Just Fake It

by Pierce, Haley

  “No buts,” he says authoritatively. “I’m paying you for this, aren’t I? And we can use the practice.”

  I sigh. “You might have it all in your head, but I’m not sure I do.”

  He lifts his head off the lounge and grins at me. “All the more reason to practice. Dress your sexiest, wifey.”

  And he winks at me.

  And oh, lord, what am I going to do? I never thought I’d be alone with him. On a date, even if it is a practice date. This sounds like major danger. I’ve given away enough how much he turns me on. It’s only a matter of time before I let my guard down and end up in a truly compromising position.

  No. No. I’m a grown woman, not a little kid. I can handle this. “Fine.”

  He pushes off the lounge and strides past me, his body still wet with drops of water from the pool, the small amount of dark hair matted to his chest. “Get ready soon. I’ll meet you downstairs at four.”

  I give myself ten minutes after he leaves to collect myself. Then I rip the binder off my thighs and race upstairs. When I get up there, I see the gown, hanging from the top of the door. I pull it down and lift the covering, then gape at the vanilla, gorgeous silken fabric. The thing must cost a fortune. And amazingly, it doesn’t look like anything a porn star would wear. Just to be sure, I wiggle out of my shirtdress and step into it, then peer at myself in the mirror.

  I may not have ever imagined myself going to the Academy Awards. But growing up as an aspiring actress, I had imagined myself walking the red carpet for a movie premiere. Countless times. And dammit. Leave it to Justin to surprise me by getting me the exact dress that I’d worn in my dreams. It’s sleek, baring just the right amount of cleavage, fits like it was made for me, and it makes me look like a goddess.

  Damn him.

  I do not need to find myself liking him right now. Especially since we’re heading out to dinner. Alone.

  So I do what I can do to make sure he knows that I mean business. He told me to wear my sexiest outfit. I go through the racks and racks of brand new, absolutely gorgeous clothes, and I pick out a pair of boring, business-woman wool slacks and a cream-color, short-sleeve turtleneck. I put my hair up in a plain, severe bun, and I keep my make-up to an absolute minimum. I don’t look sexy in this. I barely look female.

  Perfect.

  But when I go downstairs and see him, dressed in a suit with a white shirt, open at the neck, looking effortlessly well-dressed and delectable . . . I wish, just for a moment, I’d chosen something else.

  Something that makes that desire spark in his eyes, the way it had last night.

  He doesn’t hide the disappointment. He says, “Lee, you look absolutely . . . hidden.”

  I smile at him. “Upset?”

  He shrugs. “A bit. If there’s a beautiful woman on my arm, I want to show her off. And you are beautiful, Lee. Even if you don’t think so. Did you like the gown I chose for tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” I admit.

  “Well, then I’ll have to show you off then.” He motions to the door. “Come on. We have a ways to go.”

  “One minute,” I say, still fastening an earring onto my ear as I listen for sounds of Brandon. “I have to say goodbye to my son.”

  At that moment, Minnie comes in, carrying Brandon. I give him a kiss. “Going out for business. I’ll probably be back after your bedtime,” I tell him. “But I’ll be there when you wake up tomorrow. Promise.”

  He nods and grins at me, then goes off with Minnie toward the kitchen.

  “Ready now?” Justin asks, eyebrow cocked, seeming a little annoyed by the wait. The jerk.

  “Yes,” I say. He opens the door and motions me through it. Outside, Logan is waiting with the limo. When I slide inside, I ask, “Where are we going in this city that’s private?”

  “I didn’t say it was in the city. It’s outside of Galeta.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Where is that?”

  “Basically the only place I can go where I won’t be recognized. Where we can let our hair down. If you know how to do that, which I’m still not sure about.” He smiles and pulls out his phone. “Don’t believe me?”

  He hands me his phone, which is open to a page from People magazine online. There is a very grainy photograph of a man, a woman, and a small child sitting at a table at a place that looks very familiar, along with a blurb: Look who just appeared, back from the dead, where he’s been comfortably spending his time for the past year! Justin Avignon, director of the hit film phenomenon The Devouring, was seen this weekend with a mystery woman and a young child. Rumor is he’s fresh out of rehab for substance abuse problems, and is looking forward to premiering his much-anticipated horror film The Last Door on the Right later this week.

  I gape. “Oh, my god.”

  He smirks. “On to Galeta,” he says.

  “Do you . . . always have paparazzi following you around?”

  “Yeah. Always.”

  “How do you deal with that?”

  He shrugs, then reaches over and opens up a shelf that hides the mini-bar. I think he’s going to pull out a beer, but he extracts a Coke and flips the lid. He offers to me, but I shake my head. “Like I said, it’s my normal. I don’t remember a time when they weren’t following me.”

  I can’t even imagine. “And I thought I was in the public spotlight, in Nebraska. My dad was a state senator, and we were always under scrutiny, whenever we did anything. But we didn’t have people following our every move like that. Taking pictures of us? That’s crazy.”

  He frowns. “You’re Molly. You’re from Massachusetts. Remember?”

  I freeze.

  “Oh,” I say. He really does have a photographic memory. “So you want us to practice? Or let our hair down? I’m confused.”

  He grins at me. “What do you want, Lee?”

  I can’t even think when he looks at me that way. “Maybe a little of both?”

  He takes a sip of his Coke. “I don’t need to practice. I’ve got this down. You know, I started out as an actor. My mom got me into a toothpaste commercial.”

  “Really? And I thought you said you weren’t an actor?”

  “Oh, I’m an actor, all right. Always pretending to be what I’m not. I’ve been doing it all my life. The only problem is, I’m not sure I’ve been able to convince anyone. But if you need to practice, go right ahead.”

  “Okay,” I say, thinking hard. “I’m Molly. I graduated Harvard Law early, when I was only twenty-one, right before I had my son. I met you during a ski vacation in Vail. We hit it off and had a whirlwind romance. Upon my urging, you decided to go to rehab to get clean. When you got out last month, we tied the knot in a private ceremony at home. You’ve been clean eight months, and we’re deliriously happy. Is that right?”

  He nods, looking down at the can of soda. “I’m not, and have never been, an alcoholic, just so you know. I like my drink, sure, but that’s about it.”

  The many photos of him online say otherwise. There are hundreds of him, shown drinking, bleary-eyed, throwing up in the streets, whatever. But I suppose if people followed a man around twenty-four seven and cobbled together all the worst moments of his life, they could make him look like anything they wanted. And the truth is, since he told me he wasn’t going to drink, he hasn’t. He’s a man of his word. “Then what are you?”

  He shrugs. “For the premiere? I’m whatever it says in the binder, I guess.”

  “But tonight?”

  “Well, this is just a trial run. We’ll be among friends.” His lips flatten into a straight line. “So what do you want me to be?”

  “Yourself,” I say instantly.

  He lets out a small laugh and looks away for a blink, before his eyes settle on me. “I don’t know who that is, believe it or not.”

  And there it is. For a blink, I see it, as clear as day. Pain. Sadness. What would life be like if for all of it I had to pretend to be something I wasn’t? If I could never say who I really was? I shift in my seat. “Okay. I hav
e an idea. We’re not in public right now. We can practice when we’re at the restaurant. But what if, right now, we just be our honest selves?”

  He looks confused. “How do you do that?”

  “Well. I ask a question, you don’t pause. You don’t rehearse. You say the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay?”

  He nods slowly.

  “Ready?” He nods again. “Favorite food.”

  He pauses a beat. “Chicken nuggets.”

  “Really? You paused.”

  “Okay. Okay. Actually, I like steak. Rare.”

  I stare at him, confused. “Where did the chicken nugget thing come in?”

  He lets out a sour laugh. “When I got started in this business, you know, hardcore horror, they told me the weirder you were, the better. So I tried to come up with the most bizarre answers possible. I said it in one interview, and it got a big response. So then it started to be this thing. Everyone knew Justin Avignon lived on dinosaur nuggets. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you read the news you’ll see all these things about me that someone just inferred because they took something out of context or got misinformation. But if people liked it, if it got a good response, I just went with it.”

  “But June makes nuggets for you, at home,” I say, incredulous. “You can’t even be yourself at home?”

  “No. Because it was like, I kept saying it over and over again . . . even I forgot. You know? It was like, I said it so much, I became that person. And the truth is, I fucking hate chicken nuggets. I didn’t even like them when I was a kid.”

  “You should have steak tonight,” I say. “What about your favorite movie. Don’t think, just answer.”

  “Trading Places,” he says at once. “Public me would’ve said Night of the Living Dead. I have to pay homage to Romero or I’m not a true horror geek. But you know what, horror isn’t even my true first love. I actually like comedy, which is why most of my movies have a little of that sprinkled in.”

  “Really?” I wrinkle my nose. This is so fascinating. “Okay. So where is your favorite place on Earth?”

  “On Earth? Probably my backyard. Public me would say Costa Rica.”

  “You grew up at that house?”

  He nods. “And yeah. I miss my parents. Public me wouldn’t let you in on that one. I think Public me was in a feud with my dad before he died. Which is a shitty thing to believe because I was only five. My dad is, and will always be, my hero.”

  “He was a great actor,” I muse. I’d seen him in a few of his westerns, and I can see where Justin gets his charm and good looks.

  “Yeah. My mother really loved him. Told me no one would ever replace what he was to her. Her husbands after him? They were losers. She told me that herself.” He grins. “What about your favorite place?”

  I shrug. “I miss Nebraska. But I’ve never been anywhere but there and here. I think I need to expand my horizons a little before I make that decision. I guess, of all the places I’ve been to? I’d say the library.”

  “The library?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing. All those words and ideas and things to explore . . . for free. Where else can you get that? The internet doesn’t hold a candle to what you can get out of a library.”

  “Wow,” he says slowly, concentrating hard on the thought. “My wife is a nerd.”

  I smack him. “I am not!” I retort. But yeah, I kind of feel like one, now. Whatever made me think I can get personal with Justin Avignon, a man I have absolutely nothing in common with? “Um. Okay, what about your favorite thing to do?”

  “Sex,” he says at once, the look in his eyes unabashed. “Sorry. That doesn’t change. Public me and Private me. That, I can’t lie about. I like to feel a woman’s body against mine.”

  I blush, hard and fast. Why did I ask that question again? “Um.” I try to think of another question to ask him, but I come up blank. And he’s looking at me, with that same probing stare. And we’re so close, even in this vast cabin of this limo. Is he going to try to kiss me?

  He doesn’t. Instead, he clears his throat.

  “You asked,” he says with a smile, then looks out the window and takes another sip of his soda. “What about you? What do you like to do?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Don’t think. Just answer.”

  But nothing comes to mind. All I know is, it’s definitely not sex, considering I haven’t done it in forever. About a hundred years ago, I had a million interests. But five years ago, my life became all about survival, and every one of those things I loved to do fell away in favor of things I had to do. I shrug.

  He opens his mouth, but I quickly shush him. “Please don’t say it would be sex if I gave you a chance.”

  My tone is light, but the way he’s staring at me is serious. “What’s wrong? You really have a problem with it. Don’t you?”

  I look away, at the bar, then reach over and grab a water. “Can we talk about something else? Something not so personal?”

  He nods, and we do. The conversation shifts to him, talking about all his movies, and then what led him to think of The Last Door on the Right. He actually got the idea from reading the news and his father, who was a Vietnam vet. It turns out that this is the first movie that Justin not only wrote and directed, but he’s also executive producer of it. It’s a movie about a blind and PTSD-suffering female soldier, injured in Afghanistan, who moves into an apartment complex where all her neighbors begin disappearing. I can tell from the way he talks about it that it’s his baby.

  And that he cares about something else, other than his own ego. “Yeah. So I guess we’ll find out tomorrow how well-received it is,” he says. “People say you don’t really know until the reviews start coming in, but that’s bullshit. You can tell at the premiere. If people are coughing, shifting in their seats, that’s the kiss of death. But if you can hear a pin drop, if they gasp at all the right moments . . . you know. Right then, you know.”

  I nod, and at that moment, I realize.

  I want him to do well.

  I don’t hate him nearly as much as I thought, two days ago.

  The two hours in the car go by so fast, and soon we’re pulling into a small fishing village. Gravel in the driveway pings the tires as we stop in front of a nondescript, clapboard house overlooking the bay. I look up at it. “What is this place?”

  “Sea Spray. It’s one of the more off-the-beaten-path places, but it’s been around for over fifty years.”

  “It looks nice.” It looks private. And the idea of being in close quarters for an entire mean with Justin Avignon sends shivers up my spine. But I guess I should get used to it, if I’m going to be doing it for the next four months.

  When I turn around to look at him, he’s holding a small jewelry box in front of him. “Mrs. Avignon, I know the Hollywood elite can be a bunch of crazy assholes who are anything but traditional. But we still believe in this.”

  I gape as he opens up the box and shows me the most massive diamond I’ve ever seen.

  Just for a second, I’m in one of my romance books, with the man I love kneeling in front of me, a promise of forever in his eyes. I almost expect for him to pop the question.

  Then I remember that this is all Hollywood. This is all make-believe. And that dream pops in my head like a bubble.

  I reach in, pluck the ring, and slide it onto my hand. Gosh, it’s heavy. Too heavy, ostentatious, nothing like I’d prefer. Still, it’s pretty. “Looks nice,” I say.

  “You wear it well.” He nods and rubs his hands together. “So, show time? Let’s see how much Mr. and Mrs. Avignon have learned.”

  I take a deep breath. “Show time.”

  We go inside, and there is a small dining room with tables near a picture window, overlooking the setting sun. An old man greets Justin with a hug and a great big smile. Justin smiles brighter than I’ve ever seen. A not-for-Hollywood smile. A real smile. It makes me melt for him, just a little more.

  “Angelo, this is Molly Av
ignon,” he says, looking at me. “My wife.”

  I feel like I need to show off the ring, so I do. Angelo takes my hand, shaking it warmly and vigorously, and claps Justin on the back. “We heard in the news, son! There was talk that you’d gone and tied the knot. Emilia and I are so happy for you. We were wondering when you were going to come up and see us.”

  He grins. “Well, can’t keep me away from you for too long,” he says.

  Justin places his hand on the small of my back, protectively. “After you,” he says, low and soft, into my ear.

  So he knows how to treat a woman. Who knew?

  Angelo leads us outside, to a balcony overlooking the Pacific. The waves are crashing along the surf right below us, and seagulls are crying out overhead. The sun is setting, painting orange and pink streaks across the sky. There is just one table, set for two, out here. I’ve honestly never seen a more romantic setting for a meal.

  The library? Forget that. I think I just found my favorite place.

  I just have to remember that this isn’t a real date. That we aren’t anything but a business deal.

  Angelo lifts out the chair for me and lets me sit, then Justin sits across from me. He reaches over the table and takes my hand. His hand is so warm and fits so well in my hand. “Do you like it?”

  I nod, breathless. My heart is pounding a million beats a minute. I’ve never been treated this well by a man. And he hasn’t really done anything, yet. Just brought me to a romantic place and held my hand.

  I’m so fucking easy, it’s ridiculous.

  Justin smiles at Angelo. “I think she approves.”

  The door from outside opens, and a large woman with curly hair screams out onto the balcony in a fit. She wraps her arms around Justin in a bear hug, never taking her eyes off of me. “Oh Justin!” she gushes, tears in her eyes. “She’s perfect. Beautiful! Exquisite. We always knew you’d find the woman one day that would set your heart afire!”

  He lets out a long, uncomfortable breath, and I swear there’s a blush on his tan cheeks. “Yes. Well. Emilia. Meet Molly. Molly, Emilia.”