“Oh, Ward.” She kisses me with a new blistering intensity.
And just like that, I’m a dead man.
Rest In Paige.
I meant to ruin her tonight, but it’s the Ward Brandt I used to be who’s fading like a ghost.
She can’t hide anything.
She feels everything I do.
We’re sailing into shark-infested waters now.
The engagement was fake, but this—whatever this is—sure as hell isn’t.
It’s real, it’s lunacy, and it’s not going to stop.
21
Still A Brandt (Paige)
When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is I’m being watched by a bear.
Ward. A million happy bubbles want to burst out of me. It’s been so long since I woke up beside anyone, and I’ve never started my day beside a beast this perfect.
He greets me with a smoldering kiss. “There you are. I wondered if you’d ever wake up. I need to go into the office, but—”
“You waited for me,” I whisper, totally in awe.
This time when he kisses me, his tongue traces the inside of my mouth. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
I laugh. “I won’t.”
“I kept you up last night. You can take the morning off if you’re tired—”
“Ward, you can’t treat me differently. People will talk.”
“Anyone who uses your name with shitty intent is done,” he grinds out like a threat. “And that’s not what I meant. I need you at a conference today. No point in having you go to the office, then across town.”
“Ward?”
He plays with my hair. “Yeah?”
“I’m glad I agreed to this craziness.” It’s not what I want to say, but it has to suffice.
I won’t risk saying the dreaded L-word first and nuking my heart.
“Me too, sweetheart,” he says, then he takes my lips.
Eventually, we’re able to peel ourselves off each other to get ready for work. I throw on sweats and head to the kitchen to start coffee.
There, I sit at the aged blackwood table, responding to emails when Ward crosses the room. It’s insane how he looks almost as hot in a suit as he does wearing nothing.
“I made you coffee. It’s on the counter,” I say.
He smiles.
“Thank you, but I’ve got a better pick-me-up.” He moves next to the chair I’m sitting in.
You’d think I’d be used to his presence by now, but some things don’t change. He steals every iota of my breath as he kneels in front of my chair, cups my face with his hand, and brings his mouth to mine.
My arms fall around him.
I have no idea how long we’re marooned in our kiss, only that I’m dizzy when it’s done.
“I’ll see you tonight?”
I laugh.
“Well, I do live here now.”
“And how the hell did I live here before you did?” He stands, stamps another fierce kiss on the top of my head, and leaves.
Yep, I’m slayed.
Somehow, I return to my emails and marking up documents. I like being home in my pj’s but with the way things are moving at the office lately, I’m not falling a whole day behind.
A ringing phone pulls my attention away from the laptop in front of me. I glance over to see Mom’s face flashing across the screen.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, sweetie. How’s your faux-gagement going?”
My nose wrinkles. Could she be more cringe?
“Great, thank you. I think the gazillionaire hotel mogul’s ready to hire the gazillionaire architect who hired me.”
“Woo, finally!” An audible breath fills the phone. “That means you can move on with your life. Thank God.”
I’m silent.
“Mom, I have to stick out the ninety days we agreed on. We can’t give the guy any reason to suspect this was a ploy...” My toes curl, bracing for impact.
“I hardly see how that’s your problem. Paige, I don’t want you in this tangled mess longer than you have to be. I still don’t understand why you couldn’t just let your dad help you out with a studio. You wouldn’t have had to resort to something like—”
“Like what? The biggest success of my life? I need to do things on my own, Mom.”
“By pretending to be some rich man’s girlfriend? Have it your way. You’ll be explaining it for the rest of your life, how you got mixed up with a family with a supermodel fetish and sordid history—”
“That’s Nick.”
“What?”
“Nick, the brother, he has the supermodel fetish. I’m engaged to Ward. He’s as straight-edge as they come.”
“And yet he’s playing at being engaged. You’re pretending, and he’s paying you to lie.”