Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
VALERIE
PEEKING OUT the window, I watch as Fynn stares up at the building, a thoughtful expression on his stunningly handsome face. My heart is still racing as I watch him, squinting between a tiny gap in the blinds. After a few minutes he shakes his head before slowly turning to walk down the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his pants, headed in the direction we just came from.
I wonder if he’s going back to the bar. I shouldn’t care how he spends his evening, and I don’t.
He just might end up getting hurt, and I can’t have that. Not when so much rests on his broad, muscular shoulders. Stupid man planned to drink that whole damn bottle of bourbon all by himself. Probably would have succeeded if I hadn’t collected every bit of bravery I possess to make my move. He should be thanking me.
His liver should anyway.
I move to the edge of the pane as his slow but steady steps continue, trying to keep my eyes on him for as long as possible. He’s so much better looking in person than I expected. All the photos I found online didn’t come close to doing him justice. In real life the man is breathtaking. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Strong jaw and thick brows.
And freaking dimples for days. Like God didn’t think he’d already done enough to cause the female population to want to fall at Fynn’s feet. Lucky for me, at least for now, the female population of Sweet Side is looking more to knock those feet out from under him and, based on our conversation and that bottle of bourbon, they’ve been pretty successful.
Their loss is my gain. And what a gain it will be.
That’s why I’m still standing here, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who’s supposed to be nothing more than a convenient way to get what I need.
Technically, a couple of things I need. The first of which he shot down hard and fast, clearing up any illusions I tried to have regarding my abilities to seduce a man. They obviously suck as much now as they always have.
“ Finally. You’re home.” My roommate and only ally, Crystal, rushes across the living room and grabs me by my shoulders, wide eyes boring into mine. “Was he as awful as everyone says?”
The question bothers me. It wouldn’t have a few hours ago, but that was before Fynn Hadaway turned out to be nothing like I expected.
Based on how the man looks, I was prepared for him to be a cocky bastard. He certainly has cause. Dark hair that pushes from his face in soft waves. Eyes so blue they could get lost in the waters of Fiji, and masculine hands I can imagine doing all sorts of wicked things to me. I was hoping to do more than imagine, and honestly I really thought there was a chance that could happen tonight. But, to my dismay, Fynn Hadaway turned out to not be awful at all.
I lift one shoulder, trying to make my next words sound like a casual observation even though I feel oddly irritated by her question. “He actually seems nice.”
“Nice?” The pitch of her voice rises. “Fynn Hadaway is not nice. He’s a filthy freaking liar.”
I glance out the window again and I’m surprised by the disappointment I feel when he’s nowhere in sight. I know we only spent a short while together, but he seemed so damn shocked I wanted to talk to him that I feel strangely defensive of him. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
A few hours ago I was prepared to rest my whole future on the assumption that Fynn Hadaway was, in fact, a filthy liar. Hopefully a desperate one. Because that’s what I need. A desperate man. But Fynn Hadaway doesn’t seem desperate. He seems… Sad.
Lonely.
And maybe that’s close enough. Maybe it’s better.
My eyes sweep the street below the window, checking for one last glimpse of the man I plan to convince to be my knight in shining armor. Guilt settles into my gut, churning around the bourbon that’s no longer taking the edge off my emotions. I’m starting to feel bad about what I’m doing. The plan Crystal and I concocted.
But it has to be done. And it will benefit Fynn and me both. He needs my help as much as I need his. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Crystal snorts as she pads to the small kitchen tucked into the corner of the apartment. “Everyone knows he cheated on his girlfriend.” My only friend in Sweet Side leans out the kitchen doorway to point a spoon at me. “When she had cancer.”
I smother a sigh. I know the girl code. Know we’re supposed to band together when a man does one of our friends wrong. But Jessica Barnaby isn’t my friend, no matter how much I—and everyone else in this little gossip filled town—know about her life. “It was a precancerous mole.”
Crystal jumps out of the kitchen to stare at me, spoon still in one hand, unopened pint of ice cream in the other, her blonde ponytail bobbing with the movement. “She had to have it cut out of her skin with a scalpel.” Swiping her phone off the coffee table, she thumbs across the screen. “There’s a video.”
Of course there is.
Because Jessica Barnaby—the darling daughter of one of Sweet Side’s most wealthy and influential families—can’t take a crap without posting it to her Instagram account, looking for likes, attention—and in this case—sympathy.
“I don’t have any interest in watching the video.” I wave the phone away when Crystal holds it out to me. “ I’m tired.” I give the street outside one final glance before turning away from the window. “I’m going to bed.”
Crystal studies me, spoon hanging from her mouth. “I thought you were going to sleep with him tonight.”
So did I. Was looking forward to it. Especially once I discovered Fynn smelled as good as he looked. But then he turned me down. Walked me home without so much as a hand on my ass or his tongue in my mouth.
It’s disappointing and doesn’t really make sense based on everything I thought I knew about him, adding more fuel to my ‘Fynn Hadaway isn’t awful’ fire. “I changed my mind.”
There’s no way I’m telling Crystal he was the one who didn’t want to play bouncing mattress Olympics. I think it’s better to keep my suspicion that Fynn Hadaway might not be what Sweet Side’s socialite princess Jessica Barnaby says he is to myself. Crystal has already decided he’s the devil incarnate, and I’m suddenly not too interested in trying to make her think differently. I’d rather lay in bed and replay the short bit of time I spent with him in my head.
“That’s a good idea.” She scoops out a giant bite of Chunky Monkey and shoves it into her mouth, continuing to talk around the ice cream. “Men love a woman who plays hard to get.”
It takes everything I have not to roll my eyes because this afternoon she was trying to convince me men loved a woman who put out on the first date. And I was hoping she was right. For a number of reasons.
One of which being the body on Fynn Hadaway .
Now Crystal’s gone in the complete opposite direction, claiming I need to play hard to get to catch the man who can make all my problems disappear.
All I have to do is convince him to marry me. But considering I couldn’t even get him to sleep with me, that’s likely going to be a tougher sell than I was hoping. At least it will be for me. I’ve managed to make it nearly three decades without bedding a man. I’m not sure why I thought I’d suddenly be persuasive enough to not only get one to sex me up, but also wife me up.
After kicking off my shoes, I hook the heels over the fingers of one hand, my shoulders slumping in exhaustion and defeat. “I’m going to bed. Enjoy your ice cream.”
Crystal waves her spoon at me as she switches on the television, her full attention already trained on the screen. “Night.”
I flip on the light to the tiny bedroom housing all the belongings I’ve managed to acquire since rolling into Sweet Side a month ago. It’s not much. A mattress on the most basic of bed frames. A nightstand with a lamp I bought off someone moving out across the hall. A few outfits hanging in the closet right next to the pièce de résistance…
The wedding dress I showed up in.
I thought about selling it, but wearing the thing for twenty hours in my car while chugging Red Bull as I sped down the interstate, left it looking less than pristine. I’d be upset over twenty-thousand dollars’ worth of lace and pearls going down the drain except I didn’t even want the damn thing in the first place.
Or, honestly, the groom that went with it.
I set my pumps into their designated spot in the minuscule closet and peel off the skin-tight shirt Crystal claimed would make me irresistible to a man like Fynn Hadaway. One more thing she was wrong about. Fynn Hadaway most certainly didn’t find me irresistible. In fact, he seemed to find me quite easy to resist.
Maybe I’m not his type. I’ve seen his ex in all her six-pack-ab glory. The chick counts macros like an insomniac counts sheep. She’s tall and tan and blonde and rich and popular. In short, everything I’m not.
I poke the ample swell of soft flesh spilling over the top of my low-cut bra. Maybe he doesn’t even like big boobs. Some guys don’t.
I’ve heard.
Jessica Barnaby definitely does not have big boobs.
I blow out a breath and plop down onto the twin-sized bed taking up almost half the floor-space of my tiny room, falling back against the mattress to stare up at the ceiling.
Shit.
Now I’m depressed. Dragged down by one more man and his inability to see me for what I am. What I can offer.
But I’m not just depressed. I’m also feeling more than a little guilty after meeting Fynn in real life. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to that bar. Shouldn’t have even come up with this convoluted scheme, no matter how handsome Fynn Hadaway is or how perfectly he fits my needs. At the end of the day my plan was to use him, in more than one way. Neither of which I see happening now.
It puts me right back at square one and my time is running out. Quickly. Soon, I’ll be low on cash and the second I use one of my cards the bloodhounds will be set free.
I wish I could say I’d be strong enough to hold my own if that day comes, but the past thirty years have shown me that’s not going to be the case. I will cave, the boundaries I desperately want to set collapsed by the weight of my inability to stop trying to earn the gratitude and appreciation I know I will never get.
“Hey, Val.” Crystal bumps my door wide open and comes right in. She gives me a devilish smile and holds up my new cell, tipping it side to side. “You should text the filthy liar. Tell him how hot you think he is.”
I jump up from the bed and snatch my phone from her hand. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She stretches her lips back in an exaggerated cringe, showing the straight line of her perfectly white teeth, sucking a breath between them. “It might be too late.”
I drop my head to stare at the screen of the inexpensive phone I’ve been using for the past few weeks. Sure enough my text app is open with a message to Fynn sitting at the top of the list.
You looked really hawt tonight.
I drop down, butt bouncing against the mattress. Son of a bi —
“You seemed to be getting a little wishy-washy, so I thought I’d give you a push.” The carefree facade Crystal always sports slips for just a second, her face more serious than I’ve ever seen it. “If you don’t want them to find you and drag you right back to everything you ran from, he’s your best shot, Val.” She comes to sit beside me on the bed, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and leaning her head against mine. “Show your dad he’s not in charge of your life anymore. That you won’t let him use you. Make it so he can’t try to rope you back in.”
I know Crystal can be kind of a mess—she’s loud and wild and I’m pretty sure has a terrible case of oppositional defiance—but I’m still lucky our paths crossed when I parked my rental car in front of the first convenience store in Sweet Side to replenish my caffeine supply. Most people would silently judge a woman wearing a rumpled wedding dress buying a case of energy drinks and a handful of Snickers bars. Not Crystal. She thought it was fantastic that I’d crammed all that tulle and veil into the backseat of an Uber and sped away from the church without looking back. She cheered me on and gave me the first genuine hug I think I’d ever had.
And then she offered me the second bedroom in her apartment.
“I bet he has a nice place.” Crystal looks around the tiny room that used to serve as her reading room. “Probably has plenty of space and a king-size bed.” She lifts one shoulder. “I mean he’s a cheating filthy liar, but he’s also filthy rich.”
“I don’t care about his money.” I have my own money. Technically.
And can make plenty more now that I can use the degree I spent four years acquiring, thinking it would change the trajectory of my life. Make my father see my real value.
Wrong.
That’s why I do care about finally having control of my own life. The power to make my own decisions. Independence. Freedom from manipulation and coercion.
And organized crime, but that’s just a bonus.
“Then get your shit together and convince him this will be good for both of you.” Crystal wiggles her brows. “Especially your poor neglected vagina.” She snatches my phone and opens the Instagram app, pulling up the account of the woman whose personal, yet very public, drama serves as the basis for my plan. She scrolls through the thousands of posts on Jessica Barnaby’s account, flying past pictures of her lunches and shots of her at social events, surrounded by the city’s elite, before stopping on a photo I haven’t seen before. She holds the screen up between us and my stomach does a little flip.
It’s Fynn, shirtless and smiling. Tanned skin glowing in the summer sun under a sky as blue as the eyes I couldn’t stop staring into tonight. But they look different in the picture. They’re missing the weariness that edges them now and it punches me right in my guilty gut.
“Why does she still have that picture of him up?” It shouldn’t irritate me the way it does, but Jessica’s worked awfully hard to ruin his life. It doesn’t seem right that she would want the reminder of their happier times in the digital history books.
Crystal shrugs, tilting the screen back her way. “I guess to show that even a guy as handsome as he is, can be a piece of shit.”
I press my lips together, keeping my opinion in the way I always do. She might blindly believe a woman she’s never met, but I don’t. I don’t even believe people I’ve known my whole life at this point, so I’m sure as heck not going to let some rich girl convince me Fynn’s a bad guy through the rumor mill. If he is, then Fynn’s one hell of a great actor—with no real motive.
It’s not like he was trying to get in my pants. Unfortunately.
The answer Fynn gave me when I asked if there was a reason I shouldn’t see him circles back through my mind.
No. There’s not.
He sounded so serious. So earnest.
“Why does she think he cheated on her? Did she catch him or something?” I look away from the picture, feeling a little like I’m betraying a man who’s been nothing but nice to me. A man who turned down my blatant offer of first date sex.
Pre-first date sex.
Fynn didn’t even take advantage of the kiss I gave him, which was also a little disappointing, but I got that bit of my plan out of the way. I hated knowing the last pair of lips to touch mine were attached to an actual slimeball who deserves anything bad coming his way .
That’s another reason I’m struggling to fully believe Fynn is all everyone thinks he is. I know what a filthy liar really looks like.
“She was at the nail salon and heard some other girl talking to her friend about how she met this amazing guy who took her snorkeling and then on a bike ride down the boardwalk.” Crystal lowers the phone, her brown eyes locked on mine as she spills the truth as she believes it. “His name was Fynn Hadaway and he was tall with dark hair and blue eyes.”
The story sits heavy in my gut because that is pretty specific. “Did she ask the girl about it?”
“No way.” Crystal tosses my phone in my lap. “Jessica was humiliated. When she confronted him he lied and told her none of it ever happened.” She stands up. “So she got back at him the best way she could and told everyone she knows.”
“It still seems a little like overkill.” I understand being cheated on sucks, trust me, but Jessica’s reach is huge. She knows everyone in this town and has hundreds of thousands of social media followers who get to see her every move and feel like she’s the best friend they’ve never actually met. She had to know what would happen when she told them all Fynn cheated on her.
Crystal juts one hip out and lifts her brows. “He’s getting what he deserves for being a cheating, dirty liar.”
I know I should keep my mouth shut to keep the peace between us, but my next words slide out all on their own. “That you encouraged me to screw the first time I met him.”
“You need him to agree to marry you. The best way to get a man to agree to go along with anything you say is to ask when he’s nice and relaxed.” Her lips lift into a devilish smile. “Plus he’s a hot, cheating, dirty liar.”
She’s not wrong on the hot part, but his looks weren’t the only thing that had my pulse racing as I struggled not to make an ass of myself at the bar. I was feeling optimistic about my odds until he opened his mouth and I heard his voice. It’s deep and a little rough at the edges. Top it off with that British accent and it was too easy to imagine how it would sound growling in my ear, whispering all the dirty things I’ve never had done to me.
My phone vibrates in my lap, stopping my lusty, wandering thoughts.
Crystal snorts. “Speak of the devil.” She turns away, pulling my door shut as she leaves. “Make it happen, Val.”
I rub my lips together, trying to remind myself of all the reasons I have to do this. Have to seduce Fynn Hadaway.
Not just seduce him. Convince him a sham marriage could solve both our problems.
If I’m already married, I can’t be forced to marry anyone else. If he’s got a happy, adoring wife at his side, looking at him like he hung the moon, people will assume he’s changed. Become a better man. In a year, he can claim I broke his heart and return to life as he knew it.
And I can find a life like I’ve never known.
I take a deep breath before lifting my phone to read his response .
Hawt?
Freaking Crystal. I pull up the text string and type out my first actual contribution.
I meant handsome. Damn autocorrect.
I set the phone down so I won’t keep staring at it and stand up to slip off the pencil skirt I chose for tonight because it shows off my ample ass. It barely has time to hit the floor before my phone dings.
Thank you.
Fynn Hadaway is polite. Another thing I didn’t expect. I plop back down on my bed and stare at his simple response. It would be rude not to be polite back, right?
You’re welcome.
I chew my lip for a second, thinking of all the things Crystal would tell me to say. I hate every one of them.
I know she means well. Wants me to have a life of my own as much as I want it for myself, and she wants it for reasons similar to the one that makes her hate Fynn. Nothing pisses women off more than seeing one of their own being screwed over by a man.
Men, in my case.
But Crystal has the kind of personality that takes over a room. It’s probably a huge asset in her side gig as a DJ, but in a friendship it can be overwhelming.
I blow out a breath and start typing.
Thank you for walking me home. It was very sweet of you.
The response dots appear, then disappear over and over before a text finally comes.
Not many women call me sweet these days.
Without context it’s impossible to know the tone of his words. It’s why I freaking hate texting. There’s just so much room for misinterpretation. So much room for misunderstanding. Plus I want to hear his voice again.
Can I call you?
It’s sent before I can think it through. Maybe talk myself out of it. Out of all of this.
I should just let Fynn be. Walk away and pretend like none of this ever happened. But I can’t. Partially because Crystal is right. I don’t want to go back to everything I ran from. I don’t want to be back under my father’s all-consuming proverbial thumb. If I’m going to marry a man to get somewhere, then it’s going to be to get where I want to go.
This time Fynn doesn’t respond right away. I have enough time to put on my pajamas and brush my teeth before peeking out of the bathroom to find Crystal already passed out on the couch with a Judge Judy rerun blaring from the television. I grab the remote and start to turn it off.
Then my text alert dings.
Sure.
I set the remote down, deciding the added noise will work in my favor. Give me a tiny bit of the kind of privacy I’ve never had.
After silently closing the door to my room and shutting off the light, I crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head for added sound muffling. Then I dial the number Fynn gave me when I asked if I could see him again. It probably wasn’t the approach most women would have taken, but I don’t have time to dwell on one more area where I’m lacking experience.
Because Fynn’s line barely rings once.
“Hello Valerie.”
Good God that voice. It slides down my body like a caress.
“Hi.” I squeeze my eyes shut, cringing at how awkward I sound. I’ve never tried to seduce a man before and boy is it showing. “Did you make it home okay?” I don’t hear the sound of the bar in the background, and for some reason that makes me happy. Like maybe the day he was trying to drown doesn’t seem as awful anymore. Because of me.
“I did.” Fynn clears his throat. “Was there something you wanted to talk to me about? ”
“Um.” Shit. There are many things I want to talk to him about. Questions I’d love to ask.
What happened today that made it so terrible?
Did you really cheat on Jessica?
Was she your type?
That last one is what I really want to know. Only because if I’m not his type I should know. Not that it will bother me if I’m not.
Much.
But I can’t ask him any of those things. Not yet.
My mind spins, trying to come up with some great, conversation-starting question, but they all jumble around until one just falls out.
“Do you like living in Sweet Side?” I cringe because holy shit I really am awful at this.
“Not so much anymore.”
Of course not.
I’m at a loss for where to go now. I’ve bungled this thing at every turn and it’s making me question whether or not I should keep going. But Fynn doesn’t wait for me to ask more questions. Instead he asks one of his own.
“Why did you come talk to me tonight, Valerie?” He pauses before adding a qualifier that stops me short. “Honestly.”
Honestly.
Is it a word that applies to what either of us is doing?
Technically I haven’t lied to him, and, considering our limited interactions, I can say with relative certainty that Fynn hasn’t yet lied to me either. I might as well keep the streak going .
Telling him the whole truth isn’t an option, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give him some of it. A part I wasn’t willing to admit to myself until a few breaths ago.
And still might try to deny.
“Because I wanted to.”