last night?
I sit up in the bed, my head swirling dangerously, and try not to scream when I turn around and see Ross lying on the other half of the bed. He’s damn near naked as the day he was born, every inch of tempting flesh on display except for a decidedly skin-tight pair of boxer briefs that don’t hide a damn thing.
He’s carved out of wood, and I’m not just talking about his bulging boxers, which are barely containing a cock so large and thick that I can literally see the head start to push the waistband outward, like a snake ready to climb out of its cave.
“What the fuck?” I rasp, only it comes out a lot louder than I expect. I flinch, my head pounding and begging me to keep the volume down. I look down, and I’m stitchless, only the sheet puddling in my lap giving me any slight modesty. I see my red dress and bra hung up on a hanger next to the door, my heels almost carefully placed underneath them.
Ross groans and stretches, opening his eyes and smiling at me, making my heart skip a beat. How is it that I wake up naked, in bed with Ross Andrews, with no real memory of how I got here, but the first thing I can think of is that I want to jump back in and drown in those sexy blue eyes of his?
“Good morning,” Ross says quietly, his smile widening into a grin as his eyes obviously trace a path along my bared breasts and belly.
“Oh, my God,” I gasp, looking around. I see a bathrobe hanging off a very expensive modernistic German armoire, and I hop up and snatch it, ignoring the tilt-a-whirl floor that threatens to take me down. I pull it on as if it’s armor that can protect me against the awkwardness of waking up with my best friend’s brother, my archenemy. As if it can protect me from my body’s reaction to his.
I tighten the belt and tuck the bows just to make sure it stays tied, but I have to admit it’s a very, very nice robe . . . and it smells like Ross. Which isn’t doing anything to help my embarrassment or my arousal.
“Okay,” I tell him finally, feeling my eyes pulse in my skull and the beginning of a headache coming on. “Let me guess . . . I got drunk?”
“You ordered mimosas for everyone in Club Red,” Ross says. He seems ridiculously at ease and not at all freaked out about our current situation, stretching out on the bed and displaying his sexy, leanly muscled body for me.
I can’t help but look on in appreciation. I’m stupid, not dead. He grins, seeing my expression. “Like what you see?” He traces his hand over his chest and down his abs, cupping himself. My hands itch to shove his hands out of the way and make the journey themselves.
But this is Ross.
“Ugh!” I protest, turning around to give him my back even as sinful thoughts of the six-foot-one-inch of man in bed behind me fill my brain.
Oh, shit . . . wait, did we—
I whirl back around, which is a big mistake for my precarious balance, but my shock and fear keep me vertical. He must read the horror on my face because he answers my unspoken question.
“Don’t worry,” Ross says as he gets out of bed and walks easily and comfortably across the room. I can’t stop my eyes from following him. “I was a gentleman, and even though you showed me quite an eyeful . . . we didn’t have sex.”
That’s good. Really good, but there’s a hint of disappointment coursing through me too.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him go over to a door, disappearing into what looks like a pretty big walk-in closet before coming out in a pair of workout shorts and a tank top that, while hiding a little more of his skin, still has the temperature in my borrowed robe a few degrees this side of warm.
I’m not sure if I’m happy or upset about that.
Physically, I’ve wanted to fuck Ross since about the time I knew what sex was. And then he basically tortured me through middle and high school, squashing any crush I’d had on him. Well, most of it, anyway.
What’s that saying? He’s pretty packaging on an ugly inside. Okay, there’s nothing remotely ugly about Ross, except how he can zing me good and embarrass the fuck out of me, and somehow, I still enjoy it and live for that bright smile of his that marks his victory over me. But that speaks more to my weirdness, probably, not his.
He’s always seen me as an annoying little sister, so emotionally, I’d rather go celibate the rest of my life than sleep with Ross Andrews.
And that’s that. Problem, meet solution.
I’m just going to pretend last night never happened. And he’s going to do the same.
“Come on,” Ross says, stepping aside and gesturing toward the door. “We can talk over some breakfast. You’ve probably got a hangover the size of Australia brewing inside your head, and I can see the hamster spinning in his wheel with the lightning-fast speed of your thoughts crossing your face.”
I nod slowly, following a barefoot Ross out of the bedroom and down a hallway. As he walks, he calls out, “Geoffrey, dim the windows to twenty percent, please.”
Oh, no! Is there someone here? A witness to my embarrassment this morning?
Before I can ask if Ross has a butler or something, a masculine computer voice replies, “Of course, Mr. Andrews. Shall I start coffee?”
“Full pot,” Ross says before glancing back over his shoulder with a huge grin. “Geoffrey's the electronic assistant. Basically, Alexa, but a thousand percent better.”
“A thousand . . . percent?” The snarky challenge rolls off my tongue unbidden.
“Give or take a few hundred percent,” Ross quips back, unperturbed at continuing our usual banter in such a weird situation.
I’m at a loss for words as I pad into the main room of the penthouse. It’s huge, semicircular, and slightly tech-modern, with lots of blacks and brushed steel that strike me as Ross’s natural style. Not my personal choices . . . but it fits him.
The curved exterior wall is dominated by huge, two-story-tall windows that are tinted to a dark smoke right now, and the interior designer part of me loves it. High-tech windows that can change at a voice command? Talk about eliminating the need for drapes! I’ve heard of this technology, even saw it at a conference once, but I haven’t had a client who wanted something that high-tech yet. Usually, my clients want their estates updated, like Ms. Montgomery, so high-rise style is out of my wheelhouse, and even hungover, I’m tempted to play with it to see what all Geoffrey and those windows can do.
“When did you get the Starship Enterprise as your penthouse?” I weakly joke as he leads me over to the far side of the room to a high-tech chef’s kitchen. While you couldn’t put a restaurant in here, it’s fully equipped, everything in tasteful matte dark colors and black marble countertops. Ross opens the built-in fridge and pulls out a blender cup, swirling the contents before studying it carefully.
“Cover your ears,” he says right before slapping the cup on a blender base and pulsing it a few seconds. Even with my hands over my ears, it’s painfully loud, but the shock of it is helping to clear my head. When it’s ready, he pulls out a huge glass from a cabinet and pours me a light green smoothie. “Here. My patented hangover cure, just this side of hair of the dog in terms of effectiveness. Drink up.”
He eyes me, daring me to disobey, and when I lift the glass for a sniff, he smiles like he knows he’s already won. Answering my previous question, he says, “I had this place renovated three years ago. If I’d known how good you were going to get with interior design, I’d have hired you.” The compliment warms me inside. I am good, and I know it, as does half of the city’s upper crust, but somehow, Ross saying it so casually is different from those accolades.
He takes the other half of the smoothie mixture and downs most of it, his throat working in a way that has me staring at him with decidedly non-breakfast thoughts in my head, and I have to remind myself to take a sip. I’m worried. Usually, people who drink green smoothies in the
morning tend to be those who live on Vitamin Shoppe supplements alone, and I am not that girl. My breakfast usually consists of copious amounts of coffee darker than Satan’s soul and a single small, buttered croissant, just like Nana taught me. But before I know it, the glass is empty.
“Wow . . . this is delicious,” I comment. “What’s in it?”
“Mostly fruit. Apples, cherries . . . a little spinach for the vitamins, and willow bark. It’s a natural aspirin.”
“Willow bark?” I ask, and Ross nods, going over to the far end of the counter. He picks up some papers and taps them carefully into order. “What’s that?”
He doesn’t answer directly but instead takes a roundabout way I’m not used to with him. He’s usually so decisive and direct, but I can feel him hemming and hawing.
“Do you remember asking me to marry you last night?” He stares directly at me with the question.
Flashes of the night come back to me. Talking. Drinks. Dancing.
I swallow, nodding. That part, asking him to be my fake husband, I totally remember now. I remember right up to the dance floor, and then turning around to show him my moves . . . but not much else until this morning. “I remember.”
“Did you mean it?”
I can feel the heat creeping up my chest, my cheeks flaming hot as I try to decide how to answer that.
Yes? No? Maybe? It depends on how much fun you’re going to make of me for losing a fiancé I didn’t even love and how hard you’ll judge me for wanting to get married for my Papa.
He sighs and his eyes soften. “It’s crazy, I know. I spent the better part of last night hoping you would forget and that we could just pretend that conversation never happened. But you know what? It really does solve both of our problems.” He pauses to let that sink in. “That’s why I called Kaede last night and had him draw these papers up.”
“What are they?” I ask again, hoping for an answer this time.
“What you wanted,” he says, handing me the papers. “A non-disclosure agreement.”
“An . . . NDA?” I ask, my brows furrowing together as he nods and hands the stack of papers over.
It’s not that I haven’t had non-disclosure agreements before. A lot of my clients are very private, and they know inviting me into their homes or businesses means that I might be privy to things that they don’t want anyone to know. It’s professional courtesy to keep your mouth shut, but to put clients at ease, I have a standard NDA I offer which states that I’m allowed to boast that I redid their decor, but that’s it.
This isn’t one of those standard agreements.
“Come on, Ross. Is this really necessary?” I reply, my voice rising before my brain reminds me that loud noises are a really, really bad idea right now.
I read the NDA over, expecting some standard verbiage about sticking to our story and not throwing each other under the bus with the media and our families. But then I notice the rules on page two. “What’s this shit? I’m to obey you at events where your parents or members of the company might be present? You’re out of your damn mind. Oh-bay?” I lengthen the word, tasting its uncomfortable restraint. I’m not a woman who obeys anyone or anything, and Ross damn well knows it.
“Obey,” Ross repeats, smirking. “My folks are a little . . . traditional. I need to show that I’m strong and in charge. Looks better for me, you know? Don’t get caught up on the label. Just stick with the intent of it and we’ll be fine.”
I growl, rubbing at my temples. “And if I want to give you a heaping service of attitude?”
“Maybe I’ll spank that curvy ass of yours,” Ross teases, but his voice has a dark undercurrent through it that I’ve never heard from him before. It says that he might actually try it, and in my head, I wonder if I might like it, too.
Still, a girl’s gotta have her pride. “You don’t know Italian women very well. We rule the house by rolling pin, capiche?”
“I’m sure we can agree on some limits to what I’ll demand,” Ross replies smoothly. “Never fear, Chickie. Though I’ll never admit it and will deny having said so, I like your sass.”
And doesn’t that stop my arguments in their tracks. What? Ross likes when I give him shit? I always thought I was annoying the fuck out of him. Huh, who’d have thought?
“I’ll even toss you this bone. I’ll sign an NDA too. I’m not going to hurt you, Violet.” Soft, sweet, weighted words that mean more than he could possibly know.
“And when this . . . marriage is over?” I ask, and Ross simply shrugs. “What’s that mean?”
“If we’re really going through with this, I think it’ll be best for both of us if we go with the ‘too young, too quick, irreconcilable differences’ excuse and not say a damn thing otherwise. We both walk away with the least damage to our reps from it, and the most benefit. I’d like for us to still be friends after all of this is over, or else my parents and sister are going to kill me.”
That actually sounds . . . not bad. I can tell he thought about this last night while I was passed out. Oh, God, did I snore? When I’m drunk, I sometimes snore like Godzilla having an asthma attack.
Back to the issue at hand, though. I consider his proposal. Vaguely, I remember being the one who proposed, and I groan internally.
“That’s fine . . . sounds good, even.” I flip through the continuing stack of papers. “But what about the rest of these?” I ask, reading over each rule. With each one, my irritation grows. “Seriously? I’ll answer the phone whenever you call? Even if I’m at work and with a client?”
“It shows that you’re head over heels with the love of your life. But I respect your work, and I’m a busy man. It’s not like I’m going to call for baby talk every half hour, Shnookums.”
“Okay, agreed. If you never call me that again. It’s worse than Chickie.” I see a shadow cross his face, but it’s gone too fast for me to decipher it.
“Take the blame if the story comes to light outside of one of us breaking the NDA? Are you crazy? It’d ruin me professionally.”
“Like the Million Dollar Man used to say, ‘Everyone’s got a price.’”
“Well, this one I’m not willing to pay,” I declare. Ross shrugs and sips at the rest of his smoothie. I know what he’s doing, playing the hard silence and making me sweat.
But it’s damned effective. He knows what I’ve got on the line with all of this. Papa’s happiness is first and foremost in my mind. Finally, I crack and concede. “Fine. If the shit hits the fan, it’s probably a better angle to say we were trying to make a dying old man’s last wish come true than to say your Dad was blackmailing you into settling down. But we need to circle the wagons to be sure nothing gets out. Who already knows about this?”
“Kaede. Abigail. Archie?” I nod, and he finishes, “And you and me. No one else, deal?”
“Deal. You do know it’s two weeks until the wedding, right?”
“Of course. You told me approximately halfway through your second mimosa . . . at least, the second I saw you drink,” Ross says.
We’ve reached a stalemate. This is it . . . do it or don’t do it. I’m not sure how it all got so carried away with such a crazy-ass idea. But here I am. And here Ross is.
I swallow thickly, still tasting the sweetly fruity smoothie and thinking the bitterness of coffee seems better suited for the moment. “Are you sure you want to do this? With me?”
In answer, Ross opens what I assume is his junk drawer and pulls out a pen. He signs on the last page with a flourish, initialing each of the other pages before turning it around to me. “I already called Kaede and told him I had personal biz to deal with today. I figure we can get you a proper engagement ring. Something that suits you better than that gaudy as fuck monstrosity Colin gave you. So . . . you in?”
I pick up the pen and slash my signature at the bottom. “Fine. But our relationship will be on my terms.”
“Fine,” Ross says with a chuckle as I initial the last page and shove the NDA back to him. “Let’s
pretend this is on your terms.”
He’s got a huge grin on his face, and I hold in a groan, knowing better than to doubt him. He’s going to make me pay for this scheme. We might be friends afterward, but damn if he isn’t going to have some good ammunition to hit me with after a fake marriage.
* * *
I roll into work just after three in the afternoon, thankful that Archie can keep the train chugging in my unscheduled absence. We don’t always work weekends, but this is an industry where we meet when clients are available and source when stores are open, so a Saturday in the office isn’t unusual. He’s on the phone when I come in. “I’m so sorry. She’s with a client today. Can I help you with something or give her a message?”
God, he’s good. He even sounds sincere, which is a feat, considering the hairy eyeball he’s giving me as he looks me up and down suspiciously.
I set my bag down on our communal worktable, and unburdened, I feel the heaviness of my new engagement ring in my pocket.
I’ll hand this to Ross. At least he was polite enough to not make me go ring shopping in the same hoochie-mama dress and heels I wore to Club Red last night. That would’ve been one hell of a walk of shame, even if it was to a fancy jewelry store. Instead, he calmly lent me one of his T-shirts, some sweatpants, and even a pair of flip-flops before he drove me back to my place. Fifteen minutes later, we were on the road to do ring shopping, and after quick success with a fawning shop assistant, Ross dropped me at work so I can get some things done today.
Of course, as soon as I open the door to my office, I’m greeted by none other than Abi, who’s got the world’s biggest shit-eating grin on her face as she shoves her laptop onto the table. Guess she was getting some work done while stalking, I mean waiting, for me. “Whoo . . . Russo, last time I came into work at three in the afternoon after a drunk and disorderly night, I was walking like that cowboy on TV, James Bennett, when he took a flyer off a bull’s back and did the splits in the dirt. Hee-hee.” Her voice pitches painfully high for the sound effect.
“When’d you start watching rodeo?” I grumble behind my sunglasses, wishing that somehow, my hangover would magically go away. Even with a chaser of two Midol with lunch, my brain’s hurting . . . although that could be the situation I’m in.
My Big Fat Fake Wedding Page 9