Page 16 of His Fake Fiancé

He nodded again. He felt like one of those bobble heads they gave away at professional ball games on fan appreciation night. This whole situation was leaving him a little shell-shocked, if he was being honest. Not that he’d expected any of this to be easy. He just hadn’t expected it to make him feel all kinds of fucked up.

“I will be setting up an in home visit sometime within the next two weeks. My office will contact you with the details.” She adjusted the angle of her folder, even though from where he was sitting, he would say it was already pretty damn straight. “If you don’t have any additional questions…” She glanced between the two of them, waiting a couple of beats. When neither of them said anything, she continued, “then, thank you for coming and I’ll be in touch.”

Jake stood and took the card Noelle pulled out of her folder, and then shook her hand. It was a good shake, firm and professional. He couldn’t help but admire her and the job she did. It couldn’t be easy.

He took Claire’s hand—that strange tingling started up again, this time crawling up his arm to nestle inside his chest—and led her from the room. Gina and her boyfriend were sitting on one of the benches in the hallway. He was lucky the daggers in her gaze weren’t real, or they’d already be calling in the coroner.

He didn’t react, just gave her a nod. Her anger and frustration were understandable. If she was keeping Olivia from him, he’d be mad as hell. The fuzziness in his chest solidified, making his lungs feel tight. The ache felt more sad than scared or angry though, which was confusing as hell. He had no reason to feel sad.

This whole situation was fucked up. And, somewhere in the back of his mind, he had a feeling he’d made it infinitely worse.

Chapter 6

Claire picked up the invoice and double checked the cheque and the spreadsheet to make sure the numbers matched. She was exhausted and out of sorts and the last thing she needed was to make a mistake. Her dad would have a fit if she paid the wrong amount, or the wrong supplier.

For the last week, Jake had wined and dined her all over town. Every night they were somewhere—very public—pretending they’d taken their relationship to the touchy-feely level.

Which she was still having a hard time coming to grips with.

Yeah, she’d dreamed about Jake doting on her for most of her life. But now that it was actually happening, the whole thing freaked her out. It didn’t help that whenever they were together, a siren sounded in the back of her brain, reminding her it was all fake. Reminding her to not fall under his spell or let herself believe there was anything more than pretending between them. Letting herself get swept away by it all was going to get her crushed.

The uncertainty made everything tense and awkward. And bless Jake, he kept trying to make it better, release the tension, make her comfortable. He’d make jokes, be his regular charming self. None of it helped.

She verified the cheque amount was correct and slipped it into an envelope along with the invoice. She’d been trying for years to get her dad to join the rest of them in the twenty-first century and pay stuff online, but he still insisted the ranch do things the old-fashioned way. It had been a huge fight to get him to let her use the computer for the accounts and not the ledger books he’d had forever.

Her phone chirped and she jumped. She didn’t want to check the text message, because it was most likely from Jake, outlining their plans for the evening. He’d mentioned something about bowling or maybe going to a movie. She’d been too tired and distracted to pay attention.

It didn’t help that everywhere they went, they managed to run into someone who’d fooled around with Jake. Or knew someone who’d fooled around with Jake. Or someone who fantasized about fooling around with Jake.

Claire wasn’t an idiot. She knew what Jake was like and that he’d… well, he was a man-whore. And he’d never pretended to be anything else.

Over the years, Claire had tuned all of that crap out. Let it live on the periphery, not invading the tender little bubble she’d built around her heart. She’d known Jake had probably humped his way through the female population of Northern California—Olivia was proof of that—she’d just managed to compartmentalize it. Mainly so it didn’t hurt so badly.

But now that they were pretending with this whole relationship thing, all of the stuff she’d pushed down for so long was bubbling up to the surface. It sucked.

“You going to be home for dinner tonight?”

She glanced up. Linc had come into the office while she’d been sitting here, lost in her head like a fool.

“We haven’t seen you all week.” He tossed his hat onto the top of the filing cabinet next to the door and leaned back against the cabinet, his arms crossed over his chest.

Claire sighed and spun the office chair around to face him, and braced herself for the third degree. For the last week, she’d managed to evade both Linc and Jax—although she suspected they’d given her some space because if they’d really wanted answers, they would have hounded her relentlessly—but it seemed her time was up.

“Hey, Lincoln. It’s nice to see you, too.” She was too tired to keep the snark out of her voice.

He cocked both his head and an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

Normally, she’d give in and tell him whatever he wanted. It was so much easier than fighting with him. Or Jax or Brock or her dad. Or Jake.

But she was tired and cranky and out of sorts, so she didn’t give into the urge lapping at the back of her tongue. She crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking him, and leaned back in the chair. It gave a dangerous sounding creak, but didn’t collapse under her, so she was taking it as a win.

Linc stared at her, letting the silence get heavier and heavier.

Claire’s skin itched, discomfort settling inside her. She was a natural fixer. A peacemaker. Her aversion to conflict made fixing things her go to whenever she was faced with uncomfortable situations.

Maybe she should just tell him what was going on. He’d understand. Maybe. Probably. Especially if she assured him she knew what she was doing and she wasn’t going to get hurt. At the crux of it, that was really all he was worried about. Her getting hurt. She just needed to convince him she had everything under control.

You can’t even promise yourself you’re not going to get pulverized. Do you really think he’s going to believe you?