Page 20 of Pretend Wife (Angels of the Secret Order #4)

FIFTEEN

Hayden

My father was staring at Danielle again. At least that was my excuse for pulling her against my chest and running my lips down her neck and over her shoulder next to the thin spaghetti strap of her dress. It was probably true. His attention was always on her when he was in the room.

I didn’t know if it was just curiosity about the wife of his oldest son or if he was planning something, but when it came to Danielle, I couldn’t give fewer fucks about his twisted games.

The only things I cared about were staking my claim on her and making sure no one fucked with what was mine for as long as she was my wife.

She shifted her head slightly, offering me easier access to her bare skin, and my blood roared through my veins. My own skin felt too tight… and so did my jeans for that matter.

It would be so easy to press against her back and let her feel exactly what she did to me. But that would cross a line I’d vowed not to step over when I first learned she wanted to wait for marriage.

The worst part what was that I really didn’t believe Danielle was trying to torture me. She never did anything overly sexual or seductive. Hell, she didn’t even initiate any of our PDA.

She was far from the only woman I’d seen in little sundresses. But on her they looked different, like pretty wrapping paper hiding a present no one had earned the honor of opening before.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t get hung up on girls.

Even sex wasn’t usually all that appealing to me anymore—it came with too many complications and simply wasn’t worth the trouble most of the time.

So why couldn’t I stop picturing the face Danielle would make as I rocked into her virgin pussy?

I wanted to see her face flushed and her copper hair wild, to hear her scream my name as I made her feel things no one ever had before.

Again, what the fuck was wrong with me? I’d never cared about anyone’s sexual history before, but the idea that I could be her first, her only… It was doing something to me.

Reluctantly, I dragged my lips away from her skin, though I kept my arms wrapped around her waist like I was reassuring myself that no one could take her away from me. Sort of like how I’d been sleeping cocooned around her as if trying to ensure no one could steal her from me in the night.

Danielle had officially turned me into a possessive jackass. She didn’t seem to mind though. She leaned her head back against my shoulder as if she was perfectly comfortable in my arms, and I had to resist the urge to press a kiss to the top of her head.

If I did that, I wouldn’t stop there, and I was already walking way too fucking close to the edge of right and wrong where Danielle was involved.

“Are you going to join us, Hayden?” Maggie asked from the dining room table, which had been set up with two different board games and half a dozen notebooks where my sister had written down the complex set of rules for how to play the weird mashup of games.

We’d been doing this since we were teenagers. Maggie had deemed most normal board games either boring or not realistic enough. So she’d come up with her own versions and taught Miles and me how to play. I still wasn’t sure why we indulged her, but we always did.

Except for now.

“I’m good where I am,” I said.

“You can play.” Danielle attempted to remove herself from my arms.

I tightened my hold on her and lowered my mouth to her ear. “If you don’t quit squirming, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and take you somewhere that I don’t have to share you with my family.”

I felt more than heard her sharp inhale right before she went still against me.

“Good girl.”

She jolted at my words, and I silently cursed. I was getting closer and closer to that damn line I couldn’t cross. I was blaming the dress… and her wildflower scent… and the warmth radiating off her skin.

I was losing my ever-loving mind. Spending every second with Danielle was driving me crazy. I needed space. Distance. Five fucking minutes where I wasn’t with her. Where I couldn’t smell her or hear her laugh or see her smile.

But I didn’t want to find out what would happen if my father got the chance to talk with her alone. So I was stuck.

Maggie ended up convincing me to play in round two of her Game of Life/Monopoly mashup.

Okay, so really Danielle convinced me to play—something I only agreed to under the condition that she team up with me and sit on my lap for the entire game.

I was becoming quite the addict when it came to her.

Even worse than last time. It was concerning, but I’d deal with it when we were home and away from my father’s controlling nature.

With the exception of him, I loved watching Danielle with my family. They all adored her, and she fit in so seamlessly—like she belonged here.

My family was going to hate me when things ended between Danielle and me. And I couldn’t even blame them.

“Hayden,” Maggie called, running down the walkway that led to the front door of the beach house.

I dumped Danielle’s duffel bag—which I was pretty sure contained at least half of Danielle’s possessions— into the trunk of my car and slammed it closed. We were so close to being able to put the vacation behind us.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I want to talk to you. You’ve been glued to your wife’s side since you got here. Which is sweet but also makes it impossible to talk to you about her.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re not only dating someone for the first time since Jacqueline, but you’re freaking married . So yeah, I think there’s a lot to talk about.”

I sighed. There was no way I was going anywhere until Maggie said what she’d come out here to say. “Fine. Talk.”

“Why did you marry her?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“An honest one. I know you, little brother, despite the lies you tell yourself. And I know that you would never marry someone this quickly without a specific reason, so what is it? Did she need US citizenship? Did you need the connection to her family for some business deal? Oh fuck, please tell me Dad didn’t coerce you into it for his stupid company. ”

That one hit a little too close to the truth. Or like, exactly on the truth.

“I thought you liked her,” I said in a poor attempt at deflection.

“I love her. That’s not the point. This is about you , not her or me.”

“What about me? I’m fine.”

“Is she pregnant?”

“No! ”

Maggie held up her hands in surrender. “Hey, calm down. I’m not trying to judge you or accuse you of anything. I’m just trying to understand.”

“It’s really quite simple. I asked Danielle to marry me, she said yes, I bought her a ring, we had a ceremony, and now we’re married. What part isn’t making sense?”

“The part where you didn’t tell me she existed until after the wedding. Keeping her away from Dad, and even Mom, I understand. But you didn’t tell me .”

“I’m sorry.” Unlike the apology I’d given her two days ago for not inviting her to the wedding, I meant it this time.

Maggie and I had always been close growing up.

I pulled back a lot when I left for university, and even more so as I got more entrenched in Blake Hotels, but she was still my sister.

I loved her as much as it was possible to love one’s older sister who never outgrew trying to torture you.

“I just need to know that you’re okay, Hayden. Really okay.”

I gave her a tight smile. “I haven’t been really okay in a long time, but Danielle brings me closer to it than anything else.” I was surprised to find that I meant that. Danielle was special, one in a million, and some guy was going to be the luckiest man on earth to have her.

I already hated him—the faceless man who would one day have her in all the ways I couldn’t.

Maggie reached for my hand and squeezed. “You know I’m here for you, right? You can talk to me about anything, and I promise not to judge.”

“I know. Thanks, Mags. ”

“And I really do love Danielle. I think she’s good for you.”

Too bad I wasn’t good for her.

“Is there anything else you want to say, or am I allowed to go back inside now?” I asked.

“Not unless you want to tell me the reason you got married after swearing you never would?”

“Nope.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Try not to get yourself into too much trouble, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said dryly.

And I was going to start by getting Danielle back to my apartment where I could have her all to myself. Where the only way someone could get to her without my knowing was if they managed to climb up to the twenty-sixth floor of the building.

She wasn’t in the kitchen where she’d been helping Mom pack up leftover food when I’d left to put our stuff in the car. Mom was still there, but there was no sign of my wife.

“Where’s Danielle?” I asked.

“I’m guessing she’s still in the bathroom.” Mom gestured at the hall that led to my parents’ wing of the house, and I didn’t hesitate before going to find her.

I heard them before I saw them.

“My son seems quite taken with you.” Dad’s voice rang through the air.

“Is that a problem?” Danielle replied.

“That depends. What are you getting out of the marriage deal?”

“A husband,” Danielle answered in a cool tone .

“Let me guess, you get a couple million when this ends?” When, not if . Dad wasn’t even pretending he believed our marriage would last. “Or maybe it’s the image you’re after—the invites to exclusive events, the fancy home, the ability to say you’re married to a Blake?”

Forget the cancer. I was going to kill him myself.

I was two seconds from barging into their space when Danielle’s next words stopped me in my tracks.

“On the contrary, I don’t want anything to do with your family’s money or reputation. I’m only tolerating it because I care about your sons. Hayden is so much more than an heir to your company, and he deserves to have someone by his side, on his side.”

A triumphant smile spread across my father’s face. I didn’t know what he was so fucking happy about, but I’d heard more than enough.

I closed the space between me and Danielle and wrapped my fingers around her wrist. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“Hayden—” Dad started.

I glared at him. “Do not ever talk to my wife about money or prenups again.”

Danielle surprisingly didn’t argue as I dragged her through the house, stopping for a total of three seconds to say goodbye to Mom and Maggie.

I didn’t let go of her until she was in my car with her seat belt on and I physically had to.

“I’m sorry,” I said when we were speeding back toward Boston.

“You don’t need to apologize. I think he was just looking out for you. Testing my reactions. ”

“Don’t make excuses for him.”

“I’m not. I’m just telling you what I think.”

“I don’t care what he was doing. He had no business talking to you about the details of our marriage agreement.”

He could play games with me all he wanted—I was used to it—but Danielle was off-limits.

I should have felt relieved that the Blake family vacation was over. I hadn’t wanted to take Danielle in the first place. But relief was the last thing on my mind. I felt more like I was going through withdrawals than anything.

I hated falling asleep in my king-sized bed alone, waking up without her hair in my face or her body pressed against mine.

I hated dragging myself out of the apartment in the morning without seeing her face or kissing her.

Every second I spent at the office was torture, but coming home was even worse.

She was there, but I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t taste her.

Because here there was no one to show off for.

No lie I could tell myself to excuse my behavior.

It turned out space and distance weren’t the cure to losing my mind at all. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t see or hear her. She was in every thought I had, drenching every moment with her lack of presence.

I missed her.

But that was ridiculous. We lived together, for goodness’ sake. Except it was easy to forget that when I hardly saw her. She was constantly disappearing into her bedroom, leaving me alone to stew in my misery.

What the fuck was wrong with me? I liked living alone. Sure, I threw the occasional party when Freddie or Orlando convinced me to, but I preferred the quiet. It should have worked out perfectly that Danielle kept to herself and stayed out of my way.

But nothing felt perfect.

My penthouse had never felt so cold and lonely. I was honestly debating calling Orlando and asking if he wanted to throw a party at my place just so I could drown in the noise and forget about the girl living at the end of the hall.

It had gotten bad enough that I regularly checked the security cameras at my place throughout the day from the office.

Most of the time there was nothing to see since I’d killed the cameras in her room—I did have some level of respect for her privacy.

But I lived for the time she spent in my kitchen and the rare occasions when she’d curl up on my sofa to talk on the phone or read or sketch new dress designs in her notebook.

Today she wasn’t in my kitchen or either of the living rooms or anywhere in my penthouse.

She was out with my mom and sister for lunch and whatever else they’d decided to do.

I didn’t know because I was attempting to keep my stalker tendencies to a minimum and didn’t keep tabs on everywhere she went.

Attempting being the keyword here.

She’d left the penthouse at eleven and it was now three thirty, and I was getting dangerously close to texting Caleb to ask for their location .

Instead, I pulled up my conversation with Danielle. I’d managed not to text her since the day of our wedding, but that streak was ending today.

Me

Are you having fun?

Danielle

So much fun. Your mom and sister are the best.

I feel like I should be worried. What are they telling you?

Your life story.

Ha ha.

What’s up? Do you need something?

We got the wedding pictures back. Thought you’d want to see them.

I’d actually gotten the pictures two days ago and had been keeping them to myself. Interrupting her afternoon to send them was nothing but an excuse to talk to her.

Danielle

Yes, I want to see them!!!

A smile stretched over my face. This woman had clearly cast some kind of voodoo spell on me. There was no other explanation for why I was grinning at my phone like a fool simply because she’d deemed pictures from our fake wedding worthy of three exclamation points.