Strictly Pretend (The Salinger Brothers #6)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

EMMA

It’s funny isn’t it, how life turns on a dime? One minute you’re running to the bathroom because you drank way too much champagne at your best friend’s wedding and the battle of the bladder versus the dress has finally finished with a victor — your overfull bladder that has to be emptied right now .

And then everything that can go wrong, does.

Because yes, getting out of this stupidly fluffy, pink marshmallow of a bridesmaid’s dress is going to be almost impossible in the tiny stalls that the overpaid designers of the Eastham Country Club thought to install.

I blame Mia. My best friend. Or former and now best friend. It’s complicated, but there’s plenty of time to tell you about that. Just as soon as I open the door to the bathroom and…

Oh!

That’s my first thought.

I’ve interrupted a very inebriated couple who decided it’s way too far to walk to the beautifully overexpensive cottages we’ve all rented out in order to indulge in a knee trembling delight.

My second thought, in case you’re wondering, is that I recognize the boxer shorts around the man’s knees.

Because I washed them yesterday. Then hung them on the line in his laundry room because they’re silk and he doesn’t like anything silk going in his tumble dryer.

My third thought is that he’s having way more fun pumping in and out of the bride’s cousin in the red dress that’s hiked up around her waist than he’s ever had with me.

When was the last time Will and I even had sex? Oh, that’s his name, by the way. Will. Or if you want the full title – since you’re currently witnessing his very enthusiastic thrusts – it’s William Paxton Devries II.

I always imagined I’d be a screamer in this situation. But I’m completely mute. Neither of them know I’m here, bearing witness to my boyfriend’s infidelity.

The man I’m supposed to share a bed with tonight. The man I’ve shared everything with for the last six months.

I back out of the room as quietly as a mouse, trying to remember how to breathe. All I can think of is that I still need to pee. And how mundane that is when my world is falling apart.

Still, I run to the next nearest bathroom, which is the men’s restroom, but who cares right now? My heart is pounding as I stride to the closest stall, yanking the door open before I squeeze myself and my stupidly fluffy cotton candy dress inside.

There’s only one way to go to the bathroom when you’re a bridesmaid masquerading as a milkmaid and that involves taking the whole dress off. Once it’s hanging on the door I pull down the barely there panties that I honestly thought Will would love, over the thigh high white stockings and let them rest around my ankles.

I’m still trying to think everything through when I hear the restroom door bang open, followed by the sound of footsteps.

Somebody shoves the door to my stall, and it creaks open because I’m a stupid idiot who didn’t remember to slide the lock closed.

“Oh, my word.” The bride’s Great Uncle Fred stares at me as I sit on the toilet naked, save for my demi cup lace bra.

“I’m sorry,” I say conversationally, like we’re shooting the breeze. “This stall’s taken.”

“I can see that.” He looks at me. “That’s nice. Pretty. Mia has good taste.”

I’m not sure if he’s talking about me or the dress at the moment, but since we’re acting like we’re besties exchanging pleasantries I smile and nod. “Yes, she does.”

“Fuchsia, is it?” he asks, shifting his feet.

“Rose, I think,” I tell him. “It’s too muted for fuchsia.”

“Hmm, yes. Well, have a lovely evening,” he says, turning away. Then he stops and I can almost see the frown forming on his face. “Isn’t this the men’s room?”

“Yes, it is,” I tell him. “Sorry. It’s just that my boyfriend’s balls deep in a woman who’s not me in the ladies’ bathroom.”

“Jolly good,” he nods. “I’ll be off then.” He backs away, then turns, walking faster than any octogenarian has the right to. I push the door to the stall closed and lock it this time, wondering if this night can get any worse.

But of course it can. Because when I’ve done what I need to do and I’m stepping back into the worst dress in the world, I’m barely paying attention to the fact that the bodice is a little too tight and there’s a label sticking out of my bra, as I yank the zipper up before it gets caught and won’t go any further.

And that’s when I start to cry. Not because my boyfriend’s a dirty rotten cheater, or because the bride’s great uncle has just seen my almost-naked body in all its glory, but because my dress is caught up with my bra and everybody will see the back gaping open when I walk out of this bathroom and back into the party that’s celebrating my beautiful, radiant friend and her equally gorgeous new husband.

brOOKS

“Single or double?” the bartender asks me, holding the bottle of G. Scott Carter whiskey above my glass.

“Triple,” I tell him, and then I shake my head. “Actually, just give me the bottle.” Because I hate weddings and right now I seem to spend more time at them than anywhere else.

He hands over the half-full bottle. Probably because he has my credit card behind the bar and I’m holding out a fifty as a tip. I pass him the bill and then I gather the bottle and glass in my hands and head out through the open glass doors onto the lawn that overlooks the lake and the Eastham Country Club golf course.

I find a spot on the lawn, far enough away from the party in the ballroom that nobody can see me sitting in the dark, but close enough – unfortunately for me – to hear the dulcet tones of Neil Diamond blasting out Sweet Caroline.

Why is that song played at every wedding and sporting event I go to? It’s a mystery.

I pour myself out more than a triple and lift the glass to my lips, enjoying the way the whiskey burns my throat as I swallow it down.

This will all be over tomorrow. Then I’ll drive back to New York City and throw myself into work. This is the tenth wedding I’ve been to in the last two years and every time I get more cynical.

Before the vows even escape the lips of the bride and groom I’m wondering when they’re going to split up, who’ll be responsible, and why anybody would ever put themselves through this.

I should probably stop attending them. But I’ve never been a man who takes the easy road. My brother, Myles, says I delight in making my life as difficult as I can, and he’s probably right.

There’s a grim sense of satisfaction in being my own worst enemy.

I’m about to pour myself a second glass when the doors to the wedding venue open and somebody stumbles through them. For a moment the music gets louder as it escapes through the open doorway into the dark, balmy night.

Whoever is storming out of the building can’t see me. I’m pretty confident of that. Yes, the moon is full, but I’m cloaked by darkness, the whiskey bottle in one hand, my glass in the other.

As they get closer, I realize it’s a woman. She leans down to pull her shoes off and throws them onto the ground.

And then she lets out a scream. It’s not too loud. More of a tester one, to see if it could work.

I have to admit, I’m quite enjoying watching her. She’s dressed in the pink monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress. I remember watching Mia’s bridesmaids walk down the aisle. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to laugh.

Because this isn’t the nineties. Perms aren’t in fashion and neither are bridesmaid’s dresses that look like those crocheted toilet paper roll holders my grandmother used to have.

She can’t see me, this barefoot bridesmaid. But I can see her. The moon is full, and she has deep red hair that clashes with the pink. She picks her shoes up from the ground and strides over to the lake and, oh boy, she’s not going to throw them, is she?

Yes she does. She hurls them into the water with a surprisingly powerful arm, then stands completely still as they hit the surface before sinking under.

“Shit! My shoes!” she squeals out.

I can’t help it, I laugh. Quietly, though, so she can’t hear me. There’s something wrong with the back of her dress. It’s only half done up, the back gaping open, revealing pale skin that almost glistens in the moonlight.

And then she does something even more unexpected. She tips her head back and howls like an animal at the moon.

It’s surprisingly loud. And weirdly impressive. I’ve heard animals howl before. When I was in school, there were a couple of foxes who’d howl at each other all night outside our dorms.

But this woman, her howl is primal. And I can’t pull my eyes away from her.

She keeps going for a whole thirty seconds before she runs out of breath. Her body is silhouetted against the moon, her throat long and slender as she lifts her face to the sky, her arms held out to the side like she’s begging somebody to stop whatever’s making her scream.

But then there’s silence. She almost slumps in front of the lake. Looking alone. Defeated.

I don’t like that. I preferred her primal.

“Want a drink?” I call out to her.

The words escape my lips before I even think them through. She turns around in a hurry, her brow dipping as she looks in the darkness for me. I hold up the bottle like it’s going to make everything better.

“What is it?” she asks, as though I’m a wine waiter leaning over the table at dinner.

“Whiskey.”

“I hate whiskey.” She takes a step toward me. I can barely see her toes peeping out from the tulle of her dress.

“Me too. But it makes things better.” And stops me thinking about things I don’t want to.

“Does it?” she asks, looking interested.

I lift the glass to my lips. “Not sure. Ask me again in the morning.”

“I won’t be here in the morning. I’ll be long gone.”

I tip my head to the side, taking her in. She’s come about two steps closer, like an untamed animal desperate for food but wary of human contact. “I thought all the bridesmaids are staying until brunch.”

“Not this bridesmaid.” She’s closer still. And I remember seeing her at the reception. She was dancing with some guy. Laughing and smiling at him.

But now there’s no trace of a smile on her face. Just smudged mascara and a scowl. Yet somehow they work. She looks surprisingly pretty.

“One for the road then,” I say.

“Okay.” She nods. “Pour me a glass.”

“Ah,” I hold up the only glass. “We’ll have to share.”

She sits down next to me. Or as close as she can get in that dress. The pink skirt spills over the grass. She looks like she should be in some kind of costume drama.

“Where did you learn to yell like that?” I say. “Your lung capacity is amazing.”

“You heard me?”

“Yep.”

She holds her hand out for the glass and swallows it all down. She doesn’t even blanch at the heat of the whiskey.

“I didn’t learn it anywhere. I’m obviously a natural howler.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” I hold out my hand and she takes it. Close up she looks like she might be in her late twenties. Early thirties at the most. The older I get, the harder it is to tell, but at thirty-two, I don’t think there’s that much of an age gap between us.

“Bride or groom?” she asks me.

“Groom. We roomed together during college.” About a hundred years ago. Feels like a different lifetime. “You?”

She looks down at her dress and up at me again. “Take a guess.”

“Hey, some bridesmaids are related to the groom.”

“I’m all bride.”

“How do you know Mia?”

She holds the glass up – because it’s obviously become hers now – and I fill it halfway with whiskey. She lifts it to her mouth and I watch her swallow it down. She has such a pretty neck. Who knew necks could be pretty?

“I used to go to school with her.”

“Oh, you went to Columbia?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No, I went to Sanford with Mia.”

I’ve heard of it. It’s one of the most prestigious all girls’ schools in the state.

“Or I did until I was thirteen, then I left.” She finishes the glass again, and I think about suggesting she slows down, but there’s an edge of steel to her. I figure she can police her own alcohol intake.

“So how did you reconnect?”

“We bumped into each other at JFK. And a while later she introduced me to my boyfriend.”

So she has one.

“My ex-boyfriend,” she says, frowning. “Not that he knows that yet. Although he could take a wild guess.”

“The guy you were dancing with earlier?” I ask her. She turns to look at me.

“Yeah. Did you see me?”

“I did. So why is he an ex?”

She lets out a long sigh. “Because I just saw him having sex with the bride’s cousin.”

“Jemima?” Oh boy, this is the wedding that keeps on giving.

Two tiny frown lines appear between her brows. “You know her?”

I shrug. “I think I know everybody here. Either I went to prep school with them, college with them, or I know them through our families.”

She tips her head to the side, eyeing me carefully. “You don’t know me.”

“No,” I conceded. “I don’t.”

“Are you one of them , then?” she asks.

“One of what?” I’m enjoying talking to her way too much. I had planned to drown my sorrows then head back to my bungalow. Weddings are an exquisite form of torture. Good food, great drink. Miserable vibes.

“A trust fund baby.”

I lift a brow. “I’m thirty-two. Not exactly a baby.”

“Do you have a trust fund?” she asks.

“Why do you want to know?”

“There’s a war going on here,” she says, leaning closer to me. “I need to know whose side you’re on.”

“What kind of war?” I lean closer too. She has the most expressive eyes. I think they’re green, though it’s hard to tell in this light. She runs the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip.

And of course I watch.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I think I’ve drunk too much.” She lets out a sigh. “And I don’t have any shoes.”

“I know. I watched you throw them into the lake.” My lips twitch at the memory.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” She frowns and puts her hand on my shoulder. I’m only wearing my dress shirt. My jacket is on the ground next to me. I can feel the heat of her palm leaching through the thin cotton.

She’s close enough now that I can feel her breath on my face.

“Would you have let me stop you?” I murmur to her.

“Probably not,” she concedes.

I give her a half smile. “Why did you throw them in anyway?”

“Because I saw my boyfriend’s white ass thrusting into Mia’s cousin.”

“You should have thrown his shoes,” I say.

“Yes! I really should have.” She gives me another careful look. “His car is here. I could do something to that instead.”

“Like what?” I’m getting alarmed now. Did I encourage this? Am I going to be an accessory to a crime? And why am I kind of hoping the crime takes place?

“Like key his stupid new paint job. Or bust his tires.”

“Or you could go to bed and worry about it in the morning,” I suggest.

“I can’t go to bed. He’ll be there.”

I don’t point out that he could also not be there. Because I’m not sure what would be worse for her right now.

“So what are you going to do?” I ask.

“Sleep here, I suppose,” she says, sighing as she looks at the moonlit grass. “Then get up at the first light of morning and catch a bus.”

“There aren’t any buses out here.” I don’t know that for sure. But this is Westchester. I don’t think I’ve seen any kind of public transport anywhere near here.

“There are always buses somewhere,” she says, like she has experience in finding them. “You just have to look hard enough.”

She tries to stand up, but her foot gets caught in the hem of her dress, and she falls forward. I catch her before she lands face first in the dirt.

And it’s stupid, because if anybody doesn’t believe in fucking tingles, it’s me. But holding her in my arms does something weird to me. Like I’m holding a firefly. She makes me feel lit up.

“You know the worst thing?” she whispers, like we’re still mid-conversation and she hadn’t just fell into my arms.

“Tell me,” I say, deadpan.

“He’s terrible in bed. Why is it always the bad ones that sleep around?”

“I don’t know.” I brush a lock of hair out of her face. “People are assholes.”

“Are you an asshole?”

“Depends who you’re asking.” And we’ll leave it at that, because there isn’t enough space here for both of us to be angsty.

“Are you good in bed?”

Damn, that whiskey is working fast. I smile at her. “Again, probably depends who you’re asking.”

“Your girlfriend.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Your last girlfriend, then,” she says.

Ouch.

“Not good enough I guess,” I tell her. “Which is why she’s not my current girlfriend.”

“That’s silly,” she whispers, those pretty green eyes capturing mine. “Girls don’t break up with guys over bad sex.”

“They don’t?” I’m stupidly curious to hear her words of wisdom on this one. She’s amusingly unpredictable.

“No. We break up with them because they’re cheating lying bastards.” Her face turns stern. “Did she break up with you because you cheated?”

“No.”

“Have you ever cheated?”

“I kissed two girls on the same day in first grade,” I tell her. “Does that count?”

She smiles again. “Don’t tell me. You’re one of the good guys.”

I open my mouth to tell her I’m really not, but she puts her finger on my lips, stopping me. “I know, I know, it depends who I’m asking.”

So now she can read my mind, too.

I wait for her to pull her finger away, but she doesn’t. Instead, she traces my bottom lip with the pad of her finger. Then the top one. Then she cups my jaw.

“You’re very pretty,” she whispers. And it’s weird because nobody has ever called me pretty before. Sure, I inherited good genes. The same dark hair and square jaw that my brothers have. But I like the way she describes me.

“So are you.”

There’s that smile again. And I don’t feel like I’ve earned it. Not being an asshole should be the baseline, not the smile winner.

“And that’s why I should walk you back to your bungalow so you can get some sleep before you catch your bus in the morning,” I tell her.

“I’m sleeping here, I told you.” And to make her point she lays down on her back in the grass, her red hair spilling out all around her face, the pink skirt of her dress spreading everywhere else. “I’m not going back to the bungalow.”

“I’m not letting you sleep here,” I say. “I’ll go see if there’s an empty room in the hotel.”

“I can’t afford to pay for a second room.”

“I’ll pay.”

Her lashes sweep down over her eyes. “You can’t pay for my room. I don’t know you.”

“I’m not staying in it with you.” Although now I’m imagining it. Because fuck it, I’m anti wedding and relationships all the way. But I’m still a man.

“Come on,” I say, scrambling to my feet. I hold my hand out to her and she takes it, letting me pull her up to standing. Despite her shoes being somewhere at the bottom of the lake, she’s still unsteady. I keep hold of her hand to make sure she doesn’t stumble again – or do something unpredictable like launching herself into the lake – and walk her back to the main building of the Eastham Country Club, avoiding the party and heading straight for the reception desk.

This wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned my night at the fourth wedding of the year ending. Paying for a room for a woman I won’t sleep with.

But it could have been worse. Let’s face it, the next wedding probably will be.