Page 37 of His Fake Fiancé

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Claire could almost see KC waving her hand with each word. She smiled, grateful to hear her friend’s voice. It had been way too long since they’d talked.

“What time is it?” As she said it, Claire glanced over at the clock radio on the nightstand. Nine forty one. Shit, she was late for work. Her dad was going to be pissed.

She shot out of bed like the sheets were on fire. “Shit, I’m late.” She scrambled out of her pajama shorts and into a clean pair of underwear, hopping around on one foot, her head twisted to the side to hold the phone to ear and give her two free hands.

“Why was Jake Callahan kissing you in the middle of the Stardust?”

The question stopped Claire in her tracks, perched precariously on one foot, the other shoved into the leg of her skinny jeans. Even though KC had moved to Los Angeles a year and a half ago, somehow she still managed to be right on top of all of the local gossip. Even if it took a day or two to filter its way to her.

“It’s… um, I mean…” She didn’t want to lie to KC, any more than she wanted to lie to Mrs. C, or her family. But this was important, to Jake, and to her. She didn’t want to jeopardize it. “It’s complicated.”

That wasn’t a lie. Things between her and Jake were exceptionally complicated, especially after last night’s make out session. Her cheeks blazed to life at the reminder.

KC snorted. “Everything with you and Jake is complicated.” There was an underlying tension in the words. It wasn’t that KC didn’t like Jake—he was so charismatic, he was virtually impossible not to like—she had just been witness to Claire’s heartache over the years. And she was a good friend, one who always had Claire’s back, no matter what. “But that doesn’t answer my question. Why were you playing tonsil hockey with Jake? In public?”

Claire sighed and pulled on her jeans. “Hold on a sec.” She tossed the phone on the bed without waiting for KC to answer. She grabbed a bra and a t-shirt and took her time putting them on. Because, yes, she was avoiding KC’s question for as long as she could.

“Claire, pick up the phone.” The yell came from the direction of the bed. It was impressive to get that level of volume through a cellphone with terrible reception. KC was talented.

She picked up the phone and sat on the edge of the bed. She was already late, what was a few more minutes? “I’m here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Jake and I are… together.” Yeah, that didn’t sound convincing in the least. There was no way KC was going to buy it.

“Yeah, no. Try again.”

Even though Claire knew KC wasn’t going to believe it, she still winced at the disbelief in her friend’s voice. “It’s true.”

“Even if I believed you—which I don’t—I know there’s something else going on, because if you and Jake were really together, for real, you would have called me.”

Dammit, she was right. Even though that make out session last night had felt pretty real, it wasn’t. And she had to remember that. “It’s… complicated.”

“You said that already.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s it. I’m coming home.”

Claire shot to her feet. “What?” Keeping up this ruse was going to be hard enough without KC and her nosey-get-to-the-bottom-of-things tendencies. “Kase, really, it’s okay.”

“Nope, my mind’s made up,” KC said, like she was the queen and her word was law. There would be no persuading her now. When she got like this, she refused to budge. She was like a freaking mountain that had been superglued in place. “I’m checking flights as we speak. See you soon.” And then she hung up.

Claire sat there, staring at her phone for a minute, her mind like a tumbleweed caught in a dust storm. With KC here, things were going to get exponentially more difficult. It was one thing to try and convince the people in town, people she hardly knew and who hardly knew her, that she and Jake were really together. It was going to be damn near impossible to be convincing enough to appease KC into thinking it was legit. She was probably going to have to tell her bestie the truth. Maybe she should run it by Jake first, though, just to be on the safe side.

She stood and then sank back down on the edge of the bed. God, how was she going to face Jake this morning? She’d spent too much time last night rubbing herself all over him like a horny teenager to just pretend like it never happened.

She needed to be breezy and casual, which was all well and good, except for the fact she was terrible at this stuff. She’d had a grand total of two boyfriends in her entire life, and hadn’t come anywhere near having as complicated of feelings for them as she had for Jake. She didn’t know how to process all of this.

Feelings weren’t a big topic of conversation in her house, especially not the romantic kind. Her dad wasn’t the kind of dad you could talk to about anything but cattle, and the occasional football game. He was the quintessential rancher. Gruff and tough, who tuned out unless you were talking about the price of cattle, or hoof and mouth disease. And her brothers still considered her a little girl, refusing to see she was a woman inching closer and closer to thirty every day.

A small part of her really wanted to talk to Mrs. C, who’d been the closest thing to a mother to her, basically all her life. But that was bordering on creepy. What was she going to say? So, I was making out with your son last night…

An icky shiver crept through her. Yeah, that was not happening. She was just going to have to slap on her big girl panties and suck it up. Maybe stop mixing cliches while she was at it. She pushed to her feet, took a deep breath, and marched into the hallway.

All the bluster went out of her as she stared toward the living room. The bathroom door was open, meaning she wasn’t lucky enough to try to escape while he was otherwise occupied. He was probably out there in the living room, being all sexy and rumpled. She crept down the hall, staying against the wall, like she was sneaking.

Maybe because you are, you coward.