“What?”
He didn’t say another word before his mouth descended onto her lips...and that’s when she realized he’d used her code word. Cassandra’s knees weakened and she gripped his wrists to hold herself up.
Damn him for still being able to make her weak in the knees.
Luke claimed her with a powerful kiss and everything about him was so familiar, yet so new. How could this be the same man she loved so long ago? Now he was so much more—sexier, bolder and much more in control than she remembered.
Before she could stop herself—a theme with her as of late—Cassandra wrapped her arms around his waist and aligned their hips. She wanted to feel him, all of him. If he was going to be so demanding with this kiss, then so was she. There was a fire burning inside her. As clichéd and silly as that sounded, she didn’t know another way to describe what she was feeling. She was hot...too hot. She needed something more—she needed Luke.
Maybe coming back had been a mistake, but she was here now and would have to face her past and present feelings at some point.
He released her face and gripped her hips as he spun her around. Cassandra found herself being lifted and then set down onto something sturdy—a desk, maybe?
Luke settled between her spread knees and she arched against his touch. When he nipped at her bottom lip and broke the kiss, she stared up at him as she tried to catch her breath.
“What are we doing?” he muttered, gazing down with hunger in his eyes.
“Ignoring the red flags,” she panted.
“This isn’t right.” But he didn’t step back. “Why is this wrong when it feels too damn good?”
Cassandra braced her hands behind her as she watched various complex emotions play over his face.
“This was never our problem, Luke. Sex with you was the easy part.”
He laughed. “Easy. Hell, honey, none of this is easy.”
Cassandra closed her eyes and tried to focus on calming her breathing and her nerves. No matter how much she wanted him, having an intimate relationship right now would just mess things up...and not only her business, but also her heart.
Cassandra eased off the desk, causing Luke to take another step back. He continued to study her and she could tell by that familiar look in his eyes that he was turned on and just as ravenous for her as she was for him.
But...she’d been right. Sex had always been the easy part of their relationship. Communication had been their downfall—clearly, considering she’d just found out tonight he’d had an engagement ring for her eight years ago.
“We need to figure out what we’re telling your family,” Cassandra repeated. “If you want to pretend with them, fine. If you want to tell them the truth, that’s fine. But we need to be on the same page.”
Luke raked a hand through his messy hair and sighed. “I can’t lie to them. I wouldn’t do that and I wouldn’t ask you to. I know how close you were with them once.”
From the moment Cassandra had met Luke, she’d thought of Gavin, Will, and Cash as the brothers she’d never had. She’d grown up an only child with a single father. He’d been her only family, and when he passed away after a stroke when she’d been only twenty-three, she’d instantly taken even more to the Sutherlands. Travis and Dana had welcomed her with open arms and treated her like the daughter they’d never had. Losing them had been another blow when she’d left town. She hadn’t just left Luke—she’d left her second family.
Starting over hadn’t been easy and it hadn’t been fast, but she’d made a life for herself in Lexington. That was yet another reason why she couldn’t get wrapped up with Luke now. There was no way in hell she could go back to what it had been like at that point in time. She wasn’t so sure she could recover from another broken heart.
“I’ll tell them tonight once we close,” Luke decided. “Do you want to hang around? No touching, no kissing. Just hang around here for a while.”
Cassandra tipped up her head. “Why?”
He shrugged again in that casual manner he always had. Sometimes she couldn’t tell if he really didn’t care, or if he just kept his emotions guarded.
“Because I like having you here,” he finally admitted. “It’s nice having you back in town and we can at least be friendly after everything, right?”
Friends. Sure. That sounded logical, didn’t it?
Then again, she’d never kissed her friends like that and she sure as hell had never wanted to rip off her friends’ clothes.
“I’ll stay,” she told him with a smile. “So long as you buy my drinks.”
Luke’s quirky grin widened. “Anything you want.”
And that was the most loaded statement she’d heard since she hit Beaumont Bay.
Six
“You’re a damn fool.”
Will’s outburst was no surprise to Luke. All of the brothers had been taken with Cassandra from the beginning, years ago. They’d all been stunned when she had left town and fully blamed Luke. They’d said he was so wrapped up in his business that he’d let her go without a fight. He’d told them at the time that if she wanted to go, then she wasn’t the woman for him. If she could walk away so easily, then they weren’t meant to be. Why should he have to choose between the personal and the professional? At the time, he’d thought he could have both.
And that’s how he’d ended up alone, with the most successful bars in Tennessee.
Now that Luke had explained the current deal he and Cassandra had set up, all of his brothers glared at him. Gavin relaxed back on one of the sofas, Will leaned against the railing and Cash sat on a high stool nursing a beer. All sets of eyes were directly on Luke and he wished he would’ve sent this news out in a text instead of waiting for the bar to close to tell them in person.
“What did you expect me to do?” he asked, defending himself. “Cassandra needed help and so did I. It was a perfect setup.”
“You think I wouldn’t have given Cassandra a chance to talk with Hannah?” Will asked. “It would have all worked out without you going to such extremes and practically blackmailing her.”
Luke couldn’t have been so sure, and he’d needed Cassandra to play his devoted girlfriend. So far, the ruse was working and social media was exploding with “Lassandra” hashtags and posts. And with a few exceptions, women were now leaving him alone.
But he hadn’t blackmailed Cassandra into anything. She could have turned him down and walked away. They were both using each other to get what they wanted and that’s what was called a win-win.
“So how long are you two planning on playing this charade?” Cash asked.
Luke sighed. “Until Will’s wedding. We’ll go our separate ways then.”
“Just like that?” Gavin chimed in with a disapproving grunt. “That seems cold. I mean, I’m a lawyer and that’s even heartless to me.”
Cold and heartless, those were the very last things Luke felt when it came to Cassandra. And he was positive once Will’s wedding rolled around in just under two months, he and Cassandra would be more than ready to get back to their own lives.
“Do you feel nothing seeing her again after all this time?” Will asked. “I can’t imagine losing Hannah and then seeing her again years later and trying to pretend like everything is normal. She’s not some old classmate, Luke. She was the woman you wanted to spend your life with at one time.”
“We’re two different people now,” Luke argued. He shook his head and got to his feet. “Listen, Cassandra and I have this under control. Okay? I just didn’t want to lie to you guys, but you have to keep up the charade.”
“Do you think this is fair to Cassandra?”
Luke turned to Cash and glared. “Are you being serious right now? She came to me and needed my help.”
“You could’ve helped her without asking for something in return,” Cash claimed.
Luke raked
a hand through his hair and seriously wished like hell he would’ve just texted this whole thing and then he could’ve ignored their opinions.
“It’s done now and I just need you guys to go along with this until after Will’s wedding. Is that asking too much?”
His brothers continued to stare at him with their judgmental gazes. Luke was tired from the late hours he’d been keeping. He’d been staying until close for the last couple of weeks because there were so many new artists performing and he wanted to be there to support the folks he had booked. He always wanted them to feel welcome in his establishment.
But even when he was home, Luke’s thoughts kept turning to Cassandra. He couldn’t help but relive their time together from years ago and compare that woman to the woman he knew now. There were certainly similarities, but there were also some changes he couldn’t help but hone in on.
Her determination, the strong will, that sassy walk, and her quick wit—maybe all of those things came with life experience, or maybe she’d been that amazing all along. Maybe he’d been so wrapped up in his own world that he’d totally missed the fact that he wasn’t even trying to combine business and pleasure until it was too late.
“I’ll go along with this ridiculous charade, but if you hurt Cassandra again—”
“Wait,” Luke said, cutting off Gavin. “What do you mean if I hurt Cassandra again? She’s the one who left the first time.”
“Because you were putting her behind everything else in your life,” Gavin retorted. “I can’t believe she waited as long as she did before giving up on you.”
Luke rarely got pissed with his brothers, but right now he didn’t like how they were Team Cassandra and not seeing his point of view at all here.
“I’m not asking for opinions, I’m only asking that you keep the secret.”
He met each of his brothers’ gazes until they all nodded in agreement. Luke hated feeling like he’d just been put through a mental battle that he wasn’t quite sure he’d won. Now that he’d talked to his brothers, he needed to have a conversation with his parents, and that was going to be equally as enjoyable.
“I’m heading home,” he told them. “Be sure to take the service elevator when you leave. I’ll come in early tomorrow and clean up whatever mess you heathens have made.”
Without waiting for a reply, Luke excused himself and headed toward his private elevator. Every part of him wanted to stop off at the penthouse, but normal people were likely sleeping right now.
Odd that his first reaction when he was troubled was wanting to reach for Cassandra. That had been the case at one time in his life, but not now. She was nothing more than the one who got away and the one who was now his temporary, very fake fiancée.
* * *
“What do you think?”
Cassandra glanced at the spread of floral options and sketches and could tell by Hannah’s exasperated tone that she was confused. Knowing when it was time to take a little control out of the bride’s hands, Cassandra pulled her three favorites for the venue and slid the others to the side.
“Okay, so I’m going to give you my own personal opinion,” Cassandra began. “And I’m only doing this because from what we’ve chosen so far, I’m confident I know your tastes.”
After two weeks of working diligently on the wedding, Hannah had also been recording her new album and doing interviews, which had taken her out of town for a few days. So when she was home, Cassandra had to take every moment she could and yet still make their meetings seem like a zero-stress environment.
“I trust your judgment,” Hannah stated. “In fact, I’d love to take the pressure off me for just a moment and talk about you.”
“Me?”
Hannah’s smile widened. “Yes. I’m aware that you and Luke used to be involved and Will told me the other evening that you two are engaged, but not really engaged.”
Cringing, Cassandra nodded. “It’s complicated.”
Hannah got to her feet, then walked over to the wet bar in the corner of her sitting room and grabbed two glasses. After pouring mimosas, Hannah came back over to the sofa and handed one of the glasses to Cassandra.
“Thank you.” Cassandra smiled and took the drink. “I’m not sure this will even help at this point.”
“So I’m just trying to understand.” Hannah took a sip and eased back into her seat. “And, please, tell me if I overstep here.”
Cassandra couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m planning the wedding of my favorite singer and I’m in her house and she wants to offer advice. I promise—you’re not overstepping.”
Hannah laughed, too. “Well, thank you, but I’m just a regular person with honest feelings. Which makes me wonder how you’re dealing with all of this. From what Will told me, you and Luke ended things a long time ago. But still, is this all weird or are you okay?”
Nobody had asked her about her feelings on this bizarre setup. And, honestly, Cassandra hadn’t even taken the time to think of them herself. She’d gotten wrapped up in this whirlwind of a dream job, then a fake engagement, and now being splashed all over social media as “Lassandra.” All in a few weeks’ time.
“I’m fine,” Cassandra assured Hannah. “It’s strange being back here with Luke, but familiar at the same time, if that makes sense.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what happened the first time? I mean, you are an amazing woman and Luke is such a great guy.”
Cassandra took a moment to gather her thoughts as she took a sip of her mimosa. “Luke is a great guy, but we just weren’t great together. Well, we were...until the day we weren’t. Does that make any sense?”
Hannah pursed her lips. “About as much sense as the fake engagement.”
“Pretty much.” Cassandra sighed and glanced down to the stack of three options for the floral arrangements. “Okay, let’s circle back to your wedding. Fall is such a gorgeous time in Tennessee, so I really don’t think you can go wrong with any of these options.”
Cassandra splayed them all out onto the glass table in front of the sofa and waited while Hannah glanced over each one.
“They’re all so perfect,” Hannah muttered. “I feel like Hallie should be here to help me decide. Sometimes she knows what I like before I do.”
“I imagine that’s just one of the perks of having a twin.”
Hannah nodded. “There are many, that’s for sure. But, since she’s not here, tell me which one you would choose.”
“It’s not my wedding.”
Hannah shrugged. “Pretend it is. What would you choose if you were me?”
Even though she loved them all, Cassandra pointed to the images of the greenery with varieties of white blooms.
“This one,” she told Hannah. “I love the simplicity, especially with it being an outdoor wedding. Around the lake and being in the fall, I think the delicate green and white will be timeless. Plus, it will carry over so nicely to the reception at The Cheshire and the decor Luke already has in place.”
“And do you love the idea of the lakeside gazebo ceremony?” Hannah asked.
Cassandra smiled and nodded. “I’ve always wanted an outdoor fall wedding. When I get to plan those, it’s like a little piece of me gets even more excited. I treat all my brides equally, but this time of year and especially being by the lake surrounded by colorful mountains... Well, this is just going to be absolutely breathtaking.”
Cassandra stared down at the graphic and sighed. “The way the greenery is draped around the posts and the cream flowers are intermingled, and then the sprays nestled around the base of the stage...it’s just so romantic and dreamy. I can see the bridesmaids in their dusty pink, holding their tight bouquets of cream buds and greenery sprays, the taupe chair covers all adorned with a simple floral arrangement on each one, the cream-colored petals sprinkled down the aisle between the VIP guests.”
“You make
things sound so perfect,” Hannah stated. “I think you’ve talked me in to this one.”
Cassandra blinked and glanced at the option she’d just described. “Are you positive? This is your wedding, not mine.”
“You’ll be planning yours soon enough,” Hannah replied with a smile.
A little stunned at the statement, Cassandra shook her head. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that. I think I’d have to have a man in my life before I’d be ready to choose between lilies or hydrangea.”
“You have a man in your life.” Hannah patted Cassandra’s knee and grinned. “You may be pretending, but who knows. Maybe the old sparks are still there?”
If by sparks she meant sexual attraction, that was a definite yes. Who knew how things would be between them now? She could only assume the sex would still be great, if not greater than it had been before.
Damn it. She’d tried not to let her mind go there, but now she couldn’t help herself. Intimacy with Luke had been off the charts. He’d always known just how to touch her, exactly how to make her feel amazing. He’d been such a giving lover and their intimacy was something she’d never been able to find with anyone else since...and she’d tried. Mercy she’d tried, but all that her trying had done was lead to dreams that involved Luke in a very erotic manner that only left her satisfied in her sleep. Which was something she’d never admit to anyone, ever.
“You’re smiling.”
Hannah’s statement pulled Cassandra from her fantasy as it was just starting to get out of control. And, damn it, she hadn’t realized she’d been smiling.
“Maybe there’s something left over after all?” Hannah asked with a teasing grin. She took a sip of her mimosa then set the glass on the table. “Teasing aside, if there’s something you want, maybe you should go after it. I know Will and I danced around each other because we didn’t think being together was right for our careers, but there’s so much more than what brings in a paycheck. Had we only focused on that, all of this that is so real between us could have been lost. We have to take charge of our own happiness sometimes instead of waiting for someone else to give it to us.”
Fake Engagement, Nashville Style Page 6