Grace's Fake Groom

by Francesca Lane

  She bit back a smile at the memory. Jake would often sneak in cardboard boxes of burgers and fries from In ’n’ Out for her and her sisters after their parents had gone to bed. Too bad she and her siblings had not hung onto their camaraderie once they became adults.

  “You seem lost in thought,” Chase said, breaking her concentration. “What’s on your mind?”

  She swallowed a bite of food and shrugged. “Thinking about my family, my siblings … parents.”

  He paused, as if weighing her words, then spoke quietly enough that only the two of them could hear. “Where are they all now?”

  “Well, let’s see. My brother Jake is an architect in So Cal—though I hardly ever seen him, Maggie’s a hairdresser in Arizona, Bella’s a librarian in Washington, and Lacy works in sales at a hotel in Vegas.”

  “Wow, really. What led you to Los Angeles?”

  She paused, thinking. “We lived all over the place but spent a lot of summers just a couple hours up the coast from here. Never really wanted to go too far away like the others did.”

  “And your parents?”

  Grace swallowed before answering. “They died last year. Car accident.”

  Her hand was resting on the table next to her plate, and, reflexively, his hand covered hers, those brows of his knitting together, questioning.

  She shrugged it off. “It’s okay. Sad, but okay. We are all doing … fine.” That was as close to the truth that Grace was willing to go.

  He squeezed her hand tighter. “I’m sorry.”

  Their eyes caught as she offered him a shy smile in gratitude, his hand lingering on hers, until a commotion next to her drew them away.

  A gasp.

  The distinct clamor of silver against china.

  A groan.

  Chase lunged from his seat and Grace swiveled around.

  “Dad!”

  Timothy had slumped in his chair, and by the look of things, he would have fallen to the floor if Amelia hadn’t caught him.

  Grace watched as Chase took over, gently lowering his father to the floor.

  Amelia called out to Grace, “Help me up!” She looked like a melted marshmallow, her layered dress splayed around her on the floor. Grace leapt from her chair and offered her hand to the woman, who then struggled to stand.

  A dark-haired woman in a chiffon gown hurried over and knelt on the floor next to Chase. “I’m a doctor. Let me help.”

  Grace pulled her phone from her handbag. Amelia wheezed beside her. “Won’t help here, dear. We’re out to sea, remember?”

  A small yelp escaped from Grace. She held a closed fist to her mouth as the doctor assessed Timothy. Thankfully, she could see the rise and fall of his chest and that his eyes were open.

  Another doctor appeared, a man in a pinstripe suit. He joined the others on the floor and held Timothy’s head as he struggled to get words out. He seemed agitated and Grace didn’t know whether to look away or stay close in case more help was needed. Not that she had a clue of how she could assist in such a serious situation.

  Chase leaned in toward his father. “What, Dad? What is it?” He pulled back and hesitated. Then he turned and looked up at Grace. “My father would like to speak to you.”

  Fear caught in her throat. “Me?” She attempted to wick away the perspiration forming on her hands by wiping them on a napkin.

  Chase’s eyes bored into hers. “Please.”

  Quickly, Grace knelt down on the floor, vaguely aware of the crowd making a ring around the group of people cobbled together to help the ailing honoree.

  The male doctor instructed her to slip her hand behind Timothy’s neck. “Like this,” he said. She did as she was told, achingly aware of the lack of color in the old man’s face.

  “I’m worried about you,” she said, peering into his eyes.

  “You are a good woman.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “What is it you’d like to say to me, Dad?”

  “I’m dying.”

  “Oh no, no. You aren’t dying. I think you need some rest—it’s been a big weekend for you.”

  He reached a hand to her face and touched her cheek. “Marry my son before I die.”

  “I—”

  His eyes, flooded with unshed tears, implored her. “Promise me.”

  “Yes, of course.” She nodded, trying to keep herself from shaking uncontrollably. Suddenly everything about this business arrangement felt wrong. Stupid. Shameful.

  A man appeared with a wheelchair. The female doctor in the gorgeous gown leaned in. “Miss, if you’ll step back now, I would like to bring Timothy to the ship’s medical center for observation.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Chase and the doctors helped Timothy into the chair. “It’s all right, Dad. You’re going to be fine,” Chase was saying.

  Timothy raised his hand and Grace grasped it. “Tomorrow,” he said.

  She leaned her head closer to his mouth so she could hear him better. “Tomorrow?”

  Timothy nodded weakly. “You shall marry my son tomorrow. On board.”

  Grace watched the entourage wheel the guest of honor away, all the while wondering what in the world had she had just agreed to.

  “Dearly beloved …”

  A man couldn’t look like Chase—angular jaw, unyielding dark eyes, delicate crow’s feet that contradicted his serious persona—and not garner attention. If she were to stare too long, she herself could become caught up in his movie star looks.

  Judge Cape cleared his throat. He stared at her, his brows oddly close to hitting his hairline. “Are you ready to repeat after me now?” he asked.

  She startled. “I’m sorry?”

  He nodded. “Repeat after me …”

  Her parents were devout people. They loved God and family and tradition, even if they had always been strangely untraditional in many ways. How many times had they moved and rented out their house, for instance? And what was with her dad’s obsession with lone backpacking? He’d be gone for weeks, and when asked when Dad would return, her mom would only shrug. And whistle. She whistled a lot while puttering around their home—be it an apartment in the city, a cabin in a wooded area of the foothills, or the beach house that they frequented during school breaks.

  Oh! If they were to see her now, standing before a judge on this cruise, marrying a man she hardly knew, well, she couldn’t imagine. At least it wasn’t a captain marrying them. What a cliché that would have been!

  “Did you understand the question?”

  The judge had said something. What was it? Chase was watching her, his eyes smaller than she remembered. Or maybe he was being blinded by the sun.

  Grace could have said no, but last night, when Chase had told her the depth of Kate’s deception ….

  “My father was grieved by my reputation—or my perceived reputation,” Chase had said. “He blamed himself. He wanted to teach me a lesson … by not allowing me a partnership in the firm—until I found a wife. He actually put it in his will!”

  He continued, “Kate had agreed to play my fiancée. She suggested we begin building a clientele all our own, and like a fool, I agreed. Now, most of those clients are gone. Not only that, she’s been courting my father’s clients as well. I only wish I knew why they seem to be choosing her over me …”

  Anger welled within her. “Why can’t your father just change his will?”

  The weight of grief marred Chase’s features, his eyelids heavy, his gaze imploring. And suddenly she knew. The pit of her stomach filled with a weight all its own.

  She touched the crook of his arm. “Why didn’t I see it before? Your father is showing signs of dementia.”

  Chase blinked rapidly. He’d seemed so stern, so enigmatic when she’d first met him, but he was flesh and blood—in a fine suit.

  “I’d hoped …” His voice trailed off, but he didn’t have to say a thing.

  “You’d hoped that the party would prove that he was okay,” she said, “that he had the presence of mi
nd to correct his will before it was too late.”

  He nodded.

  She pulled her hand from his arm and ran it through her disheveled updo, additional strands of pinned hair falling to her shoulders. Grace sighed. “Only now those signs of his illness have been made clear to everyone on board.”

  Chase pressed his lips together, his eyes desolate. He reached out for her. “I promise I’ll get you out of this. Until then …”

  “Until then, we had a deal.”

  His gaze hardened slightly. “That’s not what I meant.”

  She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes with her own. “But you were going to ask me if I would go through with the wedding, weren’t you?”

  His eyes bored into hers. “Yes.”

  “Grace?”

  Now as they stood in front of the judge with cruise ship guests all around them, Grace looked into Chase’s eyes again. His father’s eyes. Timothy sat in a wheelchair just to the right of his son, his skin sallow, waiting for her to answer the judge’s question.

  Her own father had begun to look that way after many months of caring for her mother who had not been well. None of her siblings had any idea how long their mother had been in that state—nor the toll it had been taking on their father. She regretted that.

  Judge Cape asked her another question, and before she knew it, she said, “I do.”

  Quickly, Chase followed suit.

  And then the cameras began to flash.

  Four

  She had been ignoring her phone for days. When the ringing stopped, the pinging of incoming texts began.

  The first text she received was from her sister, Maggie. “You’re married?! What in the world …!”

  The next was from her sister, Lacy. “I figured you’d be the first one. Thanks for the invite.”

  Then one from her sister, Bella. “Married on a cruise. Sigh. How romantic! When do we meet him?”

  The last one scared her the most. It was from her brother, Jake. She hadn’t heard from him in months—none of her other siblings had either. At least she now knew he wasn’t dead. “He’d better be worthy of you.”

  A knock on the door of Grace’s apartment startled her, though she had been expecting him. She opened it to find Chase standing on the other side. He pressed his lips together, a lift to his brows.

  She rolled her eyes and turned her back toward him. Two suitcases and an insulated bag of groceries sat neatly on the floor next to her coffee table.

  Chase rustled behind her, his voice cutting through the tension. “Ready to go?”

  She peeked over her shoulder. He hovered at the threshold of her apartment, his sandy hair closely-cropped, the tan skin of his neck framed by the open collar of his deep-black dress shirt. He watched Grace with an understated smile, his laugh lines belying an emotion contrary to the dread she felt.

  Then again, he wasn’t about to take her to his family’s beach home for a month where he’d likely face demons from his past and have to explain her presence to his family.

  Stupid reporter.

  In the days since Grace had married Chase Ryan in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, she’d had to hide behind dark sunglasses and a nondescript baseball cap more than once. She’d been too caught up in the moment to remember the photographer and reporter who had been on board to cover Tim’s birthday.

  Turned out that, in addition to the grand birthday ball, he’d scored a couple of bonus stories, namely, Tim collapsing at his own party and the wedding of his playboy son.

  The calls and texts she received the following day after they had disembarked told her all she needed to know: Her secret marriage was not so secret anymore. A front-page mention in the newspaper took care of that. Everyone aware of Chase Ryan suddenly also knew her. The news had reached her family too, as far and wide as they had flung themselves.

  She nodded at Chase, and he approached her bags. He gestured toward them. “Is this it?”

  A whine split the silence, the same funny sound the puppy had made when she’d hid him in her bag at the office on the first morning that she and Chase met.

  That same infuriating eyebrow of Chase’s darted upward and he quirked his head at her.

  Grace blew out a breath. She’d put up messages on Facebook and Nextdoor and had called the animal shelter, but no one had claimed the puppy who she had affectionately named Zeke. Technically, she wasn’t allowed to have an animal in her apartment, but what was she supposed to do? Put the poor little guy out? Nothing against animal shelters, but she couldn’t bear it.

  As it turned out, the little guy had become more of a savior to her than she was to him. She felt sure of that.

  Chase touched her arm and she tried not to flinch. He nodded toward her bedroom door. “May I?”

  She waved her hand in a way that said “whatever” and watched him enter her sanctuary. Soon, he’d be stepping into the childhood second home, the one that her family had run away to whenever life in the city became too much to handle, the rambling home on a slight rise above the sea that she and her siblings refused to lose. Not if she could help it.

  She had a love-hate relationship with that house, which might seem rather unbelievable considering its location. Realtors had called her parents for years with buyers ready to snap it up, problems and all. One Realtor in particular—someone named Lillian—was a particular nuisance. But her parents would never even consider any offers.

  When they’d died suddenly, she figured that the beach house, along with her parents’ other worldly possessions, would have been left to their children. Imagine their surprise when they learned that their parents, after giving most of their money away to charity, had nothing but the paid-in-full beach house left.

  And that if she and her siblings failed to follow some specific rules, the house would be given away too.

  Chase reappeared with the pup in his arms, its soft black fur dusting his skin. She pushed off her thoughts about the house and tried to focus on the moment in front of her.

  Chase winked at her. “Guess our family’s growing quickly,” he said.

  He was trying. She knew it. But the bottom line remained the same: Grace had married Chase, a man she barely knew. Married him. Grace glanced at Chase standing there looking all hot and adorable with Zeke simpering in his arms. He could be on a calendar or something. He’d been born with a playboy’s face and grew into a man with a body to match. Who was she to think that he’d ever change? Or want to?

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She steeled herself. Another thing she knew? She would never, ever fall in love with Chase Ryan. Ever!

  “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  They took off for the coast minutes after piling her luggage and Zeke’s crate into Chase’s Range Rover. Grace glanced out the window at the changing scenery, noting that nothing at all looked the same anymore.

  Chase had been driving for more than an hour without so much as five words from his passenger. And the words she did say were limited to one- and two-word answers.

  “Would you like to stop for coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Any particular choice of music you’d like for the ride?”

  “Not really.”

  In some ways, this would have been easier if she were his employee instead of his … wife. He would be able to fire her for insubordination, for example. Or for all-around surliness.

  She gasped a little, catching his attention. But when Chase turned to her, she kept her eyes on her iPad screen. In fact, she’d been staring at that blasted screen for most of the ride, except for the couple of times she turned to coo at Zeke.

  “Big project you’re working on there,” he said.

  “Hm.”

  “It’s a long drive. Anything you want to bounce off me?”

  She turned, her face heart-shaped, her soft-brown eyes taking him in. In a word, lovely. Even so, would he have noticed her had their paths not passed in such an extraordinary way? He dared to wonder.
>
  She wrinkled her expressive brows at him, asking, “Do you need directions?”

  He frowned. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  She stared at him for another beat, nodded, then went back to her work. Or whatever it was on that screen in front of her that had kept her occupied for most of the ride. For all he knew, she was creating a recipe list for their month at the beach house.

  Sexist pig.

  Even he winced at his thoughts and the likely rebuke he’d have received should he have voiced them aloud.

  Chase fumbled with his phone, found the music app that connected to his stereo, and clicked it once. Ed Sheeran was singing a ballad. Big surprise. He reached out to turn off the stereo, but Grace’s hand stopped him.

  “I like that,” she said.

  Their gazes collided and he was silenced, the vague sound of wheels on the road rushing past in his ears. She dropped her touch from his wrist, the moment gone, and he put both hands back on the steering wheel in the ten and two. Or should it be nine and three? Or eight and four?

  He scowled. Since when had he wasted time contemplating trivial matters? Chase slid another glance at Grace’s iPad. She appeared to be working over a spreadsheet, like she had an eye affixed to the bottom line.

  Just like Kate.

  And his mother.

  And when the numbers did not line up the way they wanted? Poof. Gone.

  Chase swallowed, a trickle of heat climbing up his neck, darkening his thoughts to match the coming night. Grace had seemed all too ready to propose a deal when she had learned about his predicament. A financial proposal. Isn’t that what all the women in his life ever wanted?

  A phone call he’d taken from Kate two days ago ate at his insides.

  “You married her?” she had said instead of hello, her voice more shrill than usual. She was the queen of drama—a pastime of sorts for her— but he had always been on the same side of her derision.

  Not so now.