Italian Escape with Her Fake Fiancé

by Sophie Pembroke

  Just not enough to have to deal with the paparazzi quizzing her about her sex life every night after a gig.

  Forcing herself to smile, she pushed through the crowd—stopping to sign a few autographs for fans at the edge of the throng—ignoring more shouted questions about her imaginary love life.

  ‘Daisy! Is it true Jay took you to Paris for your birthday?’

  ‘Do you think he’s going to propose soon?’

  Oh, how disappointed they’d all be if they knew that Daisy had spent her birthday alone in her hotel room, apart from a video call with Aubrey and Jessica during which they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her. She hadn’t even told Jay or the guys that it was her birthday. It was a rare night off in the tour schedule, after a day of travelling to the next location, and all she’d wanted to do was sleep. That was all she ever seemed to have the energy to do between gigs, these days. The glamour of the celebrity lifestyle had definitely been exaggerated in her case.

  As for proposing. Ha! Even if they were dating, Daisy knew that wouldn’t happen.

  She wasn’t the settling-down type. Staying in one place too long had never been her scene. In fact, she’d spent the first sixteen years of her life fighting to get out of the place she’d been born and brought up. There was too much world to see, too much life to live, to settle down and stay with just one person.

  Her home was on the road, her people were the musicians she met there and her true friends scattered across the world—Aubrey in Australia and Jessica in Canada, or New York, now. The only things she held sacred were her guitar, her mandolin, and her own voice.

  What else did she need, really? Except perhaps a decent night’s sleep somewhere that wasn’t a bus, and the space to clear her head for a few minutes without someone asking her something or calling her name.

  ‘Daisy Louise Mulligan?’

  Somehow, through the clamour of the crowd, the music still raging through the speakers around the stadium, and the questions she was trying to ignore, Daisy heard her full name—spoken softly, but insistently.

  Frowning, she turned to try and figure out who’d spoken it. Her eye fell upon a nondescript man in a grey suit. Not a pushy paparazzi for sure, and definitely not one of her typical fans.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you could come with me, please, I have some important legal information to share with you.’

  Daisy shrank back. Oh, she didn’t like the sound of that. In her life ‘legal information’ usually meant a lot of trouble. Except she was pretty sure she hadn’t done anything even vaguely illegal since she left home at sixteen.

  Maybe she was being sued. That was the sort of thing that happened once you started to get famous, right? Jay had definitely been sued before—although the case was thrown out of court because of course he hadn’t done anything wrong. Jay was a sweetheart. That was why the whole world loved him so much.

  Of course, the rest of the world didn’t have to see him moping around about Milli bloody Masters, or deal with his grumpy moods since they split up six months ago. That probably helped.

  But back to the problem at hand.

  ‘Am I being sued?’ she asked.

  The man in the suit gave her a faint smile and shook his head. ‘Quite the opposite, Miss Mulligan. In fact, I have some very good news for you.’

  Daisy drew back a little more. Somehow, the idea of good news made her even more nervous. She was used to bad news, to disaster, to problems. And she figured she’d already used up all the good luck she was entitled to in her whole life by getting the gig as the opening act for Jay and the band.

  Whatever this news was, Daisy was certain there’d be a catch. Good things didn’t just happen to people. Daisy knew that there was always a price to pay somewhere. If her childhood had taught her anything it was that she had to work for anything good that came her way—she couldn’t just rely on hope and the kindness of strangers.

  ‘If you could just come with me?’ The man held out his arm for Daisy to take.

  Her eyes widened even further, and she took a step back.

  He dropped his arm, seeming to get her measure. ‘There’s a coffee shop, just across the way. Brightly lit, plenty of people. If you will join me there, I’ll be able to fill you in on all the details of your inheritance.’

  Daisy looked across the road and saw the coffee shop he’d mentioned. It looked safe. And not full of reporters asking her questions.

  Then her brain caught up with his other words.

  ‘My inheritance?’ She didn’t have anybody who owned anything to leave her, as far as she knew. Her own family had barely had enough money to buy food for the many kids crammed into their council house. ‘Someone left me something? Who?’

  But the man in the suit didn’t answer the question she asked. Instead, he answered a different one.

  ‘Yes. You’ve been left a house—well, a cottage. A villa, perhaps? In Italy. Now, if you’ll come with me...’

  She followed him in a daze. A cottage? Why would anybody leave her a cottage, in Italy of all places? A cottage sounded like...well, like a home. And she hadn’t had one of those since she’d run away from Liverpool at sixteen with her mother’s old mandolin and a change of clothes, and barely looked back.

  This had to be a mistake. She’d go with the guy, figure out what confusion had sent him here, to her, and then she’d get back to her regularly scheduled life. Her manic, overloaded, exhausting life, full of fake news about her romantic status.

  Great.

  * * *

  Another day, another lousy gig. The duet with Daisy had been the only bright point, yet again—although he’d managed to keep his lips off her for the last couple of nights, so even that hadn’t gone down as well as it had in Philadelphia.

  Jay handed his precious guitar to the stagehand, waved wearily at the rest the band—ignoring a concerned look from his brother, Harry—and headed for the stage door. He should go back to the dressing room, he knew. Get changed, freshen up, hang with the band, listen to their manager, Kevin, tell them what a great job they did tonight. But to be honest? He couldn’t face it.

  Daisy had come back out for an encore with them, at the end of their set, which he hoped meant she’d forgiven him for the kiss—but might just mean she was trying to save him from himself. She was good, Jay had to admit. From the first time he’d seen her play in Copenhagen, two years ago now, he’d known her talent was something rare and special. It was a point of professional pride that he had brought her on board, although it helped that her music and style, while complementing theirs, was different enough from Dept 135’s offerings that they were never in direct competition.

  She got on well enough with the rest of the band too—and Jay knew from previous experience that wasn’t always the case with supporting acts. Overall, it had been a good decision to ask her to open for them on this tour. But Jay had a feeling it was starting to get to her.

  The touring lifestyle wasn’t for everybody. Hell, he wasn’t even sure it was for him, and he’d been doing it for the better part of a decade now. But it was what you had to do to make it in the music industry these days. And Daisy was great onstage, always had been. The problems only started offstage.

  Jay knew that in his current state of mind, he probably wasn’t the best choice to be lecturing anybody about positive attitude, or the benefits of not snapping at the management—especially since it was his lips that had increased the pressure on her from the paparazzi. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that, as her mentor of sorts, it was his place to have a word with her before she really hacked someone off. Even Harry, the most even-tempered guy Jay knew, had raised his eyebrows when Daisy had stormed off straight after sound check, leaving her precious mandolin behind for someone else to store safely until the gig that night.

  When they’d first met, Daisy had hugged that mandolin like a safety blanket. Jay
couldn’t help but think that this afternoon’s mini strop signalled worse things to come, and it was his job as band frontman, and Daisy’s sort-of mentor, to try and nip that in the bud.

  Leaving the others to head back to the dressing room for a well-deserved drink and pat on the back from the management, Jay followed Daisy’s retreating figure out through the stage door instead. She had a head start on him, but he could just about see her mop of dark hair bobbing through the crowd of journos and fans. She stopped to sign some autographs, which was a good sign. When she stopped making time for the people who listened to her music, then she’d be in real trouble.

  ‘Jay!’ Pamela Pearson, one of Jay’s least favourite music journalists—if he could call someone who only ever reported on the personal lives of musicians, rather than the music they made, that—elbowed her way to the front of the crowd at the stage door to grab his arm. ‘It’s so good to see you again! And looking so happy, too. Are we to assume that’s since you brought Daisy on tour with you this time...?’

  She didn’t actually wink, but she might as well have done.

  Last year, when they’d toured, Daisy hadn’t been enough of a name to join them as an opening act, and they’d already had a commitment with another band for the slot, anyway. But ever since Jay had introduced Daisy to their manager, dragging Kevin to see her play in some dive bar in London, after he recognised her name from that festival in Copenhagen, their musical stars had been somewhat linked.

  Phoenix Records, their label, had a great reputation for nurturing new talent, and part of that was pairing new artists with established stars to help them through the growing pains that every musician went through, trying to adapt from playing music for themselves and twenty people in a pub to making music for millions. Jay had been an obvious choice to mentor Daisy, so they’d stayed in touch through the year.

  Then, it had been low-key enough that no one outside the band or the label had even noticed. Well, apart from Milli, but Jay wasn’t thinking about her. Ever again.

  Although, it had been his break-up with Milli that had made him so adamant he wanted to get back out on the road, and quickly. He’d assured Kevin and the label that they’d be able to work on the new album while touring, which everyone had to know was a lie, but they’d let him get away with it anyway. Perhaps they knew as well as he did that staying at home, noticing all the places Milli wasn’t, wouldn’t help him at all.

  Heartbreak was supposed to be good for inspiration, but so far Jay hadn’t found any music in his misery. At least, nothing that was repeatable to the world at large.

  Bringing Daisy on tour had suddenly brought her to the notice of music journos—and gossip reporters—everywhere. And given that Jay was her main friend, supporter and mentor on this tour, people had begun jumping to the usual boring and predictable conclusions. Helped out by that accidental kiss in Philadelphia.

  They were wrong, of course, but it did serve as a nice distraction from the endless articles about how he was moping over Milli, while she was off holidaying with some billionaire businessman in the Maldives.

  Not that he read those articles. Much.

  Mostly because Harry confiscated them.

  ‘Pamela, I’m always happy after a great gig like tonight.’ He flashed the reporter a blinding smile, just one more person in the industry he was obligated to charm. ‘And having Daisy on tour with us is just an added bonus. She’s fantastic fun, onstage and off.’

  Dammit. Jay regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth and cursed himself doubly when he saw the shark-like grin that spread across Pamela’s face. She was going to take that as further confirmation of their relationship and run with it, Jay knew. And since the Daisy being fun offstage part was currently a total lie, he knew he’d pay for it once it reached her ears.

  ‘I must say, as a friend, it’s just so lovely to see you happy again, Jay.’ Pamela laid a hand on his arm, and he resisted the urge to shake it off. They weren’t friends, they were barely acquaintances. But that wouldn’t stop Pamela butting into his private life. ‘Might we keep hoping for an official announcement soon? Maybe even a shot of Daisy flashing some extra-special jewellery?’

  In for a penny, in for a pound, as his gran always used to say. If Pamela was going to write about him and Daisy anyway, it might as well be a story that would show Milli he really had moved on from her and her betrayal. One that didn’t talk about how tired he looked, how downhearted, how he’d lost his way and his music was suffering. He was so sick of those articles.

  ‘Never give up hope, Pamela. That’s what I always say.’ And with a wink, Jay headed out into the crowd to find his wayward support act, hoping she wouldn’t actually injure him when she discovered he was fuelling the rumours about their romantic lives.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WHERE WERE YOU last night?’

  Daisy closed the hard guitar case with her instrument inside and fastened the clasps. Her guitar wasn’t quite as precious to her as her mandolin, but it was still one of the tools of her trade, and that meant she needed to take good care of it. Something she had to remind herself to do when frustration and anger got the better of her, and all she wanted to do was be alone away from idiots. At least musical instruments didn’t ask annoying questions. Unlike Jay.

  She turned to him with a sigh. ‘I was onstage with you, same as every night. In fact, I was carrying the whole damn gig, just like every night of this tour. And then I was sleeping on a tour bus to get here. Also the same as you. Except I wasn’t snoring.’

  ‘I don’t snore. That’s Harry.’ Jay hopped up to sit onstage beside where she was packing up her equipment after the sound check, close enough that she had to move around him as she worked. One thing she’d learned about Jay while they’d been touring—he had no sense of personal space. Which meant they all got to share his miserable mood. ‘And I meant between those two things. Where did you go after the gig? You left me to deal with Pamela the shark all on my own.’ He nudged her leg as she passed, obviously hoping to raise a smile with his use of the nickname. He was making an effort, more than he did most days. She supposed she should be pleased by that.

  In fact, though, he just reminded her exactly why she was annoyed with him.

  ‘I thought you and Pammy were big mates,’ Daisy said. ‘At least that’s what she’s claiming on her blog this morning, as she spills all the details of your private friendly chat about your relationship with me. I understand I should be anticipating some diamonds soon.’

  As if. Daisy had always known she wasn’t the marrying kind—not even the settling-down sort. Even if Jay was interested in her—which, since she knew he was totally hung up on his ex, Milli, he categorically wasn’t, that surprisingly intense kiss notwithstanding—all these stories presupposed that she’d just fall at his feet. Because to the world at large, Jay Barwell was the dream, the fantasy, and no one in their right mind would turn down the opportunity to bed him, let alone marry him.

  Well, apart from Milli Masters, who was her own fantasy fodder to millions—even more so than Jay.

  And Daisy. Who had absolutely no interest in marrying anyone, especially not a guy who snored on tour buses and tried to ‘big brother’ her. He called it ‘mentoring’ but Daisy knew what it really was. It was Jay thinking he knew better than her about everything, and that had never gone down well with her.

  Especially since his attempts at managing the press now had her practically engaged to him. So much for knowing best. She’d never got them accidentally engaged before. Although that might be because she avoided media—social and real world—as much as possible. Something else Jay thought she was wrong about.

  Jay laughed. ‘You know Pamela. Never one to bother with the truth, when the lie is so much more interesting.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Daisy muttered. ‘That’s one word for it.’

  Daisy didn’t understand that—or h
ow he could be so blasé about it all. She could sort of get going along with the rumours and the gossip—even her limited PR knowledge told her that people talking about them, whatever the reason, had to be good publicity for the music. Which was, in case the whole crazy world had forgotten, what they were actually there for.

  But when it came to outright lies about them, to pretending they were madly in love and getting married...well, that was where she started to get twitchy about the whole thing. Not least because it was completely unbelievable.

  She tried to imagine her family, such as it was, back in Liverpool reading these headlines: Rising star Daisy Mulligan set to tie the knot with superstar Jay Barwell!

  Yeah—no. She could see her gran laughing now, so hard she’d give herself another coughing fit. And her dad would just roll his eyes and toss the paper out. Her little brothers probably wouldn’t even remember her well enough to comment, and her stepmum would use the paper to pick up the mess the dogs left in the back garden.

  Her life didn’t come with fairy-tale weddings and happy ever afters, even fake ones. Of course, it hadn’t come with Italian villas until last night, either.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’ Jay leant closer, right up into her space, and Daisy forced herself to stay still to avoid giving him the satisfaction of backing away. She tried to ignore the way her body hummed with the memory of that fake kiss, too. That wasn’t going to be any help at all in this situation. ‘Where did you go after the gig last night? I came looking for you.’

  She didn’t ask why he’d been looking in the first place, because she could guess—and it had nothing to do with getting on one knee with a diamond ring, or even kissing her for real this time. He’d probably wanted to talk to her about her attitude. Again.

  As if her basic personality was something she could just change to suit him. Uh...no, thanks.