So many.
He asked me about the party. Right.
It takes me a second to get my eyes up past his neck, and when I do, I find Wade watching me with one raised brow and a smile that says I’m so busted.
I sigh, holding up my hands. “Okay, I’m impressed. For real.”
He grins. “Finally.”
Taking a last look at the shirt, he tosses the wrecked garment in the bin beneath him. “The party, Harlow.”
Yes. Right.
“It was so much fun. Thank you for the nudge, by the way. I would have been fine with a night here in the room, though. So if anything comes up that you need to do on your own, don’t worry about me. I mean that. But tonight was a really good time, and I’m glad I got to go.”
“Just tell me Janie’s stripper didn’t get as handsy as ours did. If my brother’s taking a swing at me tomorrow, I want to be prepared for it.”
“He didn’t.” I laugh and, peering up at him, get caught in that smile. “No offense to Walt, because he seems like a really nice guy. But I’m having trouble imagining him coming after you.”
Wade has several inches on his brother and a couple dozen pounds of muscle, at least. The bulk of which I’m still getting an eyeful of.
“If you’d seen us growing up, you wouldn’t doubt it. That little fucker fought dirty.”
And now I’m imagining the two boys Grace showed me picture after smiling, innocent picture of going after each other. When I finally stop laughing, Wade’s eyes are still on me.
And I like it. I like the way he smiles at me and the way he laughs with me and the way he looks at me like he likes me.
Tracing a square in the pattern of the bedspread, I put my thoughts back on track. “Okay, so dirty fighter aside. What reason would Walt have to come after you?”
“I might have helped Janie’s mom out with the entertainment.”
My jaw drops. “You hired Officer Dwayne DeLong-Johnson? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. But it definitely makes more sense than Mrs. Hamilton scouring the exotic dancer listings on her own. FYI, she couldn’t stop giggling the entire time he was there. Her face was tomato red, but she was delighted.”
Pushing off the desk, that hooked grin in place, he heads for the bathroom. “Nice. I’m glad Janie had a good time.”
He leaves the door open and turns on the sink, so I follow him back and prop a shoulder in the doorway. “Janie did too, but I was talking about her mom. And yours.”
Rocking back on his heels, he cackles. “Tell me there are pictures.”
“Oh, there are pictures, all right. I’m pretty sure Janie has video too. Play your cards right, and maybe she’ll share them.”
Still grinning, he runs a washcloth under the tap, soaping it up before he goes after the lipstick marring his jaw and forehead.
Catching sight of a few pink smears he probably can’t see, I step into the room, take another washcloth from the rack, and reach around Wade to get it wet. After the last two days, I’ve gotten so used to intentionally touching when we have an audience, I don’t even think about the fact that my hand is pressed to the bare skin of his side until I look up and find him watching me in the mirror.
“Sorry,” I breathe out, pulling my hand free. Suddenly, the laughter is gone, leaving only the awareness of how small this room is and how close we’re standing.
“There’s some on your neck and back too… If you want me to get them.”
He nods, and I try to focus on wiping away the evidence of some other woman on him, but my gaze keeps slipping back to the mirror. To the too-blue eyes still watching mine, impossible to read.
I want to say something. Break the silence. But that easy conversation between us feels further out of reach as the seconds stretch.
“There, you’re all cleaned up,” I finally manage, still clutching the washcloth.
Wade turns, his big body swallowing up the space in the small bathroom in a way it hadn’t when his back was turned. He reaches for a bit of my hair like he did at the gas station—God, was that only yesterday?—and wraps it around his finger before smoothing it back over my ear.
The air feels thin, warm.
His knuckles graze that sensitive skin along my neck.
Forget thin. The air is gone.
Or maybe I’m just holding my breath. His brows pull forward, those blue-sky eyes turning midnight as they track the path his fingers just followed, then slowly shift back to mine.
Something cold splatters against the top of my foot, shocking the air back into my lungs on a gasp.
I’m clutching the wet cloth in my hands hard enough to wring the liquid from it.
When I look back to Wade, whatever I thought I saw is gone and all that’s left is the easy smile.
He takes the washcloth from me, setting it at the back of the sink. Then wrapping his hands around my shoulders in a gentle hold, he guides me backward until I’m outside the bathroom. “Thanks for getting the lipstick off. Hit the sack and I’ll try to be quiet when I’m done showering.”
And then he closes the door.
Chapter 10
Wade
It’s the crack of dawn and I can’t stop thinking about Harlow. About standing in that bathroom last night with her fingertips burning into the bare skin of my side and those deep brown eyes peering up into mine.
Good thing she turned away when she did, because I was about to do something epically stupid. And I don’t want to be that guy for her.
I want to be a good guy. Not the jerk who convinced her to help me out, only to pay her back by putting moves on her two days into a ten-day favor.
Thing is, it would be a hell of a lot easier to be good if every now and then she didn’t look like she might be thinking something bad.
Keyword there being might. As in, also might not.
Outside of this week, I’m not a guy who holds back, waiting to see how things play out. I’m a guy who goes after what I want.
The girl, the game, the puck. Whatever it is. I don’t mess around.
If Harlow had been giving me those eyes under any circumstances other than these, I would have had my mouth on hers within a blink. I would have—
Nope.
I’m not going to be the douche lying here getting hard thinking about her mouth and all the ways I want to play with it. What those lush lips might taste like. How soft and sweet they’d be parting beneath mine. What it would be like wrapping my hand in the thick silk of her hair and backing her up to the bathroom wall—no, the shower wall—while foamy soap slips between us, trailing over her tits and down to her—
Fuck! Don’t think about her like that when she’s one freaking Saltine-cracker-thin wall away.
I take a deep breath, concentrating on the three springs grating against my spine, hip, and shoulder instead of shower scenarios that might have been until I think I might be facing a career-ending injury if I don’t move.
I roll to my side, cringing at the screech of the springs beneath me.
And there’s the laugh.
“Sorry ’bout that.”
“I was already awake. Just giving you some extra sleep if you needed it.”
“Nah, I’m set.” Total lie. I could probably use about six more hours. But that’s not happening now. And not just because of the bed.
There’s some rustling from the other side of the wall and then Harlow’s standing in the open arch between our rooms.
Jesus, she’s beautiful. That inky hair falling around her shoulders in sleep-mussed sexiness. Her golden skin and bottomless eyes devoid of any makeup. And those conservative button-down PJs clinging to her curves in a way that has me pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to rub the faint outline of her nipples against the fabric from my mind.
Be the good guy.
“How’d you sleep?” Better than me, I hope. But as I search for any hint of a shadow or bag under her eyes, a shitty part of me might be just a smidge bummed to see that she loo
ks perfectly rested. Like she didn’t lose a wink of sleep thinking about that moment in the bathroom last night.
“Great. In fact, I’m ready to run if you are,” she says with a bounce and a smile. “We don’t have anything scheduled for this morning, do we?”
Another ding to the ego. Sorry, buddy.
“Lunch with Walt and Janie at noon.”
“Plenty of time then. I’ll change first and meet you out front when you’re ready.”
Harlow
I had to get out of that room.
After tossing and turning half the night, staring at the ceiling, staring at the bathroom door, then staring at my phone when I realized staring was all I was going to be able to do—I couldn’t take it another minute.
I’d just been creeping out of bed, hoping to change into my running gear and slink out before he woke up when the bed from Hell broadcast that Wade was awake. So my slinking plan was out the window and there wasn’t any choice but to brave a visit to his side of the suite and see for myself whether there was anything weird lingering between us.
Newsflash: there wasn’t. Not from his side anyway.
It was just Wade being Wade. No weighted pauses. No big, muscley hockey player prowling out of bed to back me into my room. Just a nice smile and a guy making plans for the day with his fake girlfriend.
Perfect.
Ten minutes later, he meets me on the grassy strip in front of the truck. And ten minutes after that, we’re stretched and chatting as easily as we have all along.
It’s another beautiful morning, and when we get out to the old Enderson water tower, instead of just running around it, Wade stops and gives me that too-tempting grin. “You afraid of heights?”
He cocks his head toward the tower, a dare gleaming in his eyes.
I love climbing. It’s something I picked up imagining, like golf, skiing, and tennis, it would be as good a skill to have in business as my MBA. So far the only use I’ve had for it is my own enjoyment, but that’s plenty.
“We’re going up? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Yep. And I wouldn’t recommend it anywhere other than Enderson. But here… Well, it’s the best view in town, and let’s just say I’ve got one last free pass.” Wade bites his bottom lip and then pulls a face. “But you can’t tell anyone. For real. This is the only thing I do that breaks the rules. And my dad’s buddy has been looking the other way since I was in high school. We have permission. So if you want to… we can.”
I’ve never done anything like that before… I don’t walk outside the lines. Ever. But for some reason, this man brings out a part of me that wants to grab hold of the adventure and just say yes.
“I’d love to.”
A few minutes later, I’m rubbing my hands against my shorts as I sit over the treetops, rolling fields, and a handful of lakes with my feet dangling so high above the ground it feels like I’m flying.
“You weren’t kidding. It’s gorgeous up here.”
“This is my favorite spot. Where I always came to think when I had a decision to make.” Wade leans back on his arms with a peaceful smile. “Sometimes it was serious stuff, like how to handle hockey and football and what I wanted for my future. Sometimes it was about a girl.”
My jaw drops. “Oh my God, Wade, is this a historic make-out point we’re visiting? Is this where you brought your girls?”
He laughs as a breeze plays through his hair.
“Believe it or not, you’re the first person I’ve ever brought up here.”
That’s not the answer I’m expecting, and a shiver tickles over my arms that has nothing to do with the moving air. “Why bring me?”
“You’ve given me this week back. And pretty sure I promised you some fun. Said I’d show you the best Enderson has to offer. Ask me? This is it.”
“Well, thank you.”
We stay there a while, talking about popcorn and people who mix candy into it, what to do on rainy days, and how he thinks I might be a secret jock. He’s nuts and he’s kind of wonderful. Then after we climb down, we walk back to the hotel, taking our time. No rush. No hurry. No emails or regulatory meetings. Just talking and laughing and me trying not to notice how different it feels to be with him than it’s ever felt with a guy before.
Harlow
“I thought there was a rule about no touching?” Janie asks a few hours later, swirling a fry through her ketchup at our table in Sonny’s Café. It seems like half the town stopped over to say hello to Wade when we first walked in… and even more to check in with Walt and Janie about the wedding.
She holds it up, and Walt leans over and takes it from her fingers with his mouth. They are ridiculously cute together.
“No touching the girls. The other way around though?” He winces at his brother. “Even, so, last night wasn’t normal. Bro, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
Wade shrugs.
Walt turns to me with earnest eyes. “You should have seen this guy putting her off like a champ. Typical Wade, trying to be polite. Doesn’t want to be a dick or make a scene. Had to be a solid twenty minutes he kept setting this chick back from him with all the ‘No, thank you’s and ‘Sorry, I have a girlfriend’ business.”
I bite my lip, imagining Wade trying to fight off yet another woman’s unwanted advances. Then leaning into his side, I ask, “Sort of a running theme with you, huh?”
He lets out a low laugh, our secret hanging in that look between us. “Too bad you weren’t there to help me out.”
“Too bad.”
And then he turns to his brother, who’s watching us like he’s never seen Wade flirt with a girl in his life. “No big deal. I mean, it all worked out in the end… Harlow helped me wash off all those hard-to-reach places.”
The bounce of his eyebrows suggests he’s talking about something more than me standing with him in the bathroom, and all I can do is laugh.
Janie rolls her eyes, giving her fiancé a shoulder bump. “Oh my God, with these two! Harlow, have you got siblings?”
“A brother, older by five years. Or half-brother. My dad’s been married a few times. But between the age difference and rarely being in the same house, we’re not close like these guys.” Not to mention that we couldn’t be less alike.
“That’s too bad,” Walt says, going after another fry. “He didn’t get along with your mom?”
I take a sip of my iced tea, searching for an easy answer that won’t invite more questions. But short of lying, there isn’t one. “Actually, I don’t know how they got along. My mother was killed in a car accident when I was an infant.”
Wade reaches for my hand as Walt and Janie both tell me how sorry they are for my loss and I try to make them feel better about bringing it up.
“So you never knew your mother?” Janie asks, her eyes misty.
“Not really. I know things about her, of course. She was from Tamil Nadu in India and met my father while she was studying at the London School of Economics. They were married within months.” And she was dead within a year.
I don’t offer that last detail. It gives too much of the math away.
My father married my mother when she was pregnant with me.
I don’t mention that I’m fairly confident he resented her for it. Or that it sometimes makes me sad to think about what that last year of her life might have been like living with a man who can’t be bothered to hide his resentment for the people who inconvenience him. Or that what I just shared with them is the sum total of what I know about my mother.
Janie leaves her seat and, coming over beside mine, pulls me into a hug. It’s so unexpected, so sweet and kind, I’m a little choked up when she pulls back.
“Did your dad marry again? Do you have a stepmom?” she asks, sliding back into her seat and beneath Walt’s waiting arm.
“No. My mother was wife number three. And my father… Honestly, if it’s not business, it doesn’t really make his radar.”
This is the kind of conversation I do
anything to avoid. It’s why I’ve always been a good listener and tend to ask more questions about others than I offer information about myself. I don’t want to have to explain about the string of nannies who were as cool and detached as my father or why the only pictures of me from when I was a kid are the ones my teachers took at school.
I don’t like feeling like the freak outcast, and the truth is, I can fake not being one with the best of them. Just so long as people don’t ask me too many questions. Like how we celebrate holidays or what family vacations we’ve taken.
I take another long swallow of my tea and then throw a hand up like some exciting idea just came to me. “Hey, what’s happening tonight? More wedding prep?”
Walt flags our server for the check and then flips Wade off when he tries to pick it up. “Everyone’s heading over to the Den tonight. What do you say?”
Wade turns to me, brow raised in question. “What do you think, Good Girl? You up for some Enderson nightlife?”
I make a show of thinking it over. “I don’t know, is this the kind of place where you’ll be coming home with your shirt in tatters again?”
He gives me a grin-wink combo that’s probably been setting panties on fire since the first time he stumbled on it. “Not unless you’re the one tearing it off.”
Chapter 11
Harlow
That afternoon, Wade takes me to the local bookstore—an actual store dedicated solely to books!—and we spend an hour and a half talking quietly within the narrow aisles about our favorite reads. Mine are all so outdated, I’m embarrassed. But Wade just nods, calling them classics and commenting on what he thought of one title or another himself.
He’s a James Rollins fan, and when I admit I haven’t read for pleasure in years, he buys me a paperback of my own. And as if that isn’t enough to win Fake Boyfriend of the Century, then he takes me back to his parents’ place where he hangs up the hammock so we can spend a couple hours reading together.
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