Chapter Nine—Lidia

The rhythmic thumping—of what I didn't know—woke me with a start. An unfamiliar ray of sunlight hit my eyes, and I knew I wasn't in my bed because I'd splurged and bought blackout curtains.

I was too comfortable to be on our hand-me-down couch, and I knew I wasn't in Scotty's room, because it smelled like a football locker-room. This smelled like a man … a man that took care of himself, his cologne, or soap smelled like a woodsy haven. I sat up quickly, looking around the unfamiliar room and checked myself quickly for my clothes. The dark grey sheets smelled like a spring afternoon.

I didn't remember putting this on. What is the last thing I remember? The exhibit, being picked up by Jace, and the wine … oh no, who did I go home with? I'm ruining the plan to get my student loans paid off.

I jerked the covers from my legs, noticing a long T-shirt hit my knees and the distant sound of grunting. I tiptoed into the bathroom connected to the bedroom. Swanky. At least someone with taste took me home—not that it mattered.

However, it made me feel better to be in a nice neighborhood rather than the Southside, where maybe the neighbors would hear me scream and actually call the police.

Think, Lidia, think. What happened after you met Grandpa Charming?

I glanced at myself in the bathroom mirror and cringed. Ugh. It was definitely a man that brought me home, because a woman would have itched to wipe off the remains of my makeup.

Aggressively, I scrubbed my face with water to try to give myself a dose of reality. Think Lidia—I jerked upright and glared at myself. Did I member a marriage proposal? Or … a declaration of me getting married? Wait a gosh darn second … a ring sat on my ring finger that I didn't remember putting there.

There is no doubt I would remember this one. It's large, antique and comes from somewhere so far into the richest galaxy that I'm not allowed to window shop there.

I opened the bathroom door and walked by a closet full of nicely pressed slacks and button-downs and into a giant penthouse that I'd only seen in movies. The rhythmic sound picked up again, faster this time, and I followed it into another room on the opposite side of the apartment.

Jace stood with his back to me, no shirt, and slammed his fist against a punching bag as if he imagined it was someone else. Probably me, after his declaration of love and insanity, he most likely came to his sense this morning.

His shoulders muscles flexed with each swing, giving me a view of what I assumed he looked like underneath those expensive shirts. My oh my … my pretend boyfriend looks yummy.

I cleared my throat. "Umm … you wanna talk about this?" I asked, giving him the Single Ladies Beyoncé dance.

Jace turned and I felt my stomach drop to my knees. Even though you expect it, and you know he takes care of himself, it still stalls your breath just for a few seconds.

Even the sweat dripping down between the perfect mounds of his pecs had my heart pitter-pattering against my chest. "So," I tried to hide my shame from ogling him. "What is this?" I asked, pointing toward the rock on my finger.

Jace sighed and ran his palm down the length of his square jaw. "We need to talk."

I gave him a ya think look.

Jace slid his tongue across his teeth. "I told my grandfather that we were getting married."

I nodded. "I vaguely remember that, and why, please tell, did you do that? That wasn't our agreement, the agreement was to pretend to date, not get married. How are we going to pull this off, Jace? Or were you not thinking about that? You were too busy trying to compete with your brother to think about the lie you just told."

"You're right," he said. "Seth is the reason I did it. And I can't take it back, Lidia, or he'll get my job."

I sighed and leaned against the doorjamb of his workout space. I crossed my legs, thinking about the horrible outcomes of this arrangement. When I glanced up, Jace's gaze slid from my bare legs to my eyes, and I realized I was underdressed, which was something I wasn't comfortable with.

"Do you have any clothes I can wear?"

Jace swallowed deep, his Adam's apple bobbed low, and he nodded. "I had a dress sent over. We have an hour before I told Rebecca we would be in to work."

I found my clothing on a bench in front of his bed, and I appreciate the floor-length floral design and the cute blue jean jacket. Once I was dressed, I found Jace standing in the kitchen, ready for work.

The worry still hung on his face like a bad day. "I made you a smoothie and Rebecca will have us coffee when we get in."

I took the smoothie and ran my finger around the top of the glass. "Jace … what is everybody going to think when this gets out? My parents are gonna freak."

Jace slid a newspaper from the corner of his island to me. I glanced at the front page, and I choked on the smoothie in my throat, making a mess but not caring. There we were. Jace's arm wrapped my waist lovingly, my head on his chest and staring at him as if I was in love.

Liar! I was tipsy! That didn't count. Scotty is going to think—

"Wait a minute. Where is my phone? Why didn't you take me home?"

Jace gave me an annoyed look. "So I could get the third degree from your little boyfriend? Yeah right. It was late and I brought you here. Your phone is on my charger in the room—"

I scrambled toward his room, turning on my phone, I saw numerous text and missed phone calls. Then there were the irate voicemails from Scotty. "Oh my God," I whispered, shaking my head.

My phone rang before I could dial anyone, and I answered, "Hello?"

"Oh my God! You're so dead, Lidia! Actually, I thought you were dead. I was ten seconds away from calling your parents. Do you understand how worried I've been? I called the gallery, and the receptionist wouldn't tell me anything. Are you okay? What happened?"

I sank into Jace's bed. "I'm fine. I got drunk and Jace brought me home—"

"I knew it," Scotty hissed, the sound of a car horn blew behind him. "Just a second, Dad. He took advantage of you, didn't he?"

"No," I scoffed. "He didn't. He just didn't want to bring me home and be interrogated. Which you need to work on. I'm doing this with or without your hostile attitude."

Scoff huffed. "Whatever. I'm glad you're okay. Are you coming home tonight or are you staying at your new boyfriend's house?"

Thank God, he hasn't seen the paper yet.

"I'll be home. Chill out, Gramps."

He hung up. Rude.

I stuffed my phone into my jean jacket's pocket and walked toward the kitchen. Jace gnawed on his lip and looked nervous. I didn't like it. "Are we leaving?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Let's go."

I followed him down to his sports car and slipped into the passenger's side. Jace started the engine and jetted out as we were going to miss a plane. He kept the music down and glanced down at his phone every time it lit up but never answered it.

Weird.

"Jace," I said slurping my smoothie. "Is something wrong, besides the obvious we're engaged nonsense. You're sweating a bit."

Jace's dark gaze jerked upward, and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "Everything is fine."

"Okay," I said sarcastically and went to grab the door handle.

He stopped me with his palm on my thigh. "Lidia, we need to step this up. My family have been calling all morning and I think they're going to stop by; we can't pull the wool over my parent's eyes as we can my grandfathers. My mother is … she's always wanted me to get married. She's going to be happy, and I need you to play the part."

"I'm always happy," I pointed out.

Jace nodded, laced his fingers on the back of my neck and drug my mouth an inch away from his. I let out a surprised sound and swallowed heavily. The mint on his breath danced on my tongue and formed butterflies in my stomach.

"You see," he whispered. "You look scared to death. This is not the face of a fiancé; this is the face of a scared assistant that doesn't want me near her mouth. Relax," he whispered.

I felt anything but relaxed. Nerves rattled around in me like loose change and my thighs tightened from the physical contact. Jace's dark eyes roamed over my face as if I was his favorite candy.

He's good at this.

"Now," he whispered, his fingers massaging the back of my neck. "If they don't see a connection, they'll know this is made up, Lidia. I can't risk that. Please, when I look at you today, pretend I'm—who's your celebrity crush," he asked.

I opened my mouth to talk but I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. "I don't know," I said. "Superman."

He made a face but nodded. "Pretend I'm him. Pretend for me. Pretend I'm going to take you home tonight and make you feel … alive. I need this from you."

Crickey. I nodded because words seem so far away. Jace let go, the absence of his fingers left my neck chilled. He grabbed his things and led me toward the front door.

Rebecca stood in front of her desk when we walked inside, tapping the toe of her heel against the tiled floor. She held our coffees and the meanest scowl on the planet.

She handed us our drinks, turned and grabbed the paper and slammed it against Jace's chest. "Anything you two want to tell me?"

Jace tossed the paper back onto her desk with looking. His fingers slid against the back of my waist and pulled me flush with his hip. "No, not since I don't report to you."

Her eyes slid to slits. "You are not really engaged," she said, gesturing toward me, "to her? You just met her. Tell me it's tabloid trash so I can enjoy the rest of my day."

"Since it's going to ruin your day, take the day off—without pay, but know that this isn't any of your business either way. Be here and be happy or go home and don't come back."

Rebecca gasped but went back to her seat and glared at her computer screen. I felt the heat from her stare on the back of my head all the way up the stairs. When Jace shut the door, I let out a huge giggle sat my things down on my desk.

"That was savage, Jace."

He sighed and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. "It needed to be done, or she'd nag me about it every day."

Jace sat down and answered voicemails, two of which I took care of before he finished the others. "The invitations came in," I said, handing him the box of elegant silver lined invitation. "I'll work on sending them out today."

He nodded and bit the end of his pen tightly between his teeth. "Do you like the ring?" I asked.

I chuckled over my coffee. "Does it matter?" I asked. "We're not really engaged, Jace."

"I know," he said, leaning forward to look at me. "But do you like it?"

I glanced down at the huge oval cut diamond ring that sat unnaturally on my finger. "I think it's beautiful, Jace."

"It was my grandmother's ring; my mother gave it to me to give to my future wife."

"I'll take care of it while I have it," I said. "Which brings me to my next question, how long is this going to go on?" I asked. "We can't keep this going forever. My parents will find out eventually, and Scotty, how long can we keep an engagement going? I mean, I get the dating, it last for a few years, but getting married? Your grandfather is going to know when nothing comes out of this."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, Lidia. One thing at a time."

Humph. "So, is this how you thought your life would go, a fake engagement in hopes of saving your position? What was your plan eight years ago? Did you ever plan to get married?

"I hoped Grandfather would leave it alone. I didn't think he'd seriously force me to marry. I don't want to get married."

For some reason, that didn't surprise me. I grabbed my notebook and scribbled down that he didn't want to get married and the secret feeling of his fingers on my neck. He was right; I needed to get use to him.

"Never?" I asked. "You never want to get married?"

"No."

"Humph," I said, more to myself.

Jace turned to face me. "What?" he asked.

"Not surprising," I mumbled.

He furrowed his dark brow and gave me a go to hell look. "And why isn't that surprising?"

I shrugged, taking a leisurely drink of coffee. "Because look at your life. You work, go home, you don't date, and you don't smile."

"I smile."

I grimaced at his denial and went back to work. "You're a little delusional, you know that," I said.

"Whatever," Jace mumbled.

My phone buzzed against my desk, Scotty's name rolled across the screen and his text that read YOU ARE SO DEAD with a picture of the newspaper below it. "Scotty knows," I said.

"Maybe we should be seen together," he said. "We could have lunch or … I don't know, what do you like to do?"

"Watch Criminal Minds and eat out," I said with a shrug.

"Riveting," Jace said. Rebecca buzzed over and said, "Your parents are here to see you and their new daughter-in-law, funny, they don't even know her name."

"God," he groaned. "Send them up."

Jace stood up, walked over, bent down and kissed me.

Oh crikey.

The outside world stood still, and the thought of his parents walking up soon didn't bother me. Nor did my desk pressing into my back as he leaned into me, his palm engulfing my cheek and the other braced behind me on my desk.

His lips were soft like cotton candy but tasted like mint and hazelnut coffee. Jace surprised me with the kiss, but more so, with the aggressive way he tugged on the hair at the nape of my neck.

I swore I heard him moan when he pulled away from me, but I was certain he stared at me a few moments too long afterward, his eyes tracing where his lips had just been.

"Much better," he whispered against my mouth. I guess he approved of my response.

"Jace Archer," a woman said from behind us. I swirled around quickly, looking at the mother of my fake boyfriend and his father. "What in the Hell are you doing?" she asked, fire swam in her light eyes that matched Seth's.

His father didn’t speak but stared at me with a small smirk.

When Jace didn't answer, I said, "Hey y'all," I said, standing beside Jace. "So, I guess you heard the news."

His father chuckled and his mom shot daggers at me. Well … I guess I am not the only one surprised about our engagement.