by Sierra Rose
A good point, but he didn’t get to play the victim. Not here. Not with this.
“And how do you think your father got those naked photos in the first place?!” I demanded. “Tell me, Nick—what the hell was going on in that coatroom? And later in the boxing ring? Those times when no one was holding a gun over our heads. There was no threat of blackmail then. So what was that?!”
“I DON’T—”
Then he took one look at my face and deflated. All the pent-up energy, and tension, and anger rushed out of his body with a defeated sigh. He ran his hands over his face, and slumped back against the headboard, suddenly looking very tired.
“I don’t know.”
If only all those cameras could see us now. Cue up the body-language experts—it would be the story of a century. One of us, leaning miserably against the back of the bed. Hands balled into loose fists on the blanket, blue eyes staring blankly at the wall. The other, wrapped as tightly as possible in a bedsheet. Sitting rigid as a board. Unwilling to look at the man behind her.
I could hear muted movement coming from the rest of the house. I wasn’t sure whether or not we’d woken them ourselves—loud voices tended to carry down empty halls—or if Ferdie and his band of merry men got up at the crack of dawn every day. All I knew was that I was absolutely mortified to be sitting here, in this gorgeous house in the middle of the woods. And I was absolutely heartbroken by the gorgeous man sitting behind me on the bed.
On multiple occasions, one or both of us tried to break the silence. Tried to come up with dismissive or funny ways to get out of the tense situation. Tried to find a way to diffuse the forbidden conversation—to get things back onto steadier, more familiar ground.
But each time, we came up short.
As the sun peeked up over the lake, the sounds in the rest of the house became louder and easier to identify. Greta was making breakfast in the kitchen. The smell of sausage and waffles drifted up the stairs, along with the rich aroma of bubbling coffee. Ferdie’s staff was pulling back the heavy curtains that hung from the floor to ceiling windows—shaking out the dust before securing them tightly back with their winded, satin cord.
And Ferdie himself? He was off to wake James. As dangerous as that particular mission might be, it was impolite for his guests to rise before he’d risen himself. And as faithful as he might be to Little Lord Mayhem, the man prized decorum and manners above all.
We listened for a while longer, still sitting in silence on the bed. Then finally, when the silence could go on no longer, Nick cleared his throat softly and began to speak.
“Abby, I told James that we weren’t in a relationship, because I honestly didn’t know if we were in one myself. I wasn’t trying to be dismissive, I wasn’t trying to be glib. I could never be those things with you. I just...”
He took a deep breath, and forced himself onward.
“Whatever this is, it’s sprung from the strangest of circumstances. That doesn’t matter to me, but I don’t know if it matters to you. And the truth of the matter is, I’ve never...I’ve never actually felt this way about anyone, and I don’t—”
My lips closed over his, cutting short his heartfelt explanation with a sweet kiss.
We stayed frozen there for a minute. His face secure between both of my hands. His chin tilted up as I knelt tall in front of him. Then finally, and with a little smile, I released him.
I pulled back. He didn’t move.
“You just...that was a...”
For the first time in history, the man with all the clever answers didn’t know what to say. He simply stared at me with those impossibly blue eyes—eyes as wide as saucers. In the seconds that followed, his entire masterful vocabulary flew right out the window, and when he was finally able to finish his sentence, it was in exactly the same stilted, drunken child approximation that I’d fallen into the first time I’d seen the ring.
“...kiss.”
I bit my lip with a wide grin, struck by the adorable parallels. Deciding to take a page out of his book, I told him the exact same thing that he’d told me.
“That’s right, Nick,” I began patiently, “it was a kiss. Now do you maybe want to blink once or twice so I know that you’re still in there—”
My voice cut off with a shriek as he tackled me down on top of the mattress. His hands ran up through my hair as he lowered himself down on top of me—kissing me long and deep.
He took his time, savoring every second with a blissful sort of smile. When he was finally finished, he turned that smile onto me.
“I need a favor.”
I blinked up at him for a second, before throwing back my head with a laugh. It was breathless and unrestrained. Much how I was feeling myself at the moment.
“You need a favor.” I reached up and stroked the side of his face. “Of course you do.”
He caught my hand with a little grin, and kissed the inside of my palm. “I need you to translate something from the world of women, into the world of men. You see, I just told this girl that I was crazy about her—but was too much of an emotionally-stunted idiot to actually figure that out down on paper. Instead of punching me in the face—she kisses me.” He leaned back with a teasing frown. “Now what do you make of that?”
I wrapped my arms around his neck with a little smile, tilting back my head as I pretended to think it over. “Well...given that the girl in question is as fucking awesome as I’m assuming...”
He kissed my throat.
“She is.”
My teeth clamped down on my lip with another grin.
“Then I’d have to say that all she needed was a little clarity. A concrete word from you that this wasn’t all in her head.”
My voice grew serious in spite of myself, and I tilted down his face so we were looking each other in the eyes.
“She needed to know that she hasn’t fallen headfirst down this crazy rabbit-hole all by herself. That there’s someone there with her. And even if he’s confused, even if he has no idea what this is down on paper...it’s still something real.”
A wave of emotion crashed over him, and instead of kissing me—as had become his custom—he stayed right where he was, stroking back my hair as he stared steadily down into my eyes. When he spoke, it was soft but steady. Carefully weighing each word before he said it, thoughtfully considering each card before he laid it out in front of me.
“This is real. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what to call it...but it’s real.”
A beaming smile lit my eyes, as I stretched up and gave him a soft kiss.
“Yes, it is.”
I honestly didn’t know if I had ever seen Nick so happy. He was almost always smiling, so it was hard to tell. You’d never catch him without a grin on his face, so it was easy to assume the guy had things on lock.
But this was a different. It was a quiet kind of happiness. The kind that you wouldn’t be able to see unless you were staring deep in his eyes.
There wasn’t anything more beautiful.
It lasted only a moment. A serene, crystalline moment. Then he caught me looking and replaced it quickly with a mischievous grin.
“Abby...” he leaned down, kissing me lightly beneath my ear, “do you think that we could maybe skip ahead past all the other talking I’m sure needs to happen at this point?”
His hand slid underneath my toga of sheets, gently parting my legs. I tilted my head to the side, biting my lip with a comical frown.
“I don’t know...in my experience, these discussions are supposed to go on for hours. I’m sure there’s a lot more that needs to get out there. I certainly have a lot more to say...”
He nodded quickly, but kept his eyes focused on my lips—completely preoccupied with the task at hand.
“You talk...”
He slid himself inside me with a gentle thrust.
“...I’ll listen.”
Chapter 19
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, Nick found me some clothes after all. As it turned out, James
kept an assortment of clothing for guests almost as impressive as Nick’s own, and it took me no time at all to find something to my liking. He dressed down as well, looking sexy as hell in a fitted sweater and dark jeans, before the two of us wandered hand in hand down the stairs.
A whispered argument was echoing up from the kitchen, and we paused at the same time—listening with a pair of matching grins.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” James hissed. “You heard it yourself—they’re fighting in there. I absolutely forbid you to go bursting in with breakfast!”
Ferdie whispered something back, something unintelligible, and James responded by cursing quietly in at least seven different languages.
“I swear—the last thing they want right now is scones!”
“Actually,” I murmured to Nick, “a scone sounds pretty good.”
He laughed silently, squeezing my hand.
Another quip from Ferdie, answered by a termination threat from James.
“No, British pastries are not the answer to the world’s problems—”
They broke apart suddenly as the two of us rounded the corner—springing away with matching looks of guilt. James was quick to transform his into a tentative smile, but Nick beat him to the punch.
“Hey man!” he said cheerfully, clapping him once on the shoulder. “Did I hear someone say there were scones?”
James gave him a long look, then turned abruptly on his heel and headed down the hall.
“You guys are killing me, right now...”
AFTER BREAKFAST, THE three of us went back down to the lake. James had opted to go swimming, but since it was the middle of winter and neither Nick nor I were allowed to die of hypothermia for at least three months, we politely declined. Instead, we stood on the pebbly shore, watching as he did laps from one end of the expanse to the other.
“That looks really good on you,” I said casually, gesturing to Nick’s clothes as we strolled leisurely along. “Good thing you and James are the same size.”
He glanced down in surprise, before shaking his head. “These are actually mine—I keep some stuff here. I have for years.”
I thought about that for a while, casting occasional looks between him and the house.
When I’d first gotten offered the job to work with Nick Hunter, I had poured through every bit of information on the guy I could find. Dossiers, press clippings, a file composed from his own father’s private eye. Needless to say, it took a while.
There were a few gaps here and there—holes in the timeline—but I didn’t think anything of it. It was impossible to track a person for every waking hour of their life. Most people would have similar gaps. But now, I was beginning to think there was a bit more to it than that. Now, I was beginning to think that it was perhaps intentional...
“You’ve been here a lot, haven’t you?” I asked quietly.
Not only had he admitted as much, but there had been plenty of indicators. Subtle little clues from the moment he stepped into the house.
His relationship with Ferdie. The fact that he knew where the mugs were in the kitchen when we were sitting down to eat. A closet full of clothes in what I’d thought was a guestroom.
Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was his room.
Nick opened his mouth, then closed it again with a sigh. His head bowed to his chest, as his eyes lowered self-consciously to the ground.
“I used to come here whenever my dad was...” He hesitated, unwilling to go forward. A sudden shadow blackened the blues in his eyes, and he shook his head. “James always had a room ready for me in the house. A place set for me at the table.”
I glanced out at the fanatical swimmer, as what felt like an icy hand squeezed my chest.
Never in my life had I felt more belatedly protective and filled with rage as I had the moment Nick let slip that his dad used to beat him. Never before had I understood the desire to actually strangle someone with your bare hands.
That someone could tarnish someone so beautiful. That someone could hurt him, damage him, violate his trust—
“It was a long time ago,” Nick said quietly, as if sensing my inner turmoil. I glanced up, and he actually gave me a crooked smile. “A different lifetime.”
A different lifetime perhaps, but here we were. With his father still calling the shots.
Before I had a chance to vocalize this, there was a sudden splashing as James made his way toward us out of the lake.
Even though the man’s preferences were tilted elsewhere, and even though I was standing next to—quite possibly—the most beautiful man I had ever seen...I couldn’t help but stare.
James Lysander Cross IV was a work of art.
Every muscle was finely sculpted, every angle was sharply defined. Tiny drops of water clung to his long lashes, as his dark hair ran in little waves down his neck. His lips were slightly parted, as he tried to catch his breath, and in what looked like slow motion, little trickles of water ran down the muscular lines of his chest. Making their way all the way down to—
“Hey.” Nick snapped his fingers in front of my face with a bemused grin. “I’m standing right here, you know.”
I blushed a million shades of scarlet, and dropped my eyes with a guilty grin. “You know, some things can’t be translated from woman into man. Trust me: you wouldn’t understand this.”
He snorted and tossed James a towel, as the man joined us with an oblivious smile.
“You guys really should have come out,” he said, as he dried himself off. “Once you get past the initial shock, there’s really nothing like it.”
I glanced over the icy waters with a little shiver.
“Yeah—we’ll take your word for it. In the meantime, why don’t we maybe pick an activity on dry land?”
He flashed me a grin.
“You got it. Oh—actually, I wanted to ask you guys something. But if it’s too soon after your monstrous fight this morning, then just tell me and I’ll leave it for another time.”
Subtle. As ever.
Nick rolled his eyes again, and shook his head with a grin.
“Just say it.”
James wrapped the towel quickly around his waist, as his face lit up with a hopeful grin.
“Well the last thing I’d ever want to do is over-step...”
Yeah, I bet.
“...but I’d really like to be your fake best man. And throw you one hell of a fake bachelor party.”
Nick smiled and peered at me. “What do you think?”
“Sure. I couldn’t ask for a better best man, and I completely trust you at the bachelor party.”
He spun me around. “You’re the best fake fiancé ever!”
Chapter 20
THE DAY AFTER OUR GREAT aerial escape from the boat, we received a letter at the lake house from Nick’s father. Mitchell might have respected Nick’s alpine sanctuary enough not to trespass there himself, but he had no problem whatsoever sending other people to do his dirty work.
The envelope was pressed with a wax seal. Ferdie presented it with great dignity, and James ripped it open with a scowl. The message was clear.
He would tolerate our little stunt without retribution, but for the next three months, the two of us were to be the perfect couple. No slip-ups. No complaints. No helicopter rides to freedom. If we failed to do so...he didn’t have to write the rest.
It might have sounded like a severe response to an otherwise light-hearted prank, but after the little talk Nick and I had up in the bedroom, I honestly couldn’t think of a more delightful punishment. He wanted us to be the perfect couple?
Well for the next three months, that’s exactly what we did.
We went to all the right social gatherings. From charities, to art openings, to a bachelor auction (that one was funny, let me tell you), right down to an impromptu weekend in Rome about which Nick had personally written to his father to ask for permission to surprise me.
The press was having a field day. There was never a day when Ameri
ca’s Sweethearts didn’t give them something to write about. Whether it was a stroll through Central Park, or a surprise late-night movie, or simply strategic kisses from atop Nick’s magnificent balcony.
There was enough on hard copy to paper the streets of the city, and even with my team working round the clock, there was always more to do.
In essence, we had held up our end of the bargain to perfect completion. But we didn’t only live our lives for the camera. Our actual relationship had been blossoming as well.
Despite my strong resistance, Nick had finally broken me down and convinced me to go out jogging. It helped considerably that he compromised by leaving three hours later than usual, so that I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn.
What had started as an exercise in athletic cruelty, actually developed into a rather baffling passion—given my staunch hatred of working-out. That endorphin rush soon proved to be addictive, and it wasn’t long before I was the one waking him up—bouncing up and down on the mattress until he opened his eyes and put on his shoes.
We had officially ‘moved in.’ My furniture had been rescued from storage, and was tastefully mixed in with his own. I had taken over half the closet. Over half the bathroom shelving. My shampoos and hair products lined the counter by the sink. While some men might have been annoyed by this, Nick just looked on with a sweet kind of amusement. Despite how many women he’d been though over the years, he’d never let any of them move in. He’d never had to share space. He found it a rather adorable thing to be doing now.
We had adopted a plant (which later died). We had survived a tragically one-sided flu, that left me kneeling on the floor of the bathroom each morning, while Nick was perfectly fine. We had even gone for a fake cake tasting to select one for the fake wedding—a wedding that Mitchell had agreed to let us postpone, by the way (another way of saying: just date for three months then you’re forever off the hook).
So no matter how the odd circumstances had come about, I could honestly say that for the last three months, I had never been happier. Nick had never been happier. We may have accidentally stumbled into something amazing here. Something none of us could have expected.