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I look between the two of them. “What do you mean, ‘what happens next?’ Not that it’s anyone’s business, but we’re getting a divorce. We already talked about it. No big deal. It was a dare we took with friends.”
Vince shakes a finger at me. “That’s where we have an idea for you, Rake. Instead of letting the world know you got married in a Vegas wedding chapel just for kicks, before people accuse you of pulling a Britney Spears, we want you to play it like it’s the real thing. You met Petal, fell for each other, and a walk down the aisle was the next natural step.”
Britney Spears? “You’ve got to be out of your minds. You think people are going to believe that over ‘we just got married as a joke’?” I ask, using air quotes.
I look at BJ, who seems happy to let Vince continue to talk.
“That’s exactly what we’re saying. Look, I told you already, Rake, the team owners are… wanting to see some changes. You’ve attracted their attention, and not in a good way. You want to be on their radar for good reasons, not the other way around.”
For fuck’s sake. So I got in a few bar brawls. Like the world is coming to an end.
On the other hand, if I’m on the owners’ radar, maybe I ought to shut my ass up and listen.
“So, you’re saying, I need to pretend that my marriage to Petal was the real thing? Like you need us to play house and stuff, like we’re really in it?”
Vince and BJ nod.
“What if Petal wants no part of it? I mean, I can’t really pull this off by myself.”
“That’s where your power of persuasion come in,” Vince says. “You will talk to her. Tell her what’s up and that you need her to go along with the charade. You can do this. It won’t be hard. She’s a nice woman, attractive, and well-known in San Francisco. What could clean your reputation up faster than being married to a nice girl like her?”
“You guys don’t know her. She doesn’t suffer fools. I don’t think anything I say will get her on board. She doesn’t want to be married to me any more than I want to be married to her.”
Vince slaps his hand on his desk and stands.
This fucker thinks our meeting is over? He can think again.
“I’m telling you both that she won’t only sayno, she’ll sayfuck no.”
“Talk her into it, Rake. Your career depends on it.”
BJ stands too, and I accept that the meeting’s over not because Vince says it is, but because I’m completely out of things to say.
15
RAKE
“What are you doing here?”
I lean close to Petal’s ear. “Is that any way to talk to your husband?”
She snaps back, her eyes wide. She looks around to make sure no one can hear us. “Don’t say that so loudly. The sooner we clean this up, the better. And why are you here, anyway?”
I look around Twisted Hearts. Can’t say I’ve ever been in a bookstore specializing in romance. The tables are full of paperback covers of shirtless men, and several women move throughout the store, browsing and adding books to their baskets.
“Well, I’m here to pick up something for my… neighbor,” I say. “She’s elderly… and it’s her… birthday.”
Why did I say that? I’m a shit liar.
Petal cocks her head. “Right. You drove up here from San Francisco to pick up something for a neighbor?”
I nod. “Yup.”
“It’s an hour and a half drive, Rake.”
Busted. I take a book off a shelf and the first thing I land on when flipping through is a sex scene.
This must be what they calllady porn.
