Bedding the Bachelors Box Set (Books 1-3) (63 page)

“You’d do that? Aren’t you busy? With the new job? Your sister’s wedding?”

“Honestly, yes, but I’ll make time for you. I always will when it means something to you, Luce.”

He heard her swallow before she said, “Thank you, but I can handle this on my own.”

“Okay. I’ll be thinking of you the whole time. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will. Before we hang up…have you thought about how we’re going to announce this engagement?”

“What about starting with social media?”

“You want us to what…tweet about it?”

“I thought I could leak it on Twitter, and maybe you could post something about it on Facebook. Hopefully the press would pick it up pretty quickly from there, and then…wa-la!”

“Okay,” she agreed. “But Jamie, I’m not lying to my close friends.”

“I’d prefer not to as well. I won’t tell my family, but I’d like to at least tell Gabe and Cole. Maybe even the others.”

“That’s fine. I’ll tell Grace and Melina. I trust them all with my life. They know all my secrets.”

“Good to know. If I ever need to know something about you, I can just torture it out of one of them.”

Lucy laughed. “You can try, but they’ll never talk.”

“You sure about that? I’m a very persuasive man, Luce.”

***

Lucy couldn’t possibly deny how persuasive Jamie was. Look what he’d talked her into—faking an engagement so she could convince others she was proper maternal material. But she’d agreed to his proposition and now it was time to jump in the only way she knew how—full throttle.

Lucy hung up the phone and went to her computer. She signed on to Facebook, and then she sat staring at the status update box for ten minutes before she finally typed,
Guess who got engaged?

Then she snapped a photo of her gorgeous antique engagement ring and attached it. Before she pressed the post button she sent a text on her phone to Grace and Melina that said, “What you read on Facebook is not true. I will explain later, but in the meantime, please go along with it if anyone asks you.”

Then she pressed post and waited… For the next twenty minutes, she got message after message asking for more information. Social media could be a blessing or a curse. She wasn’t sure which one this was going to be.

She finally typed in:
Engaged to Jamie Whitcomb…So happy!

The responses, mostly from colleagues at the university, poured in even faster:

OMG! That’s amazing!

Congratulations Lucy, Jamie’s a great guy!

Love the ring!

How did he propose?

When’s the wedding?

And her personal favorite:
Damn! One less single billionaire in the world.

Apparently, there were others who knew Jamie came from money. She just happened to think it extremely tacky that someone would refer to it online—so she deleted that post.

Lucy answered a few others, stating they hadn’t set a date yet and thanking them for their well-wishes. She wondered if their plan could possibly work. Could it really be this simple? Fake an engagement to a respectable wealthy man and then all of a sudden she’d be deemed respectable too?

She hated lying.

She hated pretending to be anyone but herself.

But Gail had wanted her to be Milly’s guardian and it seemed right that she do whatever it took to make sure that happened.

As she sat there and watched the messages accumulate, her phone began ringing. It didn’t surprise her to see that it was Grace.

“What in the world is going on?” Grace asked as soon as Lucy answered the call.

Lucy laughed. “Well, hello to you, too.”

“Forgive me,” Grace said. “
Hello, my friend
. Now tell me, what the hell is going on?”

She told Grace about Jamie’s idea. “So that’s basically it. The engagement isn’t real and I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing or not. All I know is…I failed Gail as a sister while she was alive. I don’t want to fail her again. And I don’t want to fail Milly. I need time to think, but I also need the ability to act on whatever decision I ultimately make, and that means making sure I’m granted guardianship.”

“That makes perfect sense, Luce. I don’t have any kids yet, but I know that when I do, I’m going to do whatever it takes to see them safe and happy. But what you’ve told me certainly isn’t ‘it.’”

“What do you mean?”

“You know Jamie cares for you, Lucy. A lot.”

“Of course. That’s obvious. He’s being such a good friend.”

“So you’re…”

“Enjoying being fuck buddies for a while. But that’s all. Nothing’s changed. He’s still from a world I’ll never fit in.”

The silence on the other end of the line was dramatic.

Lucy sighed. “What?”

“It’s just…you’ve never cared about fitting in anywhere, Lucy. Why do you care so much about what Jamie’s friends and families and acquaintances think?”

“I care what
he
thinks, and ultimately, he needs someone who’ll make his life easier, not harder. Eventually, if I made his life hard, he’d grow to resent me and—”

“That dog won’t hunt, Lucy.”

“Uh…what?”

“You can bullshit yourself, but don’t bullshit me. You’re scared, pure and simple. Scared that you’ll give your heart to Jamie and he’ll break it.”

“Yes. Hence my fear that he’ll eventually grow tired of the fact I can’t fit—”

“—into his world,” Grace said at the same time she did. “Well, you know what, Lucy? He lives in the same world you do.”

“You’re wrong,” Lucy said quietly. “Think about how you felt about Max before you got together. About how Melina felt about Rhys. Before they proved they wanted you and only you, before they fought to keep you, can you tell me you all came from the same world?”

Grace’s silence was deafening and Lucy knew she’d made her point. Rhys and Max weren’t rolling in money, but they were true celebrities and had been renowned ladies men; it had taken quite some work for Melina and Grace to accept they were what the two men wanted and all they’d ever want in life partners.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, Lucy. I’ll shut up about it.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Just do me one favor?”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Be careful with your heart, and especially be careful with Jamie’s. Pretending can turn into a lot more and if, in the end, you’re not willing to take a risk…”

“I’ll be careful,” she said. “But you don’t need to worry so much. Jamie and I both know what this is…and what it isn’t.”

After Lucy hung up with Grace, however, she thought about what Grace had said. And she wondered if she was risking hurting Jamie. He’d made it clear from the start that he preferred committed relationships…and committed sex. While he seemed okay with having sex with her while they were committed to their plan, she couldn’t help but think what they were doing wasn’t any easier for him than it was her. Maybe it would be better all around for her to thank him for his offer to help, let him off the hook, and just let things fall where they may.

Only she’d already told the entire world that they were engaged…

And the thought of not getting custody of Milly…

Still unsure what to do, she called Melina and filled her in. Her friend was supportive as well, but gave Lucy almost the same advice that Grace had given her.

God, she loved her friends and counted herself lucky to have them.

After hanging up with Melina, she once again checked her Facebook page and was not surprised that she had thirty new comments. What did surprise her was one was from Diana, Mason’s sister. Diana was not one of her Facebook “friends,” but apparently she was a friend of a friend, which meant she’d someone managed to see and comment on Lucy’s status.

Diana had commented, “That’s wonderful! Gorgeous ring! Congratulations to you both.”

Lucy shook her head and shut down the computer. Once again, she wondered, Could it really be this easy?

Later that day, after Lucy spoke with the attorney, she wasn’t wondering if the fake engagement plan would work—she was praying that it did.

If it didn’t, she was going to be seriously tempted to spill blood.

On second thought, she might be tempted to do so even if the fake engagement did work.

According to the lawyer, the reasons Mason’s parents and sister had cited for contesting Lucy’s guardianship of Milly was Lucy’s “excessive alcohol use,” her “multiple sexual partners,” and her “unstable social and home life, which would put the baby at risk.”

Shaking with rage, she paced the attorney’s office. “Don’t they have to back up their allegations? Just how are they going to prove how many sexual partners I have? Or for that matter,” she asked the attorney, “how much alcohol I drink?”

Lucy didn’t even have “multiple” sexual partners. She was an adult who engaged in consenting sex when the mood struck. But she didn’t sleep with more than one guy at a time; she was monogamous with partners so long as they were together, whether she made that official or not.

The alcohol thing was bullshit, too. Lucy drank occasionally when she went out with her friends, but that wasn’t every weekend, and she never got drunk. She liked to be in control, and too much alcohol took that away from her.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the lawyer all this, but she forced herself not to make excuses to a man who was a virtual stranger. She refused to justify her lifestyle choices to anyone, damn it.

Yet she couldn’t deny feeling like she was sixteen years old again, being chastised and lectured by her father for her inappropriate and ultimately embarrassing actions.

“My guess would be they’ve either hired a private investigator, or they plan to hire one. Money is not really a consideration for these people, Lucy; they’ll do whatever it takes.”

A private investigator. Someone following her around. Keeping book. Taking pictures.

God, was it possible he’d attended Open Strip Night?

Still shaking, but this time with distress more than anger, she sat down before she fell down. The ramifications of the child custody battle suddenly became all the more real and she realized just how big a favor Jamie was doing her.

She hadn’t give any thought to the idea that being engaged to her might not be so great for
his
reputation. Wasn’t he the least bit worried about that?

By the time Lucy left the attorney’s office, she was as depressed as she’d ever been.

All her life, she’d tried so hard not to let other people’s opinions of her affect her. In her heart, she’d always felt she was a good person—on the wild side, sure, but wild could be fun and free and fabulous.

But now, Lucy didn’t feel like a good person. She felt like someone who was taking advantage of a friend’s good heart when doing so would be to that friend’s detriment.

She wanted to do right by Gail and Milly.

But she didn’t want to hurt Jamie’s reputation. He was going back into the world of big business. What would his family say about her if and when all these allegations were made public?

Nothing good.

She couldn’t do it. She was going to have to tell Jamie to call off the engagement.

Later, when Lucy got home, she called Jamie. “Hey, what are you doing?"

“I just finished up a meeting with my father and I’m getting ready to have dinner with him and my mother.”

“Oh, so you’re on the Island now?”

“Yeah…are you okay? Do you need me to come up there?”

She smiled. He wouldn’t even need to take his private jet. He could just hop on a flight from San Diego and be on her doorstop in a few hours. His eternal willingness to be there for her, no matter what he was doing or what she needed, tugged at her heart like nothing else.

“No, you stay where you are and enjoy your meal with your parents. But I do have something I need to discuss with you. I saw the attorney today and he said that Mason’s family has probably hired a private investigator to dig into my background. They’re making allegations…”

“What kind of allegations?” he asked, his tone grim.

“Nothing I wouldn’t expect in a game of dirty pool. I’m a lush, whore, danger to society. Take your pick.”

“Those bastards,” he said. “Let me call my lawyer—”

“No, no. Don’t call your lawyer. I don’t want you involved in any of that. It’s not fair, and not what you signed up for.”

“So what are you saying?”

“We have to call this silly engagement off. I’ll win them over another way. And if I can’t, then—”

“Forget it.”

She jerked at the emphatic tone of his words.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re not calling this off. I already invited Mason’s family to my sister’s wedding. They were ecstatic. I know my plan is going to work, and we agreed to do whatever it takes to get the baby, didn’t we?”

“Yes, but that was me being selfish. I appreciate you, Jamie, so much. I don’t ever want to take advantage of your good heart. I’ll post on Facebook in the morning that we’ve decided to call it off and I’ll give you the ring back when you get back to town.”

“Lucy, listen to me—”

“No, Jamie. I’m tired and I just want to go to bed now. There’s no sense in arguing about this. I’ve made up my mind. Have a good night.”

She hung up the phone and wondered why she had tears rolling down her face. It wasn’t as if she and Jamie had truly been engaged. Chastising herself for acting like a silly schoolgirl, she washed her face and went to bed. It was only eight in the evening, but she was truly exhausted.

Sometime later she dreamed that someone was pounding on her door. She ignored it, and then her phone began to ring. She ignored that too, and then the banging started again.

Lucy pulled open her eyes and looked at the clock.

It was just past midnight.
Who the hell is banging on my door?

She staggered out of bed, pulled on her robe and padded out to the living room. When she got close to the door, the pounding started again, making her jump. “Who is it?” she called, annoyed and a little bit frightened.

“It’s Jamie.”

Lucy sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. Then she smiled. He’d done exactly what she’d thought he could do earlier—jumped on the first plane to get to her.