by JD Hawkins
Copyright © 2021 by JD Hawkins
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Paige Press
Leander, TX 78641
Ebook:
ISBN: 978-1-953520-82-1
Print:
ISBN: 978-1-953520-83-8
Contents
Also by JD Hawkins
About This Book
Chapter 1
Hazel
Chapter 2
Nate
Chapter 3
Hazel
Chapter 4
Nate
Chapter 5
Hazel
Chapter 6
Nate
Chapter 7
Hazel
Chapter 8
Nate
Chapter 9
Hazel
Chapter 10
Nate
Chapter 11
Hazel
Chapter 12
Nate
Chapter 13
Hazel
Chapter 14
Nate
Chapter 15
Hazel
Chapter 16
Nate
Chapter 17
Hazel
Chapter 18
Nate
Chapter 19
Hazel
Chapter 20
Nate
Chapter 21
Hazel
Chapter 22
Nate
Epilogue
Also by JD Hawkins
Paige Press
About the Author
Also by JD Hawkins
Behaving Badly Series
Playing Doctor
Bad Boy Benefits
BS Boyfriend
Cocky Men Series
Cocky Chef
Flawless
All In
Bad Boys Series
Confessions of a Bad Boy
Love and Ink
Unprofessional
Temptation
Insatiable Series
Insatiable
Booty Call
The Bet
About This Book
She’s the perfect fiancée… except for the perfect stranger part.
Being single wasn’t a problem until it was… to my new boss.
So I picked the hottest girl out of the crowd, as though there was any chance she wasn’t already promised to some other alpha jerk.
Turns out she was a unicorn.
Single, willing to play along, and oh so dedicated to her role as my wife-to-be. In dinners with the boss and even more so in the executive suite.
It’s the most fun a guy can have at a work conference.
But what if I want to keep having fun?
What if she does too? It’s just a flight away. So easy. But making it easy means wondering just what things could be like if we kept faking it.
Guess I forgot to ask her.
1
Hazel
I’m a helpful person. I like helping people. That’s what I always say when I get asked to describe myself—it’s the thing I think of first.
In fact, it’s the whole reason I became a nurse, and probably why I’m so good at it. But I think it’s also why I’m struggling to put myself first now that I’m on vacation alone for the first time in…well, ever.
I’m baking on a sun lounger, gazing down at the magnificent turquoise blue of the pool between my toes and the majestic mountains of Northern California beyond it. I’ve got Lizzo blasting in my AirPods, the scents of sunscreen and strawberry daiquiri are thick in the air, and a light breeze tousles my blue-streaked hair. To the side is an elegant, modern hotel with first-class spa facilities, and between the hotel and the pool stands the bar. I only arrived yesterday, but I’ve already had a massage, a mudpack, and the nicest dinner I’ve eaten in a year.
A few days ago, I would have looked at myself right now and imagined it felt like heaven—but honestly, all I feel is useless.
Despite all the luxury, the highlight of my stay so far was helping a lost little girl find her parents upon arriving. I like being around other people too much to enjoy just sitting around on my own. I guess I’m learning a little more about myself at least.
My daiquiri glass has been drained down to the last few melted pink drops for fifteen minutes now. I shift on the lounger, body fatigued from wallowing in the sun, to look over toward the pool bar. It’s not that busy. An older couple drinking on stools there. I see a guy joylessly swimming laps in the pool as a morning workout. On the shallow end of the pool are a couple of parents tending to kids who alternate between crying and shrieking with joy every ten minutes. I guess the bartender just didn’t notice me.
That’s the other thing I could say with some certainty about myself—though I’d never really say it. I’m not the noticeable type. Sure, I dye my hair some outrageous colors sometimes, and I like to wear some out-there stuff (currently a dozen bangles on one arm and a sarong patterned like a psychedelic experience), but more because I can than because it makes a difference.
I’m not my friend Mia, with her upright posture and flaming red hair and intense focus, for whom wearing even a single piece of flamboyant jewelry would get the whole hospital talking. I’m not her best friend Maeve, with her smoldering eyes and platinum pixie cut and effortlessly sultry poses, who can draw people’s eyes with just a smirk. Nope—I’m just Hazel. Likeable, friendly, easygoing, always-smiling, girl-next-door Hazel. I could wear bananas for earrings and people would just find it amusingly cute.
Don’t get me wrong, I get flirted with all the time at the hospital, and guys will approach me if I’m out at a bar. But that’s true for any woman with a pulse and a public-facing job, and half of the attention is probably just because most guys feel like they can with me. Like I won’t immediately tell them to fuck off (and yeah, I don’t).
I’m not the kind of girl guys obsess over. The kind of girl they spend years chasing. Instead I’m the girl they enjoy being around, the one they feel they can talk to—especially about other women. The kind of girl they can walk all over, maybe.
My ex certainly thought so.
My glass is still empty, and I can’t help noticing that the slim blonde drinking with her feet in the pool just had a waiter bring her a fresh refill. Of course.
When my phone vibrates on the chair I grab it instantly, desperate for a distraction from my thoughts. It’s Mia. Pulling out my AirPods, I pick up.
“Hey, lady.”
“Hey!” Mia says with cheerful excitement. “I didn’t want to call so soon but I just had a minute to spare at the hospital and wanted to check in on you. How’s it going?”
“Yeah…it’s going great,” I reply. “I’m having a great time. It’s fantastic.”
The notion of telling Mia that this “vacation” is in danger of giving me a personality crisis doesn’t even occur to me. I couldn’t make her feel bad, considering she organized the whole trip for me as a gift for my birthday a month ago. At least, my birthday was the official justification—she’s one of the few people close enough to me to realize how hard I took my messy breakup with Theo a few months back.
“Awesome!” she says. “What have you done so far?”
“Oh I had a massage, a mudpack…I feel like I’m floating,” I say, as Mia laughs happily. “I’m just drinking by the pool now.” I glare at my empty glass.
“Daiquiri?” she guesses.
“Yup.”
“Ugh, I’m jealous.”
“Wait until you see my tan,” I reply.
Mia laughs again, then pauses to give some instructions to someone before coming back to the phone. The faint sound of the hospital’s hustle and bustle makes me feel almost homesick.
“How are things at the hospital?” I ask.
“Forget the hospital,” Mia says assertively. “You just concentrate on enjoying yourself.”
“I will…I am…”
“You know, I was actually a little worried that you’d get antsy on your own up there. That you’d just spend too much time thinking about work and stuff to enjoy yourself.”
“Pssh. No…not at all,” I say easily. It’s a lie, sure, but does it really count when it’s for someone else’s benefit?
When Mia speaks again there’s a slightly mischievous tone in her voice. “Have you…‘chatted’ with anyone there? Met any nice people?”
“Well, I met the sweetest little girl in the lobby when I arrived. Poor thing had gotten turned around at the registration desk so I helped her out. Her parents are lovely too—we all had coffee together this morning.”
“Very nice,” Mia says. I can hear the smile in her voice, but I can also hear that she feels like I’m evading her real question.
“You want to know if I’ve met any guys, don’t you?” I reply, deadpan.
Mia laughs and it’s answer enough. “I just wondered…”
“I thought you booked me this trip to relieve stress, not introduce a new one,” I laugh back. “I dunno. I think there’s some business…conference…thingy going on here. So yeah, there are a few good-looking guys around, but I’m not in a rush to have anything disrupt my spa sessions.”
“Of course, of course. I’m just making sure you make the most of it.”
“I am, don’t worry.”
“Anyway, I’d better go.”
“Give my love to Colin and Alison.”
“I will,” Mia says, already with work-focused urgency in her voice. “Take some pictures!” she calls out before hanging up. “I want to see what I’m missing out on!”
“Okay,” I agree, and then we hang up.
I lift my phone, give my best smile and a peace sign to take a selfie, then send it to her, before turning to my empty drink once again. Time to take matters into my own hands, I suppose.
There are a few guys at the bar now, and the bartender’s busy tending to them. Meanwhile the waiter is busy wiping the counter on the near side, casually chatting with the attractive blonde girl who was dipping her toes earlier. It’s obvious I’ll never get another drink in my hand if I just sit here and wait, so I step up off the lounger and carry my empty glass to the circular bar.
“Could I have another daiquiri, please?” I say, sounding—and feeling—guilty for interrupting the waiter’s conversation with the girl.
“Huh?” the waiter says, looking at me like I just materialized out of thin air. Then he smiles guiltily at himself. “Of course. Sorry.”
He takes my empty glass and starts mixing me a fresh one. I settle on a barstool and wait. Even though they’re on the far side of the bar where I can’t see them, behind the central pillar where all the drinks are stored, I can hear the other guys at the bar.
“…end of the day, everything is a risk,” says the voice of an older, confident man. The kind of voice used to being asked for advice. “Property, equities, commodities… Heck, doing nothing is a risk. I knew a top guy back in New York who was so shaken by the crash he sat on his hands for ten years. Missed out completely on the bull run, and by the time he was ready to get back to work, everybody had forgotten his name.
“Last I heard he was doing paperwork for some rinky-dink firm down in Jersey—thanks, buddy.” I hear the sound of ice in whiskey glasses and then the clink of glasses. “Bah, I keep talking to you like you’re my biographer.”
“No, I like to hear it,” says another voice—just as deep and strong, but younger. The wisdom replaced by a kind of urgency or restlessness. “I wouldn’t be applying for the job if I didn’t think I could learn something.”
The older man laughs. “‘Always get as much as you give’—that’s the way,” he says. “No, forget all my nonsense. I’m just an old man trying to convince himself he learned something in all that time. Truth is, the only thing you need to know, the one thing, was told to me by my father. The whole thing—building Montague and Brown from nothing into what it is today…I owe it to this one piece of advice. If you could drill this into the mind of every kid in the country they’d grow up rich and happy. My Meredith keeps bugging me to write that book but I always tell her it would only need to be a page long, ‘cause I’d only put this in it.”
The waiter places my drink in front of me but I don’t take it away just yet, curious to hear what the old man is going to say. I sip as I listen intently, pretending to be interested in the drink.
“What is it?” asks the younger man.
After a pause, the older replies, “Treat everything like it’s your only chance.”
There’s a burst of laughter. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. But it’s harder than you think. People lose money on stocks because they know they can sell whenever they want. Cut losses, move into something else, rotate into another asset. But you tell someone they’ll only get to make one trade in their entire life, and I guarantee you it’ll be the best trade they can possibly make. And that most of them will end up rich off of it. It worked for me.”
The younger man chuckles again, more easily now, and there’s something smooth and cool about it. It makes me desperate to get a look at him.
“I can see that,” he says.
“I’m hoping you do. Some people understand it instinctively. Me? My father had to remind me of it every day—but the result’s the same. I’ve got a hell of an investment firm and fifty years of marriage to show for it.”
“Cheers to that.”
“Speaking of which…it’s been two days and I still haven’t met the lucky lady. Everything all right?”
“Uh, yeah,” the younger man says, a little hesitantly. “She’s just completely obsessed with the spa here. Treating it like her ‘last chance,’ I guess.”
The younger man laughs but I can hear it’s forced. Still, the older man joins in.
“Well I’m pretty comfortable here,” the older man says. “Why don’t you go find her and bring her down? I’d really like to meet her.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll…gimme a few minutes and I’ll be right back.”
“And I’ll be right here—how about another, my good friend?” the older man says, and I hear the slam of his glass on the bar.
Figuring the show’s over, I grab my drink and step off the stool, but then I stop dead in my tracks as I catch a glimpse of the younger man rounding the other end of the bar.
A loose linen shirt unbuttoned at the top, rolled up at the sleeves. Cream linen pants over brown loafers. He looks like he should be exploring exotic tombs—not least because of his movie-star chin and old-world good looks. A dark tan outlines muscles in his neck and arms that are as deep as carvings. His loose clothing only accentuates his powerful swagger. The only thing less than perfect is a slight pensiveness in his thick eyebrows and square eyes as he steps away from his place at the bar.
He’s so hot that I stay frozen and gaze at him for a second longer than I intended, then have to force myself to look away, immediately noticing that the attractive blonde girl feels no such impulse. She’s almost licking her smiling lips as she watches him.
Snapping myself out of it, I take three strides back toward my sun lounger when my path is suddenly blocked. The view of my spot of solitude replaced by a broad chest covered in a familiar linen shirt.
Pulse quickening, I look up to see the bar guy gazing back at me—his pensive look even more pronounced. His classic handsomeness even more knee-weakening up close.
His dark eyes are so intense, it
almost feels as if he’s judging me, evaluating me, pinning me with his striking magnetism as he stares right down to my soul.
“You any good at acting?” he asks firmly.
“Acting?” I repeat, letting out a laugh as I adjust to the randomness of the question, of this entire moment. “Um…well I live in L.A., so maybe something’s rubbed off on me. Some people say everyone there is an actor of some kind, but I don’t really—”
“I need you to pretend to be my fiancée for the next ten minutes,” he says, his interruption sounding more urgent than rude.
“Sure. No problem,” I say instantly, then laugh at the absurdity of the idea.
His face isn’t the emotive kind—more the “still waters run deep” kind—so I take the fact that my answer causes a mild frown of surprise as a victory.
“Did you hear what I just said?” he asks.
“Yes. Did you?” I say playfully.
He smiles now, a confused one, and it looks incredibly cute. “It’s just…you answered kind of quickly.”
I shrug. “Honestly? I can’t resist a cry for help. No matter how crazy. It’s sort of my ‘thing.’ True story.”
His confusion fades a little, leaving just the smile now. His eyes still pinned on me, but now looking like they’ve found something rather than that they’re searching for it.
“So the thing is—” he begins, but stops himself, distracted by something behind me.
I turn around and see who is presumably the older gentleman. He’s shifted along the bar a little to where he can see us and is now looking over with a curious smile.
