Page 3 of Never Say Yes To Your Fake Husband

But he wags his half-a-tail when Smitty sets him down, and I don’t have the heart to tell him no. I don’t have the heart to say that if I were a dog person, I would have had one by now. Or a cat. Or a plant. Something I can keep alive. Something other than just me here in this condo I rent for a normal amount ofmoney because people need to believe I can afford it on a guitar teacher’s salary. Because that’s what I do. I teach guitar lessons. I used to do it at a school, but then they downsized, and I was out of a job, so now I do it from home.

Which is another reason I don’t have pets. What if some of my students are allergic?

“They’ll love him,” Smitty assures me, even though he has no idea what I’m thinking.

Or does he? Gah!Doeshe?

“We’re all good then? You’ll be okay? This was just you letting me know you’re frustrated? You’ll make Beans here feel at home, and we won’t have a problem with the contract?”

“Yeah, sure.” But I shake my head and shrug. “Beans is good.” I don’t answer about the rest.

Smitty gives me a very lawyerly look, which makes me feel like I’m melting on the spot. “Alright, Miss Bull. Have a good rest of your day.”

“Yeah,” I gulp out. This bluff was a bad idea. And now I have a dog. Beans wags that stump of his even harder. “You too.”

Chapter two

Sterling

What is it that all the young people say? This club is pumping?

If anyone heard me say that…well, they wouldn’t. Because I would deny it. I would never, ever say such a thing. But I suppose it is. The music—some heavy bass stuff—is hitting pretty hard. But it’s not my taste. My taste is country. Pure voices. Angelic voices.

Voices like Weland Bull. A voice like all the angels singing in unison, like a fresh spring day, like an uncomplicated life and a pure heart. That voice has lived rent-free in my head for the past four years and eighteen days since I first heard it.

The video she posted was just her and her light wheat-hued hair, bright blue eyes, and flushed cheeks singing in rapture and bliss with the purest and rawest talent I’ve ever heard. It was just her and her guitar and that frilly floral dress that people would also call boho, and no, I will never say that word out loud either.

There are a few stagettes here tonight, but I only have eyes for one. The one mywifeis attending. I have never met her in person. She doesn’t know what I look like, what I do, or even my name. It’s all very cloak and dagger, but Smitty thought that was for the best, and since Smitty is the best of the best, I trust him with the business side of my business. I’ve trusted him with more than that. She has no idea he moved his entire practice up to Detroit just because I asked him to. Because I wanted someone close to her, someone to watch out for her. Security would have been better, but when I mentioned that to Smitty, he didn’t like it. He said she would hate it, so he moved close by to keep an eye on her himself and be a friend to her because he figured she would need it.

It’s why I’m here.

Because he called and told me that she was lonely—lonely enough to do something drastic and done enough to be really done with all this. He thought she was joking, but he wanted me to know, just in case she was serious about getting drunk, finding someone, and wrecking this whole thing when it was almost over. And the baby? She couldn’t be serious about that, could she?

A blonde who is probably smoking hot by definition of anyone in this place except me bumps me hard in the back. I’m a few feet away from the bar and being as casual as I can, which in this place means getting in line to get a drink.

“Sorry,” she drawls, grinning at me and batting her fake eyelashes. They’re very heavily…gooped. I know that’s not a good word, but it’s the only word I can use right now for all that mascara and eyeliner. Her teeth are very, very white, and her boobs are also…umm…fully on display, pushed up in a barely there hot pink dress. Her hair? Not a real blonde. She’s one step away from freeing the nipple with that dress. I back up a step,but it makes her smile even harder. “Don’t be shy. You can buy me a drink. That’s fine with me.”

“Sorry, I’m just having water tonight. I’m a designated make-sure-no-one-here-gets-into-trouble person.” No one here named Weland, at any rate.

“Aww, you came with someone then?”

“Taken, I’m afraid,” I reply.

“Probably married.” She pouts, but then she laughs, and I swear it’s loud enough to cut over the pounding music. The lights are strobing, too, or at least I think they are. I don’t think that’s my eyes and brain. God, when did thirty-two start to feelthisold? “But that’s okay! The married ones are more fun.”

“Ohhhhhh, no. Not me. I’m very—very—married. Very married.”

“Not happily, though, or you would have said so. Although, that’s usually just a lie people tell when they’re not. You can still buy me a drink, you know.”

While she pouts at me and I shake my head, I realize Weland and her group have moved to some other part of this club, which is entirely too massive. Panic claws at my throat. Panic because I can’t let all this be for nothing. Not this crazy amount of work, the past four years, Weland’s sacrifice, or the fight of my life that I’ve had to do to keep my companymine. A company that I built myself from the ground up. From nothing. I had to borrow money at the start to buy shares. Shares that were worth nothing one day and then worth everything the next. Shares that my aunt, who backed me, left to me only on the most clichéd conditions. No doubt she’s laughing from beyond the grave at all this.

But no doubt I’m not.

“I’m sorry. I really am.” I’m only sorry that a line like that actually works on some people. I back out of the line, and theblonde just shrugs and turns around to find a more receptive audience in the guy behind me.

Alright, I’m sorry I had to drag someone like Weland into this too.

I’m sorry she’s been having a hard time. I’m sorry she’s sad and lonely and—holy shit.

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