Single Dad’s Fake Fiancée: A Cowboy Romance

by King, Imani

  I didn’t want to buy clothes, but Kate wouldn’t hear of it. And, after notifying me that if her mother saw me parading around town in what I had on, I’d never hear the end of it either. “She already called the newspapers to ask if they could cut and paste a different shirt into that RELUCTANT PREGNANT BRIDE article. The thing’s already been printed! Poor mum doesn’t know how image manipulations software works—or printing presses, for that matter.”

  I shiver as I get out of the town car, searching the street for paparazzi but they are nowhere to be found. All I find are people carrying large white shopping bags, businessmen on cell phones and tourists taking pictures.

  “I’m not nearly as interesting as my brother,” Kate whispers.

  I think about all the bodyguards. “You know, that isn’t a bad thing.”

  “There may be one or two people following us,” she continues, “But I think they’re all swarming Easterbrook Tower.”

  Poor Preston!

  “And don’t you dare think about feeling sorry for my brother,” Kate continues. “The world is full of wealthy men—even good looking ones—and the majority of them do not command the public’s attention. Preston dug his own grave by chasing so many singers and models and any other hot up and coming piece of ass.”

  I frown. Do not be jealous, Tachell. Jealousy is ugly, especially unwarranted jealousy. You weren’t dating. You had no claim on him. Still, I can’t help but ask, “So he’s…a bit promiscuous?”

  “I guess you could say that,” Kate scoffs. Then, she looks back at me, eyes wide. “Oh no. Don’t worry about any of it. My brother has been obsessed with you for years.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true!” she tells me. “It’s why he refused to leave Eaglebrook. Mother wanted to send him to a better prep school. He always put it off, but when she enrolled him he said he’d emancipate himself before going to school there. He said it was because he didn’t want to leave his friends, but I knew that wasn’t it. I’d found his composition notebook.”

  “Composition notebook?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Preston wrote a lot of love poetry to his muse—a dark, mysterious princess who beckoned his soul with the scent of lavender. He’d tried to conquer her heart by offering her a white rose, but she thought it was too proud and forever turned her back on him. It was really melodramatic. I think he was channeling the powers of every emo teenage boy in the state.”

  “That’s…” I don’t even know how to feel about that. I think back to all the times he’s offered me lavender. There’s always been a white rose in there, too. Maybe because he’s still trying to find a way to get me to finally see him.

  “Yeah, my brother’s a pretty sensitive, romantic guy,” she mumbles. “But he’s also a manwhore. Let’s pick out something for tonight that will blow his mind.”

  She grabs my hand, pulling me forward.

  “Uh…Kate? What’s tonight?”

  She looks over her shoulder, grinning. “A charity ball, of course! And you’re gonna bring down the house!”

  Before I have time to respond, Kate’s already got us in the first shop. “Hey Tina! This is the infamous Tachell.” She looks at me, giving me a devilish smile. “Do your worst!”

  Chapter 41

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  No, make that I can’t believe I’m doing this while wearing this.

  The limo pulls up to the building. It looks like the White House, with large pillars stretching into the sky and thick brick pathway leading to the gigantic black doors. All around are beautiful men and women dressed in their finest.

  After one turn around the driveway, the door to the limo opens. A butler offers me his hand.

  Alright. I’m not ready for this. Maybe we can just keep driving in circles all night?

  “Go!” Kate whispers, giving me a “gentle” nudge from behind.

  I take the butler’s white gloved hand and step onto the sidewalk. He’s careful to make sure I avoid the puddles. Kate gets out after, giving me a grin as her mother shoes me aside. “Don’t dawdle!”

  Priscilla Easterbrook isn’t happy that I’m here. However, as Kate explained to her, I need to present myself to society and the annual charity auction and ball for the firemen of New York City is a perfect place to do it.

  After we’re out, we enter the swell of the crowd walking up to the mansion. Cameras flash around us like disco lights. After marching up the stairs for what seems like forever, two more men dressed in black uniforms with small billed hats open the doors and we’re ushered inside.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  Everything is sparkling and white. The white gold chandeliers above making everything in the room dazzle. A string quartet plays beside a fountain. There’s even a freakin’ cherub pouring water out of a vase. I’d entered a completely different world.

  Impeccably dressed Waiters dance between groups of people, serving water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, shrimp cocktails, and drinks on silver platters.

  Kate grabs a few water chestnuts and hands me one. “These are soooo good.”

  I put it in my mouth. The chestnut is a hard and crunchy. The bacon was cooked to perfection—not too crispy, not too soft—just full and bursting with apple cherry smoked flavors. I moan as my teeth sink into it, releasing the flavors.

  “Get me away from these,” I tell Kate.

  She laughs. “You wanna eat them all?”

  “No, I seriously will.” I glance around. ‘Far, far away.” I was kind of afraid of tackling a waiter and stealing his tray.

  “You can have as much as you want, you know—”

  “No, she can’t,” Priscilla Easterbrook interrupted. Her lips thinned as she looked down at me. “Control yourself. You are to be an Easterbrook. Act like one.”

  Oh man. Pissed off the matriarch.

  Kate hands me a glass of white wine. “Let’s go find Preston.”

  Priscilla Easterbrook frowns. “Is that really necessary?”

  “If she doesn’t say something to him, people will think something’s wrong!”

  Priscilla sighs. “Fine. Be quick.”

  Kate pulls me towards the refreshment table and the two of us scan the crowd. It’s a sea of pastel dresses. Some women wore white or black. A few younger women hanging onto a rich man’s arm wore red.

  No one wore a dress with a pink as loud as mine, and very few of the women had skin as dark as mine. Kate had decided to use this to our advantage. You’ll be a bold sapphire in a sea of diamonds, she’d told me. Priscilla’s comment wasn’t quite as flattering, but she seemed to begrudgingly admire my gusto. The mother of an Easterbrook should command the attention of any room they enter, she’d declared. This will do.

  Well, the hot pink dress I wore certainly made a statement. It wasn’t as revealing as most of the other dresses—Kate’s comment about the ball being a cleavage showdown wasn’t an exaggeration—but there was something unmistakably sexy about it. Maybe because only someone confident could pull it off.

  Lately, there’d been so many reasons for me to worry. Not remembering anything. A new baby. A devastatingly handsome man who was constantly helping me out or pulling away. And though I did worry, that wasn’t me.

  I was an artist, which meant that I looked at each new experience unflinchingly. Preston had been right. That was a quality all of my paintings had, and I still had that strength within me. It was time to let it out.

  “Uh oh, I think he found us first,” Kate laughs. “And he looks pissed.”

  What? Why would Preston be pissed? I crane, trying to find him, and then I do. Suddenly, I kind of wish I hadn’t.

  He’s stalking towards us. I can see his muscles straining beneath his tux. And his face?

  Oh man.

  Save me now.

  Why is he so mad? What does he have to be mad about?

  He stops in front of me, dark eyes flashing and nostrils flaring.

  “What are you wearing?
” He doesn’t just ask. He demands an answer.

  “Hello to you too, brother,” Kate interjects.

  He glances sideways at Kate, eyes narrowing. “Are you to blame for this?”

  She bats her eyelashes. “To blame for what?”

  He glances at me once more, looking me up and down. “You know exactly what. You’re going to get me thrown in jail.”

  “I think you’re overreacting. We just gave her a mini makeover and got her a dress. Mom approves, by the way.”

  “Mother does not approve of this.”

  “Oh yes she did. And, as you know, mother has impeccable taste. Doesn’t Tachell look lovely?”

  “That’s not the problem,” Preston rasps.

  “You know, I am standing right here,” I tell Preston. “You should stop talking about me like I can’t dress or make decisions for myself.”

  Preston’s eyes soften. “That isn’t the issue.”

  “What is the issue, then?” I am starting to feel more like a mannequin than a person with the way they keep looking at me and speaking to one another as if I’m not here.

  His eyes darken. Kate makes a gagging sound as he takes my hand. Suddenly, he doesn’t look like a man—he looks like a ravenous wolf who hasn’t eaten anything in two months. Then, without answering, he pulls me away from his sister and the crowd.

  I can feel judgmental eyes following us, but Preston doesn’t slow down and I don’t even care. The truth is, something about the situation thrills me. His commanding grip on my hand. The primal intensity radiating from him beneath all his finery. I want to push him down onto the ground, rip open his shirt, and lick all those perfect muscles….

  Alright. It’s probably best that we’re leaving. These aren’t really appropriate feelings to be having during a charity event, right?

  We race up the stairs, past caterers and meandering patrons. Preston then takes a sharp left out onto a balcony on the back of the mansion.

  The night air feels so cold on my naked skin. Before I have time to ask what’s going on, he pulls me in so close I can feel his heart pounding.

  “So,” I whisper, “you don’t like the dress?”

  “I have mixed feelings about it,” he answers.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. It’s the kind of dress you can’t help but notice the second it moves into a room. The kind you can’t ignore. And, the kind you can’t help but know that you’d like it better if it were on the floor and the woman who was wearing it was beneath you in bed, screaming out your name as you fuck her.”

  Wow. Don’t know if I’d use the word ‘lovely’ to describe that, but I’d take it. “And the problem?”

  “I’m not fucking you.”

  Oh. “Well, that’s on you. I was ready. Actually, I am ready.”

  His hand comes down on my hip, possessive and radiating strength, showing me my place was at his side. “You’re playing with fire, Tachell.”

  I raise my left eyebrow. “I’d rather be playing with something else.”

  He doesn’t ask me what I’d rather be playing with. He just growls.

  “You’re acting like a child,” I tell him, “hiding my toys so I can’t play with them.”

  “You remember that?”

  “No, but it sounded like something you’d do.”

  His breathing slows until his mouth comes down on my throat. “Do you know what else sounds like something I’d do?” he whispers over my skin.

  “What?”

  “Just taking what you offer. Right now. Right here. It’s not in my nature to keep resisting you. I’m fine with being the bad boy if it means having you in my bed again.”

  I shiver, shudder, as his tongue moves up my neck, lips kissing me until they reach that sensitive area right below my ear. His other hand comes over my throat, tipping back my chin so he has better access.

  Oh God.

  “We can’t do this here.” I whisper as his other hand slips between my thighs. His eyes flash with satisfaction when he realizes I’m already ready for him.

  “We can do this wherever I want to do it,” he whispers, drawing his hand up further. Goosebumps flare over my skin. My stomach muscles tighten. Oh God, I do want him to sink into me to the sound of fountain water rustling below and the heavens sparkling with city lights. I want him to push me deeper into the dark velvet curtains behind us. I want him to twist me up in them and just fucking take me already.

  I feel his cock straining against his pants. My body aches with anticipation. I want to know what it feels like slipping into me, completing me…if he’ll take me as confidently as he’s playing my body now. He’s not something anyone can tame. He’s as wild and unpredictable as nature itself.

  And then, he stops kissing me. I cry out with surprise as he clamps his hand over my mouth.

  “I know that’s what was the deal,” a masculine voice from the hall says, “but I just don’t know if it’s in my best interest to follow the agreement.”

  Oh shit! There are people here? Have we been seen?

  “But you signed something,” another voice replies.

  Alright, it’s just a boring business conversation. Now leave so we can keep…

  “Well, then I’ll pay the fine and be done with it.”

  Ugh…what’s taking so long? And damn I must be turned on since even this hasn’t killed the mood.

  Finally, the voices fade as they continue down the hall.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he whispers into my hairline. “We should probably take this somewhere else.”

  “No. Just do it fast.” I can’t take this any longer! “We can marathon fuck later.”

  His eyes blaze. “No. If we start now, I’m not stopping until we’re both screaming with release.”

  Alright…maybe screwing his amnesiac, pregnant, maybe-fiance at the Fireman’s Charity Ball would look bad. “Fine. Your place. Now.”

  Chapter 42

  He grabs my hand and takes off back down the hallway and stairs. He doesn’t need to be told twice, though maybe it would have been nice if he’d given me a little time straighten up. There is only one way out of this place, after all—through the magnificent downstairs ballroom.

  “Wait!” I tell him, but he doesn’t stop. Soon we’re bursting through the doors and beelining it through the ballroom.

  So…yeah.

  My hair is a a bit messed up, and not in the cute convertible montage way. Messed up like I was fucked up against a wall messed up. Which, to my credit, I was not (though I might as well have been from the way I was humping him back there). I haven’t checked out my face, but I’m guessing it isn’t good, considering his mouth and hands were all over the place. I can see my dress, however, and let’s just say it’s a bit disheveled.

  Oh dear. We were supposed to leave to avoid causing a scene. However, it didn’t quite go down that way. People are glaring at us like we skipped out on the charity ball to bump uglies upstairs which, again, we did not! We were leaving to go do that right now. And it was pretty damn obvious.

  I find Kate in the crowd. She’s the only one who’s smiling and giving me the thumbs up. Let’s just say that her mother doesn’t look pleased and leave it at that—if I describe the look on her face in any more detail, I will have nightmares for the rest of my life.

  Finally we burst outside. Thank God Preston is used to getting his way and moving fast, because I don’t think I could have survived another second in the ballroom. He signals for the driver and his own personal limo pulls up a few seconds later.

  Well that was fast. And much easier than running out in traffic and trying to hail a cab.

  He opens the door before the limo stops. “Get in.”

  I do. Now is not the time for sweet words. It is time for action.

  Once inside, he presses a button and a privacy screen slides up between us and the driver.

  I’m oddly fascinated. “How the hell did you do that!?!?”

  “It’s a special kind of glass...techno...sh
it, don’t ask me questions right now, Tachell, or my dick is gonna be the one who answers you.”

  Wow. He sure does have a way with words when he’s horny. Sometimes I wonder how the hell he got such a reputation as a playboy, and then I remember he’s a freakishly sexy billionaire. The man doesn’t even have to try.

  I smile, leaning over. “Your dick is gonna answer, huh? That sounds interesting.”

  Preston growls.

  “He doesn’t seem to know many words,” I say, reaching for his pants. But on my way there, my hand is blocked by something massive and hard. What the…? I glance down.

  My jaw drops.

  My eyes bulge out of their sockets.

  That massive, hard thing that blocked my hand? It’s his cock. Or at least I hope it’s his cock, because otherwise Preston has oversized Tupperware in his pants.

  “What’s wrong, Tachell? Are you at a loss for words?”

  I glare at him, resisting the urge to flick him. “N-no.”

  He raises his eyebrows.

  I gulp. How do you tell a guy you’re afraid you might not be able to fit him in? I don’t think you do, or at least I’m not going to. I was able to take it once. And I want to try again.

  “What are you thinking?” he whispers.

  “That the driver is pulling into a creepy garage.”

  Preston glances out the window. “We’re home.”

  Home.

  I shiver. Everywhere. That word, coming from him and coupled with the word “we’re,” has an affect on me I didn’t anticipate and I’m not sure I should indulge in.

  The driver lets us off at an elevator near the entrance and continues driving, which is a little awkward.

  “So, how long until I can have you?” I ask as we wait for the elevator.

  “As soon as those doors open,” he says.

  “Yeah, I think we came here to avoid public displays of affection.”

  “And we’re not going to have any,” he tells me, pulling me close. “This is a private elevator.”

  “P-private elevator?”