Faking Forever (The Hawthornes #2)

Prologue

McKenna Hawthorne-Jenson couldn’t quite believe that they’d actually gone through with this farce.

She stared at the handsome man who stood smiling beside her and felt a disorienting sense of panic swell in her chest. She never panicked.

Truthfully, she rarely felt much of anything.

She was so accustomed to maintaining a tight rein on her feelings that she barely recognized the burgeoning bubble of emotion clawing its way up into her throat from her churning stomach as absolute terror.

Kenny had married a man she only kind of liked and sort of respected. And she’d married him for the worst possible reason.

She felt sick…but she’d felt sick so often lately she wasn’t sure if this time was because of this ill-advised jaunt into matrimony.

Or because of the other, real reason she was standing beside this man with a fake smile plastered on her lips while dressed in an uncomfortably snug, mermaid-style wedding dress that wasn’t at all to her taste.

The gown had sat perfectly at her last fitting, but that was no longer the case.

Two of the concealed buttons in the back couldn’t close at all, and five more were hanging on for dear life.

Smith, her brand, spanking new husband, placed a warm, comforting hand on the small of her back and lowered his head to drop a whisper in her ear.

“You okay? You look a little green around the gills.”

The gesture probably looked very romantic to their wedding guests, most of whom stood staring at them with misty smiles. A few even awwed.

She kept what she was sure was a manic-looking grin on her lips as she offered him a succinct one-word reply, “Nauseous.”

“You want to take a break?”

A break? Kenny almost laughed at the ludicrous question. As if taking a break from one’s own wedding was even a possibility. She swallowed down her nausea and shook her head.

“I’m fine,” she informed him from between tightly clenched teeth while she clung to that smile as if her life depended on it.

“What about a sip of water? I could—”

“I’m fine!” Her curt response cut him off and his face was troubled as he dipped his chin in a short nod and found his own—clearly fake—smile for their overenthusiastic photographer.

His hand fell away and she mourned its loss.

She shouldn’t have snapped at him. It was uncharacteristic of her.

And she once again reflected on how she barely recognized herself anymore.

She was an emotional mess, swinging wildly between tears, deranged laughter, and baffling rage from one minute to the next.

It was frightening. Like she was losing herself within this swirling morass of messy, complicated, and often contradictory feelings.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered from between stiff lips, her face still frozen in that unconvincing rictus.

He once again lifted his strong, capable-looking hand, and it hovered between them uncertainly for a moment before he dropped it without touching her.

“This isn’t easy,” he said, the deep, soothing rasp of his voice washing over her like warm honey. She swallowed and felt the muscles in her face relax as her smile settled into something softer, gentler.

Smith wasn’t prone to exaggeration or hyperbole, but that was an understatement even by his austere standards. Kenny slanted a jaundiced glance at him, her silence speaking volumes.

He tugged his full lower lip between even white teeth as his concerned gaze swept over her face once more. His green eyes were piercing between those thick, fair lashes and she shifted uncomfortably beneath the weight of that stare.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the photographer said with a knowing little grin, clearly thinking he was interrupting some intimate, newlywed moment. “But we need just a few more shots with the parents.”

Smith released an impatient exhalation from his nostrils and glared at the man, whose smile immediately faded.

“We need a moment longer.” Despite the obvious irritation in his eyes, his voice remained quiet and neutral.

“No, we don’t,” Kenny denied. “I’m fine. Let’s just get it over with, okay?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets, his brow lowering, as he gave her a deeply unhappy stare. His broad shoulders shifted restlessly and he dipped his clenched jaw in reluctant assent.

“After you,” he invited and stepped aside, all sulky and sexy and snarly.

Kenny discreetly ran her damp palms over the elaborately beaded bodice of her dress and walked around his bulk to where his parents and her father stood waiting. Their siblings were also milling off to the side, clearly waiting for their turn at the photos.

God, what an unnecessary spectacle this was.

She regretted conceding to this three-ring circus.

Smith had suggested a no fuss wedding in Cyprus, but Kenny had insisted on doing this “by the book,” knowing that her father would’ve had strong opinions about his only daughter having a quickie wedding.

And neither of them had wanted people to speculate as to the reason behind their supposedly impulsive decision to marry.

As if a child born six months after the wedding wouldn’t lead people to draw the correct conclusion anyway.

This entire travesty was so absurd. Who married because of pregnancy anymore? They were both career-driven adults and independently wealthy. They could have reached an amicable custody agreement with regards to this child.

But she’d been weak, concerned with appearances, with her family and colleagues’ opinions of her. And despite her objections and her valid fear that he was marrying her out of obligation, Smith had been persuasive when he’d made his argument for marriage.

They were sexually compatible, liked each other, a child needed both parents, they could make it work, and most compelling of all, their families needn’t know this marriage wasn’t what it seemed to be.

Kenny knew it shouldn’t—she was a grown-ass woman, after all—but her father’s opinion still meant the world to her. She’d nearly shriveled up with embarrassment when her father had point-blank asked Smith at their engagement party, if she was pregnant.

She remembered muttering something inadequate about them being well-suited. The reply had sounded insipid and unconvincing even to her own ears and it came as no surprise that it had left her father unimpressed.

She allowed herself to be shepherded through countless more photographs, conscious of the tall man constantly hovering by her side, while wishing this day was over. That it had never even come to pass.

Day 12

“You don’t have to do this,” Kenny said, watching as Smith organized his toiletries on the dresser in the spare bedroom. She didn’t sound very convincing, even to her own ears. Her voice was dull and disinterested.

Then again, she couldn’t summon up enthusiasm for anything at the moment and trying to persuade Smith to remain in the master bedroom with her when she wasn’t even sure she wanted him there herself—not while she looked and felt like death—was very low on her list of priorities right now.

Most of her focus and energy these days went toward staying upright and not making any sudden movements in case it triggered another bout of violent vomiting.

“Kenna…” His voice was low, gentle. “You’re exhausted. And it doesn’t help that the slightest movement from me jerks you from sleep. Not to mention the fact that half of the time that happens, it sends you hurtling to the bathroom to throw up.”

“It’ll get better soon,” she promised, her throat raw from the constant vomiting. “It must. I’m in the second trimester and by all accounts it should improve.”

“Until then, I think you’ll be more comfortable without me interrupting your sleep. I’ll move back in when—”

“Is it because we haven’t had sex yet?” she interrupted and he stared at her, clearly shocked by her blunt question.

“What? No! Of course not. Jesus, what kind of monster do you think I am?” He looked truly affronted and Kenny chewed on her bottom lip as she studied his handsome features carefully, looking for the lie, but finding nothing but sincerity in the bottomless depths of his beautiful green eyes.

“I just think…feel…this hasn’t been the best of starts to our marriage? Not what you signed up for, maybe? You’re getting nothing from it.”

“I’m getting you,” he told her, a troubled furrow between his brows. “And our baby. And I can wait until you’re not feeling like death warmed over before wanting or needing sex. Right now, the priority is you. And getting you better.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and gnawed on her lip again, hating how vulnerable his words left her feeling, wishing she felt like he meant them. Wishing she felt like she deserved them.

“I’m hardly the prize you think I am,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and low, and from the way his frown deepened, she knew he hadn’t heard her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said with a dismissive shake of her head. “Thank you. For…for your consideration.”

Something in her words seemed to rub him the wrong way. She could see it in the flare of irritation in his eyes.

“Do you want me to stay in our room?” he suddenly asked and the question threw her.

It had been strange to her, sharing with a man she barely knew. A man with whom she’d had a four-month long, startlingly erotic dalliance. She hadn’t expected it to last as long as it did. That kind of passion surely wasn’t sustainable?

She wouldn’t know. She’d never experienced anything so intense before.

But then she’d found herself pregnant, and now married to a stranger. And while she knew his body intimately—better than she knew her own, really—she didn’t even know what his favorite color was.

So, yes, sharing a house, a room, a bed with him felt…odd.

Wrong.

Awkward.

“Uh…no, maybe you’re right,” she said in answer to his question. “I’m better on my own.”

She always had been.

Day 21