Page 60 of Brewer Family Collection, Part 1

Chloe

“ I s your car supposed to make that noise?” Mimi asks, peering over the dashboard as the scenery around us changes.

The city buildings stopped a few miles back, and as we’ve wound our way deeper into a residential area, the trees lining the road have grown taller. The homes behind the pines and strategically placed shrubs are harder to see. Still, their grandeur is unmistakable.

The evening sun’s rays filter magically through the vegetation and create a muted glow over everything in their path. It would make a perfect scene in a movie. A granddaughter and her Mimi, traveling into the sunset to start a new life.

Ha.

I let off the gas a bit, and the thumping stops. “There? Is that better?”

“You really need to get that checked.”

“I’ll add that to my to-do list.”

The box truck in front of us stops at a gate more ornate than the one we passed through to enter this neighborhood. It’s copper colored, the metal twisting and turning into elegant arches and bends. A B for Brewer is situated in the center.

It swings open, and we follow the truck through.

I can barely sit still as we crawl down an extended driveway lined with beautifully sculpted hedges and pops of colorful flowers. The landscaping is immaculate. I can only wonder how gorgeous the drive is at night when the path is lit by the solar lights dangling from posts every few feet.

It gives storybook vibes. And it doesn’t feel real.

For the next six months, this is where I’ll live.

My stomach bubbles with anticipation as we grow closer to Jason’s house.

Mimi’s curiosity intensifies, too. When I got home, I realized I didn’t know what to tell her, and I didn’t feel capable to get through the conversation alone.

So I picked the easiest of the two options and decided to wait until we made it to Jason’s in hopes he would help me break the news.

She always takes news better from handsome men. But don’t we all?

“Where exactly are we going, sweetheart?” Mimi asks, squinting into the sun.

“You’ll see soon. We’re almost there.”

“I can’t wait to see where there is, considering this is nothing like what I imagined.”

Oh, just wait …

I’ve labored over how to explain this to her because the last thing I ever want to admit to my grandmother is that I’m marrying someone for money.

Hell, that’s hard enough for me to admit to myself, and the more I think about it, the more nauseous I become.

But it’s not just for money—it’s for a life-changing amount of money.

And I’m not just marrying any man. I’m marrying a man I trust and respect, and who seems to be into this ruse to benefit himself, as well.

If you take the religious element of marriage out of the picture, this is really no different than him loaning me the money and having me work it off.

It’s just that instead of paying him interest and maybe defaulting on a few payments when times get hard, I’m helping him with a project of his own by playing a role.

I’m being paid to play the role of his wife.

That doesn’t make me any less queasy.

“Are we consummating this marriage, Mr. Brewer?” I ask.

“That’s up to you … But I hope so.”

I’ve dreamed of having sex with Jason more times than I can count. But it was just that—a dream. We may have flirted and teased each other, but we’ve been careful to stay in our lane. Our professional relationship and private friendship were on the line.

But now? Those lines are blurring, and even though I’m the one who proposed this, I’m still nervous.

“Are we staying here?” Mimi grips her seat belt and gawks at the house in front of us. “What the heck is this place?”

Oh wow .

My mouth hangs agape at the sight looming before us. I had no idea people really lived like this.

The home is a deep, tobacco-colored wood with two stories and many windows.

A long porch extends down one half of the house with a swing drifting back and forth in the breeze.

On the other side is an attached garage deep enough and with enough bays to hold more cars than I’ll probably ever own in my whole life.

The driveway circles in the front around a flagpole, and the landscaping is immaculate.

It’s clean and sophisticated. Yet I can see Jason’s brothers on the front lawn playing football on Thanksgiving.

I smile at the idea.

“I think you’re supposed to go that way,” Mimi says, her bony finger pointing toward the side of the house.

I follow the box truck along the side of the house and stop alongside it. Then I cut the engine.

My hand trembles as I drop my palm to my lap.

The car is quiet as my grandmother looks at me skeptically. “When do I find out what’s going on?”

My anxiety rises as the movers spill out of the truck and raise the door in the back of it. Before I can gather my wits and explain what’s going on to Mimi, her gaze shifts over my shoulders. And the skepticism in her face turns to excitement.

I know that look. She’s seen Jason.

Her lips part into a smile as he appears, pausing to talk to the movers. He’s changed from his suit into a pair of dark denim jeans and a green polo shirt that matches his eyes. His hair is damp. His face freshly shaven.

Those delicious tattoos are on full display.

Jason laughs at something one of the men says, then he turns to me, his smile growing wider as our gazes meet.

My stomach tumbles as he comes to my door.

“Mimi, will you give me a second? Just sit right here,” I say, unbuckling myself.

“Sure.”

There’s a question buried in that single word, but I don’t stop to address it. Instead, I grab the handle just as Jason pulls my door open.

As I step out, the air is warm and sweet-smelling, filled with the sounds of the moving crew prepping to unload our boxes. I texted Jason and asked about our furniture. He said we could bring it, store it, or leave it.

I chose to leave it. It was junk, after all, and I’ll have the funds to replace it when this is all over.

“Hey,” I say, a lot breathier than I’d like. It’s hard to speak clearly when your heart is racing.

“Hey.” His unabashed smile is one I haven’t experienced before. There’s no hint of our professional relationship. This isn’t a smile you give a friend.

This is the smile a man gives his woman.

Breathe, Chloe.

“What did you tell Mimi?” he asks quietly.

“I told her that I had a surprise that I knew she’d like, but she had to wait until we got here for me to tell her.” I blush. “She’ll take this better if it comes from you. Your charm easily sways her.”

“My charm, huh?” He grins, satisfied with that response. “What do you want me to say? I don’t want to complicate this for you. You’re in control here.”

I’ve been so busy focusing on moving and fighting myself about this whole plan to really think too much about the reality—we’re moving in with Jason.

I glance around, taking in the opulence. Don’t panic, Chloe.

“Well,” I say, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “First of all, do you really want us here? I mean, this all happened so fast, and it really is kind of ridiculous, so if you want to just bail?—”

“I want you here. Both of you .”

I lean against my car and blow out the longest breath. His kind eyes sweep away my second thoughts. His sincerity soothes my nerves.

“If you just need a place to stay, you can stay here,” he says. “But if you want to go through with the marriage thing, I’m in.”

“Really?”

His grin is lopsided. “Do you want the truth?”

“Of course.”

“I think it might be fun, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had any fun in my life. I’ve had something besides bullshit to think about all afternoon.” He pauses. “And I really want to beat Tate and Renn.”

I bite my lip to keep my smile from stretching entirely across my face.

I think the last part of that sentence was an afterthought for my benefit.

And if that’s true, that means one of two things: either he wants to make me happy and let me feel good about his help, or he wants me to feel good in many ways.

I shudder a breath.

“Tell me the truth,” he says, as if he’s almost afraid to finish his thought. “Do you want to go through with the marriage part of this?”

The words are careful— loaded . And the anxiety I’ve felt about this when I was away from him is hard to remember.

“I think it might be fun,” I say, my tone playful as I give his words back to him. “I don’t think it’s wrong for two friends to have a good time as they work together to achieve their goals.”

His smile could light up a dark room, and that makes my legs wobbly.

“I’ll fly us to Vegas tomorrow afternoon,” he says. “You’ll be my wife by bedtime, which is convenient.”

My body clenches at the proximity of wife and bedtime . The weight in my belly and the ache between my legs is nearly unbearable.

“How do you want to tell Mimi?” he asks.

“Let’s tell her we’ve been seeing each other secretly for a while,” I say. “And that you proposed today, and we didn’t want to wait.”

“We were planning on telling her, but then this thing happened with the building, and we felt like it was kismet.”

“That works.”

He lifts a hand and brushes the back of his knuckles down the side of my face. I gasp at the contact. My breath comes out in a pant.

The corner of his mouth twitches. “If we’ve been seeing each other a while, you can’t jump when I touch you. No one will believe I’ve never touched you before.”

My face flames.

“And you can’t turn red every time I say something.” He chuckles.

“This is a lot for me.”

His smirk settles against his lips as his eyes crinkle in the corners. “If you think this is a lot, just wait.”

Oh God.

“Mr. Brewer! Where do you want these things?” a man shouts from the truck.

Jason holds up a finger, his attention still on me. “Are you ready to do this?”

I nod.

“Then let’s go.”

He moves gracefully around the car with me a few steps behind. He opens Mimi’s door, whispering something to make her laugh, and then helps her to her feet. Her eyes are wide and bright as she takes in her surroundings.

“Meems, we have something to tell you,” I say.

She laces her arm through Jason’s, patting his bicep. “Is this your house, Jason?”

“It is. And the men over there need to know if you’d like to stay in my house with Chloe and me, or if you’d like to stay in the guesthouse over there.” He points at a quaint, one-story home on the other side of a glittering pool. “The choice is absolutely yours.”

She looks at me, narrowing her eyes with a sly smile. “And you’re staying with Jason?”

“I haven’t told you this,” I say, glancing at Jason, “because there’s been so much going on. And we wanted to wait until we could really celebrate the occasion. But?—”

“Oh my God, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” she asks, gasping.

“ What ? No!” I shriek.

Jason laughs, completely unbothered by Mimi’s reaction.

“I’m not … no ,” I say, shaking my head fervently. “I’m not pregnant, Mimi.”

She tilts her chin so she can see Jason’s face. “You two would make beautiful babies.”

“ Stop it ,” I say, blushing.

Jason’s amusement is written all over his face. “While that isn’t our news, we would like to tell you that we’re getting married.”

She clasps her hands together and looks at the sky.

“Oh, thank you, sweet Jesus. Thank you so much.” She turns to my “fiancé” and pats his face with both hands.

“I couldn’t be happier about this. I really couldn’t.

I was praying you came to see me about something like this and Chloe interrupted us when she got home.

I just knew something was going on. I knew it.

” She looks at me, pointing. “You can’t hide things from your grandmother. I always know.”

Glad one of us did .

“When I married my husband, we had sex like rabbits for a full year,” she says, shrugging. “Sometimes several times a day.”

Jason’s eyes connect with mine over Mimi’s head. We exchange a secret grin that somehow feels like the most intimate thing we’ve exchanged all day.

“That being said, I’ll take the guesthouse,” she says, chuckling.

“But are you sure you can live alone?” I ask, snapped back to reality. “You fall and?—”

“ Chloe .” She speaks my name as a full sentence. “I’ll be fine. I’m certain there are no broken tiles for me to trip over in that cute little place.”

Jason pats her hand. “If anything isn’t to your liking, you say the word, and it’ll be fixed. I want you to be comfortable. Whatever you need or want, all you have to do is say the word.”

Well, I guess that answers that …

“Can you walk me in?” Mimi asks Jason. “I really need to sit down.”

“Absolutely. Let’s get you inside and then you can direct the movers where to put your things. Chloe and I can help you get it all put away.”

She waves a hand through the air. “I’ll let them know where to put it all, but let’s put it away later. This old woman needs a rest.”

“I’ll be right back,” Jason says, moving slowly across the driveway with my grandmother clinging to his arm. He’s unrushed and comfortable, chatting away with her like they’ve known each other for a lifetime.

Whether he knows it or not, I think he just stole my heart.

He’s definitely stolen Mimi’s.

But what about when she finds out it was all a lie?