Make-Believe Marriage

by CA Quigg

  "Save the bullshit. Stop trying to earn brownie points or act like you know a damn thing about me. You can't buy my friendship or my respect. I don't care what you do with the place. After all, you own seventy-five percent of it."

  Once again, her body language betrayed her. The way she leaned ever so slightly forward, the way her pupils dilated, and the way her skin flushed told me she cared very much.

  I wasn't blowing smoke up her arse or feeding her horseshit. I would give her everything I'd promised. A world-class spa with a successful product line would be an added attraction.

  Elizabeth sighed. "Congratulations, Mr. Gallagher, you now own me."

  Chapter 6

  Elizabeth

  Doctors wearing crisp coats and nurses wearing colorful scrubs moved around the ward in efficient silence. Sounds of ringing phones, humming air conditioners, and doctors being paged surrounded me, and, in a weird way, it was soothing.

  I stopped at the nurses' station, and asked, "How's he doing?"

  Melinda, the nurse who'd been on duty when I'd left the hospital yesterday so I could meet Caden, glanced up from the mountain of paperwork in front of her.

  She smiled, her blue eyes calm and kind. "He's asleep, but you're welcome to sit with him. Dr. Bennett's certain he'll make a full recovery. You just missed him."

  I smiled and pushed away from the desk. "Thanks for everything you've done and are doing."

  "That's what we're here for."

  I made my way to room ten and stood by the threshold of the dark room. Surrounded by beeping equipment and shrouded in white sheets, my dad looked smaller, almost fragile. He was usually so much larger than life. Someone who owned a room the minute he walked into it. But overnight, it was as if his body had shriveled and shrunk.

  I went into the room, pulled up a chair and sat by his bed, and even though he wasn't awake, I would tell him about my decision and hoped on some level he would hear me.

  "Dad, it's me, Elizabeth. I accepted Caden's proposal. We came to an agreement about the club. You're not going to like it, but I did what I had to do." A ball of anger spun inside of me. "Why didn't you tell me about the insurance? What if someone like Caden hadn't come along? What would I have done?"

  I sniffed back the tears threatening to fall. Crying wouldn't solve anything, and I could just hear him berating me for showing emotion.

  "Yes, I am going to cry, and there's nothing you can say or do to stop me." Talking to my dad like this, when he couldn't answer back and shoot me down, made me braver, stronger.

  For years, he'd been miserable and had made my life miserable. He was a broken man who would never heal from the divorce or ever grow up. And I loved him even if I didn't particularly like or agree with his ideas or harebrained schemes.

  Time had come for him to move on from my mom and for me to stop defending his bat-shit crazy behavior. My enabling him and not holding him accountable for his actions had gotten us into this mess.

  "When you get out of here, things are going to be different. You're going to retire. You need to step back and allow me to run the club the way it's supposed to be run. Caden said we should build a treatment spa." Even saying the words sent thrills through me. I didn't know if I could trust him, believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad, it hurt, but I wouldn't-couldn't-allow myself to get too excited because the past had shown me huge disappointment always followed expectation.

  I leaned over and placed a kiss on dad's papery cheek. "I'll come back later. I love you. I hope you know that."

  Before Caden left the club yesterday, he'd invited me to dinner so we could discuss our wedding. Ha! Our wedding. The last thing I wanted was to go to some fancy restaurant where anyone could overhear our conversation, so I'd invited him over to my place for dinner. At least that way I would have the advantage of my surroundings if not much else.

  ****

  I glanced at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and frowned. Blonde roots peaked through the brown dye. If I'd had the time, I would've colored my hair, but only because I looked ridiculous with dark hair and light roots. I tilted my head. What would I look like if I stripped all the color out and went with my natural color? Whatever lurked beneath the years of drugstore dye would be as brittle as a blade of grass during a drought, but maybe it was worth finding out.

  I reached for my seldom used contacts, popped them in and blinked furiously to stop my eyes watering at the intrusion. I wasn't making an effort because of Caden. I was making an effort for me.

  The shackles from my past had to come off, and wearing my contacts instead of glasses and wearing my hair down instead of in a bun, was a step toward breaking free. I hadn't made much of an effort with my clothes and had stuck with my favorite leggings and a floaty t-shirt combination.

  The black polish on my toenails was over two months old and chipped to almost nothing. If I put on a new coat to cover the old, that would be making too much of an effort, but really, what was wrong with making myself feel good? After all, my fiancé was on his way over for dinner. I laughed and shook my head at how ridiculous that was. If I was going to have a fake husband, I guess there were worse choices than Caden Gallagher.

  He was more than nice to look at, and his accent sent shivers down my spine. My reaction to him was beyond stupid, so was internally swooning every time he called me Lizzie.

  This was a business deal. And what a business deal it was-one that could land me in prison. There was nothing romantic or swoony about it, and I needed to forget my silly fantasies.

  As soon as Caden got what he needed, I wanted him out of my life, and I was sure he felt the same way. No way would someone who looked like him want someone like me on his arm longer than necessary.

  On my way to the kitchen, I stopped by my bedroom for a chunky sweater and grabbed an elastic band from my dresser. I pulled my hair back into a messy bun on top of my head. He wasn't my real fiancé, and I had to remember that. Before leaving my room, I lifted a small bottle of calming oil and dabbed some on my wrists and over the pulse points on my neck.

  The scent of chili bubbling in the crockpot drifted from the kitchen and filled my small apartment with the delicious scent of spices. I wasn't much of a cook, but I could dump anything into a crockpot and not kill anyone. After eight hours on slow, even the crappiest concoction was somewhat edible. If Caden didn't like kitchen cupboard chili, too bad.

  When we married what would our living arrangements be? Would he expect us to live together in my apartment or did he expect me to move to Manhattan? Wasn't going to happen. And as for living in my apartment, it was already cramped with no room for Caden or any of his crap.

  I wasn't a hoarder, although my sisters would beg to differ. I considered myself a what-if person. What if I needed the birthday cards I'd received when I was nine? What if I had a daughter and wanted to pass my American Girl dolls onto her?

  If Caden sometimes had to stay, he could sleep in the guest room. The one I currently used to make products for my Etsy store. There would be no sharing of beds or sharing of anything else for that matter.

  At seven precisely, the doorbell chimed, and I stopped pacing around my apartment, fixing and tidying things that didn't need to be fixed or tidied.

  I sucked in a deep breath, and with one last chant of my new mantra, "Caden Gallagher is not your real fiancé," I buzzed him in. "Third floor, apartment 13b."

  Chapter 7

  Caden

  This wasn't a date. Something my dick seemed to have forgotten. I held flowers in one hand, a bottle of red in the other, and I nudged the front door open. A delicious scent of herbs and spices welcomed me inside. I hadn't eaten all day and was famished.

  Elizabeth's apartment was small but functional. Mismatched frames covered the walls, and were all filled with photos of smiling girls and a woman who looked very much like Elizabeth-if Elizabeth's hair were
lighter. There were a few pictures of her with her dad, although she didn't smile half as wide in those. That alone spoke volumes about their relationship.

  I walked into a cluttered and cozy sitting room. Holistic health books sat in piles, and CDs and more books filled shelves. A yoga mat sat by a window that offered a view of the street, and if you squinted, you could see the ocean.

  When Elizabeth and I married, I wouldn't need much room, because I intended to stay in the city as much as possible, but her apartment was so small and stuffed with knickknacks, there was no way two of us could cohabitate, no matter how short of a period it was for. We would kill each other in such a small space.

  There was nothing else for it, I'd have to buy an investment property somewhere on the peninsula. Somewhere we could consider neutral ground-our very own version of Switzerland. A place that looked like our love nest in case we got a visit from an immigration officer.

  Elizabeth strolled out of the kitchen in her bare feet. Her hair sat in a messy knot on top of her head, and her cheeks were flushed as if she's spent the last hour being thoroughly fucked. Shame the baggy jumper she wore hid most of her curves, but her leggings clung to her in all the right places.

  I wanted to pull the jumper over her head and discover what lay beneath. I also wanted to shake her hair loose and run my fingers through the messy strands. And most of all, I wanted to taste her skin.

  Too bad she was resistant to my charm, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It would make for an easier, if not entirely exciting, partnership. If she were any other woman, I would do anything and everything I could to have her writhing beneath me.

  "Hello. Hi," she said. "Sit. Wine? Beer?"

  "Whatever's easier." I smiled and handed her the flowers and wine. "These are for you."

  "Wow. Great. Thanks."

  "How's your dad doing?"

  "Good. Stable."

  If she was going to spend all night talking in single syllables, we would have an interesting evening.

  She grabbed the flowers from my outstretched hand and buried her nose in the petals. Her eyes closed as she inhaled their scent and her shoulders lowered.

  "Lilies and roses are my favorites. Rose oil has a million different uses. Excellent for your skin." Away from the stresses and strains of the club, she was happy, and for the first time, I saw a genuine smile lift up her lips.

  "We'll have to talk to the landscapers about planting some rose bushes for you."

  "That's sweet, but it wouldn't work."

  With the flowers in one hand and the wine in the other, she padded toward the kitchen, if it could be called a kitchen, there was barely enough room for her.

  "Therapeutic grade roses have to be free of chemicals and pesticides and fed a particular diet. My thumbs are black, not green. They leave a trail of dead plants and flowers in their wake. My victims fill the garden."

  "My ma could help you there. She's known for her prize-winning flowers. And my sister Bree works for a florist." Why had I said that? I had no intention of ever introducing her to my mother or any of my siblings.

  "I hardly think your mom will help me with anything. Imagine how that meeting would go. I'm sure she'd be ecstatic at meeting your fake wife and discussing the benefits of compost over manure."

  "Sorry. Wrong choice of words."

  "Hungry?" she asked, changing the subject.

  My stomach rumbled and answered for me. "Starving. Whatever you're making smells delicious."

  "Save your praise until you taste it. I'm not much of a cook. I usually eat at the club, or I did until we had to let the chef go."

  She dug through a drawer and pulled out a wine opener and opened the bottle like a pro. After she had poured two glasses, she handed me one.

  "Sláinte " I clinked my glass off of hers. "Here's to a successful partnership."

  "Cheers. Here's to not going to prison."

  "We're not going to prison."

  She took a sip of her wine, then said, "I disagree. Haven't you ever watched the Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell movie Green Card? They think they have the authorities fooled, but at the end, they got caught."

  "That's a movie. This is real life. We'll just make sure our answers match."

  "You think Gérard and Andie didn't do that?"

  "Tell me what brand of face cream you use, and I'll memorize it."

  "I make my own."

  "Fair enough. I'll tell them that."

  "We need to make sure we have our stories completely straight. How we met. How we fell in love. I don't want to risk anything." She set down her glass, removed the crockpot lid and ladled steaming chili into two bowls. "Dress it with what you need." She gestured toward several glass dishes filled with shredded cheese and oyster crackers. "The sour cream's in the fridge. I don't have a dinner table so we can use the coffee table to eat."

  She made her way into the sitting room, placed her bowl and glass of wine on the table, lowered herself to the floor in one graceful movement that screamed years of yoga practice, and crossed her legs.

  I sat opposite her on the sofa and balanced my bowl on my knees. The cramped space definitely wouldn't work, but how could I convince her to move into a house with me?

  "You can have the spare room," she said interrupting my thoughts. "It's small, but we can make it work. The bathroom is small too. Everything is small." She didn't pick up her spoon to eat; instead, she took a gulp of wine and kept her fingers wrapped around the stem.

  "Listen," I said, "this is a great apartment, but there's no way I can move in." I spooned some chili into my mouth, and a combination of flavors exploded on my tongue. "I'm not a big fan of ground beef, but this is delicious. And you said you couldn't cook."

  "What?" Her eyes widened.

  My not liking ground beef seemed to have upset her.

  "I said I'm not a big fan of ground beef, but this is spectacular. See we're finding out things about each other already. No one'll suspect a thing."

  "Enough about the fucking food." Her grip on the wine glass tightened. "I don't care what meat products you do and don't like. We need to live together. If this is going to work people have to believe we're in love." She snapped her fingers. "Unless we say you wanted to keep your apartment in the city and I wanted to stay here. And we only see each other on weekends."

  My brow furrowed and I set my bowl on the table. "We'll buy somewhere nearby and sell it when we get divorced. We'll also keep our own places and only stay in the new house when we have to. But we need to start creating a believable history, so I'll move in enough of my stuff to make it look realistic."

  "A new house?" The worry line between her brows deepened. "I don't think so. You could move in here and as soon as we're married and when you get your green card, you can move out. It's only for a few months, right? I can do this as long as I know it's not forever."

  "I'm not sure what you've been reading, but we need to stay married for at least three years for me to become a naturalized citizen."

  She pushed herself up from the floor and placed her hands on her hips. She was pissed. "Three years. You didn't say anything about you becoming a citizen. A green card was the deal."

  "Don't worry. As soon as we've secured the green card, I'll get out of your life and only contact you when necessary."

  "But what if we're investigated for fraud? Google said-"