Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Now it’s all coming back to me.
I’m faking it because this asshat thinks it’s okay to treat women like crap. I flash back to Wilder’s words in his office the day we decided to do this.
You deserve to be treated with respect. With adoration. With real affection.
Then to Bibi’s that same day.
I hope you beat that Brady character in the competition.
Cheating exes who think women are disposable don’t get to win a damn thing. I lift my chin, fueled by Christmas revenge. “We’ll be ready, and we’ll win,” I blurt out.
Wilder reads me like that. He loops an arm around my shoulder, squeezing me. “We will. And just to make it a little more fun, whoever wins, whether it’s someone from town, or from the wedding party—I’ll donate ten thousand dollars to the winner’s charity of choice.”
I jerk my gaze to him, a smile forming fast on my lips. I’m impressed. That was even hotter—the throwdown and the gesture.
Brady wolf whistles. “Damn, the boss man does not fuck around.”
I clasp my fingers through Wilder’s, like an adoring girlfriend. “No, he does not.”
Round one goes to the best man and the maid of honor. Take that, Brady.
19
MY LITTLE SIDEKICK
Wilder
“I don’t know why you think it was me,” Mac says dryly—too dryly—after she spits out her toothpaste that night.
I lean against the bathroom door, arms crossed, shaking my head. I will get her to break. It’ll just take a little more time. “I can’t imagine.”
As she sets her toothbrush in the holder, she shrugs nonchalantly. “I mean, do I look like the sneaky type?”
With her blonde hair in a braid, and her too-big eyes, she’s the picture of innocence. “You? Not at all.”
“Exactly,” she says, then rinses her mouth with water and spits it out, setting the cup on the vanity like it’s a gavel. “Case closed.”
“Have you considered law?” I ask as she reaches for a towel and wipes her mouth.
“Actually, I have. Environmental law. I think I’d be a good attorney protecting the forest and polar bears.” Her gaze drifts pointedly to her pajamas—they’re covered with cartoon polar bears wearing Santa hats.
“I’d hire you,” I say as we head down the hall to her room.
“I already have my first client, and I haven’t even gone to law school yet.”
“Let alone high school,” I say as she turns into her room and flops down on the bed. Her desk is still a mess, but she helped with the party clean-up, so I table the request to tidy her desk till tomorrow. She grabs a book from the nightstand but doesn’t thrust it at me. “So how was the party?”
She sounds too eager for a report.
I could tell her, but two can play at her game. “Good,” I say evenly, giving nothing away since she gave nothing away when I asked if she’d hung the mistletoe.
“Just good?” Her little voice pitches up.
“Yes, just good.”
She heaves a sigh. “Dad. How could it have been just good?”
I adopt an intensely curious expression. “Why would it have been more than just good? Any reason in particular?”
She rolls her eyes. “Dad!”
“Mac,” I deadpan.
She drops her head into her hand, then mutters, “Fine. I hung the mistletoe.” She lifts her face, scowling. “There. Are you happy?”
“Very much so.”
“Now tell me. Was the party good? Did the mistletoe work?”
“Now you tell me. Why did you hang it?”
She pushes up on her elbows. “Because you’re fake dating,” she says, so amusingly impatient that I nearly double over in laughter. “And you want it to be believable. Couples kiss under the mistletoe all the time. I know the drill. I’ve seen the movies. Now, did it work?”
Too well.
But I won’t tell her that. I won’t tell a soul that Fable’s kiss is playing on an endless loop in my head and it will be for days. I won’t utter a word that Fable’s scent—strawberries and champagne—is branded in my mind, and the soft, sweet taste of her lips is intoxicating me hours later. That if our first practice kiss in my office did a number on me, this one will be my downfall.
“It worked to help sell the romance,” I say since that’s true, and since my kid is damn good at being a sidekick.
“Good.” Then she pats my arm. “I know you didn’t want Bibi to set you up. So I want this to work for you.” She pauses, brow knitting, cogs turning. “And I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I say, trying to figure out if there’s more to her sidekicking than meets the eye.
“You’re happy with work and me,” she says, then curls her hands tighter around the covers, “but maybe the mistletoe made you happy too?”
Ah, hell. I can’t let her get ideas. Even if her mistletoe was strategic, I can hear the little bit of hope in her young voice. Mac is eleven. She’s sharp as a tack and more clever than a book. I could see her engineering a romance even out of a fake one.