I’m in a pickle here and there’s no way out.
“That was pretty fast, wasn’t it?”
“Well, you know when you find the one you know. Just like you and the Mrs.”
“You do know we’re getting a divorce?”
“Oh. My apologies. I didn’t hear.”
“It was on the front page this morning. How didn’t you hear? Don’t you follow the news?”
“Today has been hectic. I put all my energy into preparing for tonight’s ball. Plus I’m newly engaged,” I say, motioning down towards the ring on Julia’s finger.
“The fire chief has to be in the loop, Isaac. It’s 24/7 365. There are no off days. You know that.”
“Yes, mayor.”
I’m getting chided by the mayor while Julia is talking a mile a minute to Abby…in Russian, or is it Ukrainian? Abby speaks that language? What the heck? I’ve got to stop this fast.
“But I will say if you’ve got to pick a wife, you certainly picked a good one.”
“Thank you, sir,” I say, getting distracted from Julia and Abby and feeling like socking the mayor. Why is everyone checking out my fiancée? And after they check her out they all want to come to me and make some sort of attaboy type comment? Why don’t they just leave us be?
Then again I guess there really is no us in the first place.
“Mayor,” someone calls from off in the distance.
“Have to be going,” the mayor says. “Enjoy your evening.”
“Thank you, mayor. You too.”
I immediately turn and see that Julia is gone! I scan the room and don’t see any sign of her or Abby.
“Excuse me,” I say, waiving my hand to get the attention of the caterer who is serving drinks in our area.
“Another round, sir?”
“No. I was hoping you saw where the lady in the red dress went.”
“Who didn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“The lady she was standing with jiggled a set of keys and then they walked right across the dance floor. Every single drunk guy stopped what he was doing and stared…sober ones too.”
“Did they use the elevator for the low floors or the high ones?”
“Elevator?”
“Yeah, you said the lady jiggled a set of keys.”
“Not room keys. Car keys. And the keychain had a Ferrari symbol.”
CHAPTER 6
Isaac
“You just missed them,” the valet says.
I breathe in deep, catching my breath from sprinting over to him.
“Who was driving?”
“The lady in the red dress.”
“The lady in the red dress?” I say, raising my voice.
“She said she hadn’t had anything to drink.”
“No. I mean that’s right. She’s totally sober, but she doesn’t have a license.”
“She doesn’t? I can call it in.”
“No. It’s not that. I mean she has a license from another country…probably.”
“Sir, I can call the police and they’ll—”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Everything will be okay. No police. She’ll be back soon.”
I walk back inside feeling defeated.
Abby’s a professional at this. She’s going to extract all the information she needs, and then dump her right back here on my lap…used and abused.
Why did I ever even come up with this fake fiancée idea?
And worst yet, she seems like a nice girl. She does have a bit of a wild streak to her, but still…I could have just asked her out the traditional way and found that out.
I was just in such a big hurry that I rushed into this without thinking. Plus I didn’t ever expect to really get married anyways, at least not married to anything other than my job. And to continue down that path I needed to be fire chief or else I would have wasted everything I worked for. And it’s not like I would have had another chance.
This is the kind of position you get and then never leave. I mean the outgoing chief has been there thirty-three years. I’m no spring chicken either, so this is my one and only shot.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’ve lost touch after all those years buried in my work. I should have lived a more well rounded life and I wouldn’t have had this problem.
Marriage. Two point five kids. White picket fence. The American dream.
But there was no way I was going to get married just for the sake of it. I don’t even have meaningless hook up sex. I’m a dinosaur compared to the younger generation. Even this young Eastern European girl reminded me of that.
The writing’s on the wall. I’m cooked. I’ll be exposed and I’ll have to leave the only town I’ve ever known without so much as a reference. I’ll be lucky to get a job teaching CPR on the weekends to high school kids.
I avoid the room where the ball is still going full blast and make my way to the elevator to my room.
When I arrive I put my key card in the door and the light flashes red. Of course, it’s been one of those nights. I take the elevator back down and after a quick recharge at the reception desk I’m standing back in front of my door.
This time the key does the trick, and I walk into my room and faceplate on the bed.
CHAPTER 7
Isaac
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The water rains down over me in the shower. After dozing off for fifteen minutes I got up to take a quick shower. I need the cleanse after everything that’s gone on today. I need it to try and unwind, but it seems like someone else has other plans.
I towel off and make my way to the door. Whoever it is has their hand over the peephole.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I open the door.
“Hey! I’m back.”
“You ran off,” I say holding the door open as she steps in as if nothing happened.
“I didn’t run off. My job is to convince people that we’re real. That’s exactly what I was doing.”
“With Abby Lawson? She’s a professional dirt digger. She’ll pretend to be your friend to your face and then stab you in the back.”
“She is my friend.”
“Oh my god,” I say. Abby must have pulled the wool over her eyes. That didn’t take long. “What did you tell her?”
“Not much, at least about us. We just talked about Eastern Europe and Russia.”
“So she thinks you’re some poor mail-order bride now.”
“Actually…no. She’s the poor mail-order bride.”
“Come again?”
“She immigrated to this country years ago after her husband found her on a website. They started emailing and next thing you know she had a green card and eventually citizenship.”
“You’re joking?”
“No. That’s why she picked the name Abby. She learned English by reading that column, and she wanted to be able to support herself over here if something went wrong. That’s why she started her own version of Dear Abby.”
“That’s what she wants you to believe.”
“It’s the truth, Isaac,” she says. “We spoke in Russian the entire time. The words she used…they way she spoke…I believe her.”
“What did you tell her about us?”
“Just what happened on my own journey.”
“Including the fact that this is pretend?”
“Of course not. I conveniently left that part out.”
I realize I’m still standing in my towel and Julia’s laid out on top of the bed. She’s been looking me in the eye the entire time we were talking, but now that I’ve paused her eyes have started to wander.
“Do you mind if I take a shower?” she asks.
“No. Go right ahead,” I say.
Julia jumps up from the bed and reaches for the bottom of her dress. She begins pulling it up just as she turns the corner and enters the bathroom.
What is she doing to me? Does she know how long it’s been since I’ve been with a woman? Does she know what I’m thinking right
now?
“Can you hand me a towel?” she asks, her head popping out from around the corner. “It’s on the table,” she says pointing toward it.
“Yeah, sure,” I say.
I grab the towel and consider tossing it to her, but don’t. I walk it over to the door and stop an arms length from the entrance. I extend my hand that’s holding the towel.
“Thanks,” she says, never taking her eyes off of mine as she takes it from my grasp.
Is she in her bra and panties? Did she even have any on underneath that dress? Is she naked?
I want to take one more step around that corner and grab her right now. I feel my towel start to rise, and I take a step back towards the bed.
Julia holds my gaze, before smiling. “Everything will be okay. You just have to trust me.”
I want to yell, “How can I trust you?” Then it hits me…we’re both in this game together, which means she should have no reason to trust me either.
But as much as I’m not sure I can trust her, I’m more concerned whether or not I can trust myself…in a different way.
I hear the water turn on and the shower door close as she steps in.
“Ahhh. A shower feels so good right now,” she says.
I sit on the bed and realize my erection is only getting bigger. Why does she have to moan like that? Why does she have to tease me like this?
Just a few minutes later she’s out of the shower and turning the corner coming back into the main room.
There’s still some water on her skin. It’s beading up, almost like sweat on her chest on a hot summer’s day. The towel’s wrapped just above where her nipples must be and goes barely below her butt. The towel is small enough to show me more than enough to whet my appetite, but big enough to keep what I hunger for a complete mystery. I immediately imagine the knot she’s tied in between her breasts coming undone and the towel falling to the floor, causing me to come undone as well and bringing out the animal in me.
“Do you have anything to wear to bed?” I ask.
“I brought something,” she says, digging in her purse.
She reaches in and pulls out something that looks like about three tissues wadded up in a ball. It’s black, and when she shakes it out and holds it up, it’s clearly transparent and completely sexy.
She faces away from me and slides each of her legs into it, pulling it up just as the towel falls behind her. She pulls the straps up and over her shoulder and turns to face me as if everything is totally normal.
“So I was thinking,” she begins. I can’t take my eyes off her. I’m not even trying to hide it now. My eyes start at her legs and work their way up her entire body, following her curves all the way up to her breasts. I can see her nipples popping out in between the lace patterns, or whatever they’re called. She’s standing close to the air conditioner and it should be cooling us down, but it’s doing anything but. It’s making her body more firm and her nipples even harder.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say putting my hands in my lap, trying to cover my erection.
“Oh right. I’m sorry, am I bothering you?” she says looking down at her body.
“No. Not at all,” I say. It’s the most obvious lie in the entire world.
“Where I’m from we’re very open about our bodies. We don’t view the body as sexual. A body is just a body. We all have one.”
“Right,” I say. “But some bodies are created differently.”
“Sure, but they’re more the same than they are different.”
She’s not the same. Far from it. I’ve never seen a woman that made me feel this animalistic…this feral.
“Do you mind if I get into bed?” she asks.
“No, not at all,” I say, standing as she slides in under the covers pretending to be oblivious to the way this is making me feel. Surely she knows the truth.
“I think I’ll try and go to sleep now.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say, knowing that sleep is the furthest thing from my mind. I took a fifteen-minute nap earlier and seeing her in that thing she calls pajamas makes me feel like I just downed five double espressos. My heart is beating out of my chest.
I grab the phone and hit the button for the front desk.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, I’m just,” I put up one finger to her. “Hi. Is it possible to get a rollaway up to our room?”
She’s staring at me intently as I listen to the receptionist. “Right. I understand. Thanks.”
I hang up the phone and look around the room. No couches. Just two chairs by the table.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “Do you need the lights?”
“No thanks.”
I flip the lights off and walk over toward the table. I line up the chairs so I can sit in one and put my feet in the other. I tilt my head down like a cowboy and try and fall asleep.
“What are you doing? Come to bed.”
“I’m okay over here,” I say.
“How can you be okay over there? You’re going to freeze with the air conditioning.”
“I like it cold.”
“Isaac, I have seen these American western movies. Is that what you’re doing? There is no horse here and there is no hat to tip down to cover your eyes. The fire is over here, and it gets cold in the desert at night. Please, you’re making me feel bad for having this entire bed all to myself.”
“I’ll be alright.”
“Okay,” she says, and through the darkness I see her shake her head in dismay as she pulls the covers up to her neck.
But I’m not all right. This position is extremely uncomfortable and I know if I try sitting in one chair and putting my head on the table it isn’t going to work either. I’ve tried that way before, and it never works for me.
What I really want is to just go back to a week ago and wish this whole thing never happened. But I know that’s not true. What I really want is her, and she’s a few feet from me in a black, transparent lingerie thing…and she’s practically begging me to come to her.
I need to win this election, I repeat to myself inside my head over and over like a broken record. Stay focused, Isaac…but I clearly can’t.
And that’s the problem. As much as I know I need to be the fire chief, that I’ve worked my entire career to get here, now it’s clear to me that I need something else entirely.
The right woman. And my body and my mind are telling me that after all these years I’ve finally found her.
CHAPTER 8
Julia
I can’t believe he’s resisting my advances. And I can’t believe I’m resisting him. I want to go over there and jump on top of him and ride him while he sits in that chair.
My eyes are open staring at the ceiling. What’s wrong with me? Why won’t he come to bed? I took care of Abby for him, and now I want him to take care of me.
We are engaged after all. I giggle quietly at the irony.
“What’s so funny?” he asks. Apparently he’s not sleeping either.
“Nothing,” I say.
“You were laughing at something,” he says.
I move my head in his direction and I see his hands are in his lap. He’s trying his best to conceal his desire, but it’s not working. He’s still got that towel wrapped around him. He was so focused on not sleeping in the bed with me that he didn’t even put on anything for bed.
“It’s just funny that we’re supposed to be engaged, but here we are now…like this.”
His feet come off the chair and he places them on the floor. He stands up from his chair and takes a step in my direction.
“Because this isn’t real,” he says, as he takes another step.
“Definitely not,” I say.
“It’s just a mutually beneficial arrangement, for both of us.”
“Right,” I say, as he sits down on the edge of the bed and leans toward me.
“That’s why you don’t feel an
ything when I do this,” he says, as he runs the back of his fingertips up my arm.
Fireman's Fake Fiancée: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 26) Page 3
