“And what do I get out of it?” he asked as he fell back next to me on the mattress, and we both rolled on our sides to face one another.
“An image makeover. You’ll look like the swooning boyfriend. It’ll be great for your career. All mentions of Jessica will fade to black.”
“Fade to black? That’s a bit dramatic, yeah?”
“Hey, my best friend is an acting genius. It must be rubbing off on me.” I couldn’t hide the smile spreading across my face. “Come on. It’s a great plan.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “What about our mothers, who are going to freak out? Are we really going to lie to them? They’ve always wanted this, and it will break their hearts when it all comes to an end, and you go back to marrying Dr. Prickdick.”
This was a fair point. I thought it over.
“Reynolds-Murphy code of silence. We call a family meeting. Get everyone on board.”
He groaned. “You’re pulling the code of silence card? You know that’s only for emergencies.”
When Cage had gotten full custody of Gracie, we’d all taken a code of silence, and not one of us had ever shared who her mother was. She’d signed over her rights to Gracie, and as far as everyone in Cottonwood Cove knew, she was just a woman he’d had a one-night stand with. No one knew that she was one of the biggest fashion models of our generation.
Code of silence was a real thing.
“My future husband is dating another woman. That’s an emergency.”
“Fuck, Miney. There’s so much wrong with that statement, but I think we’re playing with fire. What if Carl doesn’t care when it’s all said and done?” I knew he was saying it to protect me. He didn’t want me to get my hopes up if it really was over between us. And for some reason, it didn’t hurt as much as it did a few days ago.
I wasn’t alone. Finn’s presence had healed a lot of my hurt already.
“Then you and I are just doing what we always do. We were going to live together anyway. We’ll have an amicable breakup when the time is right, and we’ll just continue on like normal. Besties for the resties.”
“You don’t want to try dating other people for real?” he asked.
“I don’t. I’m not ready to date. Even if this doesn’t work out with Carl, I don’t want to date anyone else yet. I need to figure out who I am. Carl and I have been together for so long that I think I’ve lost a bit of myself. Besides, I’d just be spending my time with you anyway.” I cleared my throat as the thought entered my mind. “Oh. You probably want to date, right? Or at least hook up with someone?”
“Nah. I’m taking a break from all of that anyway. I’ll be fine.”
“So, we’re really doing this. We’re going to be fake lovers.” I pushed up as excitement coursed my veins. “I want to really pour it on. You know, all sorts of public PDA, and we’ll act like we’re both all sexed up all the time.” A maniacal laugh escaped my throat.
Clearly, I was ready to throw some salt in Carl’s wounds as he’d had no problem being with a woman in front of everyone that I knew back home. The awful, obnoxious person I tried my best to avoid at all costs—really, how could he?
Well, if there was one thing that I was certain of about my ex-fiancé…
He was jealous as hell.
He couldn’t stand the thought of me with anyone else, any more than I could stand the thought of him with someone else.
Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?
“Have you ever been all sexed up?” Finn asked. “You guys didn’t seem to have a very exciting sex life.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Because that last time I got those tequilas in you, you told me you’d never had an orgasm during sex. That doesn’t sound very impressive.”
“That’s a me problem,” I said, pushing to my feet in a huff. “Maybe this is exactly what Carl and I needed.”
“Personally, I think you need to have a real orgasm before you worry so much about winning that dicklicker back,” he said dryly.
“No. This break was what we needed. I came here to find what I wanted to do with my life, and now we’ll both realize that we missed one another. Hell, maybe it’ll make him hot for me again, and we’ll have passionate makeup sex.”
“He doesn’t strike me as a real passionate guy. I mean the dude couldn’t even run eight laps around a track.”