Fake Boyfriend - Miley Maine Page 0,24
a lion’s den.”
“Well,” I said, drawing the word out. “You don’t have to send me off all alone.”
He took his eyes off the lake for a second to glance at me. “What do you mean?”
The more time I spent around Jackson, the bolder I got. “You could come with me.”
He frowned, but he didn’t say no automatically. “You know I wasn’t wild about dropping you off at that hotel with no one there. Just in case that asshole from the car rental lot had something else up his sleeve.”
I wanted him to come. Really badly. “That’s a good point,” I said.
“But once your family gets there, then you’ll be surrounded by security, right?” Jackson asked. “So what in the hell would I do at a wedding while you took pictures? You were anti-security last time I checked. Have you changed your mind? You want me to come along as your security?”
“No, I absolutely don’t want that. I fired my bodyguard for a reason.”
“You fired him?” he asked.
The horror in his voice was apparent. Maybe he thought we just threw him out on the street. “He wasn’t really fired. He works for my dad doing something else now, and he’s probably extremely grateful to be rid of me.” I leaned closer. “You probably won’t believe this, but I was a really difficult client to my bodyguard.”
Jackson muttered something under his breath.
“Hear me out, okay? So, if you came with me, you could pretend to be my boyfriend.”
Jackson kicked at the rocks with one of his hiking boots. “Why on God’s green earth would I do that?”
“Hey!” I crossed my arms. “Plenty of people would date me! You don’t have to act so offended.”
“It’s not that I don’t think people would date you. It’s that they’ll wonder what you’d seen in me.”
I scoffed. “You’re funny.”
“I’m serious.” He turned toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Loren. You have everything. You have every opportunity. There is no reason for you to date a washed-up Army Ranger.”
“You’re a Ranger? Why didn’t you mention that before?” I asked.
“Why are you impressed? Your uncle works at the Pentagon. Not to mention the rest of your star-studded family.”
“Being a Ranger is plenty impressive. Besides, I’m not the rest of my family. I can be impressed by something without their permission. And I’ve heard parts of what you have to do to get that far.” We left the lake behind to go back down into the valley, where Jackson crawled onto a boulder. “So will you do it?”
He held his hands out to me, supporting me as I scaled the boulder in my running shoes.“Do what?”
I swatted him on the arm. “Pretend to be my boyfriend?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You will?”
“I said I would.”
“I owe you. Think of something you want. Anything. And I’ll do it.”
“I think I’ll hold onto that favor for a while,” he said. “And if we get there, and your family gets pissed off, feel free to tell them I’m your security instead of your boyfriend.”
“They will not get pissed off. They are going to be so happy.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because they want me to date,” I explained. “And I never have. They’ve tried for years and years to set me up with suitable men. But I’ve never taken the bait.”
“I’m thirty-six years old.”
Yes, he was. And that experience made him so much hotter than he realized. “I know.”
“And you’re twenty-two.”
“I’m aware.”
He shook his head. “Your dad’s going to kill me. And if he doesn’t, your uncle surely will.”
“You really don’t get my family.” My family would be thrilled. But even more than that, I’d actually get to concentrate on my photography instead of warding off their attempts to set me up. It was win-win. Except for poor Jackson. I’d really have to find a way to repay him for this.
He wasn’t convinced. “And you really don’t get how your family’s going to see me.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him. My family loved me. But they were more worried about perceptions than my mental or emotional wellbeing.
Yeah, they’d probably choose an oil tycoon over a soldier if they were the ones picking my dates, but a Ranger would be something impressive for my mom to trot out at one of her fundraisers. I could just hear her now, bragging about how her daughter was dating a Ranger, a person who truly was on the front lines of American conflict.
I didn’t need to tell Jackson that. He probably wouldn't be surprised, so I figured he