Second Chance Husband: A Fake Bride Romance Page 3

  “I was getting a damn good shot,” Eric grates. “If you were smart, you would’ve understood that and moved to your left.”

  “You want me to move?” Calvin cackles. “You’re the one getting into my frame, and I should move?”

  “Enough,” I say to them, but they ignore me.

  “Don’t be an asshole, you skinny prick,” Eric says, glaring at the taller man.

  “Just admit you were wrong, pudgy.” Calvin glares right back.

  “Enough.” Jace suddenly stands up. “Why are you two bickering like little fucking babies?”

  Both cameramen look at Jace and fall silent. Jace sighs and shakes his head, disappointment clear in his expression.

  “Get it together, you two,” he says. “Don’t make Piper’s life any harder than it has to be.”

  I clench my jaw, annoyed that Jace had to speak up to get them to stop. “Stop rolling,” I say. “I think we’re finished for the day.”

  The camera guys glare at each other, but they don’t go back into it. They go their separate ways, breaking down the set for the day as Grant casually strolls between them, helping quietly.

  I sit down at a card table, shaking my head. Jace leans up next to me, crossing his arms. “I’ll talk to them,” he says softly.

  “Please don’t.” I look up at him, setting my expression. “They’re my problem.”

  “Our problem,” he corrects. “This is my show as much as it is yours.”

  “Maybe, but I’m the producer. You’re talent.”

  “I have many talents, remember.” That charming smile slowly comes back. “Speaking of which, we still need to spend some time together.”

  “I don’t think so.” I cross my arms.

  “I faxed over a copy of the signed license this morning,” he says casually. “By now I’m sure it’s filed and all official.”

  “Good for you. Doesn’t mean it’s real.”

  “Sure, maybe not to you, but it’s very real according to the State of Nevada.” He grins at me and stands, stretching a little bit. “Anyway, you’re my wife, like it or not.”

  “I definitely don’t like it.”

  “Liar.” He winks. “You’re just annoyed you aren’t getting any of the fun bits of being my wife.”

  “I doubt there are any fun bits.”

  “Come upstairs with me. I’ll show you.”

  I roll my eyes. “I have work to do. Go annoy someone else, you’re off the clock.”

  He sighs and leans up against the table. His smirk disappears as he looks down at me, his hands on the edge, fingers curled around toward the bottom. “Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole, okay?”

  “You’re going a pretty bad job of that,” I say, snorting a little bit. It’s very unladylike but I guess I’m not trying to be attractive right now.

  “Let me take you for a drink tonight.” I go to tell him to fuck off, but he speaks over me. “Just one drink, I promise. No bullshit, no jokes.”

  I hesitate a second. “Why?”

  “We have to work together, after all.” He shrugs a little. “Who knows? Maybe you can convince me to give you that annulment.”

  “I’d be amazed if anyone could make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Good point.” He grins. “I bet you’d like to be the first, though.”

  I sigh and shake my head. I don’t have time for this, but he’s right about one thing.

  We have a lot of work still, and I can’t deal with this awkward crap hanging between us.

  “Fine,” I say. “One drink. Meet me at my room at six.”

  “See you then, wifey.”

  He laughs and walks off before I can call him an asshole.

  I hate that I’m in this position. He’s my star, and I need this project to do well, so I kind of have to play ball. If I piss him off and this whole experience goes to hell, that’ll translate in the work. I don’t want to risk it, and I hate him for even making me think about this stuff.

  Typical Jace, probably only thinks about himself. He hasn’t changed, not one bit, except now he’s clean and he doesn’t have an excuse for being such a bastard all the time.

  I shut my laptop and head up to my room, determined to get stuff done before I get that drink.

  4

  Jace

  I show up at her door at six o’clock on the dot. She answers the door after a couple knocks, her hair down around her shoulders.

  “Holy shit,” I say, which makes her smile.

  She’s wearing this tight black dress with a deep neckline and thin straps, showing off her gorgeous fucking breasts. I’m still wearing the same button-down and jeans from the shoot earlier, and I know exactly what she’s trying to do. She wants me off my game, too busy staring at her chest to really fight back, and fucking hell, it’s working.

  “Ready?” she asks sweetly.

  “I think I’d follow you anywhere as long as you were wearing that dress,” I say stupidly.

  She smiles even broader, and I can tell it’s genuine. Pretend all she wants, she doesn’t hate me as much as she thinks.

  “Come on, idiot. Let’s go get that drink and you can try to convince me not to hate you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say and follow her down the hall, biting my lip at the way her ass moves under the fabric. I want to reach out, push her against the wall, and lick her tail to top, taste every inch of her delicious skin, but I have to control myself. I take a deep breath and get my shit together as we get into the elevator.

  “So, where are you taking me?” she asks.

  I shrug. “I planned on going to the hotel bar.”

  “Hotel bar?” She makes a face. “I put in all this effort, get dressed up, and you want to go to the hotel bar?”

  I shrug a little. “It’s a nice hotel.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Typical. No thought at all. You think you can just give me a few drinks and I’ll forget about how much of a dick you are.”

  “That was the goal,” I admit. “I’m starting to think I’m in over my head, though.”

  “You definitely are,” she says, grinning at me, “but that’s okay. You’re a big boy. You can handle it.”

  “I definitely can.” The elevator dings and we step out into the lobby. I lead the way toward the bar, and fortunately it’s relatively crowded. If anything, I’m the one underdressed, as people wearing formal business clothes and couples dressed up to go out for the night crowd at the tables and the bar. I snag a couple of stools toward the back end and order a whisky for myself, and Piper orders a gin and tonic.

  “Still drinking that, huh?” I ask her.

  She hesitates. “What do you mean?”

  “You used to drink that back in college.”

  She laughs, clearly a little surprised. “You remember that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I honestly thought you blocked most of it out. Or erased it in the bed of the next girl.”

  “Nah,” I say as the bartender delivers our drinks. “I remember every single woman I’ve been with.” That’s a complete lie but she doesn’t need to know it. I hold up my drink, angling it toward her. “To a long working relationship,” I say.

  “To a working relationship and nothing else.” She clinks my glass with a little smile and sips her drink. I sip my own and put it down, savoring the warmth in my stomach. A lot of addicts can’t drink, but I’ve never had much of a problem with alcohol. It never felt dangerous enough for me, like I was walking on that fine line between life and death, which is what I loved about heroin.

  With heroin, there was always that question: Did I dose this right? Is it cut with anything? Is this too strong for me? Am I going to fall asleep and just never wake up? Back then, that was part of the thrill. Now I’m horrified by all the risks I used to take, even if that hole is still inside of me, begging to be embraced.

  “You’re still stuck on the marriage thing, I guess.”

  She glares at me. “You tricked me
into marrying you. Yeah, I’m still stuck on it.”

  I roll my eyes. “Come on. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Not a big deal? It’s a huge deal, Jace.”

  “Not like we’re strangers. We have a past.”

  She hesitates, just a split second, but it’s there. “So what?”

  “You like me, even if you won’t admit it.”

  “I liked you when I was a dumb college girl.”

  “College wasn’t that long ago.”

  “Long enough.” She arches an eyebrow at me, daring to continue.

  I take that dare. “You’re still that cute girl I bumped into near the bell tower. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Maybe, but you sure have.”

  I shrug a little, sipping my drink. “I’m more experienced, that’s all.” I give her a little smirk, eyebrow arching. “I think you’d like it, if you gave it a try.”

  “I don’t need experience,” she says. “Just honesty. I like to start with that.”

  “Too late for honesty, wifey.”

  She glares at me. “I thought you weren’t going to call me that tonight.”

  “You did?” I make an innocent face, shaking my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She just sighs. “Guess I can’t pretend like I’m surprised.”

  I grin and sip my drink again. I need to get some of this initiative back, since she took the wind from my sails when I saw her in that little sexy fucking dress. She’s still leaning forward just a touch, her elbows pulled in toward her body pushing her breasts together even more. It’s almost insulting in how obvious she’s being but god damn, do I like it.

  At the end of the day, I’m a simple man. I see a beautiful pair of tits on a smart, witty woman and I can’t help myself, no matter how bad an idea it is.

  “Remember that first night?” I ask her.

  “Vaguely.”

  “We went to a party on Main,” I prompt.

  She smiles a little, her eyes going far away for a second. “Yeah, I remember. It was a house party, really loud and crowded.”

  “Shitty beer in kegs, random bottles of vodka lying around. Charged me five bucks for a cup.”

  She grins. “I remember. Charged me nothing.”

  “Girls drink free. It’s very nice until you realize it’s just a way to get girls drunk.”

  She shrugs, still grinning. “Says the jealous guy out five bucks.”

  I shrug, sipping my drink, smiling along. “We danced a lot that night.”

  “Hours,” she agrees, nodding. “They had a shitty DJ in their gross basement.”

  “But it was fun and the whole place was moving, right?”

  “Yeah, I remember it was more fun than usual.”

  “You were wearing short little jean shorts that barely covered your ass and this brown button-down thing rolled up at the elbows and the top two buttons undone.”

  She looks genuinely surprised. “That’s right. I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “Told you, I don’t forget anything.” I lean closer to her, talking softly enough to make her lean in. “We danced for hours. You were good, I mean really good. I forgot what time it was until the DJ stopped playing music.”

  “We left at like three in the morning,” she says.

  “I took you back to my place, but you refused to stay over.”

  Her smile gets bigger. “I remember that. Probably had blue balls for days, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I agree. “I walked you to your place and kissed you on the steps.”

  “I didn’t think you were going to call me.”

  “I couldn’t help myself. You made me want more.”

  Her smile is so genuine, and I actually love seeing it. Normally this whole routine would just be a prelude to seducing her, but right now, in this situation, it’s something else. I don’t know what exactly, what I think my end game is going to be, but there’s something special about her.

  I know the situation is fucked, since we work together, and I should just give her that annulment, but I don’t want to. There’s a big part of me that wants to hold on to this weird little marriage and see… well, fuck, see if I can make it work.

  How fucked up is that? My wife doesn’t want me, but I want to make it work with her anyway. But the truth is, ever since I signed that piece of paper, the persistent voice inside my head that’s always pushing me to do reckless and dangerous shit slowly quieted down. It didn’t shut up, I doubt it ever will, but it’s not screaming in my ears. It’s manageable, it’s bearable.

  And she has no fucking idea.

  We finish our drinks and order another. I don’t mention that she only planned on having one, since our conversation is flowing nicely. We talk about college, remembering the good old days together, at least as much of it as I was there for.

  “Why did you drop out?” she asks.

  “Grades,” I admit. “I was partying too much and I was on academic probation. I knew I had no plans to bring them up, so I just… dropped out.”

  “Huh,” she says. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You did party a lot. And that’s basically the most cliché reason people drop out of school.”

  I laugh a little bit. “Never said I’m perfectly unique. Just that, school was never my thing.”

  “And now here you are, rich and famous.”

  “Minus the rich part. And barely famous these days.”

  “Still, college wasn’t necessary for you.” She purses her lips, cocking her head and leaning toward me. I catch a glimpse of her breasts again. Get it together, fucking dumbass.

  “How did you manage to pull all this off?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess it was a combination of good luck and right place, right time.”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “You’re right.” I lean into her. “It’s my amazing charm.”

  “Not it, either.” She shakes her head. “I think it’s simpler.”

  “Explain then, Miss Producer.”

  “You act like the cameras aren’t there.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Come again?

  “When the cameras are rolling, it’s like they don’t exist. The way you act on camera is exactly how you are off camera. It’s actually a little weird.”

  “And you think that’s why I’ve been successful?”

  “Absolutely,” she says, nodding. “People can see it. They can sense that you’re not…” She trails off.

  “I’m not fake,” I supply for her, smirking. “Is that it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you complimenting me?”

  “Sounds like it,” she admits.

  “Well, I think my work here is done, then.”

  “I still want that annulment.”

  “I’m sure you do.” I finish my drink quickly and take some cash from my wallet, tossing it down onto the bar, enough to cover our drinks plus a generous tip.

  “Where are you going?” she asks as I stand up.

  “Back to my room. I think. You’re sufficiently convinced.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Good night, wifey.”

  She rolls her eyes but doesn’t respond as I turn and walk away, leaving her at the bar.

  I couldn’t sit there a second longer. I knew I was going to do something stupid, something I’d regret. Kiss her or beg her to come back to my room or something equally pathetic. It was that fucking dress, that god damn fucking dress. Despite all that, all I could think about was fucking her, and she knew it.

  Well, doesn’t matter. I think I got what I wanted. I got her to see that I’m more than just some asshole from her past, so maybe she’ll lighten up a little bit.

  Truth is, I never sent in the marriage license. It’s signed and ready to go but it hasn’t been filed. Technically, we’re still not registered with the state, but I have at least sixty days to get it in there befor
e we need to have another license signed. I have sixty days to convince her to be my wife, the dumbest thing imaginable, but that’s just the kind of man I am.

  I’m not the type to shy away from a bad idea, especially when it feels good, and the idea of making Piper mine feels very, very good.

  5

  Piper

  I go to bed feeling weirdly good about my relationship with Jace.

  I know he’s an asshole. I know there are some weird and crazy dynamics going on right now, with the way he tricked me into being his wife and our past, but I feel like he showed me something earlier. He didn’t exactly prove that he’s this incredibly reliable and reformed man, but I’m starting to at least believe he wants to make this show happen.

  I don’t know why I feel that way. He didn’t say anything specifically about work, and really just wanted to go on a walk down memory lane. Still, the fact that he’s trying to mend fences at least makes me think he’s trying.

  And there was that moment with the camera guys during the shoot. Everything was breaking down, going to shit, and normally it would be my job to step up. Instead, he made them quit bickering. It undermined my authority, but at least it showed he was engaged and ready to work some more.

  I sleep well that night. I keep seeing him in my dreams, a shifting specter haunting me, drifting in my wake, beautiful and alone and misinterpreted.

  Banging on my door wakes me with a start. I frown as a sex dream lingers at the edges of my mind. I think I can still feel Jace’s tongue on my neck, but as soon as I turn my head to check the time, that feeling completely fades and the dream’s forgotten.

  It’s barely after six in the morning. I have no clue who’s knocking, but I’m not supposed to be up for another half hour and work starts at eight.

  “I’m coming, okay, I’m coming.” I climb out of bed and throw on a pair of shorts before padding across the carpeted floor. Someone bangs on the door again. “Okay, all right, what do you want?” I pull the door open and Jace is there, smiling and looking way too handsome for the crack of dawn.

  “Morning, darling wife,” he says, hustling past me and into my room. I’m too groggy to stop him.