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After I entered a fake marriage with my childhood-friend nemesis Nicholas Rowe, we laid down three rules:
No sleeping together, no interfering in each other's lives, and whenever either family needed it, we'd play the perfect couple without question.
He got caught traveling the world with his first love, so I covered for him.
"Mom, Dad, that's my distant cousin!"
I got photographed at a nightclub picking out a male model, so he stepped in and cleaned it up.
"I'm that male model. I was just trying out a different line of work!"
Then, recently, I fell for a perfect man online. "Baby, I want to see your size."
He caught on instantly.
The second I saw it, my eyes went wide.
And while I was admiring the view, I suddenly spotted the logo on the men's briefs I'd designed for Nicholas Rowe.
One of a kind in the entire world, and he'd nearly worn them to shreds.
My online boyfriend...
Was my shameless fake husband?!
...
The phone hit the floor with a clatter, right as Nicholas came out of the bathroom and saw.
The corner of his mouth curved, the faintest hint of a smile.
"Oh? What are you looking at? So careless of you."
He was already bending down to pick it up.
"Wait!"
I stopped him at once.
If he saw that his online sweetheart was me, and that I'd been staring at that part of him...
How mortifying would that be?
I snatched the phone off the floor in a flash.
Then I plastered on a fake smile and bit out each word. "None. Of. Your. Business!"
He rolled his eyes. "Tch."
His parents had come over today.
So we were stuck sharing a room.
I got the bed, he got the floor.
But the moment I closed my eyes, all I could see was that tempting thing in the photo...
Then a thought hit me. If Nicholas was falling for me online, what about his first love, Penny Carver?
Now I was intrigued.
"You haven't been seeing Penny Carver lately?"
"No. She quit and moved back home. Why are you bringing her up?"
Penny and I had gone to school with Nicholas, from high school all the way through college.
After graduation, she'd become Nicholas's secretary, following him all over the world.
Later the rumors that she was sleeping with him kept getting worse, and I rushed to cover for the two of them.
I even explained it to Nicholas's parents myself. "Mom, Dad, that's my distant cousin. You can rest easy!"
Only I knew they'd secretly been together for a long time, that I was the one who'd wedged myself into their relationship in the first place.
Nicholas and I were a perfect match. Our families arranged our engagement when we were kids. Marrying him was my destiny.
So I was the one who came up with the "fake marriage" idea, laid down the three rules along with it, and protected everyone's interests.
Nicholas was stunned.
But he went along with it anyway.
The sudden resignation and breakup did surprise me.
It was quite the coincidence, really.
My best friend Mavis Swanson and I had gone to a nightclub to dance and pick out male models, and we'd gotten a little carried away.
I held my phone out to one model who was exactly my type and jerked my chin at him. "Hey, handsome, add me?"
He looked eighty percent like Nicholas, that same chiseled, model-perfect face.
Best of all, he was obedient!
Compared to that rebellious Nicholas, they were worlds apart.
He was the sky, Nicholas the mud.
The model wore a flattered little smile. "Sure thing, gorgeous!"
He was just pulling out his phone when a shadow fell over me and a hand yanked my phone back.
I turned. Nicholas was staring at me, eyes blazing.
Behind him, Penny stood clutching a folder, watching me with a complicated look of her own.
That made me angry.
"Nicholas! We agreed a long time ago not to interfere with each other. You want to go back on it?"
Before he could answer, Penny cut in first. "Miss Winslow, an hour ago the paparazzi got a shot of you with your arms around this model. Mr. Rowe came back to put out the fire."
Nicholas shot the model a sidelong glance. "Still here? Get lost."
The model fled.
Mavis stepped up and rounded on Nicholas. "Nicholas! So the rules are only for the little people, not for you?"
His answer was crisp and final. "Correct."
"Anything that touches both our families' interests, no one is allowed. Doesn't matter who."
"Especially not some rotten cucumber!"
I laughed, furious, and pointed at a man not far off, cold as ice but strikingly handsome.
"Fine, no model. Then get me that man's number! And we'll call it even!"
Nicholas lifted his eyes, gave a soft snort, and actually took my phone and added that man...
Meaning my online boyfriend, Job Dickerson.
Oh, no, wait. There'd been a switch.
Switched out for Nicholas himself!
