Bad Boy's Fake Wedding Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  © 2016 Lexi Whitlow

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

  Kindle Edition

  Want her mailing list? Click here.

  Like her page on Facebook here and get opportunities to win prizes and participate in contests.

  Want to help Lexi and receive free books? Sign up here for her ARC team, and you’ll receive free advance copies every damn time she releases a book.

  ***

  Dedication:

  Acknowledgements:

  Cover Design:

  The dream starts off like this.

  It’s a Saturday morning, or at least I think it is.

  I’m in bed, which is where I usually am on a weekend morning. But today is different. It’s earlier than usual. It’s not after noon. It’s seven, maybe eight. I can tell by the quality of the light coming in through the window.

  But I’m not annoyed when I wake up. I usually am if I wake up any time before eleven, even on a weekday.

  There’s no one next to me in bed, but there’s someone in the house. That’s the thing too—it’s a house. Like one of those brownstone houses out in Brooklyn, even though I fucking hate Brooklyn and the hipster restaurants there that only serve sushi and roasted Brussel sprouts and nothing else. It’s not my shitty apartment above the bar, the one I’ve lived in for years.

  And the woman here—I know it’s a woman—I can hear her out in the family room. There’s soft music playing, like a lullaby. And there are squeals and soft coos and the occasional sound of a little girl singing. It’s my little girl, Brie—I know that without a doubt. But she’s older. And she’s not alone.

  But I don’t feel panicked or angry or any of the things I ordinarily feel when a chick overstays her welcome at my place. I’m not reaching for my phone in the dream to get her a Lyft home. And I’m not thinking of some excuse to make. A trip to the DMV. A wedding. A meeting with the accountant for the bar. There’s none of that. I’m just happy.

  I hear footsteps in the hall, heavier than Brie’s six year old feet, even though she’s already so big, and where did the fucking time go and all that shit that parents think. I’m not a normal parent, but in this dream, I am.

  “Daddy,” she says, peeking in the doorway, deep green eyes staring at me. That dark brown hair her mother had, falling in curls around her face, longer than it is now. “It’s time to get up. We want the pancakes with the blueberries in them. And then we’re going to walk down to the market. They have music there today.”

  “Oh are we? Who says?” I say that and lift up onto my elbow, yawning. Feeling that thing I used to feel a long time ago. Parent style tired, like I could sleep for another four hours, but those four hours are long gone.

  Call me crazy, but I miss that feeling all the fucking time.

  Anyway.

  “I says,” she replies. There’s a shadow in the hallway, and a voice I can’t make out.

  There’s always that shadow, and then I wake up.

  I’ve been having that dream on and off for two years.

  Since Tabitha died.

  Since I hunted down the man that sold her that shitty smack and beat him within an inch of his life. It was within an inch only because my brother pulled me off of him.

  Since six months of prison, and getting out, and everything after.

  When I wake up, I’m usually next to some woman, but every time, I’m always in the same shitty apartment. A million steps away from getting Brie back in my custody. And even further from building a good life for her, like this one. I don’t even consider the woman because that’s not who I am anymore.

  I fuck women. I make them come. I send them home. I serve drinks at the bar, and every idea I have that might get me closer to that moment—the parent-tired moment when Brie comes in my room and wakes me up—is stupid, shitty, and worthless.

  On this particular morning, I wake up alone.

  And everything changes.

  I just don’t know it yet.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I shouldn’t keep doing this.

  I thought I’d quit. When I woke up this morning, I reminded myself that I shouldn’t pull this shit anymore.

  Girl after girl. Another one every night. Not that I ever had a dissatisfied customer. I had a whole fan base who kept coming back for more. For the experience—screaming, moaning, multiple times until morning. They weren’t the type to ever stay for breakfast. I always kept myself clean—no drugs, always use protection. I used that to justify my behavior to everyone around me. It’s what I said to my brothers, to my mom, to my ex-girlfriend’s family.

  I’m no addict, I’d said. I’m done with that shit.

  But Finn pointed out that I was addicted to girls, to the thrill of the chase. Not that I need to chase the tail that comes in here. I watch them all, a parade of women. Some regulars, some who come to an Irish bar Hell’s Kitchen to get a taste of the local flavor. I estimate I’ve fucked maybe forty percent of them, and that’s just because I stopped two months ago. Because the court told me I had to quit. Not that they can test for that sort of thing. But it’s easy enough for a determined, powerful family to find out what I’m up to at any given time.

  I miss it. Warm, soft skin. The way a woman begs for me to take her deeper, so she can feel every inch of me. The way she sighs when I push her to her limits and then push her even further.

  I look around the bar. I could have any one of these women. Take one of them—or two—to the apartment upstairs. Fill the time with my favorite hobby. I call it that, anyway. A hobby.

  But my brother Finn tells me it’s a way to numb the pain of everything happening around me. All the things I’ve lost in the past two years, all the shit I’ve don
e that I haven’t gotten over. And it’s prevented me from getting forward, from moving on, from getting back the one thing that means everything to me. He’s right. He always is. I think about the last girl I fucked, and even if you held a gun to my head, I couldn’t remember her name. I remember a few flashes of her—fake tits, shaved bare, rode me until she came three times. But I couldn’t tell you anything else. Just like a junkie thinking about his latest and greatest high.

  An addict.

  Good pussy makes me forget. I’ve been clean for a good while. Just drinking a beer here and there. Socializing with people in the bar. Being a good host, keeping my damn self out of trouble. And my cock away from the women who come in and parade themselves in front of me.

  Two months ago, it was every night. A parade of fake blondes, names I can’t recall. Sent them home every morning. Satisfied, but gone. Didn’t bother with anything else.

  It hurt my case. It hurt my case real fucking bad.

  I polish up the glasses on my side of the bar and set them out, one by one. “Finn, you good to let me off early tonight?”

  He looks at me and rolls his eyes. “Another girl.”

  “No, man. Or maybe.”

  “No is the right answer, kid.”

  “Don’t call me ‘kid,’ dick.” I lean against the bar and pour a beer for myself, while Finn tends to the old guys who sit up front. “One won’t matter.”

  “It always matters when you’re dealing with fucking Marta. And her PI. And the courts.”

  I growl. He’s right. But there’s an aching need swirling inside of me, a coil about to tighten to the point of breaking. I need something.

  “You’re right,” I say, still scanning the women in the bar. None of them is any different from the girls I had before. The ones who didn’t mean anything.

  “I always am. And you’re always an idiot.” Finn looks over his shoulder at me. “Be my guest. Ruin your chances at getting custody of Brie. Have her live with that crazy bitch for the rest of her life.”

  My fists tighten. I’d like to punch the superior look off of Finn’s face and slam him into the floor for good measure. But he’s the one who came to see me in prison. And he’s the one who came to court. Bought me a suit. Got me a job. “Shut the fuck up, Finn. One time won’t hurt anything.”

  He shrugs and fixes some girly drink for one of the ladies making eyes at him. He winks at her and turns back to me. “The only way you could get away with your stupid shit—well, not get away with it—” He stops mid-sentence. His dark eyes glint in the way they did when he pulled pranks on my parents when he was a kid. “That’s not you. You wouldn’t do that.”

  “What wouldn’t I do?”

  Finn smiles and turns back to the customers. “Nothing.”

  I step up next to him and lean against the bar, nodding to one of the regulars who looks like he should have been cut off an hour ago. “Tell me. You got an idea?”

  “You’ll fuck it up,” he says. “Shouldn’t bother telling you. Because knowing you, you’ll fuck a girl, screw everything up. And I’m Brie’s uncle. You’re all right.” He looks at me for a second and frowns. “But I love that kid. She needs you. She needs a stable life. And who the fuck knows—maybe she’s got that with Marta, not you. I mean, if you’re going to go back to banging girls every night.”

  “I’m not. And I’m not going to.”

  “You just need a fix?” he says, all the humor gone out of his voice.

  “Fuck you and the boat you came in on.”

  “It’s the same fucking boat, Liam. You think I’m the responsible big brother—”

  “I don’t think that. I think you’re an asshole,” I say, even though it’s not true.

  “Yeah, well. I am. I was. The difference between you and me is that I don’t have anyone to go home to. And if I did, I’d keep my act squeaky clean. If I had a kid to take care of, I’d make sure any girl I got with wasn’t just a one night stand.”

  His words wash over me. I’m barely paying attention. Because there’s a shift in the air. It might be what my brother said—even though that ain’t me. I’m not that guy. Not after Tabitha, Brie’s mom.

  All that talk, it makes me want to go back to all the drugs and all the girls, and every ounce of alcohol in this bar.

  “That’s not exactly a good idea, and you know it,” I say. At that moment, there’s a girl who walks in, stepping quietly behind her redheaded friend. I spot her immediately. She’s not the type of girl who comes to Hell’s Kitchen. She shouldn’t even be anywhere in the vicinity. Natural dark hair falling just to her shoulders, so deep in color it’s almost black. Natural tits too, and a small waist, sensual hips and ass parading around in a skirt that her friend probably convinced her to wear.

  Her friend waves down drinks for the two of them, and this girl, she takes it awkwardly and drinks two fingers on the straw, pinky finger lifted. When she looks up, she doesn’t see me behind the bar. Her eyes sparkle, and she turns to look at her friend like they’re sharing a secret. Awkward in her own skin, but when she smiles… I see those sensual pink lips. I close my eyes and imagine them wrapped around my cock, her eyes looking up at me, desperate, hungry.

  I look over at Finn, who’s tending to a group of girls from Brooklyn. Tourists in this part of town. “Who’s she?” I ask, nodding toward the girl. When I look over at her again, she’s chewing on her lip, and for a moment, I think she looks my way. The coil inside of me, it grows tighter.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Finn says without looking.

  “You didn’t even look,” I say. I dry one of the glasses, hot from the dishwasher, absently pouring whiskey for one of our regulars. My eyes keep going back to the girl, who looks more and more awkward by the moment. She crosses her arms over her breasts, sighs, tries to get her friend to leave. “I might like to get to know a girl who’s not a regular. Maybe that wouldn’t get back to Marta.”

  “You might like to just stay away from any girl right now. Forget what I said before. I know you’re not capable of anything real. And Marta’s itching to get any information she can to keep you away from Brie.”

  “Fuck Marta,” I say. I keep watching the girl. Not much older than twenty. Nearly ten years younger. Supple, soft skin. Sweet, tight, hot. “Marta doesn’t have the best lawyer in Manhattan in her pocket.”

  “Listen to yourself, occasionally,” Finn says. “You sound like an asshole. Do you care about keeping Brie? I mean, really? You say you do—”

  I give Finn a look, crush my hands into fists. If he were any other person in this fucking world, he’d be in a world of pain right now. I’d make sure of it. “I get it. I’m an asshole. I say shit out of the side of my mouth. I’m an ex-con, ex-dealer. Remember you come from the same genetic pool.”

  “I do. But like I said, I don’t have much at stake. I can do what I want.” Finn doles out second and third drinks to the gaggle of girls watching him and giggling at his every word. Charismatic. Charming. The smart one.

  “Yeah, well. I guess you can.” I keep my eyes locked on the girl. Skin so pale, eyes big and searching. She’d probably give anything for a night with a guy like me. She looks like one of those romantic types, too. “I might be a guy with an idea. What you said makes a little bit of sense. That thing about not just having a one-night stand. I told you I was always thinking of Brie.”

  “You’ve said that, yeah.” Finn steps to my side. He looks at me, meaningfully, like he does. “Forget what I said, Liam. Just lay off of any stupid shit right now. No runs for the family. No girls. You might have a good goddamn lawyer. Mickey is good. But judges don’t like guys like us, and not every one of them around here is in our pocket. It’s not 1970, and Dad doesn’t have the hold he used to. Just a fair warning. Your hearing is coming up in—”

  “Forty-two days,” I say. It’s automatic. The number is seared into my brain. Eight days before I see her again. Twenty days until my next supervised visit. Thirty-three until the next one after th
at. And forty-two until the hearing. Everyone in my family thinks I’m a fuck-up. A manwhore. But I did make it off of parole without a single violation. I haven’t touched a single drug besides beer in two years, and my every waking thought outside of getting pussy and tending bar goes to her. There’s no reason I can’t work a good idea in between getting girls and tending bar. Really, it’s Finn’s idea. I can blame him if Mom gets pissed at me. Though I can’t really use that excuse with Marta.

  I keep looking at the girl. There’s something about her.

  Finn nods. “Okay. You can keep your shit together for that amount of time. Maybe.” But he can see I’m not paying attention to him anymore. He looks in the direction I’m looking and grins. “That’s Rhiannon Maguire. She’s out of your league. Can’t say I blame you for looking.”

  “Not the redhead. The girl with her. The one with the curves.”

  “That I don’t know. All I can tell you for sure is that she’s definitely out of your league. Stay far away. Far, far away. She looks like she woke up one morning and decided she wouldn’t be a nun after all.”

  I cuff Finn on the shoulder, and he hits me back. “Every single goddamn girl who walks in this bar has heard of me. And they want to fuck me. They know what I can do—”

  “Yeah, fine. But those girls aren’t the ones who come in the bar every night. Rhiannon is some kind of—therapist, I think. And that other girl—she probably walked out of Columbia yesterday. Nice jewelry. Nice haircut. No dye, no fake tan. Like I said, that one—” He points at the dark-haired beauty conspicuously. “She’s way out of your league. Trust me on this, bro. You need to leave her the fuck alone. And do me a favor—forget I ever implied you should have a relationship. For some people, that would be a bargaining chip in court. For you, you’d find a way to make into a liability. She’s way too good for you.”

  I watch her for a few seconds more. She looks down. Runs her fingers through her hair. Something inside of me tightens, like it wants more. More of all of that. And she’d be damn perfect for everything I have in mind. I shrug. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t know that.”