Page 12 of Pretend Wife (Angels of the Secret Order #4)

NINE

Hayden

“What?” I growled into my phone.

“Try again,” Sierra said on the other end.

I rubbed my forehead with my free hand, trying to ward off the headache I could feel coming on. “Hello, Sierra. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Better,” she said, and I could practically hear her smirking. “Now tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing.”

“Care to be more specific? I can’t actually read minds.”

“Danielle showed up Friday with a diamond because you two are apparently engaged. Ring a bell?”

“I fail to see how my love life is your business.”

“It is when you’re marrying my sister-in-law after you were the one who broke up with her last spring. She has a heart of fucking gold, and you should know that if you hurt her again, you’re dead. I won’t even try to stop Nate or Sam from castrating you.”

“For fuck’s sake. Can’t you be a little bit worried about getting fired?

” I didn’t even want to touch the fact that she felt the need to threaten me, that she was already planning my demise.

If you hurt her again . As in I hurt her before.

It didn’t matter what my intentions had been.

I trusted Sierra’s judgment, more than I did my own most days, and if she said Danielle had been hurt, I believed her.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Sierra said, oblivious to my inner turmoil. She was grinning. I could feel it even if I couldn’t see her.

“Is there anything else, or did you call just to threaten me?”

“Your mom called. She wants you to come to dinner on Saturday.”

“I can’t do Saturday.”

“Well, then call her and tell her that.”

“You do realize that you work for me, not the other way around, right? I’m the one who tells you to call people.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “She’s your mom, Hayden. She deserves more than a call from your assistant.”

“My mom loves you.”

“Not as much as she loves you.”

“Fine.” I’d been avoiding my mother’s calls ever since Dad told me about the cancer. It was pure cowardice and a crappy thing to do, but telling myself that didn’t make it any easier to pick up the phone.

I hung up on Sierra and glared at my cell as if it were to blame for the guilt sitting in the pit of my stomach.

But the fault was all mine. Sierra hadn’t told me anything that wasn’t true.

Maybe I’d inherited my dad’s asshole gene and no matter what I did, I was destined to hurt people who didn’t deserve it.

“Hayden.” The relief in my mother’s voice was obvious when she answered my call on the second ring. “Are you okay?”

No, Mom, your asshole of a husband is insisting I get married this month so I can make sure you get to continue living in your house and Miles doesn’t lose the dream he’s been working toward his whole life.

And because I can’t get married without a woman, I guilted my ex-girlfriend into fake marrying me for the next nine months.

“I’m fine,” I grumbled. “How are you doing?”

“Fine? Really, Hayden, you expect me to believe that?”

“Yes, I do.”

Her sigh was so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Are you coming to dinner on Saturday?”

“I can’t come Saturday. I have a date.” More like a wedding, but she didn’t need to know that. I wasn’t dragging my family to my wedding for a marriage of convenience.

“You could always bring her,” my mother said with a noticeable lack of optimism.

“We already have reservations.”

“Maybe next weekend then.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll talk to Sierra.”

“Hayden…” There was a pause like she was trying to figure out what to say or maybe debating whether to say an ything at all. “You know that it’s okay to not be okay, right? You can tell me anything. I mean that.”

“I know.” A part of me wanted to take her up on that offer, to crawl into her lap like I used to do when I was a little kid before my father put a stop to it.

I wanted to tell her everything, to lean on her like I was still a child instead of a nearly-thirty-year-old man.

But this wasn’t her problem to fix for me.

If she got involved, it would only make things worse.

“I love you,” she said softly.

“I love you too.” And that was why I couldn’t tell her about Dad’s ultimatum or that I was marrying Danielle for show.

I couldn’t hurt her like that. I’d let her believe the marriage was real, and when it ended, I’d just say that it didn’t work out between us.

She never needed to know about Dad’s involvement or the inheritance.

Me

You are coming, right?

Danielle

Did you seriously just ask me if I’m showing up to my own wedding?

Caleb isn’t answering my texts.

*eye roll emoji* Probably because he’s driving.

What’s your ETA?

Does it matter? Last I checked, I’m the bride and this thing can’t really start without me.

I glared down at my phone. Danielle wasn’t actually late… yet. I was sitting in the conference room of the small stone church I’d found in a tiny town nearly an hour outside of Boston where I was supposed to get married in less than an hour.

“Relax, Blake,” Freddie said from the armchair across the room. “I can feel your anxiety from here.”

“Fuck you, Rossi,” I muttered, not loosening my death grip around the device in my hand.

“Seriously, man, if she doesn’t want to marry you, it’s better you find that out now.”

I glared at him, turning all my stress into anger at my best friend. One of the only two people I’d allowed to come to the wedding.

“Dude, calm down. She’s going to show, and you’ll be riding off into the sunset before you know it,” Orlando—the second person—added. He was leaning against a round table that held a completely untouched bottle of champagne. I was going to be stone-cold sober when I got hitched.

“There isn’t going to be any riding off into the sunset. This is fake, remember?”

“Like the rock my sister said you put on your girl’s finger?” he asked with a smirk. He knew damn well that rock was as real as they came.

“It wouldn’t be a very believable marriage if I didn’t give her a ring. ”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shut it, Amato.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” he protested, hands in the air.

I glanced down at my phone again, not really sure what I was hoping to find.

I hadn’t even answered Danielle’s last message, but I couldn’t shake the restless feeling, like I was waiting for her to pull the rug out from under me.

Because somewhere in the back of my head, I still couldn’t believe she’d actually agreed to marry me.

“Where was she getting ready?” Freddie asked.

“I don’t know.” And maybe that was part of why I was so anxious.

After her girls’ night—that Miles was somehow invited to—Danielle had agreed to let Caleb drive her where she needed to go under the condition that I didn’t keep tabs on where she went.

I was the one who signed Caleb’s paychecks, and if I asked, he’d probably tell me (maybe), but I was trying to respect Danielle’s wishes.

Freddie’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

“She didn’t tell me,” I said, a tad bit too defensively.

“And you didn’t ask?”

I had asked, but she’d told me getting ready for the wedding was a girl thing. Translation: it wasn’t my business.

“It’s up to her what she wants to tell me,” I said.

A snort came from the direction of the table. “Man, I never thought I’d see the day.”

“What?” I growled at Orlando.

“That Hayden Control Freak Blake bowed to a woman. ”

I flipped him off and returned my attention to the phone in my hand.

Me

Please tell me you’re almost here. I need you to save me from my asshole friends.

Danielle

You’re on your own there. There’s this tradition that says you can’t see the bride before the wedding. It’s bad luck.

Is there such a thing as bad luck in a pretend marriage?

Who knows. I never believed in this tradition in the first place, but Kylie might kill you if you don’t respect it. She’s a little crazy.

Is she coming to the wedding?

Other than securing the place and a photographer I trusted not to take any photos outside of what was requested or sell said photos to the media, I’d pretty much let Danielle plan the rest of the wedding.

She knew I was bringing Freddie and Orlando as witnesses, so she didn’t have to bring anyone, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t want to.

Danielle

Yep, she’s my sole bridesmaid. The others need to have deniability when my brothers find out about this and throw a fit.

Me

I’m going to find a way to win them over eventually.

Good luck with that.

“Where are you taking Danielle for your honeymoon?” Orlando asked because he was a nosy shit who didn’t know when to shut the hell up.

“I’m not.”

“Seriously? Not even a mini-moon like Freddie did?” Freddie and his wife had done a weekend getaway after their wedding three weeks ago. They were waiting until summer to go on an extravagant honeymoon, when it was more convenient for his wife, who was an elementary schoolteacher.

“Seriously.”

“She’s marrying a billionaire and she’s not even getting a fancy honeymoon out of it?”

“Danielle isn’t like that,” I snapped.

Orlando just chuckled like the asshole he was.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I gratefully turned my attention back to my texting conversation.

Danielle

Just pulled in.

Me

See you at the altar, Sunday School.

Right. I’ll be the one in white.

“Time to move,” I said, shoving the phone into the pocket of my tux pants.

I took my place at the altar with Freddie and Orlando beside me like they were real groomsmen and not only here to play witnesses .

The church was small—one of the main reasons I’d picked it—but it still looked notably empty with our zero wedding guests. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows that lined either side of the sanctuary, casting the room in a soft glow.

I still didn’t understand why this was so important to Danielle. I knew she was religious, but didn’t that make it worse? Who chose to say their marriage vows to someone in the house of their God when they didn’t mean it?

The doors at the back of the church opened, and Kylie entered in a tiny black dress that somehow managed to make her look even shorter than usual. Her gaze was sharp as she assessed me like she was making judgments based simply on how I was standing.

She didn’t say a word to me as she took up her spot on the other side of the altar and turned her attention to the back of the church.

I followed her gaze, and the breath stalled in my lungs.

I couldn’t have been more wrong when I imagined Danielle in a Cinderella-style wedding dress.

The dress she wore was elegant and sleek.

The bodice was made of some kind of lace with tiny off-the-shoulder sleeves and a heart-shaped neckline that managed to be both modest and tantalizing.

Below her rib cage, the skirt poured down to the floor with a slit running halfway up her thigh and offering a killer view of one of her long legs.

For a long moment, my gaze got stuck on the tawny skin of her thigh before I dragged my eyes back up to her face.

A few strands of her copper-brown hair framed her face while the rest was pulled back into the comb of the veil that streamed down her back.

Her face was makeup-free, per usual, and I was glad.

Danielle had an exotic kind of beauty that should never be covered up to fit the dull standards of the rest of the world.

I sucked in a breath, possibly my first one since I saw her, and it seemed to be the sign she was waiting for. She started walking, her skirt swishing around her legs and showing off her thigh with every other step.

I couldn’t have torn my eyes away from her if I tried. It was like she’d cast some kind of spell over me, one I had no hope of breaking as she slowly closed the distance between us.

When she was close enough, I held out a hand and watched her place her palm in mine. Had her skin always been this soft?

Up close, she was even more stunning than she’d been from across the church—all elegance and grace—and far sexier than I’d bargained for.

I wasn’t supposed to be thinking like this about my fake wife, especially after how I’d ended things between us, but fuck, I couldn’t help it.

She was gorgeous, and I’d fucking missed her.

I could still remember the way her lips tasted, the way her hair felt tangled around my fingers, the sounds she made when I kissed down her neck and over her shoulders.

But nothing had changed since the day I broke up with her.

Danielle Towler was not mine to have and to hold no matter what we said today.