Love You Truly (Buttercup Hill #3)

Chapter 13

Dash

“What?” Mallory stares at me.

I have nearly the same response to my own idea the second the words leave my mouth. “I know, it’s crazy, but we haven’t detested each other too much tonight, so maybe it could work.”

“Did you just hear yourself? I think a marriage should be based on more than just ‘not detesting’ the other person.”

“I know. And yes, I did. Forget it. The idea is crazy.”

I’m about to go back into the ice cream place and order a plain cone just to appease her when she holds up a finger. Slurping the last of the ice cream from her cone, she lets it melt in her mouth while looking at the same shooting star sky that made me come up with such an insane plan.

She crunches into the cone and stands. “Really is the best part,” she says through a mouthful of waffle crumbs. “Hang on. Lemme think this through. Maybe we should get married.”

“Wait, what? You just said it’s crazy.”

“So did you.”

“Because it is.” And I shouldn’t like the idea even a little bit. I’m not the marrying kind. Then again, it sure would dispel all the talk about me being a man-slut. Maybe then I’d have better luck making deals with new growers and convincing the best employees to work for us.

I look back at the sky because it’s clearly doing weird things to our brains. All I see is darkness with pinpricks of light where the stars flicker a million miles from here. They look so harmless, and yet we both seem to be losing our minds.

She starts walking away from the patio, so I follow her because I think she’s saying words. When I get closer, I realize she’s actually quietly singing a Taylor Swift song, which is equally troubling. I think I liked her better when she was angry and feisty. That, I could handle. This is scaring me a little.

“Why are you…singing?” It’s not the most important question, but it’s still one I’d like her to answer.

“What? Oh, it’s just something I do when I need to think.”

“Always Taylor Swift?”

“Mostly.” By now, we’re in the gravel parking lot behind the string of shops, and my car is the only one in sight. “Just so I’m clear, did you just say we should get married to keep my ex out of my business plans and satisfy my parents’ need to see me married off? I heard that right, didn’t I?”

I gulp oxygen instead of breathing it. This is my chance to backtrack and tell her it must have been a stiff wind that distorted my words, and I most definitely do not want to be her husband.

Fake husband.

“It wouldn’t be a real thing. Just, you know, on paper so you could get that douchebag off your case. After a year or whatever, we’ll tear up the paper and go on with our lives. Your folks will see that you’re perfectly capable of running your business without your ex, and after we’ve established that, we’ll each go our merry ways.”

“What do you get out of it?” She points a finger at my chest, but her expression is more confused than accusing. That makes two of us.

I look up at the sky as though I’m casting about, trying to come up with something. “Well, I…I guess maybe there’s a way this benefits me too. Like, for example, my reputation for dating a lot of women has been getting in the way of business.” I explain the recent problem with Soltero. “If I’m seen as tied down, I’ll be free to wine and dine growers without anyone’s husband looking twice.”

“Seriously? People judge you like that?”

“Yeah. People judge.”

She nods. “Yeah, I know they do.” I wonder if she’s referring to me or to herself, but she doesn’t say more.

I nod as well. “We need to expand our distribution in order to keep our growth projections on track, and that means we need to produce more wine, so I can’t be the problem child in the bunch.”

I’m a terrible liar, and I feel disingenuous because my siblings basically sent me to this dinner with the idea of buttering Mallory up, even if she doesn’t seem suspicious.

“You need to buy grapes.” She nods, understanding where I’m going.

“Yes. But I don’t want you to think I’m trying to manipulate you into something for my benefit.” It’s exactly what I’m doing. The problem is the more time I spend with her, the more I want any arrangement that binds us together. And it has nothing to do with grapes.

She dismisses the thought with a wave of her hand. “It’s business. You’d be doing me a huge favor, and I’d want you to benefit from the arrangement.”

The flirtatious connection that’s been building disappears, and I suddenly hate that I turned the conversation to business. But the fire in her eyes and her genuine smile make up for it.

“Really?” I ask.

“Really. This could work, Dash.” For the first time tonight, I see the clouds clear from her expression. Without knowing what was bothering her, I had no way of making it happen before. I tried to entertain her with my stories, and her laughter seemed genuine, but it still hung there—that cloud.

Now I understand that she’s been buckling under the weight of her asshole ex and his hold on her. And now…I have a chance to make that cloud disappear. I want to be the one who accomplishes that for her.

One dinner with this woman, and she fucking has me.

Leaning on my car, I scrub a hand down my face and try to calculate how much wine I had at dinner. We shared a bottle, and I didn’t finish my second glass. If I come back after tonight with an inside track on Mallory’s first harvest once she starts growing grapes, I’ll look like a hero.

It all makes sense. She doesn’t seem to have any problem with it, even if it feels like a shard of metal is wedged under my breastbone, trying to dig out my heart.

There’s another reason that getting married appeals to me, one that I’m not willing to say out loud. It’s been growing inside my head to the point of being a near shout: I’m sick and tired of my reputation as the local heartbreaker, the man-slut who can’t ever seem to settle down. True, I’ve done my part to encourage the image over the years, but not lately. It’s been over a year since I’ve hooked up with anyone, but all anyone seems to remember is the string of one-night stands that became a habit in my twenties.

I’m nearly thirty now, and it’s possible that I’m broken. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to appeal to a woman long-term. Or maybe I need a jump start on rewriting expectations. Being married to Mallory for a year could convince the folks around here that I’m a worthwhile investment too.

Maybe I’ll even convince myself.

That’s not something I’m even considering telling the woman who’s contemplating giving me a shot at not one but two things that could change my life. I’ll just stay quiet and let her think she’s getting the better end of the deal, which is the only reason she’s still here with me. I'd like to see the easy smile she’s worn for the past ten minutes more permanently on her face.

“So…how’re we going to do this so it looks legit? You heard Felix. People talk around here, and he’ll start making noise if it seems like we’re trying to pull a fast one.” Mallory’s eyes dance, and I’m tempted to pull her into my arms right now and show her exactly how legit I can make us look.

Instead, I lie. “We’ll need to make sure people around here see that we’re dating, but we’ll have to be so comfortable with each other that they believe it’s been going on a while.”

“Yes. We should be so smitten that we seem oblivious to onlookers. It’ll convince people we’re in love and have been for a while, so they’ll start to believe they must’ve known about it, even if they didn’t.”

“Gonna take some good acting on my part, but I think I can manage to convince folks I’m in love.” I feel my dick twitch in my pants as I utter the word love, and it surprises me. I shouldn’t be turned on by it, but I can’t deny that I’m a little bit excited to fake being in love with her.

She swats my shoulder. “Glad you feel confident in your acting chops. Might be harder for me.” She grins, and I can’t tell if she’s kidding. I hope so.

I duck my head close to her ear and whisper, “I was in the high school play. I have practice, you know.” I hear the soft catch in her breath. Backing away, I run a finger down her cheek.

She shakes herself out of a semi-trance and squares her shoulders. It’s on.

Gripping my bicep, she pulls me toward her and coos so seductively it gives me goose bumps. “Yeah? Which play? What was your role?”

“I played Christian in Cyrano de Bergerac.” I can barely get the words out because my dick is pressing hard against my zipper now.

She takes a step back and laughs. I inhale a needed breath.

“Seriously? Talk about typecasting. So you were the pretty-faced guy who needed poetry and one-liners from your romantic friend in order to woo Roxane?”

I swallow hard at the memory. “I auditioned for Cyrano himself, but…”

“Hard to play against type, I guess.”

“Yeah, and like the walking hard-on I was back then, I fell hopelessly for my leading lady. Guess I couldn’t tell the difference between acting and the real thing.” I laugh, thinking back on my inexperience with women. “It took me months to get over her. Not that I ever told her or admitted it to my friends. Or anyone, really.”

Her eyes flit to mine. “So this is the first you’re letting that secret out in the world?”

I shrug. “Guess so. There you have it, Marshmallow, my soul bared before you. But don’t worry. I’ve learned a few things since then. I know the difference between acting and reality now. I can totally play this role for you without falling in love, trust me.”

Her expression clouds. A crease takes up residence between her eyes, and the corners of her mouth tip down. I want to erase all of it, but more than that, I want to understand why my high school theater role bothers her. Or maybe it has nothing to do with me. I want to understand that even more.

“You okay?”

She blinks the creases away and forces a smile. “Yeah. Fine. Of course I trust you not to fall in love. We’re adults.”

I don’t know her well, but I know she hides something behind that smile. If nothing else, my inquisitive part intends to find out why she wears that mask. There is no reason our fake marriage can’t be a learning experience.

“Guess we should go places together whenever we can so we’re seen—we’ve already been together at the grocery store and Dark Horse. That works in our favor. How long do you think we’ll need to act like we’re falling in love before it’s reasonable to get married?” she asks, all business, taking her phone out to consult her calendar.

I’m impressed at her matter-of-factness, even if a tiny part of my ego deflates at how easily she treats our fake marriage like a fake marriage.

Yeah, yeah, I just heard it.

“Are you serious? You’re going to calendar it?”

Her gray eyes sparkle, but she’s all business. “Yes. And you should too. Let’s say I asked you out a couple of weeks ago.”

I laugh. “You did.”

She glares. “Yeah. Let’s include the part about how you blew me off at first. Also believable because plenty of women around here think you’re a pompous heartbreaker.”

Her characterization stings a little, but I’m not above acknowledging my reputation. More than a few women probably don’t have nice things to say about me.

“Fair enough,” I concede. “But then we did go out, and the attraction surprised us both. You saw another side of me than what you thought you knew.”

“Maybe you saw the same in me. It caught us both by surprise how we’d misjudged each other.”

“And the physical chemistry was off the charts.”

She laughs, and it softens her eyes. “Of course it was. Orgasms for days.”

“That’s how I roll.” I smile, wanting her to believe it. “Then I’d say we started seeing each other on the down low to keep prying eyes away from our budding romance. My siblings knew, of course, but we swore them to secrecy. We were worried that other people’s opinions would kill the intense feelings we couldn’t ignore.”

“Makes sense.” Her voice is soft and sultry, her eyes wide and clear. “So that puts us at, what, a month or so into a whirlwind courtship? That tracks with getting so swept up in our feels that we got engaged quickly.”

“If you say so. I have no experience in this area. I don’t do relationships.”

“Trust me, it happens. Maybe not to us, but it happens. So fast-forward to a week or two from now when we’re at a big event, and we just can’t keep our hands off each other despite the prying eyes.”

My eyebrows bounce. “Oh, I think I’ll be able to play that part quite convincingly.”

Mallory rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll bet.” She looks at the ceiling, calculating something. “It’s perfect, actually. We have the gala for the new theater coming up next week. That’ll be the night. You can do something alpha and possessive because you can’t stand looking at me from across the room and not being able to touch me.”

I almost laugh at her passionate description and the careful scrolling through dates on her phone. “Sure. I can be possessive.”

Is it my imagination, or do her eyes heat at the thought of it? Well, game on, sister. If she wants an Oscar-worthy performance, she’s going to get one.

“Okay, sounds like a plan. So we arrive separately, but then we’re caught in a compromising position? Or you get possessive if another man gets too close?”

“You really like the idea of me being possessive.”

“I do. No one’s ever done that for me before.”

“Fools, all of them. And where are they now?”

“Exactly. Certainly not at the gala with a possessive hand on my lower back.”

The scenarios are getting me more excited than they should. The wood in my pants will give me away in another minute, and she’ll probably call the whole thing off.

I think about baseball instead. Boring baseball. A no-hitter on a brutally hot day when I’m miserable sitting on a plastic seat. That does the trick.

When I’ve calmed myself enough to look her in the eye, I find her studying me as though she’s never seen me before. She has a faraway look I don’t understand.

“You are not at all what I expected.” It seems hard for her to admit it. She shakes her head as though she wishes it wasn’t true.

Yeah, well, that makes two of us.

“Oh? Why’s that?” I ask. She brought it up, so she gets to be the one to spill her guts first. I’m afraid that if I start talking, I’ll inadvertently say something I’ll regret, like telling her I can’t stop staring at her.

Don’t want to stop. Won’t stop.

“You’re a good guy, Dash. Let’s just leave it at that.”

I nod. But I don’t agree.