“I think I’m good,” I replied, but I was smiling now too. “And I’m still thinking about it.”
“Well, don’t think about it for too long,” Jack said. “Laird’s a good guy and if you don’t want to do this, I want him to have time to find someone else.”
I nodded. That was fair. “I’ll have an answer soon, I promise.”
Jack winked at me, then nodded at Red. “Have a great day, guys.”
Red nudged me playfully. “Your life sure has gotten interesting, hasn’t it?”
“Sure has.” Interesting was the last thing I wanted out of my life. But I had to figure out an answer to this odd proposal—and soon.
4
Laird
It had been days and I hadn’t heard from Trudie. I’d seen her working the coffee shop, and she’d smiled at me a few times when I’d walked by on my way to work, or on my way out to a lunch meeting, but she hadn’t said anything. It was killing me.
Didn’t help that I was… annoyingly attracted to her. I said ‘annoyingly’ given our situation. I couldn’t afford to be attracted to the woman that I would be fake-married to for weeks. That would just complicate things. Not to mention—even if it wouldn’t complicate things, my history of tripping and falling over my own tongue didn’t bode well for my ability to flirt with Trudie if I wanted to.
My mum had called twice already, and I wanted to be able to shove this in her face. Show her what lying got you. I was going to save face in front of my cousins, and then maybe, just maybe, I would consider letting my parents out of the doghouse on this one. Mum was trying to cover her own arse and I wasn’t having it. I was going to show up with a beautiful, sweet, lovely wife, and all my cousins would be impressed, and then my parents would see that I could get any girl that I wanted, if I wanted, I was just choosing not to right now. I wasn’t lonely, and I wasn’t hard up. It was just my choice—I hadn’t found anyone that sparked my interest enough to make it worth trying to get over my stupid inability to talk to a woman.
Hopefully this whole debacle would get my family off my back for the next couple of years, and by then, I would like to have actually found someone.
The fact that I kept picturing Trudie when I was imagining that ‘someone’ was not helping.
Liam kept badgering me about it, too. You’d think my little brother would have a little bit of sympathy, but oh no. He was using this opportunity to rib me mercilessly. Screw him, then.
I actually had an email from him about the whole wedding thing, and I put off answering it until the evening. Let him sweat it out wondering about who was getting put up in what room where for the reunion. If he wasn’t going to help me out of this jam…
I was just sitting down to finally answer the email when my cell rang.
Okay, it could’ve been my mom calling again. Or it might be Liam, fed up with my not answering him. Or Jack—but I’d just seen Jack.
What if it was Trudie?
My phone was in my jacket pocket, draped over a chair. I lunged for it, only to nearly knock myself out of my own chair in the attempt, and just managed to catch myself on the edge of my desk to save myself in time. Jesus Christ, could I be more of a klutz?
The phone was still ringing. I yanked my jacket across the desk, fumbled, got the phone out of my pocket, and answered it. “Laird Hindes speaking.”
“Laird? This is… this is Trudie.” Her voice was soft, tentative. “This is…”
“Trudie.” I winced, wondering if I sounded overeager, knowing that it was her instantly like that.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t be sure, over the phone, but it sounded like she was smiling. “Listen, I’ve been giving your offer a lot of thought… I haven’t kept you waiting too long, have I?”
“What? No, no, you’re fine. I mean—I nearly fell off my desk trying to get the phone when you called but, I’m not eager or anything.”
Trudie laughed, sounding surprised at herself for it. “Good to know. And here I was thinking you were… suave.”
“That’s my reputation, so if you could not tell anyone about the desk thing…” I found myself grinning into the phone.
“Oh, your secret is safe with me, sir,” Trudie replied, sounding overly serious. “Nobody will find out that you’re a massive dork.”
I faked a gasp. “I’ll have you know that you can’t like sports and be a dork!”
“Right, tell that to all the fans who paint themselves blue and wear cheese on their heads for sporting events. You guys are crazier than Comic Con fans and that’s saying something.”
I laughed, startled by her sense of humor but also grateful for it. She sounded like the kind of person who could hold her own among my family, and she’d sure need that if she was going to be exposed to them for a couple of weeks. My family’s full-blooded Irish and we could be… a lot.
“Well, prepare yourself, we’re a sports family so you’re going to hear a lot about rugby and soccer. My brother Liam’s the odd one, he plays basketball, my relatives all tease him for being too American.” I paused, realizing what I was saying. “That is… I mean if you—that’s only if you really want to—if you’re doing, um, this, you’re doing this, right? This is you calling to say you’re doing it?”
Trudie laughed again. I felt my face heating up, even though she couldn’t see me. “I—yes. Yes, I’ve thought about it, and I’m going to take you up on your offer. You seem like a good person. And I know what it’s like to be stuck in a bind. So… yes.”
She sounded warm and sincere, and I could feel myself melting even more for this woman. Dammit, if this kept up I was going to be in serious trouble, emotionally. But I could keep a lid on it. It was just that this was the first woman I’d been attracted to in a while, and the first woman I’d also really spoken to besides long-term friends. That was it.
“My parents are going to regret meddling,” I told her, grinning. “I love them, don’t get me wrong. They’re great parents. But they’re also really… getting into my business and not respecting my life and my choices.”
“Even good-intentioned people who love you can do that,” Trudie agreed. “And if you’re having fun with it, I don’t see the harm in this little… scheme.”
“Scheme. I like that. Makes it sound like I’m planning a bank heist.”
“I mean, we can do that too, but I don’t think you need the money.”
I laughed. Damn, I liked this woman’s sense of humor. “You’re right, I don’t. Well—we’re going to have to act like we’ve been together a long time, which means we have to get our story straight. Do you want to… meet up and get dinner in the next couple of days, we can hash everything out?”
She hadn’t mentioned the money, which I was glad of. I could understand why she needed the money. Plenty of people needed money like that, in our current economic hell. But I was glad that she didn’t seem to be focusing on that. She seemed to be a good person, someone who was in it to help me, as well, not just to make a quid.
“Sure.” Trudie sounded shy. “I’m free… pretty much every night, I don’t have… the glamorous life of a magazine owner.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not as glamorous as you’d think.” I didn’t want her to get so starry eyed around me that she couldn’t just be herself. “How about tomorrow evening then? Friday?”
“That—that works for me,” Trudie said, still sounding shy.
I smiled. “Great. I’ll just pick you up after work.” Convenient how we worked in the same building.
“Great. I’ll—I’ll see you then.”
“Great.” I winced and could’ve smacked myself for repeating myself like that. I was being such an idiot.
There was an awkward silence, and then Trudie said, “Well, bye, then.”
“Bye! Sleep well!” I hung up.
Sleep well!?
What the bloody hell was wrong with me! This poor woman was probably second guessing her choice to do this. Fuck. I just hoped that tomorrow would go well. I wante
d to impress her. Why, I couldn’t say, but… I did. I wanted her to like me.
Perhaps a little too much.
5
Trudie
Nervous didn’t even begin to describe how I felt the next day waiting for Laird after work.
I hadn’t been alone with a man since Pete, and I knew, logically, that Laird wouldn’t hurt me, but I still couldn’t stop the tense knot in my stomach. And aside from that—what if he just got to know me better and didn’t like me? What if he changed his mind the more that he spent time with me? What if I was too… too shy, or weird, or blunt? What if my issues came up and I was too skittish and he decided that this wasn’t going to work between us after all?
I would be horribly embarrassed. No, humiliated. And I’d lose my chance to get enough money to keep Pete off my back forever and properly start a new life, get a proper apartment, have a savings account. I couldn’t afford to lose this chance—literally—and I really, really didn’t want my fear confirmed that after surviving Pete, I had still been irrevocably changed.
Laird being a super successful person and handsome as fuck really didn’t help, either. He was the kind of guy that I had never even dreamed I’d be able to get up the guts to talk to, and now I was supposed to somehow pretend to be his wife? This was just a mess in so many ways, I couldn’t even keep track.
“Oh, good, I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.” Laird walked up, and my mouth went dry. He was just in a pair of well-fitting jeans and a dark green turtleneck today, but he looked amazing, like he’d stepped off the cover of a magazine. Fitting, seeing as he owned a magazine.
I stuck my hand out for him to shake. This was a business arrangement in a way, right? Hugging him felt too personal given that we’d only met once and spoken twice.
Laird looked down at my outstretched hand in amusement, and then shook it. I winced inwardly. Had I already embarrassed myself?
This was why I needed to get out and meet people, make this really a home. I had only had Pete for so long, and I needed to see who I was without him, but I couldn’t do that alone. I needed friends. To create a new family for myself.
Maybe… at the end of all of this, Laird and I could be friends. I only had Red, and he was a coworker before a friend, and Edith, who I loved but she wasn’t exactly someone I could go out and get drinks with. But Laird had loads of friends, I was sure. Perhaps he could help me make myself a new circle of people to be with.
“There a nearby café that I think you’ll love.” Laird blushed a little. It was adorable. “Well, I mean, I wouldn’t assume I know what your taste is. But I really like eating there and I think you will too, so?”
Oh my God, he was so cute like this. For me, seeing someone stumble over their words and all that made much more sense than someone who always seemed to know what to say, who was suave and had the exact perfect poetic line to have you swooning. Pete had always been so charming, he’d always known how to talk to people. I didn’t trust that now. It felt like… like a façade. If someone was tripping over their words a bit, it meant they were saying what they really felt in the moment. It meant that it wasn’t rehearsed, that it was real.
Laird offered me his arm, and I felt my face heating up. Great, now I was the one blushing. It was something so simple, offering someone your arm, but nobody had ever done that for me. It was sweet. Something that a gentleman would do.
I took his arm and Laird tucked me into his side, keeping me somewhat sheltered against the cold as we exited out of the building’s lobby and onto the streets. It got dark early in the winter, understandably, and all around us the lights from buildings glowed, making the scene so much homier than before. I was still getting used to Chicago during the day, with its tall imposing buildings and all the insanity, but during the night all that seemed to soften and I felt welcomed, like I was a part of something.
“You’re very quiet,” Laird noted as we walked.
I felt my flush deepening, my face feeling like it was on fire. “Oh, I’m…”
“No, no, I like it! I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m not good at this whole… speaking to women thing, I never had been. All my friends who are women became friends with me out of pity, I swear. Just ask them.”
I laughed. “You seem like a good person. I’m sure they became friends with you because of that, too.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Laird muttered, but he seemed to be joking. “Anyway, if you’re quiet that’s okay, I don’t mind at all. You, um… are you generally quiet or outspoken? Ah…I am sorry if I am making you uncomfortable. But my family’s loud, I need to warn you.”
“Jack stopped by, your friend? He mentioned something about that.”
Laird groaned. “Jack… of course he’d meddle. He’s excited about this whole thing, he thinks it’s hilarious. I’d like to do the same thing to him and see how much he liked having to find a fake wife. Oh! Here we are.”
We stopped outside what did in fact look like a very cozy French-style café. Laird opened the door and ushered me in, where I shivered as I was greeted by a blast of warm air, the difference between the outside chill and the inside warmth startling.
“My parents would say I was turning traitor for loving a French place this much, so we’ll just keep it our little secret, eh?” Laird said, waving at someone behind the counter and then finding us a seat in one of the back corners.
I giggled. “Secret’s safe with me,” I promised.
“I knew I could count on you.” Laird sat down and stretched out his legs. Wow, he was so tall. I swallowed, unable to stop myself from briefly imagining what it would feel like to have him lifting me up, or to have him over me in bed, pressed up against me.
Down, girl. This was the last thing that I needed right now—lusting after, of all people, the man I was going to pretend to be married to. It was just the stress getting to my head, that was all. I hadn’t wanted to sleep with anyone since Pete, and now here was this supermodel asking me to be his fake bride, that would mess with anybody’s head a bit. I could control it. I could handle this. I’d fled from my abusive ex-boyfriend, made a new life for myself, I could deal with a few butterflies in my stomach.
“So.” Laird paused as a waitress came up. “Just the usual, Janine, thanks, and… uh…” He looked at me. “Do you trust me?”
His eyes were so warm gazing into mine, I felt inexplicably like I’d trust him with my life. I hadn’t felt that way about anyone, especially a man, in years. “Um…”
“To order for you, I mean,” Laird explained, blushing a little again. He seemed to blush easily, and I found myself smiling back at him. I had to admit—at least to myself—that he wasn’t at all the way I’d thought he would be when I had first met him. This soft, sweet person was so very different from Pete they might as well have been a completely different species. I liked it.
“Sure,” I replied. I could trust him with that, right? And if he picked well for me, that would be a good sign, wouldn’t it?
Laird ordered, and then Janine got us some water. “So, here’s what happened. I have a lot of pressure from my family to find someone and get married. I have a really big family. And I mean big. I have eighteen cousins, and most of them are married with kids. And that’s not counting the second cousins, because my dad kept in touch with all of his cousins growing up—it’s nutters. And we’re all around the same age, and I’m one of the only ones who hasn’t found a partner to settle down with. Now that my brother Liam got married to someone, it’s gotten even worse.
“The wedding is going to take place in this beautiful—hold on, I think I have some pictures somewhere—I’m going to sound like a travel agent trying to sell you on a trip, I swear, but—” Laird pulled out his phone and scrolled through until he found what he wanted, then handed me the phone.
It really did look like a beautiful castle. A bit smaller and more rundown than the kind I saw in movies, but still, really lovely. The perfect setting for a romantic wedding.
> “It’s beautiful,” I told him honestly, handing the phone back.
“We’ll be there for about a week,” Laird explained, pocketing the phone again. “And so we wouldn’t have to put up the façade for too long. And it’s a good thing you’re shy, I can just use that as an excuse to avoid whatever PDA you’re not comfortable with. We can be as cuddly or not cuddly as you want.”
“I really appreciate that,” I replied. “I’m not sure yet what I’d be comfortable with. I’d have to think about it.”
“We’ve got time, it’s not until the spring, can you imagine having a wedding in winter at this place? Brutal.” Laird shook his head and grinned at me. “But I’m really excited that we’re doing this. They’re going to be shocked when they see you. They’re going to all wonder how I landed a woman like you.”
I felt my face heat up yet again. “I’m… thank you.”
Pete used to compliment me all the time, to shower me with praise, until the tables turned and he had nothing to say to me but demeaning insults. But Laird said all this like it must be common knowledge that I was a catch, like I must know that was how I looked, and that somehow made it seem… real. More real than all the fancy, ‘soulful’ things that Pete used to say to me.
“I’m really excited for this. Honestly, I know I probably seem overexcited, but I haven’t been able to shut up my cousins bugging me about dating in a decade. I figure we’ll go, we’ll be a happy couple, and then a few months afterwards I’ll tell them that we got a divorce. There’s no reason for them to see you in person again, and by Christmas I’ll be a single man once more, and they’ll all feel so bad they’ll leave me alone for a bit.”
“Or,” I pointed out, “they’ll want you to get over your heartbreak by finding someone new.”
“Oh, sure, yeah, but in another year, not right away. You have to give yourself time to mourn the last relationship, right?” Laird pulled a face. “Not that I would know. I haven’t been in a serious relationship since secondary school. High school, as you say here.”
Fake Bride: A Fake Marriage Billionaire Romance (Forbidden First Times Book 2) Page 3
