Page 55 of Of Pranks and Passion

The sister shot him a smug look before turning to me and running her gaze down my body. I dealt with assholes on the regular, and her elevator looks seriously made me want to shudder.

“What are sisters for? I’ll need your number too, Easton. That way we can meet up, and I can get your opinion. It’ll be a gift to Gary to not force him to plan any of it. He’s sobusy, he can’t even answer his phone, after all.”

That bitch. If she thought I was going to back down, she had another thing coming.

“I’ll make sure his day is perfect.”

She must’ve taken it as an agreement, because her grin was smug as hell, and she flashed Gary a look that spelled trouble. I didn’t know her plan yet, but I didn’t really give a shit. She was a nobody. She wouldn’t touch Gary as long as he was under my protection.

“Well, I think we’ve taken enough attention off the birthday girl,” Angel exclaimed. He stepped up to Gary’s other side, looping arms with him. “I’m sure you want to get back to your friends. We’ll move our celebrations elsewhere. Happy 40th birthday, by the way.”

I choked on a laugh, following almost blindly as our group headed outside. I barely got through the door before the laugh broke free. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and I had to bend over to get some relief. Angel looked smug, and when I lifted a hand, he slapped his palm against mine.

“You’re fucking awesome.”

“I know,” he said primly, strutting over to the car. We all followed, laughing and nudging each other. I’d just tossed my arm over Gary’s shoulder when the door to the restaurant flew open, and the sister chased us out. I dropped my arm lower, to Gary’s waist for a more intimate hold, and pretended like I didn’thear her, dipping my head to kiss him with such intensity, his knees went weak.

The sister loudly cleared her throat and looked severely disgruntled when I straightened again. Gary looked a little dazed, and I wanted to play with that, but now wasn’t the time. I could wait until we got back to my place. Maybe.

“Yes?”

“We forgot to exchange numbers,” she said in mock innocence. She did the batting eyelashes thing again, which seriously didn’t work for her, and I heard a few of my friends snicker behind me.

I waffled between telling her I didn’t forget shit or giving in, so I could make sure she knew Gary was still with me. Maybe ‘accidentally’ send some pictures of us in compromising positions?

That sounded kind of hilarious.

“You know what? You’re right. I’m sorry. I was just so distracted by my fiancé. I mean, isn’t he gorgeous?”

Gary flushed bright red, snapping out of his daze in an instant. He was so damn fun to mess with. Any compliment I gave him made him blush like a virgin bride on her wedding night.

The sister gave an awkward laugh. “Yeah. Totally cute.” She brushed the comment away and tried the sultry thing again, biting her lip. “Your number?”

I rattled it off, tightening my hand on Gary’s when he stiffened. It’s all part of the game, babe. Play along.

She shot Gary a triumphant smile, which I wiped off her face by bringing Gary over to my car and opening the door for him. Her jaw dropped, and my smile as we left was basically a huge ‘fuck you.’ Another reason I showed up late, so I could bring my baby with me. I pulled away from the curb without a backward glance, cackling to myself once we were out of sight.

“Why did you give her your number?” Gary’s voice was small, and held a hint of worry that made me frown. It bothered me that he didn’t trust me around his sister.

“To keep an eye on her. She might let something slip about her plans. She reacted way too damn well to the engagement. I want to monitor her. I don’t want this making things worse for you. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

He made a humming sound, like he agreed but didn’t believe. I made a tick sound behind my teeth. I didn’t like it when he didn’t believe me.

“I wish your plan worked. I thought she’d storm off and avoid me,” he finally said with a sigh.

My brow furrowed deeper. At this rate, I was going to get a headache. “What do you mean? It totally worked. She won’t touch you as long as you’re with me.”

He lifted a shoulder, toying with the cuff of the button up he was wearing. “Maybe, but this is fake, right? We won't be getting married. We’ll have to stop eventually. And once we do, she’ll come after me again. Maybe it would’ve been easier to just give her what she wanted.” He frowned, pulling out his phone. “I still don’t understand what she was talking about when she said she’d been calling me a few times a week. I never got any calls. I know better than to ignore her. It only makes things worse.”

My foot eased off the gas, and I shot him an uneasy look. “Worse how?”

“It drags things out, for one thing. And she’s crazy vindictive. For every day I ignore her, she makes the repercussions that much worse. If she thought I’d been ignoring her for weeks, that could be why she went as far as to have people full on attack me. I doubt she would’ve gone past vague threats to make me uneasy if I did what she asked.”

A stone dropped heavily in my gut. I blocked his sister because it pissed me off that she demanded money from himwhen he barely had any to survive. I didn’t think I’d make things worse.

And now, I’d be dragging things out even longer with a long engagement, just waiting for her to get the picture and fuck off. If Gary was right, once we ended this fake relationship, she’d rip him apart for every slight that happened while we were together. I cast my mind for some way to make it right, but only one thing came to mind.

“So we make it look real.”

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