My Best Friend's Bride (26 page)

Jill’s first three chapters were received enthusiastically at Browning, and the publisher quickly put out an announcement about the upcoming book. They were lining up speaking engagements and promo tours for her already, and Jill was making steady progress in completing her manuscript. She claimed it was so much easier now that her advice quite literally came from the heart, and Hunter was pleased to have played a role in her professional success. More than that, though, he was ecstatic over the relationship that had developed between them. It was rich and multi-textured, unlike any he had known.

The doorbell rang and Hunter offered to answer it. “I’ll get that, darling.”

She laughed, obviously loving the endearment. Once she’d bristled at its very uttering. Now, it had become a code word between them. One that always made Jill laugh and Hunter sigh, because she was his
darling
and always would be. There was absolutely no one more precious in his life.

Brad and Susan entered and removed their jackets as the pets scampered indoors after them from the yard. “Happy Thanksgiving, you two,” Hunter said congenially. “We’re glad you could make it.”

Brad shook Hunter’s hand, slapping the back of it with his other palm. “Happy Thanksgiving, bro. Thanks for including us.”

Susan smiled softly, her auburn hair pulled up in a ponytail. “Sure beats spending the holiday at Mom’s house. She’s
always
correcting our grammar.”

Hunter chuckled as Jill appeared in the doorway, dusting her hands on an apron. “Welcome! Both of you!” She hugged each of them briefly, then motioned them into the kitchen. “We’ve got wine or beer, whatever you’d like.”

“I think beer goes best with turkey,” Brad said. Susan rolled her eyes and smiled, accepting a glass of wine. They visited for a short time in the kitchen while Jill whipped up the gravy, then everyone pitched in, setting things on the table in the nook.
 

After they’d all settled into their seats, Susan said, “I think this is kind of cool. The four of us having Thanksgiving together. Thank you, Hunter and Jill, for inviting us.”

“Well, Hunter doesn’t have any family in the area,” Jill began. “And my grandpa’s at the stage where he can’t leave the home.”

“How is he?” Brad asked with compassion.

“We went over there this afternoon,” Hunter answered. “Green Meadows held a Thanksgiving dinner for the residents and their families at noon.”

“How nice,” Susan said, taking a sip of wine.

Hunter held out his hands to Susan and Brad, who were seated on either side of him, and Jill took their hands from where she sat at the other end of the table. “Shall we bless the food and begin?”

An hour later, everyone was laughing lightly and moaning heavily as they patted their stretched bellies. “Amazing dinner, Jill,” Brad said. “Thanks.”

Hunter eyed Jill with affection. “Yes, it was. The very best.”

Color rose in her cheeks. “Thanks, darling,” she said with a lilt.

Susan glanced at them both, then stood, offering to help clear the table. “Yes, delicious, all of it. I especially loved the pecan pie.”

When they were away from the men, Susan asked Jill, “So how’s it going with Hunter? Pretty well, huh? The two of you seem, well…like you’re really together.”

“We are together, Susan,” Jill said mildly. “We’re married.”

Susan leaned toward her. “Like I don’t know all about that.”

“How are things going between you and Brad?” Jill asked, turning things around.

Susan’s mouth puckered in a frown. “I don’t know. I mean, sometimes I think I know, but at others it’s hard to say.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

“Don’t think that I haven’t.”

“Hey, ladies,” Hunter said as he and Brad carted their dishes to the sink. “What do you think about a game of Scrabble, or maybe watching a movie?”

The votes centered on a movie, but to the guys’ dismay a chick flick was soundly lobbied for. So Hunter and Brad gave in and retreated to the living room to set up the video streaming while the girls finished packing away the leftovers in the kitchen. “So everything’s really good here?” Brad asked Hunter when it was just the two of them.

“Everything is perfect.”

“Good, but I want you to be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

“Remember last week when you asked me to drop by your condo just to check on it?”

“Sure,” Hunter answered. “You said everything looked fine.”

“It did, but…”

“But what?”

“I don’t know man. I got a funny feeling.”

“Funny, how?”

“I know this is going to sound crazy…” Brad wrinkled up his nose. “But the place smelled a lot like pizza.”

“Pizza?”

“Pepperoni, to be exact.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That’s what I thought, and why I didn’t say anything earlier.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I saw Cassandra yesterday and she was acting a little strange.”

“Stranger than usual?” Hunter queried skeptically.

“Yeah. Plus, she was with this weird guy, Mauve.”

“Who’s Mauve?”
 

“I think he works for a pizza delivery service, because he was wearing that kind of shirt. You know, one with a logo and slogan with a big slice of pie on the front?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, I was at the coffee shop downtown and Cassandra was apparently meeting Mauve there. When he showed up wearing that T-shirt, it was like she totally flipped out. Really lit into him.”

“For wearing a pizza shirt?”

“She was shouting, yeah.
You don’t do that, Mauve! Are you some kind of idiot? Don’t you think someone might put two and two together?
Then she suddenly lowered her voice and peered around the room, like she was worried she’d been overhead.”

“I still don’t get what this had to do with me and Jill,” Hunter said.

“I don’t know exactly either. I’m just saying with Cassandra, you never know. It probably pays to watch your back.”

The girls appeared and the two couples settled in for a movie, but all the while Brad’s scary warning kept echoing in Hunter’s brain. What in the world could Cassandra know, or have put together? She clearly didn’t have any proof… Unless she’d been in Hunter’s place.

Hunter rose early the next morning and went back to the condo. He scoured it completely but didn’t find anything amiss. If Brad had smelled pizza earlier, the scent hadn’t lingered, because Hunter couldn’t smell it now. He decided not to mention Brad’s speculation about Cassandra to Jill, because he didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. She’d had such a great time at Thanksgiving and had played the perfect hostess. It had been the first time they’d entertained as a married couple and both were proud of their accomplishment. They’d dozed off snuggled in each other’s arms, reliving the happy memories of the day. When Jill asked Hunter where he’d been the following morning, he said he’d stopped back by his old place to pick up a few DVDs. The next time they had company, he wanted more equal say in what they’d be watching. Jill had lifted an eyebrow and stared at him like she didn’t quite buy his story. Then again, she probably assumed he didn’t really have anything to hide. And, hopefully, Hunter didn’t.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When Hunter arrived at work that cold December day, the last thing he expected to find was Max standing in his office. “Hunter, my boy, you don’t know how much it pains me to say this.” To Hunter’s astonishment, Max was holding a copy of
Tempo Beat
. “It couldn’t hurt me more if you were my own son. In fact, in some ways...” Max paused and drew his lips into a thin line, his eyes never leaving Hunter’s.
 

“Sir, I’m sorry. I haven’t even seen the issue. I don’t know what’s in—”

Max’s voice cracked with incredulity. “A fake marriage, Hunter? How could you? Do you really take the truth that cavalierly? Does honesty mean nothing to you?”

He flipped the magazine around and Hunter stared in horror at his own signature line at the base of his contract with Jill.

“Max, I—”

“I beg your pardon,” the old man said gruffly. “It’s Mr. Abrams to you.” He slapped the magazine down onto Hunter’s drafting table. “Marriage by contract? How contemporary!”

“Max…sir…Mr. Abrams.” Hunter felt he was standing in quicksand and it was rapidly sucking him under. “If you’d only let me explain.”

“Save your breath for the unemployment office. You’ll probably need it.”

“Unemployment?”

Max pointed an accusing finger. “I trusted you, Hunter! Brought you into my company and into my home! And this is how you repay me?”

“But everything I’ve done for Abrams Advertising has been for real. I’ve worked hard, sir. Spent countless hours...”

“Of course you have. Now I understand it. Your desire to spend time away from home.”

“No! It’s not that! Jill and I… Things are different now. You have to believe me.” Hunter was desperate, grasping at straws, but they were all slipping away.

Max’s eyes were a steely gray. “That’s where I’m afraid you’re wrong. I no longer have to believe anything you say. You have exactly two hours, Hunter. Then I want all of your things out of this office.”

“Two
hours
?
Not even two weeks?” Hunter’s head reeled.

“You’re just lucky I didn’t have the custodian dump your gear on the street.”

Then Max turned abruptly and was gone.

Hunter stood there stunned, wondering if this was some kind of nightmare. Then Fred waltzed in, carting a big office box stuffed with his belongings. “Out with the old and in with the new,” he said in a singsong voice.

In the old days, Hunter might have throttled him, but now all he could do was stare. This couldn’t be happening to him, it just couldn’t. He’d become a laughingstock in all of advertising, and would never in a million years recover.

Jill was surprised to hear Fifi’s excited barking before noon. Perhaps it was a delivery truck, or something arriving by certified mail? Jill fell back a step when she saw it was Hunter. He passed through the front door appearing ashen, a box full of office supplies in his grasp.

“Hunter?” Jill asked with concern. “What’s happened?”

He stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve been fired, Jill.”

She turned white in shock.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“I don’t understand.” Her voice trembled. “You were doing so well. Just got promoted!”

Hunter pursed his lips. “Fred has taken that position now.”

“Fred Forester?” she asked like she couldn’t believe it. “But why? How?”

Hunter set down his box and pulled out the latest issue of
Tempo Beat
. “Cassandra nailed us, Jill. She nailed us good.”

Before Jill could respond to Hunter’s horrific revelations her cell buzzed. It was a text from Morgan, saying she needed to meet with Jill
now
. “I’d better go,” Jill told Hunter, still aghast. “And see what she has to say.”

Hunter hung his head and sank down on the sofa, Fifi immediately taking up her position beside him. “Sure,” he replied without looking up. “You go ahead.”

“I’m sorry,” Morgan told Jill at the coffee shop. “But this is bad, worse than bad actually. Browning’s rescinded your contract.”

“What? Can they do that?”

“They’re the publisher. They can do anything they want.”

“But the advance money? My grandfather?”

“Nobody cares about the advance money. You can keep it. What Browning wants is to keep its nose clean. They’re divorcing you, Jill. The second book tanking was bad enough, but this recent fiasco—”

“The whole thing was your idea, Morgan! From the get-go! You suggested it!”

“I’ve got plausible deniability and you know that.”

“Oh,” Jill said, feeling the hurt spike to her core. “And all this time I’d thought we were friends.”

“We
are
friends, which is why I’m willing to help you. Owen has contacts in New York. I can get him to ask around.”

“Thank you for your charity, Morgan.” Jill stood from the table and snatched up her purse. “But I don’t think I’ll take it.”

Jill cried all the way home. At one point, she pulled over because she doubted her ability to see the road. This was a horrible mess, but surely she and Hunter could fix things somehow? While their marriage might have started as pretend, it definitely felt real now. She and Hunter were a team. She was his wife and he was her… A sob caught in Jill’s throat as she pulled into the drive, and she couldn’t believe her eyes. Hunter was loading up his SUV.

Jill raced out of her car and through the cold. Snow had been predicted and the air was frigid. It couldn’t be any chillier than the ice in her veins. Was Hunter really packing—and leaving her?

“Hunter!” she cried, racing toward him. “Where are you going?”

“This whole thing is a disaster, Jill. Professionally, I’m ruined.”

“Professionally?” Her voice squeaked. “Yeah, well, professionally I’ve got my worries too.”

He squared his shoulders and stared at her. “I’m very sorry about that. It looks like this is a disaster for both of us.”

“But no!” Her chin trembled. “You and I… It’s different now!” When he didn’t reply, she whimpered, “Isn’t it?”

“The truth, Jill? I don’t know what it
is
and
isn’t
anymore. Despite its reputation as a city, in many ways Parkland is a small town. Don’t you realize I’ll never be able to work there again?”

“That’s not true!”

“Who’s going to hire me, huh? A
man of no scruples
, as Cassandra wrote?”

“That’s not who you are. I know the real you.”

“Do you?” he challenged. “Or did you only see the ‘me’ you were hoping for?”

Jill huddled her arms around herself as icy winds blasted and tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d known from the start that this marriage wasn’t real, so why did she feel her heart breaking? It was because things between her and Hunter had changed. He hadn’t said he loved her, but he’d made love to her, as her husband. She’d felt so sure—and had believed in her soul—that their relationship went beyond that stupid contract. How could she have been so wrong?