The final nail in their relationship coffin happened after a drunken night in college. They had slept together. It had been a good night except for the fact that he would never forgive himself for the pain he caused her the next day. But what was he supposed to do? Say “thank you”? Screwing his best friend hadn’t been the wisest of choices. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize it until it was too late. He was her first.
Leaving Kacey had been one of the stupidest and yet most necessary things he had ever done. They were still kind to one another, but the friendship was never the same once they slept together. What had always been rumored as a way to increase the bond between two people ended up being the catalyst that ruined a lifetime of friendship.
They avoided each other as much as possible for the next few years. At his graduation he gave her a quick hug and never looked back.
Nor had he ever apologized.
Not that it was entirely his fault, but still.
Just seeing her again haunted him, but it was a necessary evil.
The board of directors had insisted that if he didn’t clean up his image, the company would suffer. According to them, it already had. But how was he supposed to know that the girl he was sleeping with just happened to be a prostitute? It was Seattle, after all, and she was beautiful. He hadn’t thought she would go to the media, or that photographers would be conveniently outside the W Hotel downtown after a late night escapade that he still couldn’t fully remember. The real kicker had happened when his mother called and said his grandma had suffered a stroke because of Jake’s whoring around. Clearly it wasn’t his fault his grandmother had a blood clot, but still.
A week later his grandmother had called him and given him an ultimatum. Bring Kacey to see her before she died — her words not his — and all would be forgiven. She was so insistent that Kacey come home for Labor Day weekend that Jake couldn’t say no. It just happened to work out that a photographer from the Seattle Times would be visiting family in Portland as well. She promised to take some pictures of the two of them together in the plane, as well as some great shots of the giant rock on Kacey’s finger.
Jake grinned. Sometimes he was so brilliant he scared himself. What could possibly go wrong? He was next in line to be CEO of Titus Enterprises. It was worth a pretty penny, and once he cleaned up his image, his grandmother would not only back him but would give the board the extra push they needed to make him one of the youngest CEOs in the world.
Kacey would understand. She was just that type of girl. All he needed to do was logically explain to her why it was in her best interest. After all, not only would it help business for her to be seen with him, but he was practically investing in her future.
If anything, she should thank him!
His cell phone rang and he checked his watch. Jake shook his head. He’d spent way too long convincing that gorgeous girl to be his fiancée. Now he’d have to stay at the office longer than necessary.
With a shrug he walked to his Range Rover and jumped in. Finally, he could stop stressing about his grandmother and the business.
****
“I’m sorry. Could you please repeat what you just said? It sounded like you said you were engaged.” Char sat across from Kacey at their favorite restaurant in Belltown.
“Yup.” Kacey sipped her wine, though she briefly contemplated just taking the whole bottle and downing it. “That’s what I said.”
“To Jake?”
“Yup.”
“Jake Titus?” Char clarified, taking a healthy gulp of her wine.
“That very person.” Why couldn’t Kacey stop shaking? It was one weekend. She could do one weekend. Geez, it wasn’t as if she had to do anything but pretend to be in love, and attracted to him, and excited, and…
So basically she wasn’t going to act at all. She just had to make sure her heart didn’t get broken into a bazillion pieces by the billionaire himself.
“I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can’t do this,” Char repeated, her voice rose a few octaves. “Do you have any idea what that man did to you in college? Are the memories still fuzzy? Because I’m pretty sure he slept with you and then pretended like it didn’t happen.”
“I know.” Kacey’s voice was shaky. “But in his defense, I never tried to talk to him either…”
“Don’t defend the devil, Kace. Seriously. You guys were best friends your whole lives! Remember? I was the third wheel. I saw your love drama play out quite nicely and then get run over by a truck that night. Don’t do it.”
Kacey knew what Char was saying made sense, but… “I already told him I would.”
“Then get out of it!”
Kacey shook her head and said in a small voice, “I can’t.”
Char’s eyes narrowed. She took three deep breaths then motioned for the waitress.
“Yes?” the waitress asked.
“We’re going to need tequila, stat.”
“Char, this is hardly the time for tequila,” Kacey protested.
“Really? You just got engaged to the most famous bachelor in Seattle in order to play nice and do him a favor. Again, Exhibit A: HE LEFT YOU!”
“Keep your voice down!” Kacey hushed her friend and offered apologetic smiles to the people staring at them from their booths. “It’s only the weekend.” Besides, Char had no idea Kacey was still in so much debt from school. She had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes about her graduation claiming she was only a class short, not seven.
“Right.” Char snorted. “If I know Jake, and I think I do, this isn’t just for the weekend. He has something up his sleeve. The more handsome they are, the more manipulative. Believe me.”
The tequila was placed on the table, and Char took a shot before saying anything more. “Besides, just because you agreed to this farce of an engagement, he’s going to be thinking he can put his hands all over your hot body.”
Kacey rolled her eyes. “He dates models and, apparently, strippers. Look at me, Char. Do I look like either? I’m not a whore. I’m not going to let him take advantage of me.”
Char grunted. “Hmph! Haven’t let anyone take advantage of you since that night and you know it. You’re still hung up on him and it’s taken you all of college to get over it! And now you’ll be back to square one.”
Ignoring Char’s obvious slight to her inability to trap down a man, Kacey looked away and huffed. Her fingers touched the edge of the tequila bottle, and thoughts of Jake poured in on their own accord.
“What the hell am I doing?”
“Now, she says it.” Char shook her head and took another shot.
“I mean…” Kacey looked down at her hands. “I have to be alone with him for more than three days, and even then I have to lie to his entire family!”
“And let’s be honest,” Char interjected, her speech slightly louder than normal. “You’re like the worst liar on the planet.”
“Am not.” Travis, Jake’s spawn of a brother was. But Kacey refused to think about Travis. The last time she saw him, he yelled at her for running over their mailbox during Christmas break. She cried, he yelled some more, and then refused to speak to her the rest of the time she was visiting. That was three years ago.
“Are too!” Char poked her manicured finger across the table. “Remember that one time we tried to sneak out of the house and go to Jake’s birthday party in high school?”
“No,” Kacey lied, trying desperately to swallow the giant lump of guilt in her throat.
“Really? Out of all the times during this day that you would say no, you choose now? Seriously? What happened to no when you were talking to Jake? Or no when he was propositioning you for—”
“Totally different and you know it. Besides, I would like to point out that I didn’t tell my mom a terrible lie. If the dog had stopped barking, then…”
Char threw her head back and laughed. “Let’s not blame the dog. Even if the dog had stopped barking, you used that as an excuse to admit all to your mo
m. And later told me it was a sign from God that you were sinning.”
Kacey looked away. Just because her friend was totally right didn’t mean she had to actually acknowledge the fact. So what? Yeah, she was a little bit of a prude, but the one time, the one time she had decided in her life to go for it…
She was royally screwed.
In more ways than one.
Kacey let out a large sigh and motioned for Char to pour her a shot. “Regardless, I said yes, and you know how I am with commitment.”
Char swore. “You’re more loyal than my dog, and he’s blind, meaning he depends on me for everything, including when and where to go pee.”
“Your encouragement is astonishing.” Kacey smiled sweetly and followed her shot with a large gulp of water. She needed a clear head if she was to adequately plan how the weekend was going to progress. One thing was for sure. Jake couldn’t touch her — he couldn’t put one of his hands on her. If he did, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to say no.
“…and another thing…”
Oh gosh! Was Char still talking about her damn dog?
“If you let him touch you, or kiss you...” She slammed her fist on the table, her eyes slightly glazed over from the tequila. “If one of his perfectly manicured hands even grazes across your bare flesh, I’ll castrate him.”
Kacey pursed her lips together and nodded. “Thanks, Char. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Me eisher...” Char hiccupped and Kacey motioned for the check. Truly, it’s not every day a friend gets wasted on your behalf. But Kacey knew better too. Char was the truest type of friend. When Kacey cried, Char cried. When Kacey threatened to kill Jake, Char offered to pay for a hit man, and when Kacey finally moved on and only mentioned Jake as the man who shall not be named, Char went ahead and nicknamed him Bastard for her sake.
If anything, Char was just trying to help, though her methods were a little extreme.
Kacey laid out a couple of bills on the check and helped her friend out, all the while wondering how she was going to get through the next week without dying.
Chapter Three
“Are you out of your mind?” Travis yelled. “You blackmailed and then hired Kacey? As in the same Kacey you used to take baths with? That Kacey?”
Jake wasn’t in the mood to defend himself to his brother. Seriously, why was it such a big deal? So what that he’d called in a favor. “Sorry, man, I have a lot of work tonight. Can we do this later?”
Travis was silent for a while, which really wasn’t a good sign. It meant he was thinking, which meant he was probably going to get a headache and then blame Jake for it in the morning. He and Travis hadn’t talked much in the past few years. That is until their grandmother began meddling in their lives this past year. Poor Travis had been left out of it for the most part, but his number was almost up.
Out of the two brothers in the family, Travis had been the protector, the one who always played by the rules. When Jake and Kacey would set off fireworks at 2:00 a.m., Travis was always the one who took the fall. He never liked seeing Jake in trouble, or Kacey.
Which is why, when Jake messed up so horribly in college with his best friend, Travis had sworn he would never forgive him for being such an ass to the one girl who seemed to have it all. Though Jake hadn’t told Travis the real reasons they had a falling out, he assumed his brother probably thought the worst. If Jake hadn’t been so sure of Travis’s feelings towards Kacey, he would have thought his big brother had a bit of a crush on her.
But that was impossible. If anything, Travis tortured Kacey more than Jake did, which was really saying a lot, because he had pulled his fair share of pranks when he was little.
Travis, however, took the cake. A day didn’t go by where he wasn’t pulling Kacey’s hair, throwing rocks, or starting a Girls are Ugly and Stupid Club, and then electing Kacey as its mascot.
The silence on the other end of the phone broke. “I’m just not sure it’s the best idea, man. I mean, this is the girl who saw you naked before you hit puberty. Mom’s gonna know something’s up.”
“No.” Jake cursed and ran his fingers through his hair. “She won’t know because we won’t be the ones to tell her, will we, Travis?”
“You do realize that out of everyone in our family, I’m the worst liar?” Travis asked.
“No, no, you’re not. Kacey is…”
“Oh well, in that case…” Travis cursed on the other line.
“It doesn’t matter. It means too much to Kacey at this point. Plus, do you really want Grandma to die?”
“Um, she’s going to do more than die if she finds out you’re lying. Ten bucks says she has a stroke then pleads with God to let her come back to kill you herself. Trust me, if anyone’s got the in with God, it’s Grandma. Geez, He’d probably help her plan your demise…”
“Are you done? I wasn’t kidding about the work. If we’re supposed to be in Portland by Friday, I have to get all this paperwork cleared.”
Travis sighed on the other end again, probably cursing Jake to Hell for making him swear his loyalty and silence. “Fine, but when this blows up in your face, and it will, I’m feigning ignorance.”
Jake snorted. “Trust me, nobody’s going to believe you were part of such a brilliant plan.”
“Right, well, good luck. You’re going to need it.” The line went dead, leaving Jake alone with his thoughts.
Perhaps it would be best not to tell Kacey that her childhood nemesis would be present at the weekend retreat with his family. After all, if she knew Satan (her words, not his) was to make an appearance, she’d back out in a minute.
The computer hummed from the cluttered desk. He was all alone in his office with a mountain of paperwork. Paperwork he wasn’t very inclined to finish since seeing Kacey that day.
When had she grown up so much? And filled out the way she had? He let out a groan. Maybe he was just exhausted. He had plenty of other women banging down his door.
Every woman but the one who got away. What the hell? Did he really think that he let her get away? He shook his head.
It didn’t matter anymore. It was for the best. He knew after it happened that he wasn’t good for her, that she would always be looking to him to be something that he wasn’t. Kacey always had such high expectations. He was a guy, and since she had no brothers, he thought it more of a hero worship thing.
Until she gave him the look.
He was done for. The one and only time in his life he had given in to fully ruining his best friend was the same night he lost the only girl he could have ever seen himself with.
He cursed and pushed the papers off his desk.
He would have killed her spirit. She would have slowly died next to him, and he would have resented her. They would have resented each other for not being what each of them needed.
So why, in all of his brilliance, had he decided to call in a favor from her? He could have easily brought Kacey home to Grandma without this farce of an engagement. Sure, his parents wouldn’t have been nearly as happy, but it would have still been fine. Maybe he was subconsciously trying to right a wrong. Being with him could only further her likeability, but he could have paid anyone to spend the weekend with him. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have even had to pay.
Jake’s paperwork stared back at him. He left it on the floor and turned off the lights, locking his office and strolling toward the elevators.
“Why did I pick her?” Jake rubbed the back of his neck.
He pushed the button for the lobby and sighed, answering his own question. “Because she’s the only one my family would believe I had fallen madly and deeply in love with.”
****
“Ready!” Kacey threw open the door to her apartment, wearing tight-fitting running spandex, an oversized sweatshirt that fell quite nicely over her shoulder, and a messy bun.
Every man’s worst nightmare. A girl who actually looks good without trying. “And don’t worry, I packed really light!??
? She flashed a brilliant smile and pulled out two small bags.
Jake nodded his approval. “I must say I’m impressed.”
Kacey did a little curtsy. “I do live for your approval.”
“As you should.” Jake laughed.
“Now, bring my stuff down to the car, slave. I’m your tired fiancée, so the doting must start.”
“Doting?”
“Yup.” She pulled her door shut and locked it. “You know, you have to actually treat me like you find me attractive, sexy, the best thing to hop into your bed since—”
Kacey froze mid-sentence, a look of pure horror crossing her face. Jake didn’t know what to do, wasn’t sure if he should hug her, ignore her, or just apologize for being a complete ass over everything that went down between them.
“Um, Kace—”
“So, we should get going!” She hit him on the shoulder and jogged past him, leaving him the tedious task of carrying her luggage down three flights of stairs.
In all honesty it was like atonement for his many sins. Really, he would rather be stabbed than have to see that look of pain in Kacey’s eyes. It was as if someone had just told her Disneyland wasn’t real.
By the time he reached the car, Kacey was already waiting next to it. “Nice ride.”
“I, uh…” Why was he suddenly feeling uncomfortable about his success? “It’s good, I guess.”
He opened the door to the new SUV and helped her in. All hints of being upset had left her face. Kacey was now jabbering on about how much she liked SUVs and why he’d made a good choice, but all he could really focus on was her lips as they moved, fast and then suddenly, erotically slow.
“Did you get your lips plumped or something?” Jake interrupted. As the words left his mouth, he seriously wanted to rewind time so he could slap himself.
“My lips? Done?” Kacey laughed. “No, Jake, you’re just confused because you date so many woman who have fake lips, breasts, and hips that you forget what a real woman looks like.”