Just My Fake Husband (Tate Brothers #5)

Chapter 1

River

I’ve been deprived of male attention for a while now, okay? That’s all this is.

I’m chalking up this wobbly, whooshy feeling in my knees when Gabriel Tate appears at my office door to the fact that I haven’t been on a date in approximately a hundred thirty-seven years, give or take.

Because in a normal situation, I would not get wobbly around Gabriel Tate. He and I have something of a past.

My boss is Sebastian Tate, and Gabriel is his younger brother and the philanthropy director of the Foundations Financial company, which is based in Denver.

I’ve followed every move of Gabriel’s career for years, even before I started working at Tate International. I watched what he did, how he took his father’s company from what it was before and into one of the most laudable philanthropic entities on the market.

It’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. So, when he shows up at my office at his brother’s resort, I usher him inside. When he says, “I need your help,”

the immediate response in my mind is Your wish is my command, you darling man. My body heats. The collar of the shirt under my suit is sticky against my skin.

All of this is silly, considering what happened in high school. From the look on his face now, though, he doesn’t seem to remember that. Par for the course with him.

As I walk to my desk, it’s like I’ve donned truth goggles because I’m suddenly aware that the room is a disaster. I call my style modern bohemian chic, with its shaggy palm leaf prints on the walls, gold accents, and pink macrame. Now? With my truth goggles on and the fourth of the six Tate brothers standing here? Things look amateur. I wish I’d had time to take a Hoover to the whole mess of paper atop my desk.

Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to notice, taking a stealthy glance into the corridor before closing the door behind him. He even glances at the doorknob, and I swear he’s wishing it locked.

The man is spooked.

“Have a seat,”

I say, aware that my voice is more “whew girl”

than PR director. I clear my throat. So, it’s Gabriel Tate. So what? Get it together, River!

He only stares a moment before sinking into one of my little leather chairs opposite me, gripping a medium-sized picture frame face down in his lap. He’s in a baby-blue tee and a knit, greyish olive-green blazer that screams casual wealth. His warm tan pants seem tailored to fit him perfectly. They’re just right.

I refuse to be intimidated by his classic beauty. He’s the kind of man who knocks your socks off—who makes you not even want to wear socks again. Hair the color of a wheat field at noon day, blue eyes, white, even teeth, and an affable ease reserved for the rich and movie stars.

And dimples. One on either side of his beautiful mouth.

Except, right now, his golden-ness is dim. If I didn’t know of him already, I would think he was sour. Rumpled emotionally.

A grey pallor globs over him. Even his normally thick and shiny blonde hair now looks defeated.

I take a second to breathe as I walk around my desk, my gaze flitting out the window. The resort sits on the edge of Longdale Lake in Northern Colorado. Even though I’m on the ground floor, this late summertime view of the wild beach, the morning inky lake, and endless pines swirled with aspens is my only means of sanity sometimes.

I sit in my macrame-covered office chair. “What seems to be the problem, Gabriel?”

He blinks rapidly, like he’s not sure how I know his name. How could I not know who he is? In addition to our aforementioned “bit of a past,”

the family resemblance is striking. He’s the blonde version of Sebastian, only about a hundred times more agreeable.

No one starts working for the Tates without making themselves aware of the six high-powered, handsome brothers. To them, we’re all just like those nosy women at the grocery stores—Velcro rollers in our hair, pouring over the gossip magazines, going gaga over the entire Tate family.

But I like to think most of us do so with our dignity still intact.

Me? Let’s see if we can summon some of that long-gone dignity, shall we?

“Yes, I know who you are.”

With a wrinkly tension in his forehead, he finds his voice. “Right. And you’re River Judkins and you work for Sebastian in Public Relations.”

He says it so matter-of-factly that I have to protest.

“I don’t work in PR, I’m the PR director for Tate International.”

When I started with the company, I was the only PR rep here and was roped in with the Human Relations department. Now, I manage a whole team of people.

“Oh. Yeah. That’s what I meant.”

He purses his lips, making his dimples pop.

I will myself not to mention that his dimples and me go way back. Also? I’m equal parts annoyed and understanding over the fact that he doesn’t recognize me.

Please. For all that is holy, River, say nothing about the poetry you wrote in high school about those freaking dimples.

“And what do you need my help with, exactly?”

His tongue darts out to moisten his lips. “I just need some crisis management done, some work on . . . well, on my image, I guess.”

“Your image, you guess? You’re going to have to be more specific. You as a person? Or your father’s company? Or what?”

“It’s complicated. But I guess me personally.”

The guy is clearly struggling here.

“Did your father send you? I’m confused on how I can help you, exactly.”

His back straightens. “No, no. He didn’t send me. He’s—um. Well, no. This is more of a personal thing.”

“Personal?”

What kind of help is he needing exactly? Wild thoughts race through my head. Did he just get bailed out of jail? Does he have a baby mama who is giving him trouble? Was he charged with larceny? Extortion? Jaywalking?

I chuckle internally. There’s no way. Gabriel Tate is a saint. I still think that despite his breaking my little fourteen-year-old heart.

He shoots out a breath. “I can’t say much about it. But I need to, uh, help my father’s company’s image? Through helping my image?”

“That’s a whole lot of question marks. You’re talking in riddles.”

I uncap and then recap my ball point pen, over and over. Consider it a fidget toy to distract me from the dimples crowding the room.

“I haven’t thought this through. Sorry.”

He exhales again, grinding a palm to his eye. “I’ve been out of the country, so I’m still jet-lagged.”

I toggle my computer awake and create a file so I can take notes and start making sense of this.

When he doesn’t say more, I shake my head. “Alrighty then. The facts as I know them are . . .”

I start typing. “You’re here, in my office, to ask for help with something PR related.”

I pause, letting my gaze go to his. After his curt nod, I continue. “But it’s not in an official capacity as the director of philanthropy for Foundations Financial, correct?”

He hesitates, squirming in his seat. “Correct.”

“You sound about as sure of that as when my mother said, ‘Yes, River, you can go get a tattoo.’”

I offer a laugh. “I didn’t, though. I haven’t yet.”

I scratch at my cheek. “I might. Anyways . . .”

Something in him wakes up, like he’s making an important decision in real time. He stows the picture frame between his side and the arm of the chair. “Can I hire you as a PR consultant? On the side? I’ll pay you ten percent more than the going rate. I can have a contract worked up before we get started.”

“But Foundations Financial has their own PR department.”

“Like I said, this is out of their scope.”

I rotate in my swivel chair, back and forth. Back and forth. Again, this is probably another fidgeting thing so I don’t fangirl over Gabriel Tate being here in my office. “You’ll have to give me more information, but I don’t see why I can’t. I’ll okay it with Sebastian first—”

“No.”

Gabriel’s blue eyes are thin slits before he blinks rapidly. “I’d appreciate you not saying anything to Sebastian or anyone else.”

I laugh. “Why? Did you do something illegal?”

At his hesitation, I gasp. “It’s illegal? Are you asking me to do something against the law?”

“Not you.”

He groans and slumps in the chair again, stretching his long legs out to one side and flexing his neck to the left and right. “You don’t have to do anything against the law. It involves some things that were . . .tricky . . . in the legal arena . . .”

I shake my head again. “I’m confused. And I don’t feel right about working on something behind Sebastian’s back.”

I shiver. I’ve worked for Sebastian for years, but am I going to get a side gig from his brother without his approval?

When chickens have teeth.

“It’s not behind his back,”

Gabriel insists. “Look. Okay, I’ll talk to Sebastian about it. But this is something very personal and for the sake of my father’s company, I need you to be discreet.”

“I’m in PR. We’re nothing if not discreet,”

I assure him.

Oh my gosh. What’s he going to ask me to do? I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to break the law with my former idol slash the guy who was party to an embarrassing moment when I was a teen.

He’s had magazine articles written about him. If there were a “50 Most Beautiful People”

list for the philanthropy world, Gabriel Tate would be on it, guaranteed. He has clout in the industry. People either love him or want to be him. “I have to ask. What could you have possibly done that you need PR help for?”

I’ve gotten people out of jams before. Tate International hasn’t had too much bad press, but when they have, I’ve spun things. I’ve helped them get back on their feet in the public eye. When Sebastian was vying for a big award not long ago, the Deca Areta, I worked hard to help him curate the image of a winner beforehand.

He didn’t win. But that’s beside the point because it didn’t have anything to do with me. It was a numbers thing. But boy was he the poster child for the Deca Areta! And when he didn’t get it, we worked on shoring up his good image despite the loss. It was fine.

My point is, I’m good at what I do.

But Gabriel’s not answering me, and it’s frustrating.

“What did you do?”

I hold up my palms. “No judgments from me, okay? I used to work in Vegas. I’ve seen it all.”

I don’t mention that “working in Vegas”

actually meant that I did about one-fourth of my internship there before I realized that our second cousin couldn’t take care of my older sister the way she needed. I did what I had to do and quit.

I take care of my sister. It’s what I do. No regrets.

His lips curl to one side and he furrows his brow. “I won’t be discussing that with you.”

I lean back in my chair, silencing my phone for the fourth time since Gabriel arrived. It’s my sister. The multiple calls thing is typical but as always, I get a knot in my stomach when I can’t answer. I just hope she’s not rifling through the boxes packed up with all our stuff again.

Yes, we’re moving. Do I know where yet? No. No, I do not.

“I can’t help you then, Mr. Tate.”

“I’d like to hire you to fix some things. That’s what you do. I’ve seen it.”

Ah. He must be referring to the public introduction of one Mr. Benson Kilpack, his half-brother. I was on the team, the task force to introduce the long-lost son of Gabriel’s dad. It was an emergency, all-hands-on deck sort of deal. The PR departments of both Foundations and Tate International made an announcement publicly and there’s been no negative chatter about the situation, thank goodness.

See? I told you I’m good at what I do.

“I can’t fix what I don’t know. You’ve gotta tell me what happened, Gabriel. Come on.”

I flash a smile. “Don’t be shy.”

His jaw hardens and he lowers his chin. “There’s no need to know. Just write up some things for the media. Now that I’m back, word’s going to get out and I need to be prepared.”

“You’re back from where? I can’t spin something I know nothing about.”

“Europe.”

“What part?”

He pauses and then after a disgusted sigh from me he says, like a curse, “Prague.”

“What happened in Prague?”

“It was over a month ago. What happened isn’t relevant anymore.”

I give one quick shake of my head and start typing quickly, dictating as I go along. “So something big, bad, and terrible happened a month ago and you can’t say anything, even though I could probably just google it and find out.”

His expression darkens. “All right. I lost a large sum of money at a casino. I went to Prague to support my friend. I was trying to help him, and I ended up making some bad decisions in the process.”

His voice sounds resigned but nothing in his body language is. “I need you to make the public image concerns go away.”

I stop typing and stare. “I can’t make it go away. My job is to make things seem a lot better than they actually are. Redirect the conversation, as it were. But because it’s been a month since it happened, I don’t know if that’s possible. You should have come to me right away. You should have called me.”

“I was busy.”

“You sound like some rocker who had a drunken brawl in a hotel room and needs me to clean it up.”

I raise a finger. “Which I did for someone when I was in Vegas. Hated every second of it, but I did it.”

His gaze darts away and I gasp, again.

“Did you have a drunken brawl?”

“No.”

His tone is urgent. “It wasn’t a brawl.”

“But it was drunken! Did you gamble when you were drunk?”

I return to my computer and pound my shock out on the keyboard as I continue with my notes. “And why has it taken you so long to come to me? That was not a smart move.”

He smirks, which only gives birth to his dimples, so it’s hard to believe that he’s actually annoyed. “Next time I do a big bad evil thing, I’ll be sure to have you on speed dial.”

The smirk turns into a glower.

“Good!”

I say, throwing my hands out like, thank you! “What was so important that you couldn’t get this PR nightmare taken care of right away?”

“I was on a short pilgrimage, sort of.”

“A pilgrimage?”

“You know, one of those month-long walks. It’s hard to explain. But it cleared my head.”

“Your head does not seem clear. Your head seems very muddy right now and I just—”

He holds out both palms to interrupt. “Okay! Look. This is hard for me to talk about, but there were a lot of bad things happening all at once.”

“In Prague.”

“Yes. And before. And I lost control.”

At my eyes bugging out of my head, he brings his hands down as if to try to calm the tension.

“I didn’t harm anyone or anything like that. I promise. It just looks bad.”

He pauses to take a breath. “And my father . . . well, he let me go. He’s very angry with me and with the situation. So, I’m trying to make things right.”

“Your dad—your own dad—fired you? You’re Gabriel Tate. You’re literally named after an angel.”

Something dawns on me. “Are you guys Catholic? Is that why you went on the pilgrimage?”

“We’re not Catholic. Not that that’s relevant or that it would matter if we were.”

He rests his elbows on my desk and starts massaging his temples. His cologne wafts to me—a spicy form of deliciousness. “I was at rock bottom and someone at my hotel in Prague suggested the pilgrimage and so I did it. And it worked. I mean, it helped.”

His voice is quieter now, hoarse. “My dad let me go and I needed to have something different to do. And now I’ve got to get my job back. And our competitors might find out about what happened, and they’ll only use it to their advantage. I can’t have that.”

“You lost a bunch of money, so your dad fired you to avoid harming the company’s reputation. Is that all you need to tell me?”

It’s not the first time I’ve felt a little like a parent with one of my clients.

Not that he’s my client.

“That’s all.”

He purses his lips together, like he’s trying to prevent himself from saying anything else.

“Are you sure?”

Now I feel like I’m trying to get my sister to confess to something. “Like how much money you lost? If you’ve paid it back? What you’ve already done to make amends? If there are any other indiscretions I need to know about?”

He leans back and tilts his head so he’s looking down his nose at me. “You don’t need to know anything else. Of course there’s more to the story but you know more than enough to do what I’m asking you to do.”

“So you’re here, asking me to help you reestablish the company’s good name, even though I can’t know anything else?”

For the first time since he got here, his baby blues clear, like I’ve just said something brilliant. “Yes.”

I let out a long slow breath, kneading my forehead. “I apologize, Mr. Tate, I really do, but I can’t help you.”