11. Ford

FORD

CHAPTER 11

A s soon as I got back to my apartment, my suit was off. After an endless evening like the one I’d just had, buttoned up in my tux, smiling and shaking hands with every last snooty guest, all I wanted was a pair of comfy sweats and total silence. I grabbed a bottle of water from my fridge, downed half of it in one go, and parked my ass on the couch.

Finally. A moment to myself.

Thank God Emzee said yes to my plan.

For a brief moment, I’d seen the refusal on her face, and I was sure she’d back out. It wasn’t a small ask, and she’d already done more than enough to help me out with the Claudia situation. But of course she said yes. She always did.

That was one of the reasons we were still such close friends after all these years—she was the kind of person who could roll with the punches, who was always down for whatever crazy schemes I came up with. Dumb stuff like putting on British accents at a college party full of people we didn’t know, or committing ourselves to the twenty-five hour and nine minute straight total running time that was the eleven-film Star Wars marathon (she’d even brought over two batches of Storm Trooper cookies), or the year we’d spent Christmas Eve driving all over Chicago to rearrange people’s lawn decorations so that pairs of deer appeared to be humping. Emzee had been cool like that ever since high school—ever since I became her “hero.”

And tonight, that hero worship shit had really paid off. Because I knew I’d been pushing my luck with this whole charade. In fact, luck was a very good word for what it felt like I had with Emzee in general. How many guys in my position would have ended up with a ride-or-die like her? Still, I’d known that I was skating on thin ice when I dropped the surprise engagement bomb on her with zero warning, right in front of my parents and Claudia. Especially after we’d decided to do the exact opposite and call the whole thing off.

The thing was, once I’d realized how brilliant this plan was, there was no way I could have just walked away. We both knew that my mother never would have stopped until I was shacked up with Claudia and cranking out the grandchildren.

I shuddered at the thought.

Sure, my ex was hot—smoking hot—and yeah, she knew how to walk the walk—but that was about it. She was predictable, she didn’t have a sense of humor, and the times she’d flashed her mean streak with Emzee or a valet or a waiter had turned my stomach. The truth was, I’d lost interest in her ages ago. It had just taken me a while to do something about it. The thought of spending my entire life with her made me want to throw myself off the Willis Tower.

The thought of spending my entire life with anyone made me feel that way.

I just wasn’t down with the whole ball and chain lifestyle. I liked my freedom. Liked being able to do whatever I wanted. I was way too young to settle down just yet.

That’s why Emzee was the perfect choice for this whole charade. A year married to her would hardly be a hardship at all. She was laid back, fun to hang with, and eager to say yes. In other words: jackpot.

I finished my water, crushed the bottle, and leaned back into the supple, full grain leather of my couch.

I loved my apartment, how completely and utterly masculine it was. Leather and reclaimed wood and steel everything, modern and rustic at the same time. Claudia had always been trying to change it; to change me. First she wanted me to clear out a dresser drawer for her in the bedroom, then she started bugging me to buy new furniture—a velvet Chesterfield, which I vetoed, and a wood frame bed instead of my black platform model, which I agreed to—and then there was the day I came home to find that she’d put a floral shower curtain and matching rugs in the bathroom. That’s when I realized she was trying to lock me down, one flowered curtain at a time, and I knew she had to go. I couldn’t live like that.

Emzee never would have pulled that kind of shit. She’d never try to change me.

I put my feet up, taking a moment to appreciate how fucking brilliant my plan was. I had to admit, I’d even impressed myself.

Of course, my mother would have preferred Claudia, but I knew she’d come around eventually. After all, a daughter-in-law was a daughter-in-law, and Emzee checked a lot of the same boxes that Claudia did. She’d do the right things and say the right things, and it wasn’t like Emzee was some kind of upstart. She was wealthy, and not only that, she’d been a member of Chicago society since she was a child. Like it or not, she was well aware of the ins and outs of the invisible rulebook that governed our social class. She could roll with it.

She even ran her own charity, for fuck’s sake, something Claudia had never managed to accomplish. Not that she had ever tried to tackle something like that, but I knew it got under her skin that Emzee had something on her resume that Claudia didn’t. My ex had brought it up enough times—completely out of nowhere—that it was obvious the charity’s success annoyed her. Claudia couldn’t say enough disparaging things about See Yourself. How self-aggrandizing and unnecessary it was, essentially just some vanity project, how it was wasteful to throw all that money away handing out cameras and photography training to a bunch of aged-out models.

I knew Claudia was just jealous, but I’d gotten sick of her trash talk pretty fast. In fact, it had been yet another sturdy nail in the coffin for our relationship. There was nothing wasteful about using one’s connections and wealth to help people in need, regardless of who those people were. In fact, helping others was one of the best things a person of privilege—or any person, really—could do in their life. Guess Claudia wasn’t familiar with the concept.

No matter, though. She was gone. And this engagement to Emzee meant that Claudia couldn’t just manipulate her way back into my life, not even with my mother’s help.

I finally had control of my life again.

Everything was coming up Ford.

Letting out a yawn, I checked my phone. It was after three a.m. Time for bed. I padded down the hall and walked into my bedroom, a place that had always been my sanctuary.

It was set up for seduction. A big, luxuriously comfortable king-sized bed dominated the space, covered in expensive, black silk sheets. The lights were dimmable, the curtains dark, the mood beyond sexy. If a woman was in my room, she knew what was about to happen.

Shucking my sweatpants, I slid under the covers naked. It was how I always slept.

How would my blushing bride-to-be react if I carried her over the threshold after our wedding and took her straight here?

As I stretched out on the bed, all my back-patting suddenly gave way to the tiniest hint of guilt. About Emzee. Would she still be my friend at the end of this?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Was I shamelessly exploiting her crush on me to get what I wanted?

Yeah, I was.

She didn’t even realize that I knew about her long-held torch for me, but I’d always pretended I was oblivious. I liked our friendship just the way it was, and sex (and the inevitable messy breakup later) would have destroyed us. So I’d always considered to be Emzee off-limits.

Now that could be a problem.

Because there was no way I could go a whole year without sex.

Though frankly, I wouldn’t mind having it with my new fiancée. It was all I could think about, seeing her in that dress tonight. And it wasn’t like it had been any kind of hardship to kiss her all those times—making out with Emzee was hot. I’d even gotten a little turned on when she was pressed right up against me. Who wouldn’t? She had those lush tits, that curvy little body, and a pair of the softest, thickest lips I’d ever seen. They’d always looked absolutely prime for giving head; I’d had the thought more than once over our seven years of friendship.

But at the end of the day, she was still a girl. A girl with a crush.

I knew that for her, sex would come with feelings. Lots of them. Under the tough-girl attitude and the dark eye makeup and the boots, Em was secretly a big softie. Her heart was a delicate thing. Shit, I’d witnessed her blinking back actual tears just talking about the sweaters she’d bought for her rescue dog. So yeah, I had to give this sex thing some consideration. Because once we started sleeping together, she’d stop thinking of our relationship as fake.

Which would be a problem when it came time to orchestrate the divorce.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as they said. It wouldn’t do me any good to upset Emzee and give her a reason to seek revenge in court later. She could blow this whole thing up if she wanted to, go to the press with her story, hire a top dollar legal team to get her some massive alimony payment, maybe even try to take my apartment. I’d have to play my cards exactly right throughout all of this. Emzee the best friend would never do anything to hurt me. Emzee the heartbroken ex-wife? I had no idea.

I rubbed my eyes, realizing I’d made a major misstep in not giving more thought to the intimacy aspect of our arrangement. If Emzee and I were married, even if it was for show, I couldn’t step out on her, couldn’t sleep around. And our chemistry had to be off the charts if we were really going to sell the whole thing. So I’d have to somehow navigate the emotional minefield ahead of me, because abstinence was not an option.

It had been bad enough going without since Claudia and I had broken up—it wasn’t intentional celibacy, of course, but I’d been swamped at work for a few weeks, and then I had to focus all my attention on getting my family to believe that Emzee and I were actually together.

At this point, I was starting to get antsy.

My mind wandered back to the dress Emzee had worn tonight. I hadn’t been able to stop staring at that open back. How much bare, creamy skin was exposed. I’d had to satisfy myself with running my hand gently up and down her spine all evening, keeping everything G-rated, my fingers itching to slide straight down the fabric and cup her gorgeous ass the whole time.

If our night out had been real, that dress would be in a puddle on my bedroom floor right now. I’d have Emzee lying spreadeagle on the bed, thighs spread wide, making her whimper with pleasure as I gave her a taste of what this cock was capable of.

I felt myself growing hard at the thought.

Sex with her would be good, I had no doubt—we had chemistry, the kiss proved that—but I also knew that Emzee didn’t have a lot of experience. Sure, she had dated plenty, but no one had ever lasted long enough to really learn all her hot spots, and I was confident that whomever she’d slept with—mostly self-absorbed artist types in skinny jeans—probably hadn’t taken the time or effort to bring her to the explosive orgasms I always provided my sexual partners. I doubted her usual type even knew how. It’d be up to me to chart unknown waters.

I wrapped my hand around my hard cock as I thought about all that would entail. The long, wet kisses, my hands gliding over her curves, her soft moans as her body opened up to me. I would make it good for her. Good for both of us.

And because she was halfway in love with me already, I knew that when the time came to seduce Emzee, she wouldn’t say no.