"You done yet?"
She glared at him and wondered if she was going to become one of those people who day drank on a regular basis. "I'm allowed to vent some, aren't I?"
Oliver took hold of her elbows and ran his hands lightly up and down her arms in a soothing gesture. The problem was it brought her even closer to him, and she remembered a scene from one of his movies when he'd rolled over in bed and the sheet had ridden low over his taut abs and—
"You're blushing. What are you thinking about?"
She blinked to awareness and gaped up at him, fully dressed and scruffy and standing in her living room mere feet from the crumpled apology attempt she'd yet to finish writing. "I'm wondering what I'm going to do for a living now that my life is over."
"Come here."
He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight and she welcomed the embrace. The studies on anxiety and the benefits of hugs were dead accurate. Until the hug ended and the world swallowed her up again with its cold, harsh reality of no clients, no book advance, and a mortgage she wouldn't be able to pay.
Was she really going to be that thirty-year-old woman having to move back home to live with her parents?
"Look," he said softly, "I get that you're freaked out. But the sooner you finish the spiral, the sooner we can talk about a solution."
"What solution? You mean me owning up to the fact my business is done for? Obviously I'm not ready to face that or I'd be on my porch already, giving the statement I haven't been able to write."
"Who says it has to be that way?"
"How can it be any other way? You know what's going to happen. I'm not exaggerating."
"Maybe not. Unless… we give them what they want."
She lifted her head and bumped his chin in the process. "What?"
"Marsali," he said, his tone growing a tad impatient sounding. "Focus."
"I'm trying. I'm just a little preoccupied by my career-ending faux pas."
"I can see where telling them the truth would cause you difficulty, but pull yourself together and listen to me."
"You don't think I did this on purpose, do you, Ollie?"
He smoothed his hand up her back to her neck and gently rubbed the tension he found. Marsali held her breath to smother the moan of pleasure that begged to erupt. Her whole body was one tight rubber band ready to snap.
"You know, you are the only one who's ever called me that."
"Because"—she struggled to keep her voice level—"I knew you hated it and it was the only way I could get you to look at me back then. Consider it insult to injury now, I guess," she said. "Even though it's habit."
"I did plenty of looking, trust me. And I made you think I hated it, but I actually didn't mind so long as you were the only one."
She leaned more heavily against him and treasured the moment. Typical Oliver. He really was a nice guy. Which was why his name had come to mind when the host had asked the question, but why had she said it out loud? She mentally kicked herself for the millionth time.
"Marsali?"
"Hmm?"
"Maybe fixing things isn't as hard as you think."
"How's that?" she asked, lifting her head from where she rested it against his broad chest. "Because from where I'm standing, it only ends one way and that's badly."
"That's if you admit we're not dating. But what if we were?"
She used her arms to push away from him, not only to get some much-needed breathing room from the drug-like haze she'd fallen into being cradled in his arms but to stare up at him as well. "Come again?"
"What if we do exactly what that host and fans think we've been doing?"
"Date?"
"Why not? The world apparently likes it given the press and your upswing in clients, so let's make it real. Date me."
Marsali stared at Oliver, getting the full Hollywood treatment of sexy-mussed hair, jaw scruff, and piercing dark eyes that left her weak-kneed. Did he have to smell so good? Look so good? Feel so strong and hard and dependable? "You're kidding, right?" she asked, torn between horror and disbelief.
"No."
"It's not that I don't… It's just… Ollie, you don't have to do this."
"What, exactly, do you think I'm doing?"
"Pity-dating me so I don't look like such a fool. I'm grateful that you're willing. Don't get me wrong. But it's too much to ask of you."
"You're not asking. I'm offering."
"Why?"
"If the situation was reversed, you'd do the same for me. Don't tell me you wouldn't."
She opened her mouth to argue but it was true. Still… what woman wanted to land a relationship that way? Even a fake one?
"Look, Marsali, maybe you said my name by mistake and things were taken out of context, but you said it, and I'd like to think at least part of your reasoning is because you trust me. Because you know I'd never let anything hurt you."
"Yeah, but—"
"No buts. If we date, the problem is solved."
"Not when Mac kills us both."
"You'd rather face the reporters instead of your brother?"
She fisted her hands and battled the barrage of questions and doubts and thoughts pummeling her. "No. But Mac would have to be dealt with. And then there's my parents and your agent and people like my assistant and Eliza—"
"The fewer people who know it's pretend, the better."
"You mean not tell them? Mac would hate us. Because of that interview, he probably believes we've been dating behind his back."
"I know. But the more people who know the truth, the more likely it is that this plan won't work. Someone will slip up and reveal something they shouldn't."
She hated that her actions had brought them both to this point. To lying and deceiving. To her family. His friends. "I don't know, Ollie…"
"What's holding you back?"
"You mean beyond lying to people I love? Maybe why you would even consider this? What do you get out of it?"
He rested his forearms on her shoulders and she liked the weight of them. It made her feel grounded in a sense. Connected. As fast as her heart pounded in her chest and her thoughts raced, it helped.
"I get to be the hero in this scenario for you and I like that. You need me, and I want to help. We'll figure out the details as we go along, but for now all that matters is that we show everyone, including the press, a united front."
The man before her wasn't Oliver Beck, movie star. He was Ollie, her Ollie, who'd made Mac hold a funeral when her pet gerbil died and who'd blackened Peter Sanders's eye when he'd started a rumor about her after her senior prom.
Now as she stared into Oliver's eyes, Marsali felt like she teetered on a cliff, one step away from the biggest free fall of her life. But what choice did she have after the mess she'd made of things? "You really want to do this?"
"Yes."
Because that was Ollie. "I confess I'd rather eat mud pies than go out there and tell them I blundered my way into this mess because I was too embarrassed to say I was single."
"Agree to the plan, and you won't have to."
"I don't… I don't know what to say."
He flashed his famous Hollywood smile—the one she'd known six glorious years before Hollywood came knocking—and her heart pounded hard in her chest.
"Say yes. Marsali Jones," he said, his voice changing to a formal tone, "will you do me the honor of dating me?"
The Matchmaker’s Secret: Chapter 4
Oliver waited for her response and wondered if he’d pushed too hard.
Of course he had. He should've waited to see if Marsali suggested the idea and gone along with it. But he wasn't willing to risk her not bringing it up so…
"Yes. I mean, if you seriously don't mind pretending?"
"I don't mind at all."
"Just until I can get some of the new clients happily matched so they don't go running the moment they realize we aren't together, and I get the first few chapters to my editor, and—"
"You got it."
"Really? You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Oh! Ollie, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you," she cried, surging toward him and wrapping him in a huge hug.
He welcomed the weight of her once again but this time lifted her off of her feet, her laughter hot and heady in his ear. After a long moment, he set her back down, but when she started to pull away, he didn't release her.
"Ollie?"
He ignored the flare of panic in her eyes and lowered his head toward hers. "Dating couples kiss, Marsali. Which means we need to practice."
"N-now?"
"Our first time can't be in front of cameras with analysts trying to decode our body language by watching our every move." He brushed his thumb over her lower lip.
"Um…"
He closed the distance and brushed his lips over hers, capturing the sound. He didn't rush the moment but kept things light, knowing there would be more kisses later. Many, many more. For now he was content so long as he got this, their first but not the last. He wanted her taste, her scent. Everything Marsali.
She kissed like an angel. Hesitant and sweet. The softness of her full lips had haunted him for far too many years, and this was the reward for his patience. She tasted of sweet tea and chocolate and something mysterious, indefinably her.
Marsali ended the kiss and pulled away from him, avoiding his gaze. Her cheeks were flushed to a rosy hue and her heavy-lidded gaze told him what he needed to know. What she didn't say. She was as intrigued and drawn to him as he was to her, and he thanked God for the discernment.
"Ollie… I'm sorry. I don't think I can agree to this plan of yours."
"Marsali—"
She pushed him away and took several steps back, her tongue flicking over her lips.
"There has to be another way besides us pretending to be something we're not."
"You didn't like kissing me?"
She wouldn't look him in the eyes.
"It's… Even if I was okay with pretending for a while, we didn't think this through."
"How so?"
"My family knows we haven't been dating."
"Do you tell them every detail of your life?"
"No, but—"
"Then they couldn't know with one hundred percent certainty."
"Okay, the press and your fans then. They won't believe it because you date models and movie stars. Don't give me that look. You know exactly what I mean. Your usual arm candy never eats and they go for spa days where they're lasered and injected and look like sex on a stick."
Sex on a stick? He couldn't help but chuckle at the description considering most of them couldn't form a coherent sentence that wasn't riddled with drama, much less run a successful company and write books. "You do realize you're an insanely talented, beautiful woman, right?"
Her phone began ringing again and she groaned before hurrying across the room.
It was in those seconds following his question that he realized she had no clue how beautiful she was. Maybe not as the model-actress type, but Marsali was a natural beauty with her freckles and softness and curves.
"Nooo," she said, staring at her phone. "It's Mac calling again. I have to call him and my parents back soon or they're going to call an intervention."
"I'll handle it."
"What? No, I'm to blame for all of this. I just don't know what to say."
Oliver took his cell from his pocket and unlocked his screen to find six calls from Mac. "You're not the only one he's contacted." He pressed the call button.
"What are you doing? Ollie, no!"
"What is going on with you and my sister?"
Oliver winced at Mac's shout and held the phone away from his ear, all the while watching the color drain from Marsali's face when her brother's voice carried across the room. "Mac, calm down."
"Calm do— seriously? Where are you?" Mac demanded.
Oliver heard a car door slam outside and moved across her living room toward the front of the house to get a look.
Mac was striding up to the front door with the phone pressed to his ear and the reporters practically tripping over themselves to get a shot of the action even though it was just of Mac's back.
Oliver turned to see Marsali standing nearby and frowned. He needed a firm commitment from her to move forward with the plan before her brother arrived to talk her out of it.
"Marsali, it's me," Mac called, knocking. "And just so you know," Mac said into the phone, "there's a slew of reporters outside her place just waiting to take a bite out of her. You need to do something about this, Oliver."
Without a word, Oliver stepped behind the panel so he was out of view of the reporters Mac complained about and unlocked the door. Mac quickly stepped inside and shut it behind him. "Oliver, you—"
"Hey," Oliver said.
Mac's eyes widened just a tad before he calmly lowered the phone from his ear and slipped it into his rear pocket. That done, he grabbed Oliver by the shirt and pinned him up against the closest wall.
"Mac, no!" Marsali cried, rushing toward them.
"You stay out of this," Mac said, drawing his arm back to take a swing.
Marsali squeezed between them just as Mac let the fist fly, and despite trying to shield her, Mac's fist bounced off of Oliver's forearm into Marsali's face.
"Oh!"
Mac took a step back, visibly horrified by what had happened, while Oliver quickly tucked Marsali behind him and examined her. "Are you all right? Let me see. Put your hands down and—"
"I'm fine."
"Let me see."
"Get your hands off of her. She said she's fine," Mac ordered.
Oliver gently lifted her chin from her chest and brushed her hands away from her mouth, noting the slight redness at the corner. "I don't think that's going to bruise but we'd best get you some ice."
"Marse, I'm sorry. I am, but you can get ice while I talk to Oliver."
"I'm not leaving you two alone," Marsali said. "Not when that's how you behave."
"I didn't mean to hit you."
"No, you meant to hit him and that's not okay," she said. "If you want to be mad, be mad at me because I'm the reason this is happening."
"What's not okay is this Hollywood playboy messing around with my baby sister."
Hollywood playboy?
"Ice that before you look like a bad lip job," Mac ordered.
Rolling her eyes at them, Marsali stomped off toward the kitchen. Oliver followed her, because if he and Mac were going to battle it out, they needed to be as far away from the reporters as possible.
"Oliver, we had a deal."
"A deal? What kind of deal?" Marsali asked, frowning as she quickly wrapped an ice cube in a towel and held it to her mouth.
"That Oliver would never try anything with you. Ever. Remember?" Mac demanded, glaring at Oliver. "How long has this been going on? How long have the two of you been sneaking around?"
"Mac, please, don't be like that," Marsali said, her expression one of regret. "This isn't what you think. Ollie and I—"
"Never meant to hurt you," Oliver said, cutting Marsali off before she could reveal their plan.
Mac folded his arms over his chest and split his attention between the two of them.
"One of you had better start talking. Fast."
"Marsali slipped when she said my name but it's time for the truth to come out."
"Over my dead body," Mac said. "You promised me you'd keep your hands off of my sister."
"Mac… Ollie. Stop!"
"If she goes out there and tells them we aren't dating, her credibility is shot. Her career, her book deal, is over in a two-minute news clip," Oliver said to Mac.
"You have a new book deal?" Mac asked.
"Possibly. It… depends."
"On you dating him?" Mac said with a wave of his hand in Oliver's direction.
"Considering my editor called after the interview aired, yeah."
"Ah, Marse. How could you let this happen? How could you?" Mac
demanded of Oliver.
Oliver winced. Death by best friend wasn't the way he wanted to go out of this world.
"Mac, I-I…" Marsali looked from her brother to Oliver, and he could read the indecision on her features. Marsali was torn and wanted to tell her brother the truth but fear held her back.
She wasn't deceptive by nature, and while Oliver didn't like the thought of lying to anyone, especially Mac, he knew the risk involved should anyone else know the truth. He also wouldn't allow himself to consider the fact he hoped to change their dating status for real, because that was an obstacle to tackle one step at a time.
Oliver walked over to where she stood and put his arm around Marsali's shoulders, drawing her to his side.
"Get your hands off of her."
"Stop fighting," Marsali said. "You're best friends."
"Not anymore. That ended when you started acting like one of his fangirls."
Marsali gasped at the insult, and Oliver quickly inserted himself between the siblings when Marsali charged toward her much bigger older brother.
"You," she said, pointing at Mac, "had better keep those kinds of comments to yourself or I'll be the one bloodying your lip!"
"I'm sorry about that, but it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't jumped in between us."
"You shouldn't have tried to hit him!"
"Marsali, you're in over your head. What were you thinking, letting this happen? Mom and Dad are beside themselves with worry."
Oliver flinched at the news. He'd always gotten along well with Marsali's parents, but then as a friend of Mac's, why wouldn't he? Apparently now things were different, though, because otherwise they'd be happy at the thought of their daughter dating him. "Mac, I know you're having a hard time accepting this but don't disrespect Marsali."
Cupid to the Rescue: A Tail-Wagging Valentine's Day Anthology Page 49
