by Lauren Layne
It was the only excuse he needed.
Reaching down, Clarke hooked his hand beneath her calves and scooped her legs up so they dangled over his. She yelped as she was thrown off balance and laughed as she looped an arm around his neck to balance herself. “Way to sell it, honey.”
He grinned back. “Look in love, pookie.”
She pressed her cheek to his as he snapped a couple of pictures of them hamming it up, surprised when he felt her head move, her lips press to his cheek.
He snapped the picture as she made a smacking noise, a playful kiss. A friend kiss. And again, Clarke was plagued with that pesky, inconvenient craving for more.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Clarke turned his face toward Audrey, his mouth capturing hers. She stilled in surprise but recovered more quickly than before, her lips parting beneath his almost immediately, allowing him to deepen the kiss.
So he did. Nudging her lips farther apart with his, Clarke let his tongue brush hers, playfully, experimentally, seeing how she’d react. How he would.
His own reaction was immediate. His body ached to do what his brain envisioned: lean her back on the cushion, discover what she was wearing under the pink sweater, learn the feel of her. The taste of her…
“Okay, so we— Whoopsie!” Michelle said with a laugh as she came back into the room.
Audrey pulled her mouth from Clarke’s, and his fingers immediately pressed into her back, wanting to bring her back to him. Instead he slowly, reluctantly released her, letting her laugh and smooth over Michelle’s interruption, not seeming the least bit embarrassed that they’d been caught making out in public.
And why should they be? Engaged couples were notorious for not being able to keep their hands off each other, and the entire nature of the store itself was a guarantee for a very naughty honeymoon.
A honeymoon that wouldn’t happen. Or at least, wouldn’t involve sexy delights like Audrey wearing tiny amounts of lace and nothing else.
Clarke reached for his beer and tried to pay attention to Michelle’s rambling about the various cuts of their new Moulin Rouge line, when all he really wanted to do was hand the woman his credit card, tell her they’d take all of it, and drag Audrey home for a fashion show all their own.
Christ. Clarke tipped the beer back, wishing it were colder and stronger. Get it together, man. It’s Dree.
“Well, I have my work cut out for me,” Audrey said as she picked up her wineglass and headed back to the dressing room after Michelle had left them alone once again.
“Oh, phone,” she said, coming back to him and holding out her hand.
He put it in her palm, and she began scrolling through as she headed into the dressing room.
She pulled the curtain closed, then popped her head out a second later.
“Clarke!” She held up the phone in exasperation. “You didn’t get a single shot of us kissing! That would have knocked Scandal Boy down a peg or two.”
“Sorry, babe,” he said off-handedly, pulling out his own phone as though he hadn’t a care in the world. As though he weren’t shaken to his core that his reasons for kissing her had nothing to do with Scandal Boy and everything to do with the fact that he wanted her naked. And he wanted her to want him back.
Chapter Twenty
TUESDAY, MARCH 3
Audrey shut her laptop and stood, pressing her hands to the small of her back and arching backward, as she wondered if it would be a good idea to do some yoga to loosen up after a full day of sitting at the computer.
She’d just launched a new wedding resources section on her website, her brain already bursting with ideas for its future, even after her own wedding. She could interview other brides and keep in touch with the Wedding Belles to promote new venues and vendors. The Pinterest possibilities alone were mind blowing.
Someone knocked at her door, and she went to answer it, fully expecting it to be Clarke with takeout.
But it wasn’t Clarke.
“Elizabeth,” Audrey said, surprised by the sight of Clarke’s ex-girlfriend standing on her front porch. “Come in.”
“Thanks,” Elizabeth said. “I’m really sorry to intrude like this. I got your address from Linda—”
“Clarke’s mom gave you my address?” That couldn’t be good.
Elizabeth nodded. “I should have called, but some things are best said in person. And I was afraid if I asked permission to come over, you’d tell me no, which would entirely be within your rights…”
Audrey’s eyebrows lifted. Elizabeth was floundering, something she didn’t imagine the cool, composed Elizabeth was accustomed to. “Here, let me get you a drink. Tea? Coffee? Wine?”
“No,” Elizabeth said quickly as Audrey moved toward the kitchen. “This will be quick. I just need two minutes.”
“All right.” Audrey clasped her fingers loosely in front of her and waited.
Elizabeth exhaled. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. Truly, very sorry.”
“For…”
Audrey had a good idea what for, but she was curious about Elizabeth’s take on the past couple months.
Elizabeth’s smile was tight. “For trying to steal your fiancé.”
“Ah,” Audrey said lightly. “That.”
“I know this is no excuse,” Elizabeth said, rushing, “But to be honest, when I first moved back, when you and Clarke first announced you were engaged, I thought—”
“You thought it was a joke.”
“I did,” Elizabeth admitted. “Linda mentioned that you had had a couple of false engagements in the past, and I figured Clarke was just trying to make a point to Linda, or you were trying to do damage control on your reputation.”
Audrey hid her wince. She had to give Elizabeth credit for hitting the nail right on the head.
“I figured I’d just wait it out, that you would tire of the charade, that Clarke would have won the game he and his mother are playing constantly.”
“And you figured you’d be there when it ended.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth admitted. “I was trying to prove to Clarke that I was in it to stay this time. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed to admit I was even trying to prove that I could play along. I wanted him to see that I could fit into your weird friendship. I don’t mean weird,” she amended quickly.
“It’s a little weird,” Audrey admitted with a smile, throwing her a bone.
Elizabeth didn’t smile back as she held Audrey’s gaze. “But it’s not just a friendship anymore, is it?”
A knot of dread formed in Audrey’s stomach as she looked at the other woman. Elizabeth had never had soft features, and unsmiling as she was now, she looked as implacable as ever. Except the eyes. Her hazel eyes were unguarded, her pain unfiltered.
Instead of answering Liz’s question, Audrey flipped it back around on her, wanting, or perhaps needing, to hear the full truth.
“You love him,” Audrey said quietly. “It wasn’t a game for you.”
“No,” Elizabeth admitted. “It wasn’t. Clarke wasn’t the primary reason I moved back to New York, but he was definitely a part of the decision. I didn’t realize until I got to DC that I’d made a mistake by not appreciating him.”
No, you didn’t, Audrey couldn’t help but think, even as she stopped herself from saying it aloud. You didn’t see that he tried to change for you, and he’s the last person in the world who needs changing, because he’s perfect, just the way he is.
“Clarke brought out the best in me,” Elizabeth continued. “And I thought, hoped, I brought out the best in him, too. I asked Linda to just help get me some face time with him.”
Audrey gritted her teeth to keep from pointing out that a grown man’s mother had no place getting involved in her son’s romantic relationships.
“But I was wrong,” Elizabeth said with a sad smile. “Linda was wrong. Maybe we did balance each other out, but that’s not what Clarke needs.”
“No?” Audrey asked cautiously.
Elizabet
h shook her head. “I didn’t realize it until I saw the way he looked at you the day of the ski trip. Not until I accidentally stumbled upon you two kissing in the hallway.”
“Wait,” Audrey said, holding up a hand. “You walked in on us kissing?”
That wasn’t right. Clarke had kissed Audrey because Elizabeth was already in his line of sight.
Elizabeth flushed slightly, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to spy. I was going to head up to my room to get some ChapStick, and when I rounded the corner, you and he were… well, it’s when I realized it wasn’t a game. You weren’t just pretending. And I wasn’t what he needed. I probably never was. Clarke never kissed me like that.”
“Like what?” Audrey couldn’t help but ask.
“Like he’d die if he didn’t kiss me. Like I was the only thing that mattered, the only thing he could see. I guess I always knew on some level that Clarke needed you. I just tried to convince myself when I came back that he needed me, too, but in a different way. I was wrong. I love him, but I love him enough to want him to be happy.”
Audrey shifted uncomfortably, her conscience prickling at the fact that while she believed with her whole heart that Elizabeth and Clarke didn’t belong together, it was also clear Elizabeth had the wrong idea about Audrey and Clarke. Which, when they’d started this, had been the point. But there was a difference between wanting to dodge a manipulative ex-girlfriend and standing in the way of another woman’s happily ever after.
It’s happening again, Audrey realized with a stab of horror. For the second time in her life, Audrey was ruining another woman’s fairy tale. She’d first stolen Brayden from Claire. And now Clarke from Elizabeth.
Not that Clarke was in love with Elizabeth. Audrey would bet anything that he didn’t feel the way about Liz that she did about him.
But what if he’d been given a chance to learn to love her again? What if Audrey hadn’t been in the way?
All this time, Elizabeth hadn’t been playing a game. It hadn’t been about Clarke and Audrey versus Linda and Elizabeth. It had been Elizabeth fighting to win Clarke’s heart, because she loved him. Like Claire had loved Brayden. First.
And once again, Audrey had been second, the other woman in the way.
“Elizabeth—”
“No.” She quickly shook her head. “I don’t want platitudes or sympathy. I just came here because I needed to apologize. And tell you how I never would have pursued Clarke like I did if I’d known how you really felt about him. So I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
“But you’ve always known I’ve loved Clarke,” Audrey said, even as Elizabeth was reaching for the doorknob. “We’ve been best friends forever.”
“Oh, I know,” Elizabeth agreed, stepping out onto Audrey’s front porch. “I’m just sorry I didn’t realize sooner that you were in love with him. But how could you not be. He’s Clarke, right?”
She said this with a knowing smile, a shared understanding between two women who loved the same man.
Audrey hesitated as Elizabeth walked away, opening her mouth to tell Elizabeth she’d gotten it wrong, that her marriage with Clarke wouldn’t be like that, that she wasn’t in love with her best friend.
The words wouldn’t come. Because her heart already knew they were a lie…
Chapter Twenty-One
TUESDAY, MARCH 3
Clarke had just finished up an evening workout and didn’t hear the knocking until he turned the water off in the shower.
He pulled a towel off the rack and ignored it. Not particularly in the mood for company following a tense dinner with his parents, he wasn’t about to greet anyone unexpected while naked.
His mother had been entirely unreadable following his announcement that he’d be marrying Audrey for real, while his father was plainly pleased. And he was pissed at both of them for playing games that he suspected had more to do with irritating each other than they did with him.
Clarke dried off and, stepping out of the walk-in shower, knotted the towel around his waist and went to the vanity to shave, frowning when he realized the knocking at the front door hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder.
He checked his phone to see if he’d missed any urgent messages from Audrey or his family, but other than the usual slew of work emails, there was nothing to indicate that someone was that determined to get his attention.
Clarke reached for the shaving cream, then set it down again, curiosity winning out. He headed down the stairs.
He looked through the peephole and, with a frown, opened the door.
“Dree, what the hell?” he asked.
“Took you long enough,” she said, brushing by him and stepping inside as he shut the door.
“You have a key.”
“I forgot it.”
“What about your cell phone?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I forgot that, too.”
“You—” Clarke broke off. Audrey’s job was her cell phone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d known it to be more than an arm’s length away.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, giving her a quick scan for cuts and bruises, anything to indicate what she was doing here or why she was so out of sorts.
Other than the fact that she seemed a little frazzled and distracted, he couldn’t see anything that would demand her urgently pounding on his front door. He also registered that he wasn’t the only one doing a body scan. Her brown eyes skimmed over his bare shoulders and unclothed torso to the towel before they came back up to his, and she frowned.
“Do you always answer the door in a towel?” she asked, her voice testy.
“I wasn’t planning to answer it at all, but I started to get curious about who in my social circle was part woodpecker.” He smiled. She did not.
“Are you in love with Elizabeth?”
His smile dropped. “What? No. You know that.”
She frowned and didn’t look the least bit mollified. “I guess I do. But, Clarke, you can’t just wander around in a towel after I move in here,” she said. “There will be rules. You have to be fully dressed at all times. Same rules apply if you move into my place, if that’s what we decide to do. And that’s another thing, shouldn’t we know by now? Whose house we’re moving into? Shouldn’t we know how we’re going to deal with the fact that you apparently wander around in towels?”
His eyebrows lifted at her slightly incoherent babbling.
“I don’t just wander around in towels, Audrey. I just happened to be wearing a towel when I opened the door for my best friend who’s forgotten her key and her cell phone, because I just took a shower.”
She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “And what about your women? What if they wander around in a towel, and you forget to mention that you’ve got a wife, except not a real one, just one who’s there for companionship? Which, by the way, has gotten me thinking, do we even need to be married for that? If we’re just doing this because we’re lonely, because we enjoy spending time together, why don’t we just move in together? We can be roommates without all the legal mess. Right?”
She finally paused to catch her breath, and as she looked up at him, it was the trust in her eyes that nearly undid him, the trust she’d always had in him to have all the answers, to do all the right things, to protect her.
He reached out and rubbed his hands reassuringly over her upper arms, giving her a quick grin. “Hey. What’s bringing this on? If you’re having second thoughts, you know you can just tell me, right? You don’t have to worry about there being hurt feelings—”
“Shouldn’t there be, though?” she burst out. “Shouldn’t there be feelings in a marriage?”
“Of course there are feelings,” he said, his hands stilling. “You know how much I care about you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I care about you, too.”
“Then what am I missing?” he asked, giving her the slightest shake in a desperate attempt to make it better. “What sent you running out of your house wi
th no keys or phone and mismatched socks?”
She glanced down and winced. “I was in a hurry to talk to you.”
“About?”
Slowly she dragged her gaze back up, but only as far as his Adam’s apple. “About us getting married. Shouldn’t there be… more?”
He swallowed, though it felt like a Herculean effort. “Do you want there to be more?” he asked roughly, needing to ask the question even if he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to know the answer.
Audrey was quiet for what felt like eons. She just stood there in her mismatched socks and messy ponytail, looking slightly bewildered but also strangely more determined with each passing moment.
Finally she looked up once more and took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can do it.”
Clarke let out a harsh breath, feeling as though his chest had just been shattered and the broken pieces were falling around his feet. “You don’t think you can marry me?”
“Not the way we’ve talked about. I don’t think I can have an open marriage. I guess I’m old-fashioned, but I can’t be okay with calling you my husband, you calling me your wife, sharing meals and stories about our days, raising a kitten together, and spending Christmas together, but then also knowing some other woman is sharing your bed. I mean, what happens the morning after? The three of us have coffee together?”
She took a deep breath. “But I also realize I can’t exactly ask you to be celibate for the rest of your life. I don’t want to be celibate for the rest of my life.”
Clarke’s jaw tensed at the thought of Audrey being non-celibate with anyone but him.
“I have to ask you something,” she blurted out.
“Sure,” he replied cautiously.
“That day at the ski lodge,” she said, her eyes locked once more on his throat. “When you kissed me…”
He voice was gravely. “Yeah?”
“Did you know Elizabeth was watching us? Did you kiss me because she was watching us?”
He knew what she was really asking. Had he kissed her for show? Or had he kissed her for real?
