Italian Escape with Her Fake Fiancé

by Sophie Pembroke

  Nico shook his head. ‘You keeping out of the limelight for a few weeks gives the rest of us a chance to shine for once. That’s fine by me.’

  ‘Plus Daisy might help lighten you up a little bit,’ Benji put in. ‘No offence or anything, but you’ve been a miserable bugger so far this tour.’

  Jay looked to Harry for confirmation; his brother winced and nodded. ‘I wasn’t going to put it quite that bluntly but...yeah.’

  ‘Daisy’s fun,’ Benji said, with a shrug.

  ‘Daisy’s gorgeous,’ Nico added. ‘You’ll just have to make sure you don’t end up back here engaged for real.’

  The memory of that one, impulsive kiss they’d shared onstage flared up in his head, his blood warming instantly. Jay forced himself to think of the diamond ring still sitting in the bottom of his suitcase instead. The one he’d bought for Milli, before she called everything off.

  He’d been burnt that way before, no way he’d be stupid enough to fall for it again. Not when, this time, he knew right from the start that nothing about his connection with Daisy was real, however fantastic that brief kiss had felt.

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about that,’ he said dryly. ‘Now, I need to go find Kevin before the show. And Daisy.’

  Apparently, they had travel plans to make.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘IS THIS EVEN a real airport?’ Daisy asked as she wobbled off the tiny plane that had flown them from Rome to...wherever the hell they were now. The back of beyond, as far as she could tell.

  So much for her plans to spend the tour break in a plush hotel with room service on tap. All she could see here was hills, scrub land, and a tiny control building next to the airstrip their minute plane had landed on.

  ‘It’s more of a private airfield, I think,’ Jay replied, squinting in the sunshine. ‘But Kevin said there should be a car waiting for us...’

  How Kevin had got so involved in her escape from the public eye, Daisy still wasn’t entirely sure. But ever since Jay had come and found her on the bus and declared that he thought they should go to Italy together, things seemed to have been spiralling out of her control.

  She’d started off well, putting her foot down on the things that mattered. Yes, Jay could come to Italy with her but only on the proviso that they were going together to write music, nothing else. Jay had agreed easily to that condition, as had Kevin—the latter with a rather suspicious wink that made Daisy doubt he was actually going along with her wishes.

  But she was escaping, and writing music wasn’t exactly a hardship.

  Of course, at that point, Kevin had taken over everything.

  The solicitor, Mr Mayhew, had been delighted to be dealing with Kevin, someone who seemed to have considerably more understanding of property and law than Daisy. And at least Kevin’s involvement had reassured her that it definitely wasn’t a scam—although it had also involved some very confusing conversations about Great-Aunt Felicia.

  The more she learned about her strange inheritance, though, the more Daisy became convinced that Viv, the lady they’d helped in Copenhagen two years ago, had to be behind it. Apart from anything else, there was literally no one else in the world—apart from Jessica and Aubrey—who would give her anything.

  Which was kind of sad, when she thought about it.

  But if Viv was responsible, then it linked in with Jessica and Aubrey’s recent good fortunes too. Jessica was still radio silent, but Aubrey had been doing some digging, and had sent her a photo of Vivian Ascot, the billionaire owner of Ascot Industries—who coincidentally sponsored the music festival they’d all attended in Copenhagen. The photo was an old one, the woman’s face shaded by a large sun hat, but if she squinted, Daisy could definitely see their Viv in the image.

  But while she’d been preoccupied with the mystery of why Viv would give her a house, Kevin seemed to have organised everything else. Including the flight from the States, where they were touring, to Italy—and the transfer on the terrifyingly small plane to this airstrip in the middle of nowhere.

  And the driver, holding a handwritten sign with their names on that, on closer inspection, appeared to be written on the back of a birthday card. He leaned against a dusty car, his eyes half closed in the sunshine.

  Not quite the limos Jay was used to these days, she was sure, but still more than she expected when she travelled, even now.

  The driver’s English was limited but, by joint pointing at maps on their phones, Daisy managed to confirm where they were going, while Jay loaded their cases into the boot of the car. She slid into the back seat beside him, and held onto the door as the car jerked forward towards what could only charitably be called a road.

  ‘So, have you seen photos of this place?’ Jay asked as they bumped along.

  Daisy nodded. ‘One or two.’ She pulled out her phone again to show him the pictures Mr Mayhew had sent her. They showed a single-storey, stone-built cottage with a bright blue door, set against a backdrop of rolling Italian countryside—green and lush in parts, yellow in others, with tall, thin trees jutting up into the sky all around.

  ‘It looks beautiful,’ Jay said, swiping through the images. ‘Perfect place to get away from everyone for a few weeks.’

  ‘Everyone except you.’ Daisy pocketed the phone again. ‘Mr Mayhew said that there’s a village at the bottom of the hill, so hopefully we can get supplies and such there. There might even be a bar or two.’

  ‘Sounds fun.’ The words were right, but Daisy couldn’t help but notice that Jay didn’t sound exactly excited at the prospect.

  ‘I’m sorry you got forced to come here with me.’ Not that spending three weeks in the middle of nowhere with Jay was her first choice for the tour break, either. But it had to beat playing up to the press and pretending to be engaged to him in public.

  Jay shook his head and gave her a half-smile. ‘Honestly, you’re doing me a favour. I mean, even Harry suggested it would be good for me.’

  ‘Because we’d work on some new songs together?’ Something she knew Jay had been avoiding ever since the tour started. She hadn’t brought it up because, quite frankly, performing every night, zigzagging across the USA in the tour bus, and giving regular interviews at each stop had drained any creativity right out of her, and she imagined it was the same for Jay. But she knew as well as he did that the label had expectations.

  ‘Partly. Mostly I think he hoped it might shake me out of the funk I’ve been in since—’ He broke off suddenly, but Daisy didn’t need him to finish the sentence, anyway.

  Since Milli, that was what he was going to say. Since the woman he loved walked out on him and their future in the most public, humiliating way she could manage. Really, who dumped someone in a social-media video, anyway?

  ‘Well, if nothing else, you won’t have to deal with Pamela Pearson hounding you about whether you’ve bought me an engagement ring yet,’ she said cheerfully. She’d seen the depressive moods Jay could sink into when too many reminders of Milli got the better of him—like the time her new video had been playing on the huge TV screen in the tour bus’s living area when they got back after a gig. Or when one interviewer had only asked questions about the demise of their relationship for a full five minutes.

  Yeah, the less said about Milli Masters, the better, in Daisy’s opinion.

  ‘Harry offered to call Mum and ask her to send Grandma’s ring over for you,’ Jay replied, obviously relieved at the change of subject. ‘I mean, it’s a tiny speck of a diamond hidden in a gold band, but if you want it...’

  Daisy pulled a face. ‘I’ll pass, thanks. I’m kind of hoping they’ll have all forgotten about it by the time we get back.’

  ‘Does it bother you?’ Jay asked, curiosity colouring his tone. ‘All this fake relationship stuff, I mean?’

  Daisy shrugged. ‘A bit. I mean, you and I know it isn’t real. But I don’t like livin
g a lie.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’ Jay sounded a little uncomfortable with it all too, Daisy realised. Why? Surely this was just part of the fame game, right? Especially for him, being such a huge star. People had speculated that his relationship with Milli was just for the cameras too, but given his reaction to the ending of it, she guessed not.

  ‘Does it bother you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it’s basically just Kevin spreading gossip, right?’ Except Jay had been the one to start the engagement rumour in the first place. And the one to start everything by kissing her during that duet.

  And now they were writing more. God, people really were going to start talking. Was that what Jay wanted?

  ‘It doesn’t bother me, exactly,’ Jay said slowly. ‘Not when I know that it’s part of the game. More it’s just weird, you know? My mum finds it baffling. Like, why would anyone pretend to be in love when they could just find someone to fall in love with for real?’

  ‘Your mum makes a good point,’ Daisy admitted. Not that she was looking for love. From what she’d seen, love mostly led to heartbreak. Music was a much safer option.

  ‘But I guess...everything we do is a performance, right?’ Jay went on. ‘The songs we write—they might have some of us in them, but they’re still not a word-for-word rendition of our thoughts.’

  ‘And when we’re up onstage... I’m not Daisy Mulligan from Liverpool, exactly. I’m Daisy Mulligan, rock star. And that’s something different.’ Sometimes, that person felt a world away from the real her. Daisy suspected that might be why she enjoyed playing her so much.

  Up onstage, she wasn’t the Daisy who everyone agreed would never amount to anything. The useless daughter who wasn’t enough to stop her mum from leaving, or the student voted most likely to drop out. Up onstage, she could prove them all wrong—but it never really felt like her.

  ‘I guess it’s the same when we give interviews.’ Jay sounded thoughtful. ‘We present ourselves a certain way.’

  ‘Like a job interview,’ Daisy put in. ‘Not that I really know much about those.’

  ‘Yeah. So do you reckon pretending to be in love is just like pretending you speak fluent Spanish on your CV?’

  Daisy laughed. ‘My teachers were impressed I ever managed to learn to speak English properly, never mind a foreign language. But yeah, I guess it’s the same principle. You just have to hope you never get caught out—like someone asking you to translate at an important meeting or something.’

  ‘Or in our case, asking us to kiss in front of the cameras.’

  Daisy shot him a look. ‘That didn’t exactly seem to be a problem for you last time.’ She’d meant it as an accusation, but it came out a little breathier than she’d intended.

  And Jay didn’t look exactly apologetic, either. One eyebrow raised suggestively over his green eyes, while amusement played around his lips. And for a moment—just a second, really—she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss them. To kiss Jay Barwell, world’s sexiest man. Not a fake kiss for the crowds and the cameras. A real kiss.

  Then the car bashed into another bump in the criminally uneven road, just when she’d finally let go of the seat cushion, and lurched sideways, sending her tumbling towards Jay’s lap.

  Strong arms caught her—stronger than he could have got from just playing guitar, but she supposed that was why Jay had requested that the back of the tour bus be set up as a workout zone, rather than the luxurious master bedroom he could have commanded.

  A strange, long-forgotten flutter started deep in her belly. Suddenly, every single time she’d touched Jay was racing through her mind like a film reel. They’d shaken hands when they met, she remembered. Hugged outside that club in London when Kevin offered to sign her. He’d slung an arm around her shoulder like one of the guys often enough as they took a bow onstage. Then there was that kiss...that she really wasn’t thinking about. And just that afternoon he’d put his hand to the small of her back as he guided her up the rickety steps to the tiny plane from Rome, his palm radiating heat. But none of it had felt like this. Not...close. Close enough that she could breathe in his aftershave, feel the heat of his body against hers.

  She wanted to reach out and squeeze those muscles—but she didn’t. If Kevin was determined to play up some fake affair between them in the press the last thing she wanted to do was complicate that with actual lust or—God forbid—feelings. Any fake relationship was definitely just a marketing strategy.

  So as the car righted itself, Daisy pulled away and muttered, ‘Sorry,’ before tucking herself back into the far corner of the car, glancing out of the window for a distraction. They bumped over a few more potholes in the road—Daisy held tightly to the seat this time to avoid a repeat performance—while they climbed the hill. As they crested it, a small, tumbledown villa came into view. One with the same stone walls and tiled roof as the photos she’d been sent, although this one was in far worse condition. And as the path curved around, she realised it sat right at the top of a cliff, practically on the edge, looking out over the ocean. It must be a typical construction style for houses in the area, she reasoned.

  Until she realised that the road they were on stopped at the edge of the cliff. At the faded and peeling blue front door of the falling-down villa. And her heart sank all the way down into the waves below.

  * * *

  Jay was still considering the strange jolt of attraction that had sparked through him as Daisy crashed into his arms, when the car started to slow. Mostly because it was so unexpected. He’d barely felt a connection to anyone, in any way, since Milli—and certainly not that sharp flare of something akin to lust that had taken over his body as she’d pressed against him. Even the night he’d kissed her onstage, he’d been feeling more relief that the crowd were enjoying the show again than lust for the woman attached to the lips he was kissing.

  Daisy’s gorgeous, he heard Nico’s voice repeating in his head. And yes, of course, she was. He wasn’t blind, and he sang love songs to her every night onstage. Of course he’d noticed that she was beautiful. Perhaps not in the conventional way that Milli was, with her honey-blonde hair and perfect curves, but in a different, vibrant way that was all Daisy.

  He just hadn’t thought that beauty was anything he needed to worry about.

  Except now he realised he was alone with it for the next three weeks. And it appeared that certain parts of his anatomy were suddenly very aware of what that might possibly mean if, and it was a long shot, Daisy had felt that same spark.

  A very long shot, he told himself, given that she was currently staring out of the window at the villa outside and paying him no attention at all.

  Wait. Villa. Did that mean they were there? He craned his neck to see past her. No, this couldn’t be it. The villa in the photos Daisy had shown him had been bright, well-kept and welcoming. This place looked as though the walls might just cave in if he glanced at them wrong.

  Except the car had stopped. And the driver was getting out...

  ‘This is it?’ he asked, trying not to sound incredulous, and knowing that he’d failed.

  ‘Apparently so.’ Jay couldn’t quite read the look on Daisy’s face as she turned to him. It wasn’t quite disappointed. More...resigned? As if she should have known this would happen. ‘Sorry.’ The apology was short and quiet, as if she wasn’t used to giving them.

  Actually, from what he knew of Daisy, she wasn’t.

  The driver had already unloaded their bags from the back of the car, and was hanging around smiling broadly. Jay resisted the urge to ask if he was sure this was the place, and handed over a tip instead, unsurprised when the man jumped back behind the steering wheel and scarpered.

  ‘I guess we’d better see what we’re dealing with, then,’ Daisy said, glaring at the peeling paint on the door as if it had done her personal harm.

  Jay followed gingerly behind her.

>   When he’d heard ‘villa in Italy’ he’d imagined spending this break in the schedule relaxing by the pool, sipping cocktails, strumming his guitar under a cypress tree, partaking of the local specialities at a trattoria in the village...and maybe writing a song or two with Daisy.

  Instead, it looked as if he’d be searching for a hardware shop to buy a hard hat, and trying to avoid being brained by falling masonry.

  ‘We could just call Kevin and head back to the States,’ he suggested as he lingered in the doorway. At least the door frame seemed sturdy. It might be the safest place in the building.

  ‘And spend three weeks smiling for the camera and pretending to be wildly in love? No, thanks.’ Daisy shook her head a little too violently, sending a cloud of dust flying up from a nearby table. ‘Kevin would have us married by Elvis in Vegas before the tour started up again.’

  ‘True.’ Jay took in the very dusty dust sheets covering the furniture and tried to decide which was the worst fate—Elvis, or death by dust inhalation. Thank God Harry hadn’t come. It would have played merry hell with his asthma.

  Squinting up at the ceiling, he decided it wasn’t going to fall down imminently, so stepped inside.

  The villa’s front door opened onto one main room, filled with sheet-covered chairs, tables and—from the shape under the fabric—bookcases. No TV as far as he could see. One door led through to another room at the back that, from the glimpse he could get through the open doorway, was the kitchen. Another opening led to a hallway with several doors off it.

  ‘Shall we explore?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow at Daisy. She looked so grumpy about the whole thing, Jay decided he’d have to tease her out of it. Make it all a game, an adventure—the way he used to have to do for Harry when they were kids, and his little brother got into a sulk over something.

  ‘If you’re sure you want to risk it,’ Daisy replied, looking doubtfully towards a broken window in the open-plan living area.