The Decoy Bride

by Lizzie Shane

  She didn’t hear what Cross shouted after her, her ears filled with wind and the drone of the engine. Salt water sprayed her and she laughed as she revved the jet-ski faster. Finally, after days of being penned in, playing Maggie in a cage, she finally felt free.

  She flew, the jet-ski racing across the glassy surface of the lagoon where her villa was located—until she sailed through the opening in the reef that protected the inlet and a wave hit the jet-ski broadside. She swore, yanking the handlebars into a tight turn and standing to drive all her weight down on one side to force the jet-ski to pivot into the wave. The engine nearly guttered at the sudden move, but she managed to stay upright as the wave rolled beneath her.

  Cross wasn’t so lucky.

  She heard his shout and looked back in time to see him try to duplicate her move, only to get dumped off as his jet-ski rolled.

  “Oops.” She turned carefully, watching the swells, and returned to help him get back on his jet-ski, which was already being carried away from him on the waves. He bobbed in his life-jacket as she approached and she studied his face, unsure how the big, strong alpha male would take to being dumped in the ocean. “Sorry about that,” she said when she cut the engine and floated up beside him. “I’m used to lakes. No waves to watch out for.”

  He hauled himself out of the water, his weight dipping the jet-ski, but he corrected his balance before he tipped them both. “Here I thought you were trying to lose me,” he said, though there was no acrimony in his voice as he shook his head, water droplets flinging off his hair and raining over her shoulders.

  “You have your uses.” She puttered the idling jet-ski over to his.

  It took him a couple tries to roll the jet-ski back upright and get seated again, but he never once bitched about the faulty machine or tried to make some excuse for his unexpected trip into the water, like all the jocks she’d known in high school would have done if they’d been dumped. For someone who seemed to put so much focus into perfection, she’d expected a much more dickish response, but Cross was nothing if not surprising.

  “You gonna go full throttle again?” he asked, the water revealing a slight curl to his blond hair she hadn’t noticed before.

  “Too fast for you?” she challenged.

  He flashed his teeth. “Never.”

  She grinned. “Good.”

  She cranked the jet-ski up to the max, racing across the waves.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cross had never been particularly good at having fun. He knew how to laugh as well as the next guy—but usually in the pursuit of some more serious goal. Training. Always working harder than the next guy.

  Fun for fun’s sake wasn’t really part of his MO. It always felt like a waste of time he couldn’t justify, but with Bree…She’d been going crazy, cooped up in the villa—even if it was several thousand square feet of luxury. He’d seen the restlessness in her. She needed to do. She needed to move. And she needed fun.

  She bared her teeth, face into the wind, laughing as the jet-ski shot up the side of a swell and caught air before crashing down the other side in a shower of salt spray. He knew they were on a mission, knew there was a purpose to this—to be visible enough for word to start to spread that Maggie was on the island—but somehow that was secondary as they rounded the curve of the island into calmer water and she began to slalom toward the public pier, her laughter lifting on the wind.

  It was intoxicating. She was intoxicating. She flicked a glance back at him, over her shoulder, and his blood rushed, his entire focus on chasing her when she was in this wild mood.

  Then another engine sounded, deeper than the higher whine of the jet-skis, and he saw the exact moment Bree vanished into Maggie.

  The jet-ski slowed, just a fraction. Her posture changed, just a bit. Her chin went up, just an inch. And suddenly he wasn’t chasing Bree, totally uninhibited and free, but Maggie, poised and posed and knowing exactly how she would look to the cell phone cameras that would be pointed her way as soon as the tourists on the parasailing boat realized who she was.

  They passed the boat—close enough to be identified, but far enough away that they weren’t rocked by the larger craft’s wake. They were already past the boat when Cross heard a startled, “Was that Maggie Tate?”

  Mission accomplished.

  The tourist likely hadn’t gotten a picture, but the rumors would start and that was all they needed. A few regular tourists bragging about their brush with fame. Done deal.

  Cross pulled his jet-ski alongside “Maggie’s”, jerking his chin toward the villa. “We should head back.”

  Her eyebrows arched high over the top of her sunglasses. “Should we?” she asked sweetly—and he realized the gross error he’d made in giving her her own jet-ski when she smiled. “Gosh, I’m parched. I could really use a drink.”

  She was zipping toward the main resort’s dock before he could say a word—and there was nothing he could do but curse and follow her.

  She was better on the damn jet-skis than he was. It took him two passes before he managed to get the damn thing close enough to the dock to catch the rope one of the resort employees tossed to him. He reeled himself in and the dock hand secured the jet-ski as he scrambled onto the dock—where Maggie was already stripping off her life jacket, revealing the curves barely hidden by the sheer white cover-up she wore.

  “Maggie…”

  She turned, running a hand through her hair to make it flow even more perfectly around her shoulders. “It’s a resort, Cross. What can possibly happen to me with you here?” she asked, fluttering her lashes at him.

  She turned toward the beach and he hurried to shed his own life-jacket and follow her. “I’ve only done the most basic security review of this side of the island,” he said as he fell into step beside her, scanning the area and kicking himself for not doing a more thorough sweep of this side.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the droll look she threw at him as they hit the beach and passed a couple lolling in the sun as their kids built a sand castle nearby. “I promise if anyone comes at me with a tiny plastic shovel, I’ll let you take the first hit.”

  He glowered, still scanning the beach. “It would help if you took this seriously.”

  “I think you’re taking it seriously enough for both of us,” she said. “And doing an excellent job of drawing attention to the celebrity in their midst.”

  He swore under his breath. She was right. His overprotective behavior was more noticeable than any famous face could be from a distance—and people were definitely taking a closer look at Bree/Maggie now that he was acting like a hyperactive Secret Service detail.

  What the fuck was wrong with him? Admittedly, his training and his previous jobs had always focused on scenarios where the client wanted him to be as visible as possible, but he should be able to pivot better than this. He just hated the thought of her being so exposed.

  Bree-as-Maggie traipsed toward the open air restaurant with tables set right in the sand and approached the bar with woven palm fronds shading the seating area. She bellied up to the bar, smiling a trademark Maggie Tate smile, and requested in Maggie’s high, sweet voice, “One vitamin water, please.”

  The young male bartender gaped a little—obviously not as accustomed to seeing VIP guests on this side of the resort—but he moved quickly, opening a chilled vitamin water and passing it to the star with a glass and a straw that she accepted with a fluttery, “Thank you.”

  She didn’t bother with the glass, putting the straw straight into the bottle and lifting it to her lips—the poor bartender watching the action as if hypnotized as she wrapped her lips around the tube and nearly moaned in relief.

  “So refreshing,” she purred—and the bartender nodded helplessly, completely caught in her spell.

  Cross was tempted to growl at her to stop messing with the kid, but he was too busy studying a family that had taken a seat at one of the larger tables nearby. Two men, two women, three children under six. Lots
of noise, lots of movement as they got the kids settled—and one of the men twisted, revealing a bulge of a certain shape beneath his loose fitting Hawaiian shirt.

  A bulge that exactly matched the shape and size of a man carrying concealed.

  Cross frowned, shifting his body to put himself between Bree and the threat and trying to get a better angle to confirm what he’d seen. He kept a hand on the small of her back to stay aware of her position at all times as he studied the man at the table, who turned toward one of the children at the sound of her high, continuous giggles—

  And the fabric of his shirt caught on the bulge beneath. Holster. On the hip.

  Cross stiffened. “Time to go.”

  *

  Bree’s gaze jerked toward Cross at the hard tone in his voice. His hand was on her back, but he wasn’t looking at her. He’d shed his sunglasses when they stepped into the shade and his attention was locked on a family at one of the tables even though his eyes never stopped moving, taking in every detail of their surroundings.

  The family looked like any other—the kids hamming it up for attention and the parents laughing as they indulged them—but Cross’s awareness of them stayed sharp. She’d been on Maggie jobs with him before when he’d been on alert, but never like this—his jaw locked even as his body stayed somehow fluid, ready to act.

  “I…”

  She wasn’t sure what she would have said, hadn’t even formed a thought, but the words died on her tongue when his head turned and his gaze locked on hers, hard and unwavering. “Now, Maggie.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, fighting the urge to shiver. She’d already told Ethan the Awestruck Bartender to charge the vitamin water to the villa and signed for the drink and an exorbitant tip.

  Cross’s command didn’t scare her—it turned her on. Which was the absolutely wrong reaction to this scenario, but damn the man was hot when he was in Protector Mode.

  It had been impulse to come ashore. What Cross had said about Maggie only letting Mel tell her to do things she already wanted to do had hit home. She’d been letting the manager run her too much. If she wanted to do something a little splashier to make the rumors spread faster, she needed to do it. At least that had been her thought as she raced toward the dock.

  Now, as Cross steered her toward the beach, his body shielding hers from whatever he’d seen at the restaurant, she wasn’t so sure she’d made the best call—though the chance to see Cross in uber-protector mode was pretty damn hot. He hustled her down the beach and she was acutely aware of him, the heat of him at her back, the careful way he touched her like she was precious even as she could feel the tension in his body.

  Her breath came quick and her steps came faster, until she was fighting the urge to run down the beach, her bare feet sinking deep into the sand with each step.

  When they reached the jet-skis, he untied hers first while she was donning the life-vest and helped her climb on, shoving her away from the dock before moving to his own. She turned on the engine, puttering at the lowest speed until she was a good distance away from the dock and Cross’s jet-ski joined hers.

  She looked at him questioningly, but he jerked his chin back toward the villa, his eyes hidden once again by his sunglasses and his jaw hard. “Let’s go.”

  She didn’t argue, cranking the jet-ski up and taking off toward their side of the island—but it felt different now. She couldn’t focus on the rush of the wind and the water. All she could feel was her tight awareness of Cross—as if they’d been tied together by a bungee cord and the more distance was between them the more she felt pulled back. She was intensely aware of exactly where he was—off her left shoulder, between her and the shore—until they rounded the reef at the edge of the island where the surf kicked up and they were no longer in sight of the people on shore.

  A parasailing boat droned in the distance, but they were as alone as they were ever going to be as she slowed her jet-ski until it was idling and waited for Cross. The machine rolled up and down on the swells, but she kept her balance and her eyes on him as he came alongside.

  “What just happened?” she asked, hyperaware of the man drifting at her side. His body was still tight beneath his life-jacket, the muscles in his bare arms flexed, but something of the battle readiness seemed to have left him. “Did you see a camera?”

  Though why he would react that way to a camera when they wanted to spread the news that she was here was beyond her. Maybe her Maggie act had been slipping and he was afraid someone would spot it? But she’d been in full Maggie mode, fluttering at Ethan the Eager Bartender.

  “Not a camera. A gun.”

  She blinked, her jaw dropping. “Seriously?”

  She watched for a flicker of a smile, some sign that he was putting her on, but he nodded, sober and intent. “One of the men at the table. Looked like he was carrying concealed.”

  And all she’d seen was a kid laughing with her father.

  The sharp difference in their perspectives, in what they saw in the world could not have been more clear than it was in that moment. What must life be like through Cross’s eyes? What must it be like to be the man who saw a threat—and immediately put himself between her and the danger?

  “Probably not a threat,” Cross said. “Off-duty cop, most likely. Someone in the habit of carrying everywhere. But better safe than sorry. Especially where you’re concerned.”

  She felt uneasy at his words, but she couldn’t have explained why. She’d felt safe the entire time, oblivious to the possible threat and shielded by Cross, but now something shifted through her—not for herself but for him. “You never shut down, do you?”

  “You’re not paying me to shut down.”

  “I’m not paying you at all.”

  He frowned. “You know what I mean.”

  She cocked her head, studying him, the hard lines.

  She wanted to kiss him. The urge was sudden and a little wild. To climb over onto his jet-ski and straddle his lap, facing him, to frame his face with her hands and kiss him until he forgot to be so serious, so responsible all the time. “What does the great Cross do to unwind?” she murmured.

  “I don’t,” he said, the words blunt. “Let’s get you back to the villa.”

  His words carried an edge that signaled his hair-trigger readiness wasn’t going to completely unlock until she was back inside the safety of her gilded cage. She wanted to tempt him to put that fierce adrenaline to good use, to see if he would ignite as fast as she thought he would if she lit the fuse, but he wasn’t hers. And she couldn’t risk the rumors. So she cranked up the jet-ski without another word, heading back to their lagoon.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The villa was quiet again. Safe.

  Kaydee had taken Cecil for a walk. Mel and Bree had been holed up inside the upstairs living room with the wedding planner since they got back, discussing visions and ambience. The last time he’d seen her, Bree was wearing a little diamond tiara and a wedding veil over her sundress, fluttering her lashes at one and all. Totally fine. Everything was as it should be, but Cross paced in his room, still wound up from their afternoon on the other side of the island.

  She shouldn’t have gone off script. Anything could have happened to her.

  Needing something to occupy his brain—something calming, mechanical—Cross yanked open the drawer on the desk, pulling out the manila envelope his mother had sent him before he left LA. Paying the bills, comparing them against the budgeting spreadsheets—it was busywork. Automatic.

  Which was perfect right about now.

  He ripped open the envelope and dumped the contents on the desk, quickly sorting them into stacks. Anticipated expenses, Mayor Mike’s add-ons, and likely junk mail. The anticipated expenses stack went quickly—all of the bills but one matching up against the expected charges. Mayor Mike’s discretionary fund required more concentration and Cross made notes on several of the bills to remind himself to talk to the mayor about exactly how much other fundraising sources had been
able to chip in.

  By the time he got to the junk mail stack, his thoughts were calm and focused again as he ripped open credit card offers and coupons for window cleaning services and oil changes. Once he’d confirmed they weren’t field house expenses, he tossed them into the trash, until only one envelope remained.

  It looked different than the others. A plain white business envelope with his name and address hand-written on the front and the return address on the reverse side. Rachel Leigh Persopoulos. And a Boulder address in a loopy, feminine script.

  Cross had never been to Boulder that he remembered. He hadn’t been back to Colorado since his father died when he was five.

  Unsure what to expect, he broke open the envelope and pulled out a single piece of stationery with a hand-written letter.

  Dear Aaron,

  I hope you won’t think I’m too familiar, calling you Aaron, but I’ve thought of you that way my entire life, as my brother Aaron I’ve never met, and so it feels strange to think of calling you anything else. I’m not sure if you know about me. My mother said you did, and that if you wanted to have any contact with us, you could easily pick up a phone, but some things have changed for me recently and I find I’m no longer comfortable with the idea of family I’ve never met. I’d like to know my brother. And I’d like to believe he wants to know me too. I’m in Boulder, but I can drive out to see you some weekend or you’re welcome here. I hope I’ll hear from you and that you will be happy to have heard from me.

  Your half-sister,

  Rachel

  Cross stared at the page, at the phone number written in neat numbers across the bottom, at the loopy, girlish signature.

  It had to be fake. Some kind of money grab. Some bullshit claim.

  He didn’t have a sister, half or otherwise.

  His parents had been high school sweethearts. They’d gotten married in college and stayed together until the day his father died. Their love story was a legend in Harris. The idea that his father could have cheated, that he could have fathered a child with someone else, simply made no sense. Not the Aaron Cross Senior who was the pride of Harris. Not the man his mother had told him stories about growing up.