Falling for Your Fake Fiancé (Love Clichés, #3)

by Emma St. Clair

“Go over it again,” I demand, leaning my elbows on my massive mahogany desk. The wood surface is completely bare, since I swept the contents onto the floor after reading the clause my father added to his will. Scott pushes his black glasses up his hawkish nose, blinking rapidly. “I’ve read it twice. Unless there’s a message in invisible ink, it says what I told you: if you want to keep the firm, you have three months to get married and must stay married for at least one year. Otherwise …”

Reasons why Thayden Walker is Unmarriable: Reason #1 - I’ve been around the block. And back. Then, around the neighborhood. I’ve heard that the kind of women who want to settle down aren’t too keen on that.

Girls want to marry princes, not canines. Reason #2 - (and this is the biggie) I don’t want to get married.

“He loved you,” she says, her tone pleading, already defending the man who’s getting a good laugh from the grave. “This isn’t love,” I manage to grind out, my teeth clenching. She sighs. “Love takes many forms.” “Love doesn’t hold things over people’s heads until they obey. Love isn’t a puppet master making his wooden son dance.”

She sounds miserable, and my gut twists. I know Mom means well. But is it bad that I question the veracity of that statement? Because love doesn’t look like standing by as your husband spends his life terrorizing your son. Never physically, mind you. I firmly believe Mom would have left at the first sign of violence. He may never have struck me, but the wounds my father left are buried much deeper. Just as painful, or maybe more since they don’t fade like bruises. Invisible, unless you know where to look. And Mom clearly doesn’t know where to look.

I blink at my supervisor—’scuse me, about to be former supervisor—hoping my big blue eyes might make a difference. They used to. But I’ve gotten rusty at using what Mama called my feminine wiles. I hate that I’m even trying

Kevin licks his lips, his tongue brushing against his handlebar mustache in a way that makes me feel icky. Ickier than I feel even looking at his dirty stache. Don’t get me wrong—I love facial hair on a man. But it takes the right kind of hair and the right kind of man. Two strikes there, Kevin. Two strikes. “Look, how about I take you out for dinner after work? We can brainstorm ideas for your future employment.” Oh, Kevin. You just had to, didn’t you? Maybe my feminine wiles aren’t so rusty after all. But I wanted to keep my job, not get a date. I can’t decide if I overshot or undershot.

“Is your owner handsome too, big guy?” I picture a man with short, dark hair. Maybe a five o’clock shadow. Khaki pants, a button-down shirt, open at the throat to show off nice collarbones. I’m a total sucker for a good set of clavicles.

Thayden Freaking Walker chuckles, that stupid dimple I don’t care a lick about popping out. How can someone get so much mileage out of just one dimple? Gracious, what if he’d had TWO? I definitely wouldn’t be able to maintain my distaste for the gorgeous specimen of man before me.

Lucifer, I should call him. Because even the devil disguises himself as an angel of light. And this man is definitely wrapped up in a beautiful package.

Oh, no you don’t, Apollo. I’ve seen 101 Dalmatians. And I am not about to be set up by a dog. Nuh-uh. Stick to planning which tree to water next, buddy. Because you are not playing matchmaker with me and your donkey’s butt of a human

But offering a job to a woman who has none is like holding out a big old cake in front of someone on a low-carb diet. And I’d know. Because Mama insisted I stay carb-free from the moment I started developing curves. As if removing sugar from my diet would keep my A cups from sprouting into C cups. In case you were wondering, it did not.

Thayden smiles, and it’s devastating. I have to look away lest I be turned to dust by the force of it.

“How should I contact you?” Thayden asks. Giving him my number feels like giving up somehow. Like he’s won whatever game we’re playing. “You can get it from Gavin,” I tell him. “You can’t just give it to me now?” “Nope.” “Playing hard to get?” “I don’t play games. I am hard to get. Bye, handsome,” I call. Thayden’s brows shoot up, and a grin stretches over his face. “And goodbye to you too, Thayden.”

A mental image of Thayden, grinning with that stupid dimple pops up in my mind. Get behind me, Lucifer! I tell him. But he just winks and blows me a kiss. Even in my own mind, the man does what he wants. “You okay, D?” Sam asks. “Hmm?” “You’ve got a funny look on your face. And you’re fanning yourself.” I am, indeed. I drop my hands to my lap. Seeing Thayden today has reduced me to an overheated, overimaginative mess of nerves. That man shouldn’t get any of my mental space.

While they’re all moving forward, I’m not moving anywhere but in circles around a drain. And I’ve got two days to figure out how to tell my best friends that I’m not only flat broke, but jobless. Unless I take Thayden up on his offer. But do I really need to give the man any more space in my life? I feel like I tried to slam the door on him and he keeps on wedging his foot inside.

I do love his dog. Definitely not the man. He’s a rake. A rogue. A modern woman might refer to him as a canoe for feminine wash. But I’ll stick with Shakespeare. Thayden is a scoundrel and a knave.

He laughs, and my stupid mouth thinks that’s a signal to grin. Oh no, it is not. I bite down on my lip, hard. That’ll teach you, mouth

Sure, call me fickle and shallow. But I believe the fabric of a person can be known by their stitching. That is, the small parts helping to make up the whole quilt.

Delilah Hart doesn’t lose.

He’s a charmer, I remind myself. It’s all an act. And you’ve seen what charming men can do. Be Fort Knox! Not an open-all-night convenience store.

He lost his father? It must have been recent, which might explain his mother’s delicate state. And there is clearly a story there. Complicated usually translates to lots of pain and heartache. Oh, no. My caretaking instincts do not need to activate. Thayden does not need me to give him a hug or bake him cookies. He doesn’t need a shoulder to cry on—at least, not my shoulder. But I already feel more of my walls crumbling.

Thayden brushes his mother’s cheek with a kiss, and before I can stop him, he does the same to me. It’s barely a whisper of his lips on my skin. It shouldn’t have the effect of caffeine mainlined into my bloodstream. But, oh boy, it does.

Dang it. There I go. Agreeing to more than I should because the man has eyes like a field I’d like to lie down in and a smile that could charm the stripes off a zebra. Not to mention he’s sweet to his mama and just lost his daddy.

She brushes a hand over my hair as she stands, looking so excited that I don’t have the heart to say no. Especially when the slightest bit of maternal affection has me borderline weepy.

Now who’s the emotional one? Oh, right. Me

“I just love Delilah. She is perfect for you!” The funny thing is that I don’t even disagree with her.

She doesn’t fawn over me or say what she thinks I want to hear. She isn’t manipulating me, and doesn’t have an agenda, other than telling me no. Plus, she’s gorgeous. Her hair is the color of a jar of honey with the sun shining behind it, and blue eyes like the sky on the best kind of lazy summer day. Even in her doggy daycare uniform, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Grass-stained khaki pants have never looked so good on a woman.

But it’s more than the physical attraction that I may have noticed first. I wasn’t lying when I told her she was the first woman in my house. Other than my mom, that is. She’s the first woman I wanted to invite inside, and the house finally felt whole with her in it.

And is it so wrong that it feels so right when Delilah gives me a hard time? I could listen to...

I did not un-make his bed and create snow angels on what I imagine to be a ridiculously out-of-my-league thread count. I also did not go into the pull-down attic. (I’m saving that for tomorrow. Also, I wasn’t tall enough to reach the chain to pull without dragging a chair into the hallway.)

Thayden: I’ll be done around six and pick you up. Dress casually. Delilah: For …? Thayden: Dinner, remember? Where we’ll discuss the terms of your employment. The idea of dinner with him gives me a little thrill. Which, like a kitchen fire, needs to be snuffed immediately. He’s feeding you lines, D. Just lines. And you know what we do with lines? We cut ’em. We do not take the bait. No matter how shiny. Cut. The. Line.

Thayden: Ouch. I thought Southern girls were supposed to be sweet. Delilah: Southern girls are as sweet as iced tea, but as sharp as a sticker bush.

Harper rolls her eyes, gives my shoulders a last painful squeeze, and throws open her door. “Then, get out there, tiger. And whatever you do, don’t go easy on the man.” The problem, though, is that I’m pretty sure Thayden loves it when I don’t go easy on him. Which is only going to make things more interesting. Or harder. Depending on how tonight goes.

His grin widens, and it’s like a weapon. One with a laser sight pointed straight at the center of my chest. The dimple appears, and I’m dead.

“You knew it would be futile, huh? Because I would have tracked you like a bloodhound.” “So, you agree that you’re a dog,” I say, putting my hands on my hips.

Thayden chuckles. “Have I mentioned I could listen to you talk all day? The accent and the big words I have to look up later. Your vocabulary is sexy.”

“I don’t kiss on the first date,” I say. I would glare, but I can’t seem to fully control my face. I’m slack-jawed and stupid, surprised that words even came out in a coordinated sentence. “That’s okay. You said nothing about your policy for kissing at dinners.” The smile on his face is so smug, so self-satisfied, so handsome, that I just want to thread my fingers in his hair and kiss it right off his face. I want to go to battle with my lips, to conquer him, to make him cry uncle and wave a white flag of surrender.

Confused. Yes, that. I am somewhere between wanting to slap him and ordering monogrammed onesies for our unborn children.

Mom loved Delilah when she met her this morning. She got attached, thinking marriage was already the plan in the works. And honestly? Though I was—and am—angry with my mom, a tiny and selfish sliver of my heart wants Delilah to be trapped in this contract with me. For the first time I can ever remember, I can’t get enough of a woman. This woman.

Fact: I don’t want to get married. Fact: I don’t want my father to get his way. Fact: I don’t want Delilah to be a pawn in these games. Fact: This may have ruined any chance I have of dating her. Fact: This completely sucks.

Sometime around Mama’s third live-in boyfriend, I made a promise on a star. Some kids made wishes; I made myself promises. I didn’t believe in the power of wishes, but had all the faith I could muster in my own self-determination.

I promised I would never be like Mama, with a bedroom door that revolved, letting in men and spitting them right out at a breakneck pace. I would hold out for something real and lasting—if such a thing existed, and I’m as unsure now as I was then. If I got married, it would be forever.

Thayden’s eyes land on me, and he grins. I need to look into some kind of anti-attraction pill or maybe a vaccine. I mentally add that to my list of things to google later.

No kisses. No thoughts of kisses. If this is going to work, kisses are banished to the outside realm of possibility. And in my memory.

Thayden sinks back in the chair. He swallows, and I watch the knot of his Adam’s apple bob. Such a nice neck.

She held my cheeks and stared into my eyes. “Forget the contract. Forgive me, please, and let me love you like the daughter I never had.”

Yep. She said that. I know because I immediately committed it to memory. Those words will go with me to the grave. It’s a little sad how desperate I am, to be honest. And so, here we are.

I’m not sure where Hilda is from, but her accent makes her sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grandmother.

When I finally look up, the effect definitely is magical. The dress is deceptively simple, yards of white satin which fit perfectly over my waist and the swell of my hips, cascading gently to the floor. The sweetheart neckline and wide straps are classic, reminding me of something Audrey Hepburn would have worn—simple, elegant, classic beauty. The waist is accentuated with the smallest line of demure beading. It’s perfect. Exactly the kind of dress I can see myself getting married in.