Chapter Seven
“Morning, sweetie pie.” Jill kissed the top of Emily’s head as she rounded the table with her third cup of coffee of the morning. After last night, she was flying high. She didn’t even need to add extra sugar to her cup. She’d say she didn’t really need the coffee, either, but that was crazy talk.
“Mama?” Emily asked, looking up from her French toast.
“Yeah?”
“Did you have fun with your friend last night?”
“I did. Did Mimi do anything fun with you?”
“She wouldn’t let me watch Star Wars.” Her lip turned into a pout, and she pushed her food around on her plate, smearing syrup along the way.
“You have the rest of your life to watch that.”
“But Rey is the coolest, Mama. She’s smart and can kick booty.” She gave a gap-toothed grin that made Jill’s heart clench.
Jill smiled. Her baby was becoming a tiny adult right before her eyes. “Will you stop growing up so fast?”
“No. I want to be able to wear your shoes.” She went back to smooshing her French toast around the plate, and Jill took another sip of coffee. She wondered what it would be like to have someone else as part of their daily routine. To read bedtime stories together. To cuddle on the couch. She’d been able to watch her own shows without having to share for years. What if they didn’t want to watch Cake Wars with her? Was she even capable of letting someone into her life like that?
Okay, now she was getting way ahead of herself.
Emily looked up from her plate and asked, “Do you like your friend…more than a friend?”
“What do you mean?”
Her daughter bit her lip and looked like she was trying to come up with a good explanation. One that Jill was hoping she wouldn’t have to answer for a long, long time. “Would you want to share your Halloween candy with him?”
Her heart caught in her throat. “I save my candy just for you, sweet girl.” She ruffled her daughter’s hair, unnerved by how perceptive she was.
Her daughter smiled at this. But it didn’t help the pang of guilt that hit Jill square in the chest. What if Emily did get tangled up in this? Could she put her daughter through that kind of pain? The thought gutted her.
Jill stopped. No, she wouldn’t get hurt. Aaron would only be around for a little while, and she could keep her two lives separate. She had to, because this was temporary.
Emily seemed pleased with her answer and moved on from the subject. “Can we Skype Uncle Gage?”
“Sure, go get the iPad.” She took a deep pull of her coffee. She was pretty sure her brother was on this side of the country today—another flight to NYC. She wondered what Gage would think of her getting married without telling anyone.
He’d probably tell her, Jill, why stir the hornet’s nest? You know that Mom is going to find out.
He’d be wrong, though. If she could hide the fact she snuck out of her room almost every night for three years straight, and the tattoo she got on her lower back when she was seventeen, then she had no doubt she could hide a marriage. No one had to know but her and Aaron. Heck, he wasn’t even going to live with them.
Emily came bounding back into the kitchen, iPad in hand, already putting in the password and clicking on the app. Before she knew it, her brother was on the screen, his hair rumpled.
“Hey, sweetie!” Gage said to Emily.
“Uncle Gage!” Emily bounced up and down in her seat, kicking her legs. Jill’s heart melted at the sight of the two of them. She saw those damn posts on Facebook sometimes about children being messed up in single-parent households, and she hoped to hell she was doing the right thing and that Gage was enough of a role model so Emily didn’t become another statistic. Seriously, parenting had turned her into a professional worrier. She might not win an Olympic medal in a sport, but she sure as heck could win one in worrying. And Googling. And lamenting over the fact that WebMD said her common cold was lupus.
Gage sat back against the hotel couch and spread his arms across the top. Early morning sun kissed the top of his forehead and made his brown eyes glitter.
“You look happy today, sis.”
“Oh yeah?” Damn, was everyone catching on to her excessively good mood?
“You have a…what does Abby call it…a glow.”
When in doubt deflect, deflect, deflect. “How’s your new girlfriend?”
He smiled. Ever since he started seeing this woman, her grumpy brother had been all freaking sunshine and rainbows. She may be from California, but anyone that could make her brother that happy was okay in her book. “She’s great. Busy with work and a new set design in Germany.”
“Fancy.”
“Yeah, but she’s damn good at it.” His grin widened, full of pride for his successful girlfriend. It was really very sweet.
“Language,” she admonished. She tried to look stern, but couldn’t help the smile that twitched at her lips.
He gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
She glanced at the clock on the wall, and her stomach sank. “Shit, we have to get ready for dance.”
“Mama, language!”
She inwardly cringed. Hopefully Emily wouldn’t repeat those words at school. She could imagine exactly how those phone calls from teachers and parents would go. “Yeah, yeah, do as I say, not as I do. Will we be seeing you for dinner this weekend?”
“Yep. I’m heading back to Charleston on Saturday, weather permitting.”
“Love you, Uncle Gage!” Emily blew him a kiss and then barreled up the stairs.
“Jill?” Gage said before Jill had the chance to end the call.
“Yeah?”
“Whatever’s making you that happy—keep doing it.”
She swallowed hard. “Will do.” She hung up the call before he had a chance to see the flush spread across her skin.
After dropping Emily off at dance for the next two hours, she met Kate and Mia at the coffee shop a block away from the studio. Thanks a Latte was nestled in the historic part of downtown and boasted strong coffee and eclectic music. After grabbing a hot chocolate, she made her way to their table and plunked down in the seat across from her two best friends.
They looked at her and then exchanged glances.
“Who is that? Do we recognize this person trying to have coffee with us?” Mia said.
“You mean the person who’s been ignoring our texts?” Kate replied.
“Yeah, that person.”
“Ha. Ha. What is this—a Mean Girls intervention? Are you mad because I didn’t wear pink?”
“On Wednesdays we divulge information about certain past neighbors.”
Kate nodded. “You’ve avoided us for a week. Spill.” Kate stared Jill down over her white mocha, arching a menacing brow.
Jill took a long sip of her hot chocolate and pretended that her world had not, in fact, been rocked. She’d never get Aaron’s tongue out of her mind, no matter how much time had passed. She didn’t even know people could do things like that. Must have been all that practice from when they’d unwrap Starburst wrappers with only their mouths as a kid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve just been busy. I had to volunteer at Emily’s school for bingo night.” Or the other fifty million things that school had her doing. She swore it was a part-time job with zero pay and benefits.
“What about the other forty times we texted you? Don’t try to play it off like you didn’t see our messages—I saw that little checkmark by your name that said you read ’em.”
Damn technology. “Fine. You want to know what I’ve been up to?”
“More like who you’ve been getting up.” Mia snickered.
“Hardy har har.”
“Seriously. Spill,” Kate said.
Jill worried her lip. This was almost as bad as telling her mother. This wasn’t exactly the smartest life choice she’d ever made, but it was a fast means to a lucrative end. Which made it sound like the shadiest business deal of the century. “I’m getting married. Kind of.”
Kate choked on her croissant, crumbs sputtering from her mouth. “What do you mean kind of?”
She drummed her fingers along the tabletop and glanced at both of them with their mouths agape. “Well, Aaron agreed to go along with the fake marriage long enough for me to get the inheritance.”
Mia stuffed a cake pop into her mouth. “What does he get out of the deal?”
“Dinner once a week,” she said.
“Just dinner? Or did he get the whole Jill Michaels buffet?” Kate waggled her brows.
Jerks. Jill shook her head and took a sip of her drink, trying to hide her smile behind her cup. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you guys. You’re turning it into a joke.”
“Hey, if you’re going to be thrown into a shitty situation, might as well enjoy the perks. If I was going to marry, I’d want to be with someone like Aaron. He seems like he’s a giver. He’s totally a giver, right?” Mia quirked a brow.
Jill flushed hot. A giver and a taker. That’s how she would describe him. Someone who would make sure her needs were taken care of first…and afterward, take what he wanted. He was so sure of himself. I want your fingers wrapped around my cock, Jill.
She scraped her palms down her face, mortified she was sharing this. The image of his teeth raking over her bottom lip, hips bucking as he drove deep inside her, flashed behind her eyes. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life. “You guys are horrible.”
“Oh, yeah, Aaron is definitely a giver. Look at how she’s still blushing,” said Kate.
“I can’t even with you two.” But this time she couldn’t hold back the smile that twitched at her lips. This was the best she’d felt in weeks. Months, maybe. It was one thing to take some self-care time, but a whole other thing to have a man worship every inch of her body. It made the morning angst-fest over what to wear for dance bearable.
Her phone buzzed in her purse, and she pulled it out to find a text from Aaron.
Aaron: How you doing this morning, princess?
Jill smiled. Yeah, this whole married thing would be a breeze. Why had she had so many reservations in the first place? Two months of texts and obliterating Alcatraz. She could totally deal with that.
Jill: Tired. Some random dude kept me out late last night.
Aaron: Oh? Who would that be?
Jill: I don’t remember his name, but there seem to be a few marks that magically appeared this morning where I’m pretty sure his hands were.
She liked the slight ache she got whenever she shifted in her chair. It was a reminder of what those fingers did to her.
Aaron: Sounds like a shady dude. You really should be more careful about who you hang out with.
Jill: And here I am, uncomfortable in my seat now. What’s a girl to do?
Aaron: Come over here and I can massage it all better.
Heat licked along the space between her thighs. She could imagine what he’d do if she was spread across his bed, her ass exposed to him, those wicked hands roaming over her skin, finding the places she’d never dare let anyone else touch. She ached at that thought—and at the fact that she wouldn’t have time to see him this week because, between her jobs and Emily’s dance schedule, she barely had a minute to breathe.
Jill: Can’t. Have plans.
Aaron: I’ll wait. I’m patient.
And for once, that didn’t scare her.