Fake Fiance Christmas Collection: Countdown to Christmas

by Taylor Hart

  He let out a light laugh, his eyes narrowing. “O-kay.” His expression turned peeved. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by your ingratitude that I came to help. You must be the teacher who’s been telling Ari that I’m a hack.”

  “What?” Her mouth went dry. Her mind flitted to the one day in class she was trying to teach them about accents and she’d shown that clip of him. Dang, now she was put on the spot.

  “Well? Are you the one who called me a hack to my cousin?” Lifting his eyebrows, he silently demanded an explanation.

  He acted almost mafia-like, Jewel realized. She wanted to tell him that if he added a little Brooklyn to the accent, he would be right about where he’d needed to be in his last movie when he tried to fight with the mob. She waved a hand into the air casually. “Do you need my approval?”

  He looked stunned, then shook his head and let out a light laugh. “Man, you’re tough.”

  She wagged her finger at him, unable to resist. “To be clear, when you push your words through your mouth, the upper palate, instead of your nose—” She touched her own nose for emphasis. “—you sound like this: ‘Give me the quarter. Give me the quarter.’” She mimicked the bad version. “And you sound like you’re drowning. But if you lift the palate and put it through the nose, it opens it up like this: ‘Give me the quarter.’” She repeated again, doing it the correct way.

  Flummoxed, he crossed his arms. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re rude?”

  All the drama kids gasped.

  Jewel was stunned. Had she hurt the actor’s feelings?

  Ari stepped in front of him and put on a serene face. “He’s with me, right, Ms. Olympia? We’ll head to the art room. Does that work?”

  A bit flummoxed herself, Jewel turned away from him and looked down at the table of registration cards. “Great.” She shook her head. “Students, see where you’re supposed to be and get there, please.”

  The students all flocked to the table, looking for their assigned room.

  “Olympia is your last name?” she heard Grant call out.

  She met his eyes as his cousin was still pulling him back up the aisle. “Mr. Kent, do you have a problem with my last name?”

  Lifting his hands, he surrendered as they got to the door. “Not at all. I think it fits.”

  It felt like a potshot. She hated potshots. Maybe it was working in a high school with lippy teenagers, but maybe it was just him. “And I thought I was an insecure actress,” she called out.

  Shock flashed across his face, but then Ari pulled him away, and he was gone before he could reply.

  Chapter 3

  Grant stood outside of the theater, looking for—what was her name? Ms. Olympia. Olympia Schmympia-pants should be her name. He felt childish and stupid.

  Sure, he’d gone and done the workshops the rest of the afternoon like a pro. He’d let his cousin’s friends fawn all over him afterward, and he’d taught cool stuff about stage fighting and how to do a bunch of stunts. The boys got a huge kick out of how he would roll and not get hurt. He found he really enjoyed it.

  The unfortunate part, the nagging, niggling pebble in his shoe, was that teacher. The woman … okay, she was gorgeous. Red hair. Green eyes. Perfect skin. She was tall, though not as tall as him. He was six-three, and she had to be, like, five-ten. She looked like a model.

  The thing that made her attractive, though, was the fire in her. The way she’d so bluntly broken down what he’d done wrong in that scene and force-fed it to him. And that she was right. That scene did bomb. He knew it now, and he’d known it during filming.

  Ari walked out of the theater room, grinning. “You’re still here?” She threw her arms around him.

  He let himself relax into his cousin’s embrace, feeling her pure love, her joy.

  “What are you doing tonight?” She wiggled her eyebrows and pulled out a tiny bottle. She swiped the lid off and touched it to his neck before he could bat her away.

  “Stop.” He let out a light laugh, feeling like a kid.

  She giggled. “Hey, you need some rosemary love potion to fall in love.”

  The smell assaulted him. He tried to rub it off, ignoring her antics. “Want to go to dinner?”

  “Uh.” She scrunched her nose.

  “No problem if you can’t.”

  A boy just a little taller than she was came out of the drama room. Grant thought about how Grant had done some of the stunts with the other boys.

  His cousin froze, blushing, and then she nodded to the boy. “I told Jimmy I would hang with him tonight.” Her face pinched. “We can totally hang another time though.”

  “Right.” This must be the guy she liked. He turned to Jimmy and put his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

  Jimmy smiled, revealing a mouthful of braces, and shook his hand. “No, it was my pleasure to meet you. Thanks for showing us how to roll out of a fall.”

  Grant nodded. “You bet.”

  Ari’s cheeks were flaming, and she cocked her head to the side in a silly way. “I’ll see you later at home, right, Grant?” She softly touched his forearm.

  He winked at her. “Sure. Be home by nine, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grant watched her turn and take Jimmy’s hand, heading out of the school. Part of him wanted to go rearrange the brace face, but the other part of him was happy for his cousin. He watched them go and thought about the drama teacher. Maybe he would talk to her, explain that scene. No. Why should he? He didn’t owe anyone an explanation.

  Before he could turn to leave, she walked out, holding a black bag and jacket. Abruptly, she stopped when she saw him.

  Grant noted the chemistry was alive and well between them. Which was interesting. In movies, the chemistry was constructed, and he had to pretend to feel it. It’d been a long time since he’d really felt that electric connection with a woman. He was around lots of beautiful women, but rarely did they have a zing or any kind of personal pull for him. This drama teacher, on the other hand—yeah, it was coming off of her in spades.

  She hesitated. “Thank you for coming today, Mr. Kent. Sorry about my earlier comment.”

  He let out a laugh. Her response sounded so longsuffering and teachery.

  “Can I help you with something else?”

  “Want to get some dinner?” It wasn’t until the words were out that he realized he meant them. He wanted to get some dinner with this woman—this beautiful teacher who thought he was a hack—even though his agent’s words ran through his mind. Off-grid. Off-grid. Off-grid.

  “No, thank you,” she said firmly, pushing past him.

  Wait, he’d heard of this. Maybe it had happened once in high school. Maybe. Was she turning him down?

  “See you tomorrow.” She rushed off down the hall.

  He started jogging after her, his head whirling. Frankly, she was the first woman to shoot him down in a really long time, and he didn’t know how to handle it. “Wait,” he called out.

  She was already letting the exit door drop behind her.

  He shoved the door aside and continued after her. “Wait up!”

  She wasn’t jogging, but it felt like she was one of those early morning speed walkers. She rushed across the parking lot toward a small, shiny red Volkswagen bug. Her key started turning in the lock, but she paused to give him a look. “Are you stalking me, Mr. Kent?”

  Grant skidded to a halt next to her, a bit out of breath. “I guess I am kind of stalking you.” The tables had turned on him.

  With a click, she unlocked the car and yanked the door open. “Good day,” she said firmly.

  Was she seriously dismissing him? He winced and shook his head, muttering, “No good deed goes unpunished, right?”

  Her head snapped up to look at him. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right. Your good deed. So, let me get this clear: that good deed is giving … what? Four hours to help an acting class, help inner-city kids. A thing you didn’t organize or plan or re
ally give anything except four hours to. But okay,” she said, flicking her hand to him. “You came in all your glory. So I guess we should fall on the ground and thank you.”

  How did she make it seem so pointless? “I wasn’t saying that. I’m glad I came.”

  Rolling her eyes, she snorted. “Guess your good deed is done for the year, so now you’re off the hook. Don’t worry about tomorrow. That might be digging too deep into your Hollywood goodness, and we wouldn’t want that.”

  “I wasn’t saying that either. I’m happy to come help tomorrow.” As he said it, he realized he was happy to do it. Even if this woman was frustrating, it had been fun to hang with the kids this afternoon.

  She shrugged and moved to the back of her car, opening the trunk.

  “Wait.” Dang it, he still hadn’t been able to really talk with her. He followed her.

  “I think we’re done talking, don’t you, Mr. Kent?” She piled her bag and jacket into the trunk and slammed it shut.

  Okay, so he hadn’t had to use his animal magnetism with the ladies for a long time, but he was quick to answer. “I actually thought at dinner you could break down that scene with me.” He decided to shoot for humility. “I agree with you about it. I told the producer it was a crap scene and we should have reshot it.” His heart was racing. Talking to this woman, trying to convince her to have dinner with him, made him nervous. How much younger was she than him? She had to be twenty-two, twenty-three at the most.

  Cocking an eyebrow and crossing her arms, she looked doubtful. “I don’t date guys like you.”

  Pshaw. He screwed his face up and held up his hands. “What? Guys like me?”

  She poked him in the chest. “Totally Hollywood. In my experience, they think the world revolves around them.”

  Suspicion filled his mind. Where was this coming from? Just because he brought up the hack comment? No, it was something deeper than that. “Sounds like you’re punishing me for another guy’s sins.”

  She sputtered out a laugh. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re done talking, so you can move along.”

  This chick! He ran a hand over his face and wondered what was wrong with her. “Look, you’ve got the wrong idea. I … this wouldn’t be a date. Sure, I’d pay for dinner, because—” He broke off, thinking it would be rude to say she pretty much had no money, because teachers didn’t make any money, did they? “Never mind. I just thought we could talk as … lovers of acting.” Man, was he really working this hard to convince someone to hang out with him? Four hours in a high school and he was acting like a teenager all over again.

  “I actually think right now, right at this moment, you aren’t acting.” A smile played on her lips. His discomfort seemed to please her. “You’re really uncomfortable and embarrassed that I won’t go out with you. So you keep trying harder.”

  Grant’s frustration boiled over. He didn’t have to take this. He was freaking Grant Kent, famous actor from Raced and Wrecked, and she was brushing him off when he was begging for a date. “Ya know what? Never mind. I don’t want a date.” He stalked off to his car.

  She laughed.

  Grant froze. The sound echoed mockingly in his ears. He did an about-face and marched back. “People like you like to think it’s easy. That since I’ve made it to this level, I don’t care when others just criticize, and critics don’t appreciate that I do try to make my work good. That I put everything into it. You just think I get up there and it’s easy, or that I don’t try because the producer chose to have that scene in the movie. A scene I disagreed with.” He ended up back at her car, but stayed a few steps away from her. Better to keep some distance, he thought.

  “Did you? Because when you stormed into my theater room, you were acting like I was just being rude.”

  “You just wanted to put me in my place,” he countered.

  She didn’t deny it.

  “Why wouldn’t you go to dinner with me?” He blurted it out, forgetting everything else except this passion he felt between them right now.

  “Why do you keep asking?” She cocked an eyebrow. “And why, for all that is good and right, do you keep those dreads? The movie’s over, right?”

  He bit his bottom lip. Dang, this woman was infuriating. “Okay, let’s say I am asking you out on a date. Why wouldn’t you go with me?”

  She smirked. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “No.” He crossed his arms. “I don’t. And I usually get what I want.”

  “Ha!” Her laugh was loud and fake. “Well, you’re not getting this. Take a hint and leave.”

  Before he could reply, a big truck pulled up. What could only be described as one of the buffest, toughest, meanest guys he’d ever seen—well, who wasn’t an actor—got out of the truck. Loud metal music blared. The guy reminded him of Zane, his Navy SEAL brother.

  The guy scowled at him, then paused. “You’re Grant Kent.” A smile took over his face. “I liked your last movie.”

  “Thanks?” Grant’s brow furrowed.

  The guy turned to Jewel. “So she’s broken down again?”

  No wonder she hadn’t gotten into her car and driven away, Grant realized. She’d just stood here arguing with him.

  Jewel glared at Grant and then threw herself the guy, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. It was not a light, quick kiss.

  The guy pulled back, a huge grin on his face. “So it’s like that, Jewel?”

  She laughed, casting a look of triumph at Grant. “See you later, Mr. Kent.”

  Chapter 4

  Good thing she had way too many of her own issues to think about, Jewel thought the next day as acting camp was about to start and Grant Kent hadn’t shown up yet. Stinking movie stars. They had no sense of real people and real time.

  Who cared? She pushed away all thoughts of Grant and focused on her problems—like the fact that she had to leave tomorrow morning for Jackson, Wyoming. That’s where the private investigator said he’d found her mother.

  Her hands trembled from excitement as well as lack of sleep. The PI had explained in the email that her birth mother jointly owned an art gallery. Weird. Jewel had always imagined a girl who’d left her in that emergency room at the hospital, but it sounded like her birth mother was just a normal person.

  She sighed. How she would explain this to her amazing mother? When Jewel had been twelve, she’d decided she would look for her birth mom. Then her mom had found out, and her spirits had fallen—the “stay in bed for a few weeks” kind of sad. After that, Jewel had stopped looking. She loved her parents and didn’t want to hurt them. The fact was that being abandoned at a hospital when you’re two months old with nothing but a blanket and a Raggedy Ann doll … well, it hurt.

  During college, she hadn’t had the money to further investigate, and online searches yielded nothing. Last year, she’d decided to live on PB and J and ramen and saved her grocery money to hire this PI who specialized in finding the impossible. At least, that was his website slogan. She’d paid him a lump sum of a thousand dollars. Yesterday was the first time she’d heard from him.

  A rowdy group of inner-city kids piled into the theater. She was pleased to note they had already formed friendships. “This way. Let’s check you all in!” she called out, waving them over to her.

  Students from her class lined up to help her with the registration, finding name tags and checking kids off.

  “Welcome,” she called out again, trying to bring more order to the situation. “Please get in line, and when you get your tag, it will say what room you start in today.”

  Her mind flitted back to the picture the PI had sent her, apparently depicting her birth mom of twenty-three years ago. She was wearing sunglasses and held the baby carrier Jewel had been left in. He’d matched it off of the Raggedy Ann photo she’d given to him, and then he’d traced her birth mom to Jackson through some sophisticated facial recognition software.

  The lower part of her stomach tightened. She hadn’t been able to eat last n
ight or this morning. She was nervous because she had to make the trek to Jackson now if she was ever going to make it. The only problem was that she’d lied to her parents and texted them that morning saying she was sick.

  She hated lying.

  “Ms. Olympia, we don’t have a registration form for this student.”

  The sound of her name startled her back to the present. “Coming.”

  Her student in charge of registration today, Olivia, gestured to a kid standing across the table. “Jorge didn’t come yesterday, and I don’t have him on the schedule for today.” Olivia pointed to the paper in front of her. “I can’t find his name, so that means we don’t have a spot, right?”

  Jewel shuffled through the cards of paid kids. “You weren’t here yesterday?”

  Jorge shrugged, trying to hide his embarrassment behind boredom. “My friends told me it was cool, so I wanted to come today.”

  Olivia shook her head. “Sorry, but Ms. Olympia has to report all the proceeds, and if you haven’t paid, you can’t—”

  “It’s fine.” Jewel put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder.

  Olivia was only reciting the official policy Jewel had to keep when it came to running events through the school. They were sticklers about record keeping and collecting fees.

  “I can go.” Jorge looked dejected and turned to go back up the aisle to the door.

  “No.” Hurriedly, Jewel went to her purse and pulled out her checkbook, quickly making out a check to the school. She’d have to put gas for Jackson on her credit card, but so be it. “You’re in.” She put the check directly into the file with all the others.

  Jorge stared at her like he couldn’t believe it, and he beamed. “Awesome.”

  Jewel’s heart warmed to see his face light up. Those smiles were the reason she did everything. She nodded to Olivia. “Please take him to the science room.”

  Olivia stood, a smile on her face. “You can’t pay for everyone, Ms. Olympia.”

  “Shh. You don’t worry about that.” Jewel scooted her off.