12. Emzee

EMZEE

CHAPTER 12

I f I was going to get married, there had to be some structure.

Now that I’d taken the time to really think about what it would mean for me and Ford to walk down the aisle—even if it was just for show—I knew that we needed to lay down some ground rules and guidelines before this went any further.

I’d initially learned a bit about how to set up a sham marriage thanks to watching both of my brothers have theirs arranged—and then later, I’d gotten some of the real nitty-gritty, behind-the-scenes stuff via conversations with The Wives. I had a pretty good idea of what needed to happen before anyone said “I do.” In fact, at this point, I felt like a bit of an expert on the subject.

Now I had to get Ford on the same page.

I’d texted him that morning, telling him to meet me at my place because, and I quote, “Munchkin has spent way too much time without me lately, and I think he misses you too.” I knew it would get him to agree; Ford loved my little guy, and the feeling was mutual.

In reality, it was just an excuse to stay on my turf for now. There was no way I’d be comfortable meeting up at the country club again, or at that shag pad of a bachelor apartment Ford lived in. Especially when this conversation was going to be so loaded.

While I waited for him to arrive, I tidied things up.

My gorgeous timber loft in River North was more like a big studio than a proper apartment, with twelve-foot ceilings, exposed beams, and these amazing, massive windows that made the place ideal for independent photo shoots. Instead of separate rooms with walls, the loft was split into areas—a kitchen area, a living room area, an office nook where I edited photos.

It had been love at first sight—I still remember the first time I stepped foot across the threshold, after a long, fruitless day of apartment tours with a real estate agent. The second we walked in, I gasped, grabbed her arm, and told her I’d take it. What had sold me on the spot was the huge open floor plan, the all-original, banged-up, hundred-year-old wood floors, and the cute little bedroom tucked off to the side of the long entry hallway. And that was before I’d even seen the master bathroom with its big soaking tub that was tucked away in the corner of the space.

Ford appreciated the loft, too. It’s where we’d always hung out, since his apartment was such an obvious bachelor pad. At least, until Claudia started “decorating.” Between the flowery rugs she’d put in the bathroom, the ruffly curtains she’d hung up in the kitchen, and the piles of overembellished, girly throw pillows she’d added to the sofa, the place had gotten a lot more Claudia than Ford over the years, and no way did I enjoy being over there. Luckily, it had never caused an issue. Ford was more than happy to kick back at my place.

Speaking of which, even though I knew we’d be talking in the living room or the open kitchen area, I still cleaned my bedroom from top to bottom. Still made the bed, fluffed the pillows, adjusted the blanket tossed over the end. Just in case he glanced in as he walked by. I didn’t want him thinking his potential new wife was a total slob.

My doorbell rang, and Munchkin took off to investigate. He must have known it was Ford, because instead of yipping and yapping, he sat down in front of the door and anxiously waited for me to open it. Which I did right away, only to find my favorite version of my best friend standing there. This was the casual, Saturday afternoon Ford, in a pair of jeans, a tight gray T-shirt, and with his hair adorably tousled as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

“Well. If it isn’t my beautiful wife-to-be and my furry little future stepson,” he said, crouching down to pat Munchkin before sweeping me into a hug.

I savored the feel of his arms tight around me for a moment, then forced myself to focus and step back.

“None of that from you,” I chided him. “We’re here to talk business.”

“Ooh,” he said, giving me a wink. “I love it when you’re all stern and tough.”

Ignoring the teasing, I gestured for him to take a seat on the sectional in the living room area. I’d made a fairly comprehensive list of the things we needed to go over, and Ford raised his eyebrows when he saw it on the coffee table.

“Wow,” he said. “This looks serious.”

I gave him a look. “You said we’d have a contract,” I reminded him. “So I figured we’d better get together and hammer out the details to this lie.”

“You’re the boss,” he said. Then he looked down at my dog, who was sitting on the floor gazing at Ford with eyes of love, his stump of a tail wiggling. “Come here, bud, it’s been a while,” Ford said, hoisting Munchkin onto his lap and scratching him behind the ears.

It was hard not to melt at the sight of my two favorite dudes enjoying each other’s company. “You want a drink or something? I have your Pappy whatever in the cupboard.”

“Little early for bourbon,” he said, “but I appreciate that.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound detached and professional. “Let’s get down to business.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ford said, even giving me a cheeky salute.

I bit back a smile and read the first item on my list. “First off, what is the length of our arrangement?”

“A year? Year and a half?” Ford bit his lip as he considered, and I stared at his mouth, remembering how it had felt to kiss him. If I agreed to this, I’d be kissing him a lot more. I had no idea how I was going to protect my heart from getting broken once this whole thing was over.

I cleared my throat. “Let’s split the difference and say fifteen months. I actually thought we were only planning for a year.”

“We are,” Ford said. “One year of marriage and three months of engagement.”

“Ah. Right.” I wrote that down.

“It’s perfect,” he added. “After a quickie engagement, people won’t be as surprised when we get divorced a year later. In fact, we can use that as part of the excuse.”

“Because we rushed into things,” I said.

“Exactly!”

He didn’t seem to notice that I didn’t have any of the same excitement in my voice as he did in his.

“Living arrangements?” I said, moving on to the next item on my list.

Ford was scratching behind Munchkin’s ears. “We’ll live at my place, of course,” he said.

“Ha!” I blurted out. “Are you joking? No way am I giving up my loft.”

“Come on, Em,” he scoffed. “This place has no walls.”

I frowned. “The bedroom has walls. So does the bathroom.”

“But my place has a separate office for my work from home days. Where am I supposed to go when you have models here for shoots? I can’t just lock myself in your bedroom all day, the room’s the size of a closet. My apartment has lots of actual rooms. Big ones. With walls and doors. Doors that can be closed. Besides, your place gets downright frigid in the winter.”

“That’s what the space heater is for,” I pointed out. “This is nonnegotiable.”

Ford let out a sigh, perplexed enough that he’d stopped petting my dog. “We can’t have separate apartments. We need people to believe this marriage is real.”

“I know,” I said.

“And the fact is, my apartment works better,” he said. “It’s nicer, a hell of a lot newer, it has more square footage, and last but not least, I have multiple bedrooms.”

I frowned. We’d have to get to that part of the contract eventually.

“I get what you’re saying, but I don’t want to lose my place,” I said. “This whole thing is temporary, so I can’t just dismantle my entire life and then try to rebuild it when we’re done.”

Ford let out a long breath. “That’s fair. So what are you suggesting? You want to sublet it to a friend? Airbnb the place?”

Shaking my head, I said, “None of the above. Why don’t I just keep paying rent here while I’m staying with you and we can call it my official studio? You have your office at home, I have mine here. Nobody’s going to question it.”

“Fine,” he said. “I have no problem with that.”

I nodded, and made a note on my list. Live at Ford’s, MZ keeps her place for work.

“And Munchkin comes with me,” I said. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Ford said with a grin.

I smiled down at my dog, who was now snoring away in Ford’s lap.

“He’s not a shedder, is he?” Ford asked, but I could tell that he was joking.

“Next item,” I said. “Who knows the truth about our marriage being a contract?”

“No one,” Ford said. “We can’t risk it getting out that this is fake.”

Crossing my arms, I argued, “I mean, I at least need to tell my brothers.”

Ford shook his head. “No way.”

“Seriously? You know I hate lying,” I said. “Especially between family members. My brothers and I have already been through so much with our dad, and I’m sick of it. I don’t want to perpetuate a legacy of, like, secrets and obfuscation and bullshit. Don’t you get that?”

I was getting very worked up, and Ford held up his hands. “Look, Em, I do get it. But the less people who know, the better. I don’t trust anyone to keep their mouths shut?—”

“How do you not trust Stefan and Luka?” I countered. “They’ve both done the whole fake marriage thing before—if anything, they know how important it is to keep a secret like this. They’d be super supportive and understanding.”

Ford gave me a look. “There is no version of reality where I see your brothers being supportive of me fake-marrying their little sister,” he said.

I supposed he did have a point. Stefan and Luka were extremely protective of me.

“They’d be able to give us advice,” I tried again.

“Oh, I bet they would. That’s the whole problem. Because of your brothers’ experiences, they’re going to think this whole thing will eventually become real, the way it did for them,” he said. “So why not let them think that’s the case all along? Less stories to keep straight.”

Dammit. “You have a point,” I conceded.

“Go on,” Ford said, gesturing toward my pad. “Write it down.”

We tell no one the truth , was what I wrote.

Except The Wives, I thought to myself. I knew I could trust them, though. And it didn’t seem like a good idea to mention that I’d already told my sisters-in-law about Ford’s original fake-dating proposal. If we got married, they’d likely assume it was an extension of that sham.

Ford and I spent the next thirty minutes hammering out the rest of our agreement, the story we were going to tell people, the way we were going to live our lives, both of us committing to public events to prove that we were the real deal. I’d go to Malone Real Estate Holdings events over the next few months, while Ford would attend fundraisers for my charity.

I was staring down at the remainder of my list, at all the notes I’d made, when Ford cleared his throat.

“As for us…if we’re going to make this seem real, we can’t be getting any side action.”

Ah. So he’d decided to bring up the awkward part. “No, definitely not,” I agreed.

“We should probably discuss how we can make this the most comfortable for both of us.”

“O…kay?” I said, not following. Did we really need to talk about celibacy?

Ford lifted Munchkin off his lap and placed him on the floor. He padded over to his favorite bed next to the couch, plopping down and going back to sleep.

Reaching over, Ford put his hand on mine. Tiny, hot sparks spread up my arm.

“Em, we’re going to have to really sell this,” he clarified, eyes locking on mine.

Oh . It had taken me a second to figure out what he was actually hinting at. My mouth went dry. Meanwhile my face, my chest, my entire body, everything felt like it was on fire.

“We can’t hook up, Ford,” I said. “It would ruin our friendship.”

If the whole fake marriage thing didn’t do that first.

Ford leaned back, still regarding me with that intense, searching stare. “Will it, though? Are you not attracted to me?”

“I don’t like this conversation,” I said, knowing my blush was probably giving me away.

“Because I’m definitely attracted to you,” he went on.

All the air seemed to leave my body at once. It was the worst thing he could have said.

“You are?” I managed to sputter.

My heart was already entering into this contract with foolish hope. Between my brothers’ experiences with their arranged-marriages-turned-real and my unrequited schoolgirl crush on Ford, I was already wondering if things between us might actually shift from fake to real.

Which I knew was only setting me up for inevitable disappointment and heartache.

Which was why we most definitely could not hook up.

I had to stay true to that conviction. I was undoubtedly going to lose my heart over the course of this arrangement. I didn’t want to lose my virginity, too. The less I lost, the better.

“It’s not a good idea,” I said. “We need to keep things uncomplicated.”

“I disagree,” Ford said with a wicked smile. “I think it’s a very, very good idea.”

It was hard to not just give in right away—right here and now—when he was looking at me that way. After all, hadn’t I waited seven years for Ford to say he was attracted to me?

But I needed to stay strong.

“It’s a no,” I said firmly.

Ford leaned back, still grinning, obviously not taking no for an answer.

“How about we put a pin in it, until we see how things are going,” he said. “We don’t have to decide everything right now.”

“Yeah, I guess we don’t,” I agreed—though I knew that this was the one thing we definitely should have decided beforehand. Still, I didn’t have the energy (or the will) to argue about it at the moment. Especially since the next thing on our list was going to take a lot of it.

“News about our engagement is already spreading,” I told Ford. “Which means I have to tell my brothers. Tonight.”

He nodded. “I figured. Should I come with you?”

I shook my head. “I can do it myself,” I told him. “It’ll be safer this way.”

Just in case one of them got punch-y.