A Model Fiancé

by Kaye, Nikky

  My toes flexed inside my heels. “I don’t have much choice.”

  The clock was ticking. The way the crowd was pressing in on us, we would have to tackle people to get through—even before sprinting to the chapel.

  “Was it a yes or a no?” someone called out.

  “I think she said no,” another voice piped up. “Poor guy.”

  “Just ignore them,” the ‘poor guy’ said to me under his breath.

  That was easier said than done, especially when a bottle blonde had the audacity to grab his forearm.

  “If she’s not interested, I’m available.”

  Anger and disgust rose in me. Was this what it was like for him all the time? How did he stay friendly and polite in encounters like this?

  Answer: apparently he didn’t.

  It was fascinating to watch the smile on his face change from the easy one he gave me, to the tight-lipped one he pointed at the woman who didn’t understand the concept of personal space.

  I, on the other hand, was not smiling. I was ready to karate chop her wrist to get her off. Without even thinking about it, I wedged myself between them, breaking the grip she had on Dev’s arm. And stared her down.

  Back off, you middle-aged whore!

  “Oh wow. That’s a tempting offer,” Dev said over my head as I snuggled into his side. His arm automatically went around me, keeping me there. “But I’m not available.”

  I stiffened. Did he have a girlfriend? Oh god, I hadn’t even asked him that before I propositioned him. How mortifying! The thought made me queasy, and for a moment I considered the possibility that every man was a dick like my ex.

  But I’d known Dev a long time. Strangely enough, I trusted him more than the man I’d lived with for nearly a year.

  No. No, he wouldn’t have agreed to a fling if he were in a relationship with someone else. He just wasn’t that kind of guy.

  “But did she say yes?”

  My eyes narrowed. Give up, bitch. You don’t have a chance. He’s mine and I’m not gonna—whaaaa? Before I could even process the possessive tone of my internal dialogue, I opened my mouth.

  “Yes!”

  Dev’s chin jerked down as he stared at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, I kept my eyes on the hussy in front of me. All the women in front of me.

  “He is officially off the market. Now and forever. As long as we both shall live. I am the happiest woman in the world.”

  I sounded like a robot. Carefully, I dug my heel into Dev’s foot and announced, “There will be a wedding.”

  We are really fucking late.

  Thankfully, he got the hint. I stepped away from his side, feeling strangely cold in the desert sun without his body next to mine.

  The crowd around us began to disperse, but I saw thumbs flying over phones and knew that our “engagement” had a better than even chance of going viral. I’d have to think about that later. Right now…

  Dev looked down at his watch and swore. My eyes closed at the painful prospect of running in my heel—

  “Eeep!”

  Dev swung me up into his arms, bridal-style, eliciting a muted “awww!” from a few straggling tourists.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered. And why did it have to feel so good?

  He looked down at me, his gaze opaque. “You can’t run in those shoes.”

  “Are you kidding? You can’t run with me in your arms!”

  “I’m just sweeping you off your feet. God knows I’m getting enough practice with those damn shoes.”

  “We’re ‘engaged,’ not married.” My heart was pounding so hard I wondered if he could feel it resonate as he held me.

  “Watch the air quotes, Audrey. You can’t dump me in public now.”

  There was a smirk on his perfect lips that made me think he wasn’t as concerned about this mix-up as I was. Wait—was I worried? This was actually kind of hilarious if you stopped to think about it.

  Dev hefted me in his arms, adjusting his grip. My hands went around his neck.

  “Please don’t choke me.”

  “Sorry.” My face burned as I moved my hands down to his shoulders. “You can put me down, you know.”

  When our eyes met, my breath caught in my throat at the intensity behind his gaze.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not ready to let go yet.”

  Then Dev strode through the garden toward the hotel.

  People parted for us, showering us with indulgent smiles and raised camera phones. The hem of my dress slid up my thighs to an indecent level—even for Las Vegas—and the warmth of his muscular arms radiated through his suit to the bare skin behind my knees.

  My body tingled with awareness. If this was what it felt like through clothing, what would skin-to-skin contact with Dev be like? Bobbing in his embrace, I was hypnotized by the line of his jaw and the taut muscles in his neck.

  This was, without a doubt, the most romantic thing I’d ever experienced.

  Not that I had a lot to compare it to.

  But my ex-fiancé never got down on one knee to propose, and certainly never carried me anywhere—not even when I had to go to the hospital. A wave of memories rushed over me that even Dev’s grip couldn’t erase. A choking sound came out of me as I clung harder to his broad shoulders.

  “Don’t worry,” he panted, misunderstanding my sudden anxiety. “I’m gonna put you down once we get inside. Then you can take off your shoes and run barefoot through the hotel.”

  The lump in my throat grew.

  I wasn’t ready to let go yet, either.

  * * *

  I told myself that I wouldn’t cry at my big brother’s wedding.

  And I didn’t.

  Something in me that went numb at the sight of Brett and Shannon exchanging vows. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for them. I just wasn’t feeling it. No fishing in my purse for a tissue, no sniffling or glassy eyes.

  I just… watched. Witnessed. Wondered.

  Was I too bitter over my own engagement? Was I jealous? I didn’t want to be that person.

  When Dev handed over the rings, our gazes locked. His lips curved in a conspiratorial smile. The last hour was our own in-joke, the kind of story we’d tell our—whoa. Hang on.

  One wedding at a time.

  My hand went to my mouth to hold in a giggle. Whatever was frozen in me began to thaw. Let it go, I sang to myself in my head as I finally relaxed. I almost expected to see icicles dripping from my fingertips.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the officiant said.

  At least my brother had decided against the Elvis impersonator. This man was so forgettable that he could barely impersonate a piece of toast.

  I could only watch them kiss for a millisecond. I mean, gross—that’s my brother. But I also just… couldn’t. When I looked away, it made perfect sense that my gaze would find Dev’s again. With so few guests, it was hard to avoid making eye contact with people. But Dev seemed to zero in on me like a laser.

  Until he didn’t.

  Frowning down at his phone, he slipped out of the room when Brett and Shannon were signing the marriage certificate.

  The room felt bigger with Dev gone. People were taking pictures, huddling over phone video of the ceremony, and just chatting. I didn’t get it. What more was there to say that hadn’t been said the previous night at dinner?

  “I don’t know why Shannon wanted it so small,” her mother remarked as I stared at the door.

  No kidding. It almost felt like a schoolyard pantomime, pretending to marry your best friend at recess and using dandelions as a bouquet.

  “But of course, without your parents here…” She patted my hand, sympathizing with our orphan status. Like my brother and new sister-in-law planned their wedding this way to avoid an empty side of the church? I put my hands behind my back.

  “Aren’t you getting married soon? When’s the big date?”

  Be polite. Be polite.

  “I… uh…” When I look
ed down, I realized I hadn’t put my shoes back on. The skin on top of my toes was red and rubbed raw.

  Brett rescued me, pulling me away before I had to come up with a response.

  “You okay, kiddo?”

  Smile time. “Yep. Congratulations. She’s a lu—no, wait,” I joked. “You’re the lucky one.”

  “Oh, I know. Why do you think we did this here? I brought Lady Luck with me!”

  Dev came up behind me, his presence making a spot between my shoulder blades tingle. He and my brother did the whole one-handed shake and back slap thing that guys do, before Brett drifted on his fluffy white cloud of happiness to the next person.

  “Poor bastard,” Dev said under his breath.

  I laughed.

  “Here.” He thrust a package into my hand. “I got them downstairs.” The foldable flats were plain and black, like satin ballet slippers.

  “Wow. Thanks.” I was grateful and a little annoyed at the thoughtful gesture—because I hadn’t been thinking about him enough already?

  He held out his arm for me to hang on to while I put the shoes on.

  “Would you want to get married like this?” I asked him.

  “You mean in Vegas?”

  “No. Small. Intimate.” In a bespoke black suit, looking devastating.

  His head tilted in thought. “I guess I never considered it much. Have you ever been to an Indian wedding?”

  “No.” The shoes on, I stood up straight beside him. The fabric still rubbed at my blisters, but I’d survive.

  “Let’s just say that they’re rarely small and intimate.” He grinned down at me. Without my heels, I barely came up to his shoulders. “Speaking of intimate…”

  It wasn’t until my back hit the wall that I realized that we’d been standing on the sidelines, watching everyone. Dev loomed over me, blocking my view of the room.

  He braced himself against the wall, his hands planted on each side of my head as he bent toward me. “You and I have an ‘amazing’ conversation to finish.”

  My heart sped up. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I changed my mind. I don’t want to have a fling.”

  My heart stopped. “Oh?” I said weakly. “But I thought you weren’t interested…”

  His gaze was hungry, questioning, uncertain, and arrogant all at the same time. “Audrey, this is really hard for me.” He looked over his shoulder as though he was afraid of being overheard.

  Oh god, the ‘let’s be friends’ speech. I stood there, paralyzed in the cage of his arms, burning with humiliation. My eyes closed so I wouldn’t have to see his pity.

  “It’s okay, Dev. Just forget it.”

  “I have a counterproposal.”

  It was a good thing that the wall held me up—especially when he brushed my hair back with the back of his hand and lowered his head to my ear.

  Shivers, I tell you.

  “Actually, Audrey, it’s more like just a proposal.”

  7

  Dev

  I’ve had to ignore problems in my pants before. Hell, what red-blooded male hasn’t? But this was getting beyond uncomfortable.

  If my phone blew up any more, my thigh would go numb from all the vibration. Once the ceremony was over, I stealthily slid my phone out of my pocket to check the bazillion notifications.

  Just kidding. There were only 864. No, make that 867. 874. They were coming in batches.

  I blinked at it in disbelief. What the hell was happening?

  I was prepared to ignore them. Shit, who has time to read all those, much less engage? As my thumb hovered over the screen, however, a call from my agent set it to buzzing in my hand. It was the twenty-sixth missed call in the last hour.

  With a lingering look at Audrey in her pink dress and bright eyes, I went out into the hallway to take the call. I didn’t even get the chance to say “hello” before Steve began yelling at me.

  “You know it’s called a smartphone, not a dumbass-phone!”

  “I—what?” What the hell was he talking about?

  “You don’t need to have a degree from Harvard to answer the fucking thing! Even an idiot can swipe right.” It was hard to tell if he was angry or excited. With Steve it was often the same tone. “Oh, wait,” he added with a healthy dose of sarcasm, “you already did swipe right, when you got fucking engaged today!”

  Oh. That. “Shit, did I get tagged in that already?”

  “Tagged? Tagged?”

  I held the phone away from my face as my agent’s voice rose. It had only been, what, two hours? Three? So he got a notification from some weirdo on social media who’d been there. Not like it hadn’t happened before.

  “It’s gone viral, Dev!”

  I put the phone back to my ear. “Viral?”

  “Like the Spanish fucking Flu!”

  “What?” I put him on speaker then flipped through my social media apps as I walked out into the conference center area. While Steve was babbling—mostly with profanities—about the path that my notoriety had taken today, I tried to get my bearings.

  The thing with social media is that it can alter the world in an instant while everything slows down at the same time. This was a perfect example. I was smack dab in the middle of an action movie with a bullet headed straight toward me in slow motion.

  #DEVelopingnews?

  Through Twitter, I found a YouTube video of what looked like me proposing to Audrey. Bookmarking that to watch later…

  At least there was no way that—

  “What the fuck, Steve?” I yelled. “You posted to Instagram for me?” I knew I should never have given him my log-ins and passwords.

  365,229 hearts and half as many comments hung below a picture of me on bended knee before Audrey. What might have looked like a filter was probably just the result of a shitty screen capture from someone else’s social media.

  “I had to get out in front of this,” my agent defended. “That’s my job, remember?”

  “This doesn’t need damage control, for god’s sakes!” I scowled at the idea that asking Audrey to marry me was some kind of global crisis.

  “No, Dev, you don’t understand! Hessa called me half an hour ago with a legit offer.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “You’re the new face of the company. I guess all this traditional, romantic shit was what they needed to seal the deal.” His voice was definitely now excited rather than angry. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were seeing somebody this seriously?”

  Holy fuck. “Oh. That.”

  Suddenly the phone slipped in my hand, my palm sweating. I swallowed and went to open my shirt before discovering the top two buttons were already undone.

  Why wasn’t there anywhere to sit down in this whole conference area? Meeting rooms for thousands of people, but there was not a single chair in the breezeway. Somehow my legs took me to over to a wall which I leaned up against. The patterns on the ocean of carpet before me shimmered like a desert mirage.

  Steve was still talking, but I didn’t catch any of it until “—million dollars.”

  “What? How much?”

  “Five million dollars.”

  The pattern on the carpet got a lot closer. “Five…”

  “That’s over three years, exclusive,” Steve added. “They wanted a million per year, but I got them to bump you up after the first year. No back end though.”

  I shook my head.

  “You there, man?”

  I nodded.

  “Dev!”

  “Yeah.” My mind raced. “Just because I’m getting married?” Hypothetically …

  “Definitely because you’re getting married. Married, fuck!” He cackled. “You’re a dark horse. I had no idea.”

  “Neither did I,” I muttered.

  Steve’s voice faded away, and I heard some clicking and rustling. Either he was looking for something or I was about to pass out.

  “Wait, here. Got it,” he said. “There were a few other things.”

  As he read them o
ff, I thought my head would explode.

  * * *

  It took another minute of sitting on the floor before I could make it to my feet, and a quick dip into the casino and a glass of scotch before I made it back to the little chapel. On my way past one of the stores, I saw a pair of slipper things in the window, and quickly put one on my room account. Audrey’s feet would thank me.

  Maybe other parts of her would thank me, too.

  Audrey. Audrey. Audrey.

  Her name filled my head like a drumbeat with every step I took back to the wedding. Her presence filled my vision when I came through the door, and her scent filled my nose as she clung to me to put the shoes on.

  The look on her face when I told her I didn’t want to have a fling with her just about broke my heart even though it did boost my morale. But how would I ask her this? This… was a lot to ask of anyone—especially someone you weren’t even in a relationship with.

  On the other hand, maybe that would make it easier. Fewer expectations, right? No starry-eyed dreams or manipulative plays like fake pregnancies. Audrey was cool. She was the kind of girl who might go along with this for fun even if I didn’t also have some additional incentive to offer her.

  And I didn’t just mean my handsome face and fuck-hot body—both of which I fully confess to using as weapons as I backed her against the wall. A quick glance over my shoulder reminded me we weren’t invisible.

  “I have a counterproposal,” I told her, my pulse jumping at the way her minky eyelashes swept over her cheeks when she closed her eyes. Was she listening? I leaned in further. “Actually, Audrey, it’s more like just a proposal.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she leveled me with a look that made me brace myself harder against the wall behind her. The flocked wallpaper rubbed against my fingertips as my hands moved closer to her head.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured.

  I looked over my shoulder again, this time catching a quizzical frown from Brett. Shit. This wasn’t the time or the place for this conversation.

  “What’s the plan right now?” I asked her.

  “For us?”

  I touched her cheek. “No, for this wedding stuff.”