Chapter 21

twenty-one

Nevaeh

“A married woman,” Candace bumps my shoulder with hers. “How’s it feel?”

“It feels—” My grin is too big for a fake wife. “It feels surreal.”

“I bet. You two move fast.”

Wrenlee laughs. “Kane always moves fast. At everything he does. Once that man makes a decision, that’s it.”

“Kind of like Cash,” Candace says. “As I recall, it wasn’t long before you two got hitched.”

Wrenlee snorts. “It was more than a month. But yeah, they still take the cake on moving fast.”

“Next up is Tav,” Candace muses. “Wonder how fast that man will get hitched when it’s his time. If we’re going with the flow of you lot, I’m thinking we’ve got the span of a week when he meets the girl who sweeps him off his feet and turns him into a possessive megalomaniac.”

I can’t help but frown as I look at her bare ring finger. “What about you and Ian?”

“Oh, he’s asked.” Candace waves off the idea of marriage with a scrunch of her nose. “I’m happy just being his.”

“You don’t want to get married?” I ask and Wrenlee picks up her ice water to suck hard on her straw. I think she’s already had this conversation.

“Marriage isn’t for me. Maybe one day, but not yet. Ian asks every year—we’ve been together for six years now.”

“He asks every year?”

She smiles. “Every December. Christmas Eve when we’re alone.”

My heart hurts for the base player who is currently pounding on the keyboard as Cash’s smoky voice floods the mic. When my eyes drift from Ian to Kane, I find him watching me and my cheeks burn. Because he has a look in his eyes that reminds me of last night when he’d thoroughly fucked my mouth.

I shift, squeezing my thighs together and he cocks a grin. He knows.

I drop my eyes to my lap before looking back to Candace. “That’s kind of sad.”

“I’m just not ready. Marriage was—it was really bad for my mom. My dad was a bad, bad man. The kind of bad that nightmares are made of.” Something dark and sad fills her eyes. “He took my mom away from me when I was eleven. I was raised from there in foster care—he’s still in prison.” My hands cover my lips in horror as she continues, “I promised her at her funeral that I’d never do it. Never get married. Never let a man have that kind of power over me.” She gives me a brave smile. “But when I met Ian, he swept me off my feet. I know we’re basically married and it’s probably silly to keep denying him but—” Her lips twist to the side. “It was the last promise I made to her, and I can’t make myself break it. When he asked that first year, it scared me because I genuinely wanted to say yes. I explained to him about my promise, and that I loved him and wanted to spend my life with him.”

“He was cool with that?” I ask, looking at Kane’s quiet, intelligent friend in a new light.

“He’s Ian.” She shrugs. “He’s mine to the core and he just wants me to be happy.”

“Is he happy?”

“I think so.” She smiles softly. “He still wants to marry me, obviously. But he’ll wait until I’m ready.” It’s the first time I’ve seen Candace blush. “I asked him to keep asking, so every year on Christmas Eve, on the anniversary of his first ask, he gets down on one knee and asks me if I’m ready.”

“Wow.” I take a slow sip of my margarita—a treat—and breathe, “I think I’m in love with him enough to marry the guy for you.”

She throws her head back and laughs. “Too bad you went and hitched yourself to the flirt.”

I grin, tongue toying with my straw as I look to the stage again—at Kane. His blue eyes are fixed on me, and he’s watching me now with hunger. Raw, unbridled hunger.

My stomach clenches. “Yeah. Too bad.”

“So?” Wrenlee asks. “Think this December will be the one?”

Candace smiles thoughtfully, her eyes drifting to her man. “I don’t know. I think I’m going to have to make a trip home. Talk to my mom. Explain things to her.”

Shocking myself, I reach out to touch her hand. “She’d understand, Candace. I promise you; she would understand. And I think—I think any mother would be so grateful to know her baby found a man who loves her as much, as deeply and honestly and without reservation, as Ian loves you.”

“Thank you,” she whispers.

Her smile is wobbly, eyes wet. It’s not a conversation anyone would expect to have between girls who watch their rockstar men performing to a crowd of adoring women who scream their names and toss their panties on stage.

I settle back in the booth beside Wrenlee who sips on water because she says she’s feeling queasy, probably because she’s pregnant—I wonder if she knows yet. We’re tucked safely to the side, away from the adoring, slightly obsessed mass of women vying for the attention of our men on stage. It’s weird to see the man I’m now officially married to, in the eyes of the law, at least, up on stage desired by so many others.

His options, I realize, are endless. Why is he with me? Why does he feel he needs to play this game with me?

Is it really just to please his mother? To make her stop harassing him about marriage and, if I know mothers, probably babies. Or is there some other reason the man has for binding himself to me?

I mean, I know why I agreed to play this game with him. But the way I look at it, I’m the one reaping all the reward here.

That fact is more glaring than ever as he strums a solo on his guitar under the smoky haze of the stage lights. Kane isn’t just attractive, he’s hypnotic. The man emits a dangerous allure that is off the charts, what with the dark ink slashing across his skin, the hard cut of his jaw, and those paralyzing Siberian ice eyes. He’s the definition of desire, the picture of lust—and he’s mine.

“It’s normal,” Wrenlee says bizarrely, leaning close.

“What’s normal?”

“Wanting to jump his bones.” She sighs, eyes on Cash. “Every time I see him up there, I’m hot and bothered.”

Candace empties her drink, letting it hit the table with a clang. “Yeah, that never changes.”

I giggle, happier for the lighter conversation and thoughts. It got dark for a beat, and I’ve already had so much dark.

I spend the rest of the night sipping margaritas and laughing with the girls, having a totally great time. I don’t think about paid attackers turned stalkers, insane ex-fiance’s or shit ex best friends. I only let myself think about the here and now, the man on stage, and the beauty he’s gifted me for this next year.

I slip completely into the role I’m playing as Kane Volkov’s wife, even rising onto my tiptoes and kissing him with passion when he jumps down from the stage at the end of the performance to pull me into his arms.

I don’t think about what this public display might mean for us in the future. I don’t consider if we’re ready for the ramifications. I just do it, because right now, it’s what feels natural. Right.

This man—my fake husband—feels right.

And that’s the moment that I know I’m in deep, deep trouble.