The Wedding Hoax (12 page)

The desire in his eyes was clear. But what wasn’t clear was how being with him would change things between them even more. Her feelings for him grew exponentially as she peered into his electric-green eyes. She wanted to lie there in his arms all night, be with him again and again if he’d let her. But she already knew that the thing she needed most from him was the one thing he’d never be able to give her tonight or any other night.

More.

The thing he’d already made clear she could never have from him. And the one thing she was certain she wanted in her future. More. More commitment. More exclusivity.

“Just a minute!” she called when Troy knocked again.

She bent down and kissed Cole on the lips. The passion she felt for him built so rapidly she thought it might overtake her. Resting her forehead against his, she forced in a deep calming breath and focused on the words she didn’t want to say but had to.

“I’m sorry, Cole. Being with you in Chicago was a mistake I can’t afford to make a second time. I thought I could play your game, but I was wrong. You don’t want forever.”

Silence. She risked a glance at him. “Right?”

For a second something flashed across his face that made her believe his opinion about the future might have changed. Maybe it was a flicker of hope or a glimpse of possibility. But when he opened his mouth to speak, he furrowed his brow, his gaze cold and unyielding.

“Right.” His response was short, to the point, and definitive.

She blinked away her tears as she pulled her shirt back on and quickly buttoned it, then opened the door on her way to her room. “He’s in there.” She pointed over her shoulder to the kitchen where Cole was likely scrambling into his jeans.

She ducked into her room, quickly changed into her pajamas, and climbed into bed, only letting the tears fall once she had the blankets pulled over her head. More than anything, she wanted to be with Cole. But she wanted all of him, not just his body. The way he looked at her. The way he smiled at her. The way he took care to make sure she was as happy as she could be in his home. Everything made her want him more.

But that was the essence of the problem with him. Cole didn’t want more. Not with her. Not with any of the other women he’d been with.

And she couldn’t do less. She couldn’t do trysts with no commitment or plans for the future. No commitment equaled no feelings, and after the jealousy she’d felt tonight at the thought of him with another woman, she already knew the idea of having “no feelings” was impossible.

She was falling for Cole.

Again.

Chapter Fourteen

“Well, I seem to have interrupted something tonight. I apologize,” Troy said when he walked into the kitchen and found Cole pulling his shirt over his head, his jeans on but still undone.

After what Daisy had said, Cole wasn’t sure things would have gone any further anyway. God, marriage? Even after so many weeks of being immersed in the idea and preparation for it, the thought of actually doing it for real scared him. Marriage would give his father an excuse to say he was too distracted to do his work, and he’d lose the adventure magazine he’d dreamed of running for so long.

But it wasn’t only his father’s disapproval that had made him turn down Daisy’s question of forever tonight. It was also his mother. How many times had he seen the same longing for affection and commitment on her face as he’d seen on Daisy’s tonight? Too many.

Son, the only future to plan for is your next business investment, the quarterly statements, and the bottom line. A woman will never understand where she fits into that mix, because she doesn’t.

“What do you want, Troy?”

“Grouchy when you don’t get any, aren’t you?” The younger man smacked him playfully on the arm. Cole resisted the urge to punch him in the face.

Troy’s company wasn’t exactly welcome at the best of times, but tonight it was downright obnoxious. The sooner he could get his brother out of his apartment, the sooner he could go to Daisy and find out what the hell had just happened.

If he wasn’t mistaken, she’d jumped him, messed with his mind and his body for a bit, then discarded him to the side while fighting back tears. That wasn’t how he’d seen tonight going, and he didn’t want it to end on that note, either.

He grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and handed another to Troy. If he had to talk to his brother, he needed a drink. He flopped onto the couch and put his feet on the coffee table. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?”

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop in and see how work was going. How things were going with Daisy. But I guess I don’t need to ask that last one, do I? Seems pretty clear the ring hasn’t hampered your sex life too much.” He laughed as if it was an inside joke. It wasn’t. But he
was
pushing Cole’s buttons.

“You’re here to check up on me,” he muttered. He didn’t bother trying to keep the irritation out of his voice this time. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but the magazine is doing great. I think the numbers I’ve seen so far this quarter are excellent.”

He took a slug of his beer while that little tidbit sank into Troy’s thick skull. When he spoke again, he added in a lot more confidence and cockiness than he actually felt. “And as you saw, things with Daisy are amazing. Engaged life treats me pretty well.”

As he said it, he realized he was telling the truth on that last part. Aside from this last hour with Daisy when things had gotten really hot and then really weird all of a sudden, he’d been having a great time being fake engaged to her. Of course, he didn’t have the fear of a real commitment overshadowing his good time.

“Glad to hear it.” Troy sounded the exact opposite. “For a guy who lives with his fiancée, I expected to see a lot more girlie stuff around, but your place looks the same as it always has,” Troy said. “Almost as if Daisy hasn’t even moved in.”

Uneasiness crawled up Cole’s spine. Troy wasn’t checking up on him or the magazine or simply making friendly small talk; he was checking up on his relationship with Daisy.

“Most of the stuff she moved ended up in her—
our
—bedroom.”

“Her bedroom? Is that different than your bedroom? You guys sleeping separately?”

“Well, my bedroom is hers now, too. I guess I’m still getting used to saying ours for everything.”

“Where’d the little lady run off to anyway? She’s not very friendly with her future in-laws.”

“She’s off to bed, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Territorial? Interesting.” Troy put his empty bottle on the coffee table. “Sad though. Not even married yet, and you’re stuck at home on a weekend with your girl in bed before eleven. Pathetic really. I hope you enjoy that life for the next fifty years of marriage.”

Cole’s temper rose, and he fisted his hands in his lap. The need to defend Daisy overwhelmed him. He pulled cool air into his lungs forcing himself to calm down. It didn’t matter what Troy thought. The only thing that mattered right now was that he got his brother out of this apartment before he got into a fight with him. Easiest way to do that was with a little storytelling.

“Actually she was tired from the marathon sex you interrupted on the kitchen floor. I was well on my way to my fourth home run before you barged in here and messed up my night.”

“Fourth?” Troy scoffed.

“One of the perks of engaged life.” Cole got up from the couch and took their empty beers to the kitchen. He yawned purposefully loud while he put them into the recycling bin, stretching as he walked back into the room.

Apparently taking the hint, Troy said a hasty good-bye and left. Relief washed over Cole, but it was quickly replaced by dread at the conversation he had coming up with Daisy.

He knocked on her door.

No answer.

He knocked again. He had to talk to her, and he had to do it tonight. Something like this couldn’t be left to fester between them, or it would only cause more issues down the line. If he didn’t care about what happened between them, he’d walk away. But he did care about her, at least enough to make sure she wasn’t in her room crying over something he’d done or hadn’t done.

“Dee, I know you’re in there.” His nickname for her kept slipping out despite his best efforts to rein it in. This time it might work to his benefit and soften her up a little. “Can I come in?”

“Go away, Cole.”

Ignoring her request, he pushed open the door. A lump lay buried in the blankets. The mattress sagged beneath him as he climbed onto the bed beside her and leaned back against the headboard.

“That’s the exact opposite of going away.”

“I know.”

He stayed quiet for a few minutes, enjoying lying there next to her, sharing the same space. He looked around her room, amazed at how she’d turned his boring and bland guest room into something nice. Every inch of it screamed Daisy’s name from the flowers in a vase on the dresser to the books stacked five-high on the nightstand.

“Are you going to tell me what happened at dinner, or do I have to ask?”

“A momentary lapse in judgment.”

“You seem to be having a lot of those lately. It might be a critical problem.” He hoped she heard the teasing tone in his voice even with all those blankets over her head.

“Listen, Cole.” Her voice wavered.

He cut her off before she could say more. “I’d be able to listen better if you would come out from under there.”

A small sigh came from the lump then she removed the blankets, uncovering her head and chest. Static-filled hair stuck up in every direction.

“Are you actually laughing at me?” She shot upright in bed, the thin spaghetti strap of her tank top pajamas falling off her shoulder.

He realized he must have been grinning like a fool. “I’m sorry. It’s your hair. It’s ridiculous.”

“So you came in here,” she paused, “to insult my hair?” When her voice spiked an octave on the last word, he couldn’t stop the laugh from spilling out of him.

She glowered while he regained his composure.

“I came in here to find out what happened at dinner. One minute I thought I was saving you from choking, and the next you were on me. Everywhere. And then just as fast as you started things, you turned it off like a light switch.”

“Your brother was at the door.” She lay back down in bed, on her side, facing him. The way she was laying and the angle of her shirt gave him a sweet view of her cleavage. He tried his best not to look but quickly conceded defeat. The view was too good to ignore. One he’d like to bury his face in again if she’d give him the chance.

“He would have given up in another minute or two and gone home,” he said.

“And pissed off all the neighbors while he was at it.”

“I couldn’t give a shit about what the neighbors think. But I do care about you, whether you choose to believe it or not. I didn’t miss the tears in your eyes when you fled to your room.”

“I didn’t flee.”

“You did. And I’d like you to tell me why since you’re the one who came on to me, and you were the one to call it off.”

She chewed on her lip for a minute before answering. “I really thought going through the motions would be no big deal. But moving in together added a whole other level I wasn’t ready for.”

“I know. But I really tried to keep my end of the bargain. I wasn’t trying to seduce you with dinner.”

“I know you weren’t. It was all me.” She looked as if she were about to say something but stopped herself.

“You’re not clamming up on me. Whatever you have to say, I want to hear it. I need to hear it.”

“Fine. After you mentioned not going out and flirting with ‘anything with tits,’ if I recall your exact words correctly, I couldn’t stop picturing you with other women. It pissed me off. And…it made me jealous, okay? I know I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help it. Then I saw the concern on your face when you thought I was choking, and it was all too much. I acted on impulse, and I won’t do it again.”

“But you want to? To be with me?” If she wanted to, why fight it?

“But. I. Won’t.” She emphasized each word distinctly.

“Why. Not?” he asked, just as distinctly. “If you want something, why not go after it? Do it? Live life?”

“That’s what I was trying to do. But I’m not like you. I can’t live in the moment and say the hell with the future.”

He slid down and rolled over so he lay on his side, facing Daisy. He propped himself up on his elbow. “Why does everything have to lead to something else with you?”

“Why can’t you consider the future for a change and factor that into one of your decisions? You can do it for the magazine. Why can’t you do it for your personal life?”

“It’s not the way I’m made.” He shrugged.

She shrugged back. “Ditto to your question.”

“When you plan everything out, it takes away from the fun and excitement of it all. Sometimes it’s nice to be spontaneous, in the moment, with no obligation for more.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not obligated for anything more than the rest of this arrangement with me. No one’s made that clearer than you.

Her voice had a new hard edge to it. He didn’t like hearing it.

“Can’t we just have fun? Enjoy each other’s company to the fullest while we’ve been given the opportunity?”

That sounded like a great plan to him. And with Daisy, no less. Even rumpled from the blankets with bed head and puffy eyes, she still looked amazing. He could think of much worse ways to spend time than in her bed or her in his.

As he watched, a whole range of emotions played across her face, finally settling on something vague and closed off from her usual happy self.

“You need to leave now,” she said simply. Coldly.

The mere idea of leaving her bed sounded horrible, but he dragged himself out of it regardless. He recognized the look in her eye, the hardness in her jaw, and knew their conversation was over. Whatever she wasn’t telling him about tonight was going to stay a mystery because he’d never pry it out of her. She could be exceptionally stubborn when she put her mind to it. The only thing she’d manage to tell him was that she thought about the future and he didn’t. That wasn’t news to either of them.