Page 32 of Lucky Puck

“You’re right,” I admit. “This pretend newlywed story has gone far enough.” She looks at me and then at Sabien and then nods.

Turning to Tammi, she says, “I’m sorry, but we’ll need your help to make the explanation believable after all our… pretense.”

Sabien says, “We can say we were protecting her.”

“No,” Tammi crosses her arms across her chest with finality. “I won’t go along with it, and there’s no way you can make me.” She hitches her bag over her shoulder and turns to the door. “Give me my ring, and I’m out of here. If my fiancée finds out about this, I’m in trouble.” She scans the room, staring at each of us. “We’re all in trouble.”

For a brief moment, I wonder who the hell her fiancée is.

“Looks to me like you two will need a fake divorce for your fake marriage,” Sabien says. “At some point.” He splits his grin between me and Brooks. “In the meantime, you’re carrying off the biggest publicity stunt in sports history since the Janet Jackson so-called wardrobe failure.”

“You’re a crazy bastard.” I shake my head and feel Brooks step closer. “We’ll get a news cycle of attention, and then we’re done.”

Meeting Brooks’ eyes, I see all kinds of emotion welling. “We can hang in for a few more days, right?”

Her mouth firms and her shoulders square like I’m asking her to go into mortal battle.

She nods and says to Tammi, “Okay. Don’t worry. We won’t say a word about your part in this, right Bigelow? We have an agreement to keep our secret. Mutually assured destruction or whatever that is, sealing our deal.”

“Then it’s agreed,” Sabien says. “Three rings. One for…” he waves a hand in Tammi’s direction. “And two for Mr. Holden.”

The jeweler looks between the three of us. “Who’s going to… pay?”

“I am,” Brooks says before I can open my mouth.

“No, you’re not. I’ll pay. This is my mess⁠—”

“It’s my responsibility.” She takes out her credit card and turns it over to the jeweler, but not before I notice it has her name on it, not the Jett Agency’s. No way I’m letting her get away with this, but I’ll save the problem for later when my head’s not pounding like a wrongly jailed prisoner locked inside.

One way or another, I’ll trick her into taking the money.

A half hour later, with properly sized rings on our fingers, we leave the jewelry store in silence. Not even Sabien has anything to say about our stupefying situation—that we actually committed to continuing our newlywed charade beyond Vegas.

Chapter Thirteen

BRODY

Spending the night with Brooks turned out to be anticlimactic because all I did was finally catch up on my sleep. The minute I walked into my hotel room, my legs propelled me to the bed where I collapsed. I didn’t see Brooks until the morning when she was fully clothed and waiting with her luggage for me to respond to her shaking me awake.

That was the sum total of our contact until now. The limo taking us to the shoot is small, and with Sabien joining us, I’m enjoying having Brooks plastered to my side.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I whisper near her ear. She jerks away, furrowing her brows in annoyance at my attempt at humor.

I breathe in her scent and find my face drifting closer to hers until I lift it and lean into the door, pretending to admire the scenery out the window. No need to push my agenda—or do I actually have an agenda with Brooks? I find her attractive, but no, I can’t go there. I need to re-tool my automatic response to an attractive female when it comes to her.

She says, “We need an exit plan sooner than later. This newlywed charade is wrong on too many levels. I’m worried someone’s going to find out we’re not really married—and don’t you dare suggest that we should actually get married because that’s not happening.”

My brows shoot up in alarm because that idea was further from my mind than a Zamboni on Mars.

“Don’t worry. Marrying you is the last thing I want to do.”

Her face flushes pink, hard and fast, and before she can shield her expression, I see the flinch of hurt.

Sabien blows out a whistle, shaking his head, and puts in his earbuds.

Fuck. “I’m sorry, that sounded harsh. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean I’m too young to be married to anyone. And this can’t be good for your career.”

She slumps, looking at her lap.