“She always was talented and very creative.” His mom’s smile bloomed. “I remember walking into the kitchen after she’d hidden the cookie jar with fresh peanut butter cookies inside. She wouldn’t let you have any until you had memorized the entire periodic table.”
Nichole’s methods had been rather cruel. Nichole had known peanut butter cookies were one of his favorites. Still, he’d managed to pass that particular chem test.
“I still can’t believe Nichole pretended you guys were only classmates, nothing more than acquaintances at school for all those years.” Ivy leaned against the kitchen counter, amazement staining her cheeks and wide gaze.
“She did it for Chase.” Mallory shook her head at him. “I can’t believe you asked Nichole to do that for you.”
Chase rubbed the back of his neck, catching his flinch. Nichole and he had run in different circles at school. It’d been easy to avoid each other. His family had believed he’d wanted to protect his reputation as a popular football player. But he hadn’t wanted to invite questions. Kids would’ve asked how Nichole and he knew each other. That would’ve led to even more questions that he never wanted to answer. He’d never wanted anyone to know about his dyslexia. Not his teammates or his friends. Nichole knew about his faults and his weaknesses. At school, seeing her reminded him he wasn’t flawless. Was far from perfect. He was less than, like his own dad had believed.
Except with Nichole at his house after school, she’d made Chase feel like he could conquer anything and reach his dreams. He squeezed his neck. Had he made her believe she could reach her dreams too? Not likely. He’d been too consumed with his own. He had to help Nichole now. Give her something good. He owed her that much and more.
“Nichole was always so smart.” Ivy punched his shoulder, her humor stepping back to the forefront. “Yet she married Chase.”
His stomach collapsed as if punched too. He wasn’t good enough for Nichole. He should’ve never started this. “It’s not...”
“I’d like to see the woman Nichole has become,” his grandmother interrupted. She lowered herself onto the couch and picked up her plate. “When do I get to see this new wife of yours?”
That simple question launched a full-scale debate among the women. Days, times and places were thrown out, discarded and revisited. Chase tried twice to intervene. His sisters and mother ignored him. He sat on the couch beside his grandmother and checked his phone again.
“Something more important on your phone than your family?” Nonna dabbed a napkin against her cheek.
“I’m waiting to hear from Nichole.” Chase flipped his phone over in his hands. Had Nichole changed her mind about car pool pickup? About their deal? “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.”
Nonna placed her hand on his arm, drawing his gaze to her wisdom-aged whiskey-brown eyes. “We can plan all we want, but love has its own mind and its own agenda.”
Love. This wasn’t about love. This was about contracts and reputation repair. Chase rose and stuffed his phone in his back pocket. “I have to go. It’s car pool day today, and I don’t want to mess that up on my first day.” His mind raced to cover any other loose ends. “This weekend won’t work for a family gathering.”
Conversation stopped. His mother and sisters stood shoulder to shoulder and eyed him. They’d been forming their impenetrable wall since he’d started kindergarten to make Chase squirm. To make him confess to putting hot sauce on Mallory’s pasta instead of spaghetti sauce. To make him admit he purposely scared Ivy and her friends during their sleepover. To force him to concede he ate the entire family-sized bag of potato chips in one sitting. Now they wanted another confession.
“Nichole and I are going on a ski-moon.” Chase slammed his lips together. What?
“Where are you going?” Mallory’s arms crossed again, her eyes narrowed, her foot tapped against the hardwood floor.
He didn’t envy his future nieces and nephews. Mallory would make a formidable mom one day.
“I’ve never heard of that.” Ivy scowled and considered him as if searching for a weakness. “What is it?”
Chase wanted to know the very same thing too. He ran his hand through his hair. His family watched him, silent and judging. “You know.” He rushed on. “It’s like a honeymoon. But it’s in Tahoe and we’ll be skiing. Get it?”
Ivy caved first and laughed. “It can’t be a real honeymoon if Nichole’s son is joining you guys.”
“He is going, isn’t he?” his mother asked. Suspicion wove through her words.
“Of course,” Chase managed. He hadn’t met Wesley yet, but what kid didn’t like the snow. “We’re family now.” Family. The idea pinned him in place like an ambush.
His mother’s nod remained stiff and small as if she held back her full approval.
“I really have to go.” Chase backed toward the door, searching for the handle and some semblance of balance. He’d built a career on his agility and sure-footed skill. What had happened to his poise? Finally, his fingers curled around the brass door handle. But his balance remained off-kilter.
His grandmother’s voice stopped his escape. “Honeymoon or ski-moon or whatever, you’ll bring Nichole here to see me tomorrow at her convenience.”
That wasn’t a request. Or an invitation. It was a direct order. Chase agreed and fled the small apartment. And hopefully, the faint whisper of love’s arrow.
CHAPTER TEN
THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE the end of the school day and the start of her car pool duties, Nichole pulled into Chase’s driveway. She stared at the three-story Mediterranean-style villa hidden behind a pair of lush olive trees. Chase lived in one of the most sought-after districts in the city within easy walking distance of the best the city offered, including bay views. Nichole rented an unremarkable two-bedroom in a dull duplex tucked away in a modest part of town. Nichole and Wesley relied on their bus passes to travel around the city most days.
But today wasn’t typical. She turned off her sedan. The four-door car outdated Wesley by a decade, tallied more than one hundred and fifty thousand miles and boasted several completed cross-country road trips. Not the luxury town car Chase was most likely accustomed to. Her rattleship as Wesley called it wouldn’t become the image booster for Chase. Neither would Nichole.
Why had she agreed to their pseudo marriage? Opposites do not attract. No scientific evidence existed to support the theory. Nichole and Chase were about as opposite as possible. Now she had to come up with a suitable explanation for Wesley. I’m helping out an old friend was the best she’d devised.
Nichole walked up the stairs to the main entrance and rang the bell. The door swung open. Chase stood in an unbuttoned dress shirt. His wrinkled tie hung loose around his shoulders. He looked disheveled and dashing and drew her in like a magnetic field. She said, “I’m guessing your grandmother didn’t take the news well.”
“My mother and sisters were there too.” Chase opened the door wider and motioned her inside. “They were thrilled I married you.”
“But,” she pressed. No area rugs softened her footsteps on the worn hardwood floors, nothing dulled the racing pulse buzzing in her ears.
“They have to be invited to my next marriage and be included in the wedding planning.” Chase shut the door and walked barefoot past her.
“You’re getting married again?” Nichole skipped her gaze from the fitted white T-shirt under his dress shirt to his bare feet and back again. Opposites do not attract. She ran her hand across the microfiber couch in a familiar red wine color rather than reach for Chase and conduct her own experiment on the outdated opposites attract theory.
“Definitely not on the agenda, but don’t tell them that, please,” he said. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I’m definitely not interested in you. Not like that. Her hand stilled on the couch as if he’d caught her reading his personal files.<
br />
“Do you want to get married for real?” He moved closer, his gaze serious. His tone thoughtful.
“I did.” I could. Nichole blinked, disconnected her old daydreams and blamed Josie. Had Nichole not put on the stunning wedding gown or carried a bouquet of her favorite flowers or stood inside Chase’s embrace, she’d never have imagined again. That old whimsy caught her, and she whispered, “Once upon a time.”
“And now?” His voice softened to a murmur. His gaze warmed as if he too saw her in the wedding gown. As if he too imagined.
Stop. She unplugged the illusion. Willed her racing heart to quit. She needed to be convincing. “I have other priorities.” Her son. In A Pinch. Helping her grandparents retire. Never getting her heart broken again.
Chase clutched the ends of his tie as if centering himself. “One of which is Wesley.” He checked the time. “We don’t want to be late.”
“I’ve mastered the car line.” She hadn’t mastered what to tell Wesley. Or how to tell him. Or how to protect her son. “We still have time.”
Chase motioned to his suit pants and started for the staircase. “Make yourself at home while I change. I’ll be fast.”
Nichole wandered into the kitchen, away from her ill-timed thoughts. The appliances looked a decade older than the dated ones in her rental. The cabinets might’ve been circa 1930s but the layered paint on the cabinet doors obscured the wood. The kitchen wasn’t restored vintage charm or modern and sleek. And nothing she expected Chase Jacobs to own. The Chase Jacobs portrayed in the media should have a high-end bachelor pad that converted to a swanky nightclub in the evening. Every extravagant toy from a speedboat to a 4Runner to a snowmobile in his garage. Yet she’d glimpsed the tailgate of an older truck on her way to the stairs.
One lone placemat sat at the head of the oval kitchen table. Nichole skirted the table and drab eating nook and moved into the connecting sunroom. A floral-patterned couch was the only foliage in the room aside from several small pots of herbs sitting on a TV tray—the kind she hadn’t seen since she’d been about six. The bright space begged for a potted palm tree or a fountain. She picked up several CDs from one of the many stacks towering on the floor. Her mouth dropped open.
Not CDs, but audiobooks. Nichole flipped through one stack. Everything from classic literature to biographies to current fiction filled the pile.
“Those aren’t mine.” Chase’s deep voice came from behind her, defensive and guarded.
Nichole spun around, still holding an audiobook, and swallowed her apology for snooping. “You have a roommate?”
“Never. I’ve always lived alone.” Chase bent down, straightened one of the stacks and avoided looking at her. “They belong to an old girlfriend.”
Nichole read the title of the audiobook she held. “Your ex liked to learn about how to build the supreme male body.”
Chase rubbed his chin. “What can I say? She had rather eclectic tastes.”
And Chase had secrets. Ones he refused to share with her. That shouldn’t bother her. Business deals were never personal. Emotions were always excluded. Yet the slight needled her. She set the audiobook next to the herb plants. “Did your ex grow herbs too?”
“Those are mine.” Chase checked the soil in one pot, affection in his tone. “Can’t cook without fresh herbs.”
The man before her was somewhat of a contradiction. She never liked those much. Always wanted to reason through the different layers and make sense of every inconsistency.
The boy she’d known had despised reading. Claimed literature belonged to the select few who could understand it. The man she fake married, the one she knew from the endless media stories, wasn’t sprawled out on a sofa, listening to Homer’s Odyssey, waiting for his fresh herbs to grow. That man was mingling with fans, devising new escapades and winning over the public. “You cook often?”
“As often as I can.” Chase carried one of the herb plants to the kitchen sink.
She walked back through the kitchen into the living room and stared at the stained glass windows framing the fireplace. The original glasswork attempted to stand out despite the deterioration around the rest of the house. The same way Chase stood out. Except now, Nichole questioned who he really was.
“Why haven’t you fixed this place up?” Even Nichole, the least qualified DIY-er in the state, could see the potential. Envision the possibilities.
“I don’t own this place.” Chase sat on the couch and tied his running shoes. “I rent it.”
“You rent?” Nichole rolled her lips together too late. The shock already bounced against the scratched hardwood floors.
“It’s not that much of a surprise.” Chase stood up.
“The details of your current football contract are public.” From his signing bonus to his earnings. His endorsement deals were not public. However, she could name four commercial products she’d seen him in campaign ads for. Chase could buy any home he wanted, including this one. He could also buy any image he wanted.
“I bought my mom a house.” He walked into the kitchen and pulled two bottles of water from the refrigerator.
Nichole moved to the kitchen table, glanced at the floral-patterned couch on the sun porch and remembered. How many times had she sat beside Chase at the oak table? The couch had been off-limits to food, pets and teenagers. “Then you took your mom’s furniture.”
“She wanted all new furniture for her new home.” Chase ran his palm over the scratched kitchen table. “This stuff is great. Still usable. I wasn’t throwing it out.”
His fingers lingered over a particular notch in the table. His face relaxed as if the history comforted him. Nichole turned around, scanned the living room, recognized even more from his family’s home. “You have all your mom’s original furniture, don’t you?”
“It fits perfectly for what I need.” He folded a hand towel and slid it over the handlebar on the oven.
But he could have a chef’s kitchen. Eight-burner stainless steel range. Double ovens. Modern leather sofas. Glass coffee table. He should have that. The headline-making Chase Jacobs certainly had that house. Not this. An outdated unit with used furniture that looked more like a college apartment than an all-pro football player’s home.
“You don’t like my place?” A playful note swerved into his voice.
“It’s not what I expected,” she hedged. Chase was not who she’d expected. Despite his mother’s cozy furniture, a loneliness filled the space. “It’s sparse.”
“What did you expect? A house that doubles as a nightclub?” Again, that tease swayed through his words.
“Yes,” she admitted. That would have made more sense. That wouldn’t have made her curious about him. That wouldn’t have made her wonder what else he might be sentimental about.
“I have all the essentials.” Chase indicated the counter. One plate, a fork and a single cup rested in the steel wire dish rack. “Everything I need.”
“You’re living like a college student on a slim budget.” She’d lived that life for too many years. Microwavable soup for dinner and scrounging together enough quarters for one load of laundry. Her paycheck from her library attendant job would arrive, but the money would’ve already been spent. Until she’d earned her degree and accepted her first and only teaching assistant job in graduate school. She’d gotten a raise and met the professor she’d believed she’d share her life with.
It was too late when she’d discovered his contradictions were not so easily overlooked.
“Don’t underestimate the merits of a good dorm room.” Chase set his hands on his hips and grinned. “The dorm room is like a tiny house in a building of other tiny houses. And a built-in entertainment center. There was always something fun going on in our dorm.”
Nichole laughed—the good kind, not the nervous or awkward or forced kind. The kind of laughter that rolled from deep inside and spea
red delight into every cell inside her. Chase had always been able to make her laugh. Even when she thought she couldn’t. Finally, she found a real connection between the man standing before her and the boy she once knew. Nichole relaxed, settling back into the comfortable friends-only zone.
Chase rubbed his hands together. “I’m ready to take on the car line.”
Nichole chuckled and followed Chase to the front door. “It’s not that bad.”
“Should we practice what we’re going to tell Wesley?” Chase locked his front door.
That conversation could be bad, or at the very least, awkward. “Can we give him the truth? We’re two old friends helping each other out.”
“What about the marriage piece?” Chase opened her car door and walked around to the passenger side.
“You’re supposedly married, but no one knows it’s to me.” As it should be. She buckled her seat belt and started her car.
“Except my family, your friends and the Fund Infusion guys.” Chase slipped on a pair of sunglasses and drummed his fingers on the center console.
“You think the press is going to figure out it’s me in that photograph,” Nichole guessed. She had no experience with the media. Chase had achieved expert status. She wanted to hope he was wrong. Wanted to ignore her gut that agreed with Chase.
“In case I didn’t tell you before, I never contacted the press.” Chase pulled out his cell phone and typed on the screen. “The media wasn’t part of my need-to-know category.”
“I’m going with the waiter or busboy.” Nichole’s need-to-know category had consisted of two people: Vick Ingram and Glenn Hill. Then she’d fabricated a story for her best friends. And she feared how much larger her need-to-know category would become. “It’s a pretty bad picture. Maybe the press won’t identify me.” Nichole pinched off that bud of hope.
Hope and wishes were a waste of energy and time. Time that could be spent actively working toward achieving a goal. Nichole had done nothing that morning to help the sale of her app. She’d have to work into the night to keep up with her schedule.
Her Surprise Engagement Page 9
