One Hot Fake: An Accidental Fake Marriage Romance

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “Thank you for having me,” I say.

  “You’re welcome,” Terri and Dad both say.

  Dad walks me out. “I hope we can become friends.”

  “I’m sure we will,” I say cheerfully, and with a wave, I hurry to the car.

  I feel as if I’ve escaped from prison. That environment is toxic, and I hope they can sort out their issues for the sake of Michelle. I kiss Declan and buckle up my seatbelt.

  “Looks like it went well,” Declan says.

  “It was fine and a little weird,” I tell him about Terri’s accusations.

  “Poor woman,” Declan says. “She’ll spend the rest of her married life thinking every secretary is having an affair with her husband.”

  “I’m finding it a little hard to be sympathetic,” I say. “She did the same thing to my mother.”

  “That’s why it’s a nightmare for her,” Declan says. “Your mother called the resort when she couldn’t get hold of you. I spoke to her. She said that she and Josh will come at nine in the morning to look at the grounds.”

  “So much for sleeping in,” I say.

  “We’ll sleep early instead,” Declan says.

  I smile. “Sounds good.” I can’t wait to snuggle up to him.

  I’m glad I left Arlen and not just because of Leonard. I’d hate to be caught up in my parents’ relationships. I’d be forced to act as a therapist or referee, and I’m not interested in either of those roles.

  Back at the resort, Declan and I slip out of our day clothes.

  “No point in wearing anything,” Declan says. “I plan on making this a night to remember.”

  My body heats up at the promise behind the words. “I second that.” I place my underclothes on a chair and slip into bed.

  Declan joins me seconds later and pulls me to lie on his chest. I love his manly smells, and I inhale them as the tension in my muscles ebbs away. My mind drifts to Michelle. Lilly would have been a few years older than her. I wonder if they would have been friends.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Declan asks softly.

  I inhale deeply. Thoughts of Lilly crowd my mind. She has been a secret for so long, but now I feel an urge to talk about her.

  “You asked me why I called the store and the business Lilly Love …” I say.

  “I did, yeah,” Declan says.

  I take a deep breath. I have never talked about Lilly to anyone, not even Brooke or Jason. But I’m tired of keeping her a secret. I’m tired of feeling sad and having no one to talk about my sadness with.

  “In the last year of marriage to Leonard, I got pregnant and lost her when I was five months pregnant.” There’s a catch in my voice as I speak, and I hope that I don’t burst into tears.

  “What happened?” Declan says.

  “I fell when I was going up the stairs to escape Leonard,” I say in a small voice. “I went into labor thirty minutes later, and when she was born, she was dead.”

  I remember the whole thing as if it were yesterday. “She had a perfect little face with the cutest features. She would have been a beautiful girl. I named her Lilly.” My heart fills like it’s going to burst from the emotions that the memories bring. It’s painful to remember but also a relief to talk about it.

  I can feel Declan tense underneath me. He rubs my arms up and down.

  “I’m ashamed that I didn’t leave him immediately. I stayed another month. And during that time, I wasn’t allowed to talk about Lilly. He kept saying she hadn’t been a real person. Then, it was fate that she had died, and she would have crowded our relationship.”

  A sob chokes me.

  “His reaction removed the cobwebs from my eyes. For the first time, I saw who Leonard was. He was a monster. With my mother’s help, I left Arlen and vowed never to return. I left Leonard to deal with the divorce.”

  Declan wraps his hands around me and holds me close. “Bastard! I’m so sorry you went through all that.”

  Tears flow down my cheeks.

  “He’s lucky all he got away with was a broken nose,” Declan says, his voice harsh.

  I’m confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Declan lets out a sigh. “I suppose I might as well come clean. After I dropped you at your dad’s, I went to the bar I told you about for dinner. Guess who happened to be seated at the counter next to me?”

  My heart beats so loud I can hear it thrashing in my ears. “Who?”

  “Leonard,” Declan says. “I got so mad when I looked into his beady eyes. So, I goaded him until he got mad enough to throw a punch. I dodged it. Then I did what I’d dreamed of doing ever since you told me that he used to abuse you. I punched his nose.”

  I should be upset with Declan for fighting. Instead, I burst out laughing. “I wish I’d been there to see it. He must have been so mad.”

  “He’s a coward, and cowards don’t get mad,” Declan said. “They run away.”

  I prop myself up on my arm to look into Declan’s face. “Are you serious? He ran off?”

  “He ran away for dear life, to be precise,” Declan says, and I laugh.

  When my laughter dies down, I look at Declan with new eyes. “No one’s ever fought for me before.”

  “I’d do anything for you, Marian Carter,” he says as he strokes my lip with his thumb.

  Tears flood my eyes. I believe him. I bring down my mouth to his, and we kiss slowly as if we have all the time in the world. Which I suppose we do. We have all night.

  Declan pulls me on top of him, and I align my body with his, parting my legs to make space for his erect cock.

  “Do you know how much I love you?” Declan says.

  My heart swells, taking up all the space in my chest. What if he means it? What if Declan does love me? It’s too much to think about right now, so I shove that thought to the back of my head to be dealt with later.

  I cover my mouth with his and kiss him as if both our lives depend on it. Declan’s big hands caress my back and ass, going down to my thighs. He brings his hands back up to caress my breasts.

  His cock throbs against my thighs, and I rock softy against it, eager for some friction against my achy parts.

  “I want to taste you, Marian,” Declan says and then gently flips me around so that I’m lying under him.

  “But first …” he says and buries his head in my cleavage. He licks the valley between my breasts and then groans as he takes a hard-peaked nipple into his mouth.

  “Fuck,” I cry out as he sucks on it hard.

  “More?” he says.

  “Yes, please,” I manage to say.

  He switches and sucks hard on the other nipple. He alternates between them until I feel as if I’m losing my mind. I’m so wet that it’s dripping down my thighs. Declan lowers himself trailing kisses down my belly.

  He parts my thighs and inhales deeply. “Your pussy smells like heaven.”

  I want to say something amusing and clever, but I seem incapable of rational thought right now. Instead, I grip his head and direct him to where I need him.

  “Impatient,” Declan says, chuckling softly. His tongue goes straight to my clit, sucking and licking it.

  I thrash around like a woman possessed. He inserts a finger into my soaking wet pussy and then another. I teeter on the edge of orgasm. “Please.” I’m desperate to come. I ride his fingers and play with my nipples, and it finally happens. I bite down on my lower lip as the orgasm rolls from my pussy to my stomach before enveloping my whole body.

  “I love how noisily you come,” Declan says as he slides up my body.

  I laugh, unashamed. “It’s never happened with anyone else.”

  “I’m glad,” Declan says.

  Chapter 25

  Declan

  I carry our luggage to the car after checking out of the resort. Marian has a smile from here to Timbuktu. Judy loved the resort garden, and she’s agreed to the wedding being held there. The other meetings with other vendors went well, too, and she won’t need to return to A
rlen; she can do the other stuff by phone and email. I get the feeling that she’s not eager to return.

  Marian opens the car trunk for me, and I stuff our luggage in. I close it, and that’s when I notice that Marian has grown still, and she’s looking at someone behind me. I whirl around and come face to face with Leonard’s bandaged, broken nose. Adrenaline kicks in. If he’s here for a fight, I’m ready to plow a fist into his face again. I flex my fingers.

  “No need to get excited,” Leonard says, noticing the movements of my hands. “I’m here to speak to my wife.”

  That stops me short. “You’ve got that wrong, buddy.”

  A smirk comes over his features, and I itch to wipe it off with a fist, but his confidence unnerves me.

  “Let me deal with this,” Marian tells me and then turns to him. “What’s this all about, Leonard?”

  He leans on the car. “That’s not a very nice welcome for your husband, Marian. We shared so many years. I would think you’d want to be nice to me.”

  “Spit it out, Leonard. I don’t have time for this,” she hisses.

  “Okay, okay. I went down to the courthouse. I wanted a copy of our divorce certificate.” He is enjoying whatever it is he has up his sleeve.

  “Seems to me that the judge made a little mistake. He never signed our divorce.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she says.

  “Believe what you want,” he says. “Fact remains, me and you are still married, and as far as I’m concerned, we will be for a long time.”

  I take a threatening step toward him before common sense intervenes. This cannot be happening. If what Leonard says is correct, that means that Marian and I are not legally married. It means that I shouldn’t have gotten my trust fund. This is so messed up.

  “All you have to do is visit or call the courthouse. You’ll see for yourself,” Leonard says.

  “If what you say is true, it shouldn’t be too difficult to rectify, seeing as it was an error,” Marian says. She sounds calm and collected, not like someone who has had the shock of the century dropped on her.

  “True,” Leonard says with a smirk. “But we both have to want it, and I’m not sure that I do.”

  “What are you talking about, Leonard?” Marian says, her tone confident and unshaken.

  I’m so fucking proud of her. Leonard is a bully. His type of person thrives when another person is cowering in fear. Marian looks him straight in the eye as she speaks, and I can see that it’s unsettling him.

  “I want to try again,” he says softly. “Me and you, Marian. We were so good together.”

  I curse under my breath. He’s not interested in trying it again with Marian. It’s revenge for yesterday. I’m sure he’s known about the divorce for some time, and as he said, he planned on taking care of it without necessarily involving Marian. But because I punched him, he’s decided to change the script. I curse myself for my bad temper. I should have reigned it in, but the moment I had heard the barman say his name, I went apeshit.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Marian says.

  “We can even try for a baby if you like. Replace the one we lost.” Leonard doesn’t realize what’s happening when a sharp slap lands on his cheek.

  “You are out of your mind if you think I’d ever be married to you again,” Marian says angrily, losing her cool for the first time.

  “Bitch,” Leonard says, rubbing at his cheek.

  I take a step to christen his nose again when Marian pulls me back. “Let’s go. I can’t stand looking at his evil face anymore.”

  We get into the car and drive off, leaving him standing there staring after us.

  “I can’t believe that I’m still married to him,” Marian says, her voice distant and tinged with disbelief.

  “A call to the courthouse will clear it up,” I tell her, and she fishes out her phone.

  She presses some buttons, searching for the courthouse number. A few minutes later, she’s on the phone requesting details of the divorce.

  “The woman said to wait,” Marian says to me. She speaks again a few minutes later. She slumps in the seat, and her voice goes down an octave. It’s not good news.

  “Leonard wasn’t lying,” Marian says. She clutches her stomach. “Can you pull over? I’m going to be sick.”

  I pull over, and as soon as I bring the car to a stop, Marian jumps out and runs for a clump of bushes. I kill the engine, grab a box of tissues, and go after her. I rub her back as she empties all the contents of her stomach.

  I hand her tissues when she’s done throwing up.

  “I’m sorry,” Marian says when we’re back in the car. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  “It’s the shock,” I tell her. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Tears fill her eyes. “How? I’m still married to him, Declan. The one person I hoped to never see again and … oh God, it’s all so messed up.”

  I take her into my arms. “It will be fine; things will work out.” I’m a firm believer in things working out if we just give them a little time. I wasn’t always like that. I was the most impatient fucker who ever walked the earth, but with age comes wisdom.

  “What about us?” she says.

  “We’ll continue as we are as you make an appointment to see a divorce attorney. The way I see it, Leonard would not have gone to get a copy of the divorce unless he needed it. So, we’ll lie low and hope that the reason he went for it is compelling enough.”

  She inhales deeply and manages her first smile. “Okay, we’ll do that. We have a plan.”

  I kiss her forehead.

  “You’re so smart,” she tells me.

  Any other time, that comment would have pleased me but not now. “I’m sorry, Marian. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t punched Leonard, he wouldn’t have come after you like that.”

  She’s thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe, but it felt damn good to know that you did something I wish I could have done myself.”

  The drive back is uneventful, though we do stop one more time for Marian to throw up. I’m not too worried because I’m pretty sure that Leonard dropping that piece of news is the reason why.

  Back in LA, Marian wants to go into her office for a couple of hours, and I want to check on the renovations as well. We arrange for me to pick her up at five-thirty. As I drive off, I’m glad that Marian has her work to keep her distracted.

  It’s a terrible situation to be in, and it makes me feel so helpless to know that there’s nothing I can do for Marian. I find a parking spot easily enough and walk to the entrance. I’m immediately charmed by our company colors painted on the doors and entrance.

  I greet the guys working around the space then make my way to the kitchen. I find Zoe there taking pictures with the foreman explaining stuff to her.

  “Welcome back, boss,” Sebastian says.

  “Thanks,” I say, and greet Zoe.

  She comes over to show me the reactions that she’s having from the social media posts. All that flies over my head. As long as it’s all positive, I’m good.

  “Everyone wants to know the opening day,” she says.

  “I’ll confirm in the coming two weeks,” I tell her.

  The foreman brings me up to date on how far they’ve come and what is remaining. I ask him to put me to work, and he hands me a hammer and some nails.

  Time flies as I release my pent-up energy on the partition that divides the offices. Soon it’s time to leave, and I pack up the tools and say goodbye to everyone. I find Marian waiting for me outside.

  She slides into the car and kisses me.

  “I missed you,” I tell her.

  She laughs. “It’s only been a couple of hours.”

  “As long as you’re not with me, I miss you,” I tell her. “I’m making dinner tonight.”

  “You’ll be hard-pressed to find something to cook. I haven’t shopped in a while,” Marian says.

  “We’ll pass by the grocery store, no biggie,” I say.

  �
��That’s you right there,” Marian says. “A lot of things are no biggie to you.”

  I’m not sure from Marian’s tone whether what she says is a compliment or criticism. “I try to separate things I can do something about and things that I cannot. You don’t have ingredients at home. Easy peasy—we’ll buy them.”

  “It’s a good way to live but difficult when you’re caught up in the moment,” Marian says.

  “Have I ever told you about the time that Ace was deployed to Afghanistan? No?” I inhale deeply. “We’d fallen out, Ace and I. All of our family had fallen out over a stupid misunderstanding. Anyway, Ace signed up without my parents and me knowing about it. When we did find out, it was too late. He was gone.”

  “Oh no,” Marian says.

  I stop at a red light. “Those were the longest two years of my life. I woke up in a cold sweat for a year, dreaming that he’d been shot. Then I realized that I was slowly but surely driving myself insane. I sat down with myself and reasoned through it.”

  The green light comes on, and I drive on. “That’s when I learned to chill out about things I could not control and control those I could. It’s important to know the difference.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “I got an appointment with a divorce attorney downtown.”

  “That’s good.”

  “So, in this situation, which category does it fall under?” she says.

  “You’ve made an appointment for tomorrow with an attorney. You’ve done the only thing you can do right now. So, don’t think about it anymore. Wait until tomorrow.”

  She inhales deeply. “Okay, I’ll try. One more question, though. Will this interfere with your plans. Your trust fund?” Her face is creased with worry.

  “What can they do? I’ve already spent quite a chunk,” I tell her flippantly though it is a worry.

  “That’s good to know,” Marian says.

  We go to the grocery store and walk down the aisle with a cart picking things for cooking tonight and the rest of the week. I’m used to shopping alone in Santa Monica. It feels so domesticated to be shopping with Marian. Like something we do all the time.

  We pay and leave for home.

  “Shower first?” Marian asks and winks.