by Whitley Cox
The chuckle that rumbled in his chest said she wasn’t the first person to look at him like he’d just sprouted another head. “Yep. Not all divorces have to end badly. Sometimes couples can separate and remain friends. They all even go on family holidays together. Mitch has Jayda, Adam and Paige share Mira, and now Adam and Violet are expecting. One big, confusing, happy family.”
She pressed her lips together into a thin line in thought. “As long as they’re happy, I guess. Can’t say I’ll be booking adjoining tropical bungalows with Duh and Duh-mmer anytime soon. More like never.”
All he did was nod and stuff more chips and guac into his mouth.
“And you’d be able to commit to dance lessons twice a week for an hour until the wedding? What about Willow?”
He shrugged. “She’s four months old. She can either come with me and sit in her car seat, or I can wear her in the Ergo if she gets fussy. My mom is also available to take her. Mom is Violet’s receptionist at the dance school.”
“Wow, you’re just all connected up, aren’t you?”
He shrugged a broad shoulder. “One big, happy, confusing family. Wouldn’t have it any other way. We have each other’s backs. The same for all The Single Dads of Seattle.”
Family. Right.
She hadn’t considered her family a happy one since, oh, God, maybe high school? Even then, Doneen had always treated her like crap. She had always been a mean older sister.
Lowenna never knew why. Never knew what she’d done to make her sister hate her so. For years she had idolized Doneen, followed her around and copied everything she did. And Doneen hated every minute of it. Hated having to share anything with Lowenna, whether it be her time, space, toys or parents.
Lowenna swallowed down the emotional lump in her throat that always seemed to get clogged there when she thought of the terrible relationship she had with her sister. She knew Doneen didn’t really like her, but she hoped deep down Doneen loved her. At least she used to hope. Now she wasn’t so sure. Not after Doneen committed the ultimate betrayal—sleeping with Lowenna’s husband.
Mason cleared his throat. “You okay?”
Nodding, she finished her wine and blinked back the sting of tears before they spilled over. “Yep. Just, uh … just thinking.” She lifted her gaze to his. “You’re going to be okay being away from Willow for the wedding?”
“I’m away from her now, and she’s doing just fine. She’s the first grandchild, and my dad is retired, and my mom works part-time. They’re very available and eager to take her. I’ve told them several times I have no problem hiring her a nanny, but my mother threatened to never have me over for pot roast again if I did that. So they’re the people who look after her when she’s not with me.”
“They sound like amazing parents and grandparents.”
“The best.” He took a sip of his beer. “So, do I make the cut? Am I your date? Or do you have a shortlist and you’re going to call us all back for second auditions?”
“You’re funny. No, no shortlist. I’m afraid not a one of them made the cut.”
He whistled. “Yikes!”
“Do you have a suit?” she asked, not sure why she felt the need to stall but for some reason doing it anyway.
He nodded. “I have like twelve or more. You can come over one night in a few weeks, go through my closet and pick out which one you want me to wear. I go to Elliot Bay Barbers, so no need to book me a hair appointment. I can take care of that. Anything else?” His blue eyes held an eagerness she couldn’t quite place.
And the fact that he’d invited her over to his house had not slipped past her either.
Not. At. All.
Was he doing this because he felt sorry for her? She hadn’t told any of the other men she’d interviewed about her cancer. She hadn’t told them much at all, really. She simply wanted to get to know them and see if they were worth inviting back for the next round of interviews.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t met a one that she considered decent enough to invite back for a second interview. And time was running out.
“This would be a business deal,” she said slowly. “I need it to be a business transaction. I am paying you to be my date—my escort—to a wedding. But I need the full boyfriend experience. Affection, hugging, kissing, dancing. You need to act like it pains you to be away from me for even a second. You can’t keep your hands off me. Pretend you’re madly in love with me. Convince me that you are, convince everyone at the party that you are, and I will pay you two thousand dollars at the end of the night.”
She reached for her wine, her heart thumping wildly in her chest, then sat back in her seat and gauged his reaction.
She thought for sure his mouth would drop open and his eyes would go wide, but they didn’t. He simply stood there, beer in hand, lips together, eyes focused intensely on her face.
So intensely, in fact, that she began to squirm in her seat from the heat of his stare and the way it made her insides liquefy.
She broke the eye contact and stared down into her empty wineglass. “It’s a lot to ask, I know,” she finally said, unable to handle the deafening silence any longer. “But it’s what I need. It’s what I require. Hence why I’ve been doing so many interviews. I just haven’t found a guy who measures up, who I think has the acting chops needed to pull one over on nearly three hundred people.”
“I don’t need the money,” he said, his voice just a touch above a whisper.
She shook her head emphatically. “Nope. This is a business transaction. I’m not a charity case.” Anger began to worm its way up her spine. “If this is a pity thing because of the cancer, then I’m going to get up and leave right now. I won’t be anybody’s pay-it-forward, feel-good act of kindness.”
Especially since she’d been that person before and had never been able to track down her generous, anonymous benefactor. As much as she appreciated the donation, she hated that it had been done most likely out of pity.
His pupils grew, and his blue irises darkened. If she’d been standing rather than sitting, she probably would have taken a couple of steps back, but she couldn’t, so she didn’t. The look he was giving her now was downright dangerous. Terrifying. But in the absolute most exquisite and exciting kind of way.
“I could never pity you,” he said quietly. “Nothing but pure admiration is what you deserve.”
Her pulse thundered in her ears, and her breathing stuttered. “But can you act?” Why was she challenging him? Why was she still stalling?
Because you like the way he looks at you when you make him wait, when you don’t give him exactly what he wants.
Before she could blink, he was around the bar and beside her.
She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and glanced up at him. Determination and something akin to the look a male lion gets when in rut flashed behind his eyes. Then his hand shot out from his side and looped around her waist. He tugged her hard against his chest and dipped her low over his arm.
“How’s this for convincing?” Then he crashed his mouth to hers with a force that, had he not been holding her tight in all his manly muscles, would have knocked her clear off her feet. His tongue pried her lips apart and wedged its way into her mouth. Long, deep sweeps, followed quickly by little nibbles and erotic sucks. Oh, boy, did the man know how to kiss.
Unable to stop herself, she wrapped her arms around his back and held on as he deepened the kiss even more by shoving his fingers into her hair and tilting her head back. He was a man who took control, who demanded control and wasn’t used to being questioned. She got that about him right away.
A moan fled from the depths of her throat. He caught it, and she felt him smile against her mouth. She couldn’t roll her eyes because they were closed, but she mentally rolled them.
He knew he had her over a barrel. He was her date now; there was no doubt about that.
Not ready to break the kiss, she whimpered just slightly when he pulled away, immediately berating herself for bein
g so easily manipulated.
“You’re not my pay-it-forward, feel-good deed,” he said, his mouth no more than an inch above hers. He tasted like beer and nachos. Normally, it wasn’t a taste she wouldn’t have enjoyed on the tongue of another, but on Mason, she would most gladly have gone back for seconds. “You’re not a charity case, and I’ll take that money. Put it into Willow’s college fund.”
She swallowed again and released his back at the same time he released her hair and his hand from around her waist. “Okay.”
He stepped away and wiped his hand over his face, his cheeks a ruddy color beneath the sexy scruff. “I’ll give you the full boyfriend experience, Lowenna, I promise. Not a person at that wedding will believe that I am not madly in love with you.”
The wine in her bloodstream mixed with the passion from his kiss made her brain get all fuzzy. She wanted to reach out, grab him and kiss him again. But instead, she made fists with each hand until her nails dug painful half-moons into her palms. “You’re hired,” she finally said, unsure what else to say.
His grin as he made his way back around the bar made her panties suddenly get incredibly damp. “Good. And heck, my acting skills will be so Oscar-worthy, you might even believe it yourself.”
With her wineglass empty, she had nothing to quench her suddenly parched palate. But he was already anticipating her needs, and his half-full pint glass was subtly pushed in front of her.
She took a sip. Then another sip. Then drained it, her eyes going wide over the rim of the heavy glass as the realization of what she’d just gotten herself into finally began to sink in. She was going to a wedding with the sexiest man she’d ever met, and he planned to kiss her like that in front of all her friends and family and convince the world he was madly in love with her. Convince her that he was madly in love with her.
Oh, yeah, this wasn’t going to end in a catastrophe or heartache at all.
3
Mason hit the fob for his Volvo SUV and locked it. Not that he needed to, because the neighborhood was the upper echelon of Seattle elite and incredibly safe, but it was habit. With his six-pack in one hand, he held the collar of his coat closed with the other and hightailed it toward Liam’s front door.
It was an icy wind that had blown in from the north, and the smell of more snow hung crisp in the air. They’d had a lot of snow that winter, more than in past years, and clumps of it still lingered on street corners and at the ends of driveways.
Footsteps behind him had him slowing his pace.
“Hey!” Scott’s feet skidded to a halt on the gravel. His breath sent heated puffs of air up from his mouth into the ether. His cheeks were a bright red and his eyes slightly teary.
“Did you run here?” Mason asked, knowing the answer but asking it anyway.
Scott shook his head and ran the back of his wrist beneath his slightly crooked nose. “Naw, caught an Uber, but the guy wasn’t sure he could turn around in Liam’s driveway so he asked if he could drop me off on the road. Can I grab a ride home with you?”
Mason nodded. “Sure.”
Scott heaved open the front door to his brother’s large Lake Washington home and let Mason go ahead of him. “Thanks.”
They stomped their feet once inside the foyer but didn’t bother to remove their shoes. Liam had recently redone his floors, having ripped out all the old wood and replaced it with fancy concrete. It wasn’t Mason’s style, but it was still nice.
“You any closer to getting a date with that mystery woman at the bar?” Scott asked as they made their way deeper into Liam’s house toward the kitchen. Male voices rumbled and murmured in the direction of the dining room, letting them know that they weren’t the first to arrive.
Mason grinned over at his friend. “Sure am.”
Scott nodded and smiled. “Nice. What’s her name?”
“Lowenna.”
Whenever he got the chance over the past few days, he’d roll her name around on his tongue. He’d never heard it before, but he absolutely loved it. And it suited her to a T. Happiness, joy, bliss and cheer. At least that’s what Google said her name meant when he searched it later that night after their nacho date.
It wasn’t a date.
He had to keep reminding himself of that.
He was her boyfriend for hire.
Ugh.
How awful to feel the need to hire a man to pretend to be your boyfriend. He understood why she was doing it. And he fully supported her, but she shouldn’t have been put in that position in the first place. Her sister and her ex-husband were class-A assholes, and Lowenna would be better off just cutting them out of her life completely.
“Cool name,” Scott said, interrupting Mason’s thoughts. “So you guys going out?”
More of the single dads meandered their way into the kitchen. Mason pulled one beer bottle from the pack and stowed the rest in Liam’s enormous fridge. He popped the cap and took a sip before answering. “Kind of. She’s, uh … she’s hired me to be her boyfriend at her sister’s Valentine’s Day wedding. Which, incidentally, is also my date’s birthday.”
“She what?” Scott’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline, and his brown eyes widened in surprise. “As in a like a gigolo? Do you have to put out?”
Mason squeezed his eyes shut. He’d regretted offering to be her date the moment it came out of his mouth. That was not how he wanted his and Lowenna’s relationship to begin. Not as a business arrangement where he was forced to pretend to be her boyfriend rather than actually be her boyfriend. And the fact that she insisted upon paying him made him feel all the dirtier.
They would, after all, have to take dance lessons together twice a week for the next month. Maybe they could take that time as an opportunity to get to know each other. As long as he didn’t injure her with his clumsy two left feet, that is.
“Dude?”
Mason opened his eyes to find all of the Single Dads of Seattle standing in Liam’s kitchen staring at him as if he was on the verge of having a stroke.
“You okay?” Liam asked.
Mason shook his whole body, then took another sip of his beer. “Yeah, it’s just … this whole thing is so fucked up.”
Liam clapped his hands once. “Well, let’s all start playing cards and you can fill us in. I’m feeling lucky tonight, boys. I’m in the mood to fleece you all.”
Various groans echoed throughout their ten-man group as they all made their way through the kitchen to the dining room, where Liam’s card table was already set up.
Atlas sat down behind the card deck and began to shuffle.
“So, spill,” Liam said, his ice clinking in his glass of scotch as he brought it to his lips. “Tell us how you’ve gone from being part of a Fortune 500 company to a bar owner to Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo.” He tossed his dark blond head back and laughed. “Oh man.”
More groans echoed around the table.
“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are,” Atlas said blandly, dealing out the cards.
“Why are you her boyfriend for hire?” Mitch asked, his tan from his Christmas spent in Hawaii making his green eyes practically glow beneath the lights overhead.
Mason exhaled, scooped up his cards and fanned them out in his hand. “Because Lowenna’s sister is marrying Lowenna’s ex-husband. He left her for her sister after she had a hysterectomy and went through chemo and radiation for cancer. Though Lowenna is convinced the two were sleeping together prior to her being cancer-free.” He let that hang in the air for a moment, reading the reactions of each of his poker buddies.
They didn’t disappoint.
One by one, shocked expressions formed around the table.
“Motherfuckers,” Zak muttered.
Mason nodded. “Yep. Her ex-husband said he wanted to have a family the traditional way, and she couldn’t give that to him, so he divorced her. Went public with her sister a few months later.”
“And she’s going to their fucking wedding?” Emmett asked, his amber eyes flashin
g with an anger that Mason had felt in every single bone of his body when Lowenna first told him her story. “Why?”
Mason nodded again before he shrugged. “Yeah, I have no fucking clue. Family loyalty? She’s also that new chocolatier in town, so she’s crazy busy.”
“Wicked Sister?” several of the men asked in unison.
“Mhmm.”
“Fuck, dude, she’s hot,” Scott added. “And her chocolate … holy shit. That’s how you deal with a sex dry spell. You go and buy a dozen of her habanero truffles, you sit in your car, listen to Enya and you gorge yourself.”
All the men turned to look at Scott with slightly disturbed expressions on their faces.
Mason had to admit, that was not how he would deal with a sex dry spell or how he wanted to know his friend dealt with his.
“Whatever floats your boat, I guess,” Mitch said slowly, making a cringy face.
Scott simply shrugged it off and shoveled a handful of potato chips into his mouth.
“So she hired you to be her date why?” Mark asked, placing a neat little pile of poker chips into the center of the card table.
“She wants arm candy to the Nth degree. She wants me to convince everybody at that party that I am madly in love with her and she is so much better off without this Brody douche.”
Liam, Zak, Atlas, Mitch, Mark and Emmett all stilled simultaneously. Freaked-out glances shot around and across the card table.
“Did you say Brody?” Liam asked slowly, enunciating the man’s name.
Mason took a pull on his beer and swallowed before answering, “Yeah, why?”
“Is the sister, the woman he’s marrying, named Doneen?” Atlas asked, terror in his gray eyes.
Now they were all starting to freak him out. What the fuck was going on?
“Yeah.” Mason nodded again. “What the fuck is going on, guys?”
“He works for our firm,” Liam said slowly. “Can’t fucking stand him. But he’s invited everybody to the wedding.”
“Aurora’s been invited too,” Zak said. “I’m her date.”
