by Hart, Hanna
“Absolutely not,” he said and then offered her a wry smile. “Why, you trying to tell me something?”
“No,” she said and instantly regretted it. “Not even if it was the cutest, most adorable, well-behaved child in the whole world?”
Beckett turned his face to her, sloped, almond eyes narrowing playfully to hers.
“Never,” he enunciated with a wide grin. “Ever.”
Fiona swallowed nervously.
“Good to know,” she said with a polite smile.
Inside, she wondered what she was supposed to do with Ruby if he chose her for this job.
The two of them walked through the arched brick walkways from barrack to barrack and Fiona brushed her fingers up against the green shutters.
“So, what’s the deal with your mystery marriage, anyhow?” Fiona asked as they strode through the old battlegrounds. “I mean, you’re an attractive man with at least a smidge of charm—”
“—A smidge, she says!” he interrupted.
“Why do you need a fake wife? I mean, not that I’m complaining.”
Beckett shook his head. “Hey, I’m in charge of the questions here! How about I ask why you need a fake husband?”
“Truth?” she asked and swallowed sharply when he replied, “Always.”
The truth was that she didn’t want to tell him the truth. She didn’t want to seem like she was begging for his money. She knew she should come forward about Ruby and her illness, but both seemed like such strange topics to bring up to someone she had just met.
“I need the money,” she said sheepishly, and a long pause followed. “And a little adventure in my life.”
“Feeling the weight of your twenties falling down on you?” Beckett smiled. “Life has just lost its lust?”
“I’m ready for a change,” she giggled.
It was the truth.
“Ever been a wife before?” Beckett asked.
Fiona nodded and gave a long exhale. “Yes. And to be honest with you, it wasn’t my cup of tea.”
“But, you’re willing to try again with me?” he mused.
“I’m thinking about it,” she teased, bumping his hip with her own.
“How long were you married?” he asked curiously.
“Five months,” she said and tried not to laugh. The reality of it was beyond unfunny, but her utter failure at marriage was pretty much laughable.
“Wow!” Beckett chuckled as they strolled by the live cannons the lined the soldier’s field inside the fort’s walls. “You guys really gave that a go.”
“We were together for two years before getting married,” she sighed, “But yeah, it didn’t work out so well for us.”
“Sounds like it.”
She and Matt met when she was twenty-two. She was working as an actress for the trolley rides that tourist took throughout the city. The trollies would stop at various historic locations and actors would get on, impersonating important people from throughout history, tell their stories, and then jump off the ride at the next stop.
Matt played Mr. Bert Taylor, a wealthy businessman who opened up a string of hotels, and she played Mrs. Helen Taylor, his over-spending wife.
She loved doing their part because of the salacious elements of their story. While Mr. Taylor was off creating booming businesses in Georgia, his wife was having affairs with his business partners and spending all the money he was making so that by the time Bert came back from his business tour, the two of them were homeless.
A fact that wasn’t so hilarious once Matt left and Fiona actually was homeless.
Before that, she and Matt had got on famously. He asked her out after work one night, and the two of them spent hours by the water talking about growing up and various plays they were auditioning for on the side.
Throughout their relationship, they had worked on various plays together.
Work was where Fiona could let loose and be someone else. She had no problem acting silly and putting on a ridiculous southern accent.
But in real life, Matt was the only one who could draw her out from her shy demeanor.
“He just wasn’t ready to be a husband,” she said with a mild shrug.
Beckett nodded.
In reality, Matt bailed as soon as Fiona found out she was pregnant.
They got married two months after she found out. Matt was doing the ‘right thing,’ he liked to say. Physically, he stuck around until two months after Ruby was born. Emotionally, he was gone as soon as the strip turned pink.
But, she wouldn’t be revealing that to the dreamy Beckett.
Especially not with what he had said about children earlier.
“So, what about you?” Fiona asked. “Why the sudden need for a paid romance?”
“I’m not looking for romance,” he said quickly. “Not looking for love or children or any more responsibility than I can handle. What I need is a wife.”
Beckett stopped at one of the cannons and ran his hand along the smooth, dark metal. “I need a PR rejuvenation,” he said reluctantly.
“Why?”
“That is a long, long story that involves a lot of family drama.”
Fiona shrugged. “I’ve got time.”
Beckett exhaled slowly and met her eyes. “See, my parents aren't into the whole bachelor lifestyle. It ruins their brand.”
“Their... brand?”
“Have you ever heard of Colton Davenport?” Beckett said, sounding stiff all of the sudden.
“Of course!” Fiona said with a grin. “Who hasn’t?”
“Well,” he said formally, “I’m Beckett Davenport. Colton’s son.”
“Oh,” she said slowly, trying to process what he was saying to her. “Oh!” she said once more with more recognition.
Suddenly, it came to her. This was why he looked so familiar. She remembered seeing him on a gossip website, though she couldn’t remember why. Getting pulled over by the police, or something?
“Oh wow,” she repeated, “I can see the resemblance now.”
“Right,” he bristled. “Long story short: I’m what they call a PR nightmare. I'm supposed to settle down or lose everything. My job, my money, my property. Everything.”
“And you need a PR rejuvenation… with me?” she laughed.
“With a lovely, beautiful, stable wife,” he said slowly. Then he pointed to her and said, “You.”
He proceeded to tell her that his wife-wanted ad’s suggestion of being ‘well compensated’ came out to the tune of four million dollars.
Four million.
Fiona could barely fathom what that amount of money would look like. In her excitement, mixed with her bad math skills, she couldn’t figure out how many hundred-thousands that equaled out to. All she knew was that if she took this job, she might be able to live.
She tried not to get too excited. He hadn’t picked her for the job yet, after all.
By the time they ended up back in the historic district, they were already holding hands.
“Would you live there?” Beckett would ask as he pointed to the old homes as they passed. Some looked like old plantation houses, while others were gothic Victorian homes with intricate carvings and balconies.
Inevitably, she would say yes to every single one.
Beckett only chose one plantation house to live in out of the thirty or forty they passed on their walk.
“Somebody’s picky,” Fiona said with a wry grin as Beckett turned down yet another house.
“Yes, somebody is,” he said proudly. “I’m incredibly picky, but that’s only because I know what I like. And do you know what?”
“What?” Fiona asked.
“I like you,” he said.
She cocked a brow and stopped to turn to him. “Is that so?”
The sun had set over Savannah and left the sky with melting shades of pinks and blues. It brought out the purple in the Spanish moss and made the whole city look like it was colored by crayon.
Beckett pulled her hand closer to
his so that he was now shoulder to shoulder with her. He leaned into her ear as they walked and whispered, “You wanna be my wife?”
Fiona laughed at how preposterous it all seemed, and yet for the first time in months, she felt the spark of hope reignite her whole body. She didn’t know how it felt when you won the lottery, but the feeling overwhelming her right now was probably really close.
Could she really be saved?
Her whole body lit up with goosebumps, and she felt a rush of heart palpitations from the excitement. And then her whole body sank.
If she took this job now… she would have to leave Ruby for two whole years.
But if she passed on this opportunity, she would quite literally die—and where would Ruby be then?
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter Four
Beckett
"And do you, Fiona Miller, take Beckett Davenport to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, as long as you both shall live?"
The minister’s words were loud and rung out in echoes inside the old Savannah church.
Beckett's eyes wandered skyward during the speech. Not in some secret attempt to roll his eyes at the terribly traditional vows, but to marvel at the impressive stained-glass windows above and the white domes that arched the ceiling.
Occasionally, in-between reciting tired vows, he would steal a glimpse of Fiona. He had lucked out in finding her.
The other women he had interviewed were fine. Nice, even. But they didn’t have that wifely, domestic quality that Fiona did. It would make her a more believable partner to his mother.
Besides, the chemistry with the other women was hardly as electric as things were with Fiona.
Beyond those important points, she was absolutely gorgeous. She had natural red hair and impossibly freckled skin. Today she wore a simple silk dress with thin straps and a complicated lace backing. The dress plunged down so that he could see the freckles along her cleavage, which he tried hard not to look at... sort of.
"I do," Fiona said, and he couldn't help but think of Lynne.
They had their ceremony at the New York Public Library. The building was old and classic, with immense stone columns, Roman archways, impressive candelabras, and fairytale staircases. Lynne had loved it, and so he rented it out for her. And with the over three hundred guests who attended, they needed every inch of space they could get.
And that, Beckett thought, was why he needed to be distracted today.
He didn't want to think about the fact that presently, he was getting married again. It may be a legal ceremony, but it wasn't a real one. It wasn't real love or a real marriage.
But there was still something about repeating these vows to somebody that hit him wrong.
"Then, by the power vested in me by the state of Georgia, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss each other," the minister said, and he and Fiona just stared at one another.
In reality, he didn't want to kiss her. He was supposed to be her employer, after all. Kissing would complicate things.
Fiona let out a nervous laugh when she realized he wasn't leaning in for it. She neared his face and gave him a respectful kiss on the cheek, and the minister nodded politely.
The pair proceeded to walk down a garden path as a single photographer followed them.
They posed in front of the church and then again in front of a gazebo that was nearly overgrown with roses.
"Is this necessary?" Fiona asked, posing with her white teeth bared.
“Of course," he said with ease. “Gotta get these out to the press.”
Fiona’s brows shot up. “Seriously?”
“I know a guy,” he said.
That guy was Jeffrey McDaniel, PR whiz. The two had grown up together, which was lucky for Beckett since he always seemed to need his image revamped these days.
Jeffery knew most of the online tabloids and would be able to get a photo online in a matter of hours. The news of Beckett’s marriage would then get back to his parents, and they would be calling him and welcoming him home within the week, if all went according to plan.
Sure enough, his plan worked.
His mother called him two nights later, nearly sobbing into the phone.
"Mom?" he said, smiling to himself at the sheer joy in her voice.
He hadn't been expecting that.
He was expecting his parents to be absolutely furious about not being invited to the wedding. He was expecting them to take it as a personal attack on their cutting him off. Instead, his mother was awash with tears. Amidst her sobs, the only words he could make out were, “She's beautiful!”
"Mom, calm down," he laughed into the phone and began to pace around his apartment.
His mother inhaled a shaking breath, and she went quiet. It was a thing she did when she was trying to stop crying. She would inhale her cry and hold her breath. This would either result in her sob practically exploding out of her mouth or it would give her a minute to collect herself.
Thankfully, today it was the latter.
"You look," his mother breathed out shakily, "so happy," she finished and then continued to cry.
"She's gorgeous," he agreed. "And... I'm thrilled."
He flicked through the stack of eight by ten copies of his wedding photos: romantic shots of him and Fiona amidst pink and yellow rose bushes. They held hands, brushed up cheek to cheek, and laughed as Fiona's silken dress got caught in the thorny roses. This resulted in his favorite shot of the bunch. It was the only one with genuine emotion in it. A real moment caught between them.
But it wasn't pristine enough to be used as tabloid fodder, Jeffery had decided, and so a photo of the two of them mid-vow was used instead. They were holding hands inside the giant church in front of the minister. It was classic. Perfect.
The headline of the first article to publish the photo read: "WILD SON OF CELEBRITY CHEF FINALLY SETTLES DOWN."
The title was tacky, trashy, and perfect click-bait for passing readers. Even though that's exactly what he wanted, it still stung to read.
They said he finally settled down as though he hadn't previously had a wife and child who relied on him. Like he didn't already start a family once.
"Come home," his father said, taking the phone from his no doubt still crying mother. “We want to meet her.”
“Here I thought I didn’t have a home,” Beckett jabbed.
He had been living off of whatever savings he’d had in the bank from working at the restaurant, but everything else had been taken from him. He was cut off from the family funds, was banned from their restaurants, and had basically been blackballed from any useful networking associates he’d met through his family.
“You always had a home,” Colton said evenly. “You knew that. We just wanted to see you put your life back together, Beck. We wanted you to…” Here his father got emotional and had to stop speaking.
The idea of Colton Davenport getting emotional over anything besides food or football was so foreign to Beckett, he nearly hung up the phone from the shock.
“We just wanted our Beckett back,” his father said, forcing the words out.
“Well,” Beckett breathed, “he’s back.”
“He’s not back until he’s home,” his father said.
Originally, Beckett had wanted to bring Fiona back to Nani Makai for a public wedding ceremony, but there were several reasons why this had started to seem like a bad idea.
First, it would cause too many questions. How long have you been together? What do you know about one another? Why didn’t you tell us about her sooner?
Beckett may have been good with coming up with excuses on the spot, but even he wasn’t prepared to field some of these questions quite yet.
Second, his sister Magdalene—Maggs—was getting married in just a few weeks and the only way he would ever dream of stepping on the tails of her lavish beachfront wedding was if he had an army to protect him from her impending wrath afterward.
&n
bsp; Within two days, Beckett and Fiona landed on the impressive island that he could once again call home.
"Have you ever heard of Nani Makai before?" he had asked during their flight.
Fiona nodded, and Beckett couldn't say he was surprised. It was a world-renowned private island that was only open to the wealthiest tourists or to locals who bought one of the beachfront condos offered by the Grant family—the owners of the luxurious island.
"I'm not sure if I'm hungry or tired," Fiona said with some amusement as she stepped into Beckett's private beachfront condo on the island. The time difference put them six hours behind the Savannah time zone.
"Hopefully it's hungry," he said. "We’ll want to try and get acclimated as soon as possible. Especially if we’re going to be meeting my parents tomorrow. Trust me, that calls for a clear head.”
“Should I be nervous?” she asked, and Beckett offered her his most wicked grin.
“No, of course not,” he mocked, “What would give you that idea? Besides, I’m sure you’re a pro at meeting the parents, right?”
“Well, my ex’s mom said I bullied him into marrying me. After we got married, she and I basically didn’t speak to one another, even at the reception.”
Beckett laughed. “See! The two of you sounded like the best of friends!”
The Crystal Beach Resort touted a seven-mile beach with powdery white sand as far as the eye could see. The rental rooms were white and navy with marble kitchens and rich wood accents. Each room had a luxurious private bathroom and outdoor shower and bathtub that overlooked the ocean and myriads of palm trees. Other rooms overlooked elegant pool areas designed to replicate tropical lagoons.
Away from the world-renowned resort were the condos and other beachfront mansions where the billionaire locals lived.
The address of four-nine-two-seven Estates Road was the same safe haven Beckett had made a home, though he had only been back once since Lynne died.
He hired a decorator to change everything. The coastal-themed blue and turquoise home that Lynne had built for their family had been stripped of all its former personality. Family photos, the entire contents of his sons’ room, all the furniture, and any other trace that a family had once lived there had all been removed and put into storage.
