Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Preston
I’d heard the term hysterical laughter before, but never experienced it firsthand. Our neighbors were staring, I could feel it, but still my shoulders shook, my eyes teared, and noise continued to leave my mouth. I hadn’t slept more than five hours a night over the past week, and once I got started, I couldn’t stop.
Jax did her best to ignore my outburst, pouring herself a fresh glass of wine. I slowly got myself under control, wiping under my eyes with my napkin before setting it back in my lap.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I think I must be extra sleep deprived today. You said we shouldn’t break up like you thought we should stay fake engaged and I lost it.” A few stray chuckles slipped out. What an incredulous thing to say.
Jax shrugged as she took a sip of her wine. “I do mean I think we should stay fake engaged. We both have things we need, and I think we can help each other.”
My eyes widened as I started to believe her. She really wasn’t kidding. “I barely know anything about you, other than you’re a political reporter and, well, that you have IBS. I’m not sure how that translates into grounds for a relationship.”
“Well,” Jax said. “For starters, you’re right. Giving the chef free rein over my food choices tonight may cause hellfire to rain down later, but at least I’ll be at home with my own toilet. And I, as you may have figured out, don’t believe in sugarcoating my body’s malfunctions for the sake of other’s delicate constitutions. Second, in full transparency, my living situation is in flux, so moving in with a fiancé would really help me out of a jam.”
“Moving in?” I spluttered the sip of wine I had just taken.
Jax waved her hand, as if suggesting I release the thought from my mind. “We’ll come back to that. Third, I’m not a political reporter anymore. My contract expired and I found out today they’re not going to renew it.”
“Shit, I’m sor?—”
Jax waved me off. “Don’t be. I’ve been writing in the political realm for the last five years after getting my MFA. It started with local politics and I worked my way up to the big stage. That’s not because I love it, but because the best man at my parent’s wedding gave me a job out of pity five years ago when I was desperate. I’ve hopped from publication to publication since then. And today, I decided to stop hopping.”
Our conversation paused as the waiter delivered our appetizers, Steak Tartare du Parc. Jax and I dug into the food, which smelled amazing.
After a few minutes of plating our food and murmurs over the delicious taste, Jax rolled her shoulders and started her pitch.
“I couldn’t help but hearing your office needs some comms help?”
“This is off the record?”
“My god, there’s no record for it to be on! But yes, sure, it’s off the record.”
I sighed. “Yes, we need comms help. Our former Communications Director got allocated to the staff for the campaign, and I can’t get Senator Marsden to replace one for our office. I’m already writing speeches for both his campaign and appearances for his current term because he won’t take speeches from anyone else. Now he’s making me write press releases and handle interview requests too, on top of managing the rest of the staff. I’m going to die from an ulcer before I ever get to run for office myself.”
Jax smiled like a cat who finally caught that pesky canary.
“I had you pegged for personal political aspirations. Why else would you put up with that bastard?”
“He’s not that bad...” I trailed off, looking to either side of our table to be sure our dinner mates were engaged in conversation before leaning closer. “Okay, he is that bad. But he does a lot of good work for causes I’m passionate about, and I started as Chief of Staff for a senator when I was only twenty-eight. I couldn’t pass up that kind of job offer.”
“I totally understand doing what you need to do to achieve your goals—which is where I come in.”
Jax and I stared at each other as they cleared our appetizer and placed our entrée of Porc Milanese in front of us.
“Monsieur and madame, anything else you need right now?”
“We’re all set for now, thank you,” Jax answered, never breaking her gaze from mine.
I picked up my knife and fork, cutting into my dinner. I meant to tell Jax to save it, I wasn’t interested, but I heard myself, as if from an out-of-body experience, saying, “Okay, I’m listening.”
“ S o, let me see if I have this straight,” I said to the gorgeous woman across from me, setting my silverware down on my empty plate. Throughout our courses, it occurred to me she might be an evil mastermind. “We continue to pretend we’re engaged. To sell that ruse, you move in with me and we act like a couple in front of family, friends, and colleagues. In return, you’ll take the Comms Director role in the senator’s office, so I don’t have to continue to do two jobs and die an early death.”
“Don’t forget you won’t have to admit to the senator you lied to him, and it’ll be a good look for you to have a committed partner as you explore launching your own campaign in a year or two. Probably eighteen months, right? House of Representatives?”
I felt my jaw drop open. I hadn’t even told any of my brothers I planned to run for the House in the next election cycle.
“I thought you said you weren’t good at this political reporter thing.”
Jax dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “I said I didn’t want the job to begin with. Not that I wasn’t great at it.” She looked around for our waiter. “Do you think we need a nightcap to go with our dessert, to officially toast our engagement? Maybe a glass of port?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually had port. I usually have to run out and do something for Mitchell when it gets to that part of the evening.”
“Port, it is.” She made eye contact with our waiter. After confirming it would go well with whatever dessert masterpiece they’ll be bringing out momentarily, she put in the order.
As the waiter walked away again, I asked, “So, if you didn’t want to be a political reporter, what was your focus for your MFA program?”
“Ah, you have found the line of honesty the evening doesn’t extend past,” Jax answered, picking up her glass and swallowing the last swig of her wine. Her eyes clouded. It seemed this woman could see through most of my secrets and pick out needs I couldn’t voice out loud, but was determined to hold some things close to the chest. My mind flickered back to my last relationship. Maybe there were some areas where I should do the same.
Before I could push any further about Jax’s writing aspirations, our waiter returned with two glasses of port and a single plate. The dish held a delicious mountain of chocolate confection and two forks.
“How precious, jelly bean,” Jax teased. “Should I feed you from my fork, or do you want to feed me first?”
“How about we just keep to our own forks,” I said, my face heating for the umpteenth time this evening.
Jax shrugged, speared the pastry with her fork, and brought a dessert the restaurant could rename “death by chocolate” to her lips. As the bite settled on her tongue, her eyes closed and she let out a moan entirely indecent for the public setting we were in. I found myself shocked to wonder how I could get her to make that noise again. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Jax was gorgeous, with her fringe bangs dusting her eyebrows and her blue eyes piercing me with each question she asked or point she made. Danger lay in finding your potential fake fiancée attractive.
“Shall we toast?” Jax asked, lifting her glass, effectively breaking me out of my reverie.
I lifted mine in answer, not for the first time that evening admiring how her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. We made a far-fetched and ridiculous pair, but I couldn’t deny Jax represented a solution to my work problems. Something in me felt called to her. My brothers always teased me for collecting strays growing up, delivering them to the no-kill shelter in our town or nursing baby birds back to health that had fallen from their nests. Jax stroked those same instincts.
“To our happily ever after?” I offered, trying to get into the spirit of our sham betrothal, bringing my glass to meet hers.
A look of sorrow and shame crossed Jax’s face for an instant, mirroring misgivings I tried to bury deep inside myself. In the next moment, she smiled at me and brought her glass to her lips. She finished the toast. “Certainly to our happily for now.”
T he delivery of the check brought a slight squabble over who would pay the bill. Jax won handily. “You agreed to marry me tonight. The least I can do is buy you dinner.”
Now we were standing outside waiting on the curb for our respective rides.
“So, I’ll bring my stuff to your place tomorrow, early afternoon, so we can arrive at the fundraiser together?” Jax’s eyes were on her phone, presumably tracking the location of her ride share, showing no sign of the bombshell she just dropped on me.
“To-tomorrow? I mean, I’m not sure?—”
“I had a male roommate in grad school. Nothing about the state of your place can faze me.”
“Oh, it’s not that. I’m actually very clean and neat...”
Jax dragged her eyes slowly up and down my frame, her gaze like a tangible weight. Like she could see directly through the wool peacoat I donned against the chill.
“I can see that,” she responded when she had finished her perusal. What did that mean?
“If you’re done,” I huffed. “It’s just that I don’t know if I can meet you tomorrow. The senator and I have to go over his speech and then I should work on the press and comms stuff.”
Jax shook her head. “I’m going to help you with that, remember? We can spend time on it Saturday, pro bono really, since I won’t even be on the payroll yet. You can’t tell me you’re not the type to work on weekends. And if I move in tomorrow, then we won’t even have to leave the house to work.”
As I thought this over, Jax plucked my phone out of my hand. She held it up to my face to unlock it and then opened up a text message thread. After hitting send, her phone vibrated in her other hand, ensuring I had my new fiancée’s phone number.
“Here’s your car.” Jax nodded toward the car pulling to the curb, handing my phone back. “Text me your address. I’ll plan to be there around two. I don’t have much stuff. We can get it unloaded in your guest room and have plenty of time to get ready before dinner.”
“Guest room? Oh, I don’t have a?—”
The car honked its horn, cutting me off.
“Your car is going to leave if you don’t get in.”
“Is your ride almost here? I can tell him to wait.”
Jax waved me off. “He’ll be here in a minute. He’s just turning the corner.”
We were on a well-lit street, and I needed to get home so I could make sure my apartment was in shape to receive another person’s belongings in less than eighteen hours.
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” I stood there awkwardly, not sure how to say goodbye to the woman planning to move in with me.
My driver honked again, breaking up the awkward moment.
Jax laughed. “Go. We’ll work on physical touch tomorrow.”
I opened the back door, slid into the car, and shut the door behind me. What Jax meant by “working on physical touch” clicked as the car pulled away from the curb. I wheeled my head around in time to see Jax set off in the opposite direction. No cars stopped to pick her up. I settled into the seat as the driver merged into traffic, running my hand through my hair. This morning, my most intimate relationship was with my doorman. Now, I had an impending roommate, and more alarmingly, a fake fiancée, plus a potential solution to one of my future work-related ulcers, all in one Jax-shaped package. Who exactly was this brunette sorceress who had dropped into my life?