Fake Engagement, Real Temptation (Passion and Protection)

by Joya Ryan

  It did look nice.

  He needed a distraction from all that smooth skin on display. He peeled his shirt off and tossed it on the chair. Maybe sitting in the sun would be a good way to shut his eyes and not look at her in all her pink-bikini glory. He was in the middle of shifting his neck from side to side, working out a kink from sitting on the plane for so long, and noticed Carrie sit up in her chair and…was she staring at him?

  Her plump lips were parted and her breathing a little heavier than before. He couldn’t see her eyes through her sunglass, but he was pretty certain she was staring him down.

  “See something you like?” he teased.

  She shook her head like she’d been caught, because she had been. But to her credit, she played it off well.

  “I was just unaware that chasing buffalo kept you in shape.”

  He glanced down the front of himself. He’d always had cut abdomen muscles and strong arms. And the stupid part of his brain really liked that she seemed to like how he looked. Pointless, but he still liked it.

  “You’ve got it all wrong, little girl. I chase the moose and ride the buffalos. Big difference.”

  Her mouth hung open. “You can’t be serious.”

  He just grinned. No, he’d never ridden a buffalo, but if it impressed her…

  He shrugged and winked. “Guess you’ll never know.”

  She opened her mouth as if to say something, but—

  She yanked her glasses off as if they’d burned her. Her eyes went wide, focusing on something behind him. He’d never seen a woman look so terrified in her whole life.

  …

  No.

  No, no, no, no!

  This cannot be happening.

  Carried couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All she could see was Kevin. In an open Hawaiian shirt hanging off his lean shoulders, with several leather and chain necklaces dangling from around his neck. His shaggy hair was wild, and he looked the part of the breezy artist he was. But what really struck her was the fact that his arm was slung around a woman.

  A raven-haired, exotic, legs-for-days woman who must have stepped off the cover of Sports Illustrated.

  Humiliation was too tame a word to describe the sickness and dread running through her.

  When Kevin’s eyes fastened on her, she did the only thing that came to her brain.

  She grabbed Blake by the face and yanked him in for a hard kiss.

  One Mississippi. Two Mississippi…

  She counted, making sure the kiss lasted long enough for Kevin to take witness.

  By three Mississippi, she darted her tongue in, thought she heard Blake groan, but was too distracted by the fact that the kiss felt amazing.

  Kevin’s voice rang in her ear, and she stopped to look up.

  Blake turned around, obviously confused, and then saw the same thing she’d seen coming.

  “Kevin,” Carrie managed to spit out in the nicest way possible.

  “Care Bear,” he said so casually, as if he hadn’t just broken up with her a few days before they were supposed to be married.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. She wanted to scream, cry, tell him to jump into the nearest volcano, but shock and humiliation were two heady emotions that left her in a stunned daze, desperate to hold on to any kind of pride she could manage.

  What were her options?

  Throw a fit.

  Scream the fact that he’d been cheating on her for a year.

  Shout that he’d stood her up.

  But none of those things would make her feel better, and Kevin was not the kind of man who cared. So she couldn’t care, either.

  Kevin glanced at the woman he was with, then back at Carrie. He just shrugged, not bothering to look embarrassed or ashamed. He did, however, look Blake up and down. That was a small comfort. Blake was the polar opposite of him.

  Did Kevin just shudder in fear?

  It was then Carrie saw Blake’s expression. He had a look of murder on his face. Was he going to kill Kevin? He could. Easily. A thought that kind of thrilled her. Blake took a step toward Kevin, and yep, he was definitely going to kill him. But she grabbed his arm.

  “Please let me handle this,” she whispered softly. “I can’t take any more humiliation. Please…just go with this.”

  Blake looked at her for a long moment, and she silently begged. She didn’t know what she was thinking, feeling, or doing. But she was overwhelmed and knew Kevin well enough to know that any kind of scene or show of sad emotion from her would only make him smirk and make her feel lower.

  One fact she had to keep in mind was that Kevin didn’t care that he hurt her. Didn’t care about much beyond himself. So she had to play this to her advantage, anything to preserve any shred of dignity he’d left her.

  She had to not care right back.

  Or at least try not to.

  Which meant she’d fake it.

  Fake it…

  “Look, Care Bear,” Kevin said, “It’s been a crazy few days for me. Wendy and I are staying here. You knew I wanted to come here. I couldn’t find the tickets, so I used the money from the painting sale I just made. You understand?”

  She understood? Yeah. She understood everything now. That the woman he’d been cheating on her with the past year—AKA Sports Illustrated, AKA Wendy—was now in Hawaii with her ex-fiancé, staying at the place they were supposed to have their honeymoon.

  Fury rose inside her. She couldn’t see straight.

  “I’ve never been able to stop or understand you, Kevin,” she said honestly, trying not to let her heart show that it was in pieces.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Kevin said. “I know I was a shit in how I left, but we both knew it wasn’t right.” He looked at Blake again. “We’re friends, Care Bear. We were always friends. We work well together at the gallery, something we’re still going to have to do. Let’s just call this what it was and still is. Platonic. I did us a favor by not showing up for our wedding.”

  Oh, he’d done her a favor all right. Wasting the past year planning a wedding for nothing. Humiliating her in front of her family and friends. There were so many things she wanted to say. To scream. But she felt Blake’s big hand close over hers and give a reassuring squeeze. She didn’t want to give Kevin the satisfaction of calling the shots any longer. What was done was done.

  Kevin doesn’t care.

  She’d take a page from Blake’s playbook and act on the worst/best idea she’d had so far.

  “Of course we can be friends,” she said as sweetly as she could. “I’m glad you found someone you can connect with.” She wouldn’t go into detail about the gallery or how they technically still would be working together. Her brain was overly fried just handling this moment.

  Kevin frowned then smiled. “Well all right!” He clapped his hands together, and the smell of Kahlúa and marijuana wafted off of him. “And ah…who’s this?”

  “This is Blake,” Carrie said quickly.

  “So it seems like I wasn’t the only one being unfaithful,” Kevin said, with a bite to his words. No way in hell would Carrie get lumped into the same category as him.

  “I never cheated on you. Blake and I just hooked up on the plane over here,” she said without thinking.

  Blake’s eyes went wide and he looked at her.

  She pleaded with her own eyes, begging him to go along.

  “I see,” Kevin said.

  “Do you?” Carrie countered with venom in her voice, trying to keep it together. Unlike the scam Carrie was trying to pull off, Kevin really had cheated on her and planned to take this woman on their honeymoon.

  And now she was here with Blake. She wasn’t giving up the honeymoon she’d saved for and booked—and was nonrefundable. So she’d use Blake to save her pride since she was stuck on the same island as Kevin. Not the best plan, but better than crying and running away. She was stuck there. Committed to starting fresh. She could do this. Because if she left now, Kevin once again would win. Making h
er feel less and less each time he kicked her while she was down. Not to mention, she’d be out of a year’s worth of savings.

  “It all happened so fast,” she said, going back to her admission about Blake. She smiled and leaned into him. “We’ve known each other a while but just recently starting seeing each other.”

  “Very recent,” Blake said. Then leaned in to kiss her ear and quietly mumbled, “I don’t know what the hell you’re pulling, but let me deck this douchebag and we can be done with this.”

  “Later, sweetie,” she said back in a flirty voice. Kevin could only hear her response, so she’d let him think what he wanted. “And this entire package is booked, so Blake and I are staying here.”

  “Then we’ll be seeing you around. We’re staying at the bungalows,” Kevin said.

  A flash of dread went through her. “You’re at the bungalows? Not the main resort hotel?”

  Kevin shook his head. “Nope, wanted the very best. So we’re in…” He squinted at Wendy, then said, as if the answer physically hit him, “Bungalow suite B.”

  Now Carrie really wanted to crawl into a hole and die, because her only other choice was crawling back to her bungalow suite A. As in, eff me in the A, I’m neighbors with my ex and his mistress on my canceled honeymoon turned fantasy vacation. Too bad there was no sign of her fantasy at the moment.

  She glanced at Blake, and he seemed to know the same thing she did. His nice upgrade had just put them wall-to-wall with Kevin and Wendy.

  “I… We can fix this,” Blake whispered in her ear.

  Carrie thought about it for a moment. Yeah, they could move. But the suite was beyond gorgeous, and this was supposed to be her fantasy. She wouldn’t let Kevin run her out of the nicest place to stay on the island. And whether it was a wall, a room, or an ocean separating them, nothing would change the fact that Carrie had to handle this. To really deal with the hurt and ache of the past week. She wasn’t going to run away. She was going to enjoy herself the best she could.

  At least, that’s what she told herself in the moment.

  “I love the room. We’re staying,” Carrie said lowly back to Blake. Then she smiled. Wendy hadn’t looked up from her nails the entire conversation, and Carrie didn’t know if she was stoned, too, or just didn’t care. Either way, Kevin seemed to have found his match.

  Kevin squeezed Wendy to his side, and Carrie wanted to throw up in her mouth. She was everything Carrie wasn’t. All the things Kevin wanted and Carrie would never be.

  Her shoulders sank. She couldn’t keep up this ruse. What was she thinking?

  “Let’s get you inside and out of the sun,” Blake said, and laid a hand on the small of her back. Kevin raised an eyebrow at the touch. It was kind and intimate. It was just enough to bring her self-esteem back.

  Blake pushed past Kevin and guided her into the hotel.

  Leaning down to whisper in her ear, he said, “Oh, we really have to talk about expectations now, little girl.”

  Yeah, they really did.

  This was a clusterfuck.

  Chapter Five

  Blake ushered Carrie into the suite. The amazing suite. The amazingly decorated with love crap everywhere suite. He’d gotten the upgrade to assist with her adventure, her dream vacation, her fantasy. But he’d had no idea the level of romanticism, and now, after the stunt she’d pulled, he was seeing all this as bad, blaring signs.

  She looked around the room as if it were her first time seeing it. Kind of was, since she’d booked it into the bedroom to change the first time. Or get away from Blake. Either way, she was stalling, looking around the mostly private duplex. The bungalow shared only a single wall with their neighbors and had wrap-around windows, giving sight to the lush forest and trees on the north side.

  The room itself was romantic as hell. It had a fireplace, rose petals on the bed, and since the master door was open, he could see the beach to the west.

  But he couldn’t think of that now. He had to figure out what he was going to do and how he’d gone from his grand plan of staying away from Carrie and just protecting her from afar to her pseudo boyfriend.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, the only thing to come to his mind.

  “I’m sorry I kissed you, I just—”

  “Don’t be sorry about that,” he said quickly. “I mean, what the hell is up with that douche? You were going to marry him? Is he a fuckin’ moron?”

  She gave a light smile.

  “And how are you not screaming shit at him right now? He left you! And now he shows up here with that woman—”

  “I know,” she said curtly.

  Of course she knew. Hell, how could she not? And he’d just thrown it in her face by accident. That wasn’t his goal. But he couldn’t stand the prick, and she was being so calm. Carrie was all class, and way stronger than he wanted her to be. Which made him want to punch that Kevin douche right in the coconuts.

  She took a deep breath, which made certain parts of her rise. That damn bikini was going to be the death of him.

  He had to refocus on what had happened. All the details were flooding at once. First, if that prick ever called her Care Bear again, Blake would deck him. Second…

  “Did he say you two still have to work together?”

  Carrie waved off his question. “I run a gallery, and he hangs his crap in the gallery. It is what it is. I can’t deal with that now,” she said. And Blake believed her. She looked like her head was going to explode.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  And there it was. Blake wouldn’t say no. Didn’t matter what came next. He was already shaking his head yes. Because if she needed him, he’d be there. Like he was supposed to be. To protect her. He’d just have to get the rest of his feelings under control.

  But he already had an idea of what he could do to help and offered it.

  “I can get you out of here, Carrie. I can get you on a plane tonight.”

  “What? No! I don’t want to leave. This is my dream vacation, and I saved up for a long time for it.”

  “But you can’t honestly want to stay here with Kevin.”

  “I’m not with Kevin; I’m with you,” she said slowly.

  “I can take you home. Cover whatever money you’re out from this place.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said softly. He could feel her confidence wavering—

  And then it hit him. She’d come here for herself. To start fresh, have an adventure, get over Kevin, and return home happier. Stronger. Not defeated.

  He ran a hand through his hair, feeling stuck. How could he make this better? It was only day one of his job to protect Carrie and already he was failing miserably.

  “I need…”

  Blake took a deep breath. “What do you need, little girl?”

  She swallowed hard. “I want the fake relationship between us this week. I don’t know what came over me, but when I saw Kevin with her, I just…”

  “I understand,” Blake said. And he did.

  “You do?” she asked, as if surprised and grateful at the same time. Which made his heart ache. Those big brown eyes were glossy, pleading. And Blake wouldn’t let her down.

  “But can I offer a counter option?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Does it involve you inflicting physical harm to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then no,” she said, with another light smile. “I can’t allow myself to feel hurt, Blake. I can’t let him think for a second that he wrecked me.”

  He nodded. The woman was beyond strong. He’d been in the wild with men who cried like babies at the sight of a bear track. But Carrie was facing down an actual nightmare—a hipster with a man bun.

  Blake shuddered.

  Yeah, scary as hell.

  “We can fake it,” he agreed and took a step closer. “And I’ll be the best damn fake boyfriend ever. Hell, I look forward to making that fucker jealous.”

  He’d just have to remind himself what this was every step of t
he way. Yeah, she was sexy as hell. Yeah, she deserved someone to love her. And that would never be him. He kept people safe. But his own heart? He’d never put that at risk.

  The back of his skull was tapping out a warning. He knew this was a dangerous game they were playing. But the other option was to let Carrie crumble, watch her self-esteem shatter and her island fantasy die. Or suck it up and play the part of a man she could count on. He just wished his chest didn’t twitch every time he saw her. Yep, dangerous.

  I’m a fuckin’ moron.

  But Carrie needed him.

  “One detail we have to agree on,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He looked at her, all serious. “Whatever happens here, when we go back to the mainland, we go back to the way things were.” He held out his hand in a platonic gesture to shake on it.

  She took it. “Deal.” She smiled and glanced around. “Well, I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but get out of this suite and start enjoying my non-honeymoon with my fake boyfriend.”

  Sounded like a recipe for Blake’s tension to continue humming for the foreseeable future.

  …

  “Carrie, absolutely not.”

  She turned to Blake. “What are you talking about? It’ll be fun.”

  He shook his head. “I agreed to this little arrangement so you could survive running into him. That doesn’t include actively going after the guy.”

  “Going after the guy” was his way of referring to her wanting to stick to their itinerary even though Kevin and Wendy were scheduled for the same activities. They could switch to a different package. But they could also go home. And then she’d be the same wreck from the failed wedding.

  “You agreed to give me my fantasy,” she said. “And right now, my fantasy includes showing that jerk he can’t hurt me.” She shrugged. “Unless you’re backing out. I’ll do it on my own.”

  He took a second to reply, but she could see the wheels spinning in his head. “The hell you will,” he said. “Get dressed.”