Wrapped Up: A Triple Threat Sports Romance (3 page)

Brooke

As disappointed as I was that Jake didn’t agree with me right away, I was also impressed that he hadn’t just jumped at the opportunity. He told me he wanted to think about it because it was a big deal. It was a big deal, and I appreciated his consideration of that fact.

It did worry me when a few days passed before he called me. But when his call came in, I was quick to answer.

“Brooke, meet me at The Beanery Café. I’ll be there in an hour.” His tone was short and firm, which troubled me. I fully expected to be disappointed when I showed up.

I drove over to the café and found Jake sitting at a table in the back. The Beanery had a very open layout that featured a lot of outside light pouring in the windows. It felt like walking into an open-air café in a vineyard, which was the point of the whole shop. On one hand, I felt like we should have been meeting in secret somewhere, but on the other, meeting in public places helped us to establish our supposed relationship.

I sat down at the high table with my old flame—and hopefully husband-to-be.

“You always know the best places,” I told him. I knew we were just meeting to go over business, but I ordered a cappuccino anyway. If nothing else, I was at least going to enjoy our meeting.

Following my lead, Jake ordered a coffee as well.

“I take it you’ve given my offer some thought,” I said, starting him off.

“I have. Have
you
thought about it any?” he asked in response.

“What do you mean?”

“Is marriage the only way for you to get the company?”

“It is. My father won’t relent,” I told him.

“Damn.” He shook his head, and I felt myself deflating right there at the table.

“I guess that’s a deal breaker, huh?” I thought about cancelling my cappuccino and leaving him there. I was starting to feel embarrassed that I’d even asked him like I had. He’d been out of my life for over a decade, and as soon as he walked back in, I had asked him to marry me as a business proposition. Not exactly
hello.

“No, it’s not a deal breaker. I came down here to tell you that I accept your offer,” he told me, blowing my pessimism right out of the water.

“Really?” My smile was returning. “You’re really agreeing to it,” I said again, looking for confirmation. I wanted to make sure I had heard what I thought I’d heard.

“Really. I gave it some thought, and I have to agree that marriage is the best option for both of us right now. You’re pretty much being forced to by your father, and it will look that much better to the new owner if I show up with a fiancée. I think that’s a much better deal than just some random girlfriend. It shows that we are really serious about it,” he explained.

“Oh, I’m so happy right now I could kiss you,” I blurted out.

“Go ahead. Something tells me we’re going to have to get used to that sort of thing once we get started.” He winked.

I just turned my head and cocked an eyebrow at him. I wasn’t sure about going too far with him just yet. We still had to work everything out before we really put on the act.

“So, what’s the next step?” he asked.

“I guess we break it to my father and start planning the wedding,” I told him. I wasn’t really sure of what to do next. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. I honestly hadn’t expected him to say yes.

“Well, I’m thinking we should just go down to the courthouse and not do anything special since this is just business,” Jake suggested.

“I guess that will be okay,” I said slowly, preparing to argue my case. “I know my father will probably want a big ceremony, but I was thinking about trying to talk him down to something small. I know it’s not a
real
wedding, so I don’t want to go all out, but it’s still a wedding. We’ll still be getting married, and since it
is
for show, we should put on a show, right?”

“I guess,” he agreed begrudgingly. “We’ll just have to see how it goes with your father. It does make sense to have some sort of ceremony, but it will make the news either way. Trust me.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was getting mixed up with a different type of lifestyle now. A pro athlete’s life was much more public than what I was used to, which was precisely why he needed a steady girlfriend to portray a positive public image. Well, he was getting a wife, and I was going to be getting a lot more publicity.

“The real question is how to tell my dad,” I said after a moment.

“Do I need to ask him for your hand or something?” he asked me with a shocked look on his face.

I laughed. “No, nothing like that. I think he’ll know on some level that our marriage is simply an arrangement. It’s not like we were dating prior to this. He knows I don’t have a boyfriend and haven’t had one in ages.”

“That’s a relief. I didn’t know just how real we needed it to be.” He chuckled and wiped his hand across his forehead in an exaggerated gesture.

“I’m glad you can find humor in all of this. My nerves are shot,” I told him.

“This is what you wanted, right?” He looked at me with those intense green eyes over his cup of coffee.

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect to actually get it. I figured needing to get married meant I was going to lose out on my father’s company.” I tried not to blush. I wasn’t the bashful type, and confidence certainly wasn’t a problem for me, usually, but when I was around Jake, I turned into a little high school girl all over again. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but for whatever reason, he had that effect on me.

“Well, now you’ve got it, so it’s time to start figuring out what to do next,” he said in a stern, professional voice.

“I guess I should just come right out and tell my father. He’ll probably want to have some sort of announcement dinner to make our engagement public.” I froze as the last couple of words left my mouth.

Jake looked at me with ice in his gaze, as if the same thought had occurred to him. “An engagement ring,” he said simply.

“Yeah. I think I can cover that. Don’t worry about it. Since the marriage was my idea, I’ll take care of it before I talk to him, or at least before the dinner.”

My mind was racing a million miles an hour, trying to figure out what I was going to do about an engagement ring without my father realizing I had bought it myself. Realizing I was going to have to cover it put a damper on things. Suddenly, this grand idea to get married to Jake didn’t seem so grand. It was merely an arrangement, so the ring didn’t really matter, but it still stung to realize he wasn’t going to be getting me one.

“I’ll call you after I talk to my father,” I told him as I got up from the table and went to throw down a couple of dollars for my coffee.

“No, keep your money,” Jake said, grabbing my cash and handing it back to me. “I’ve got the coffee. It’s the least I could do.”

It really was about the least he could do, but I wasn’t going to argue.

“Call me when you’ve got it all figured out. Let me know where we go from here.” He put an arm around me and hugged me again.

It felt like we should have been shaking hands, not hugging. Again, I wasn’t going to argue. His strong arm around my waist, pulling me to him, felt very comforting. I wanted to let him hold me against his strong, bulging chest, but I couldn’t. Everything had to just be for show. Otherwise, we would blow the whole thing.

“I’ve got to go,” I said, pushing myself gently away from him.

“Right. Keep me in the loop.” He dropped his arm and sat back down as I walked away. I felt his eyes watching me as I walked out of the café.

Attachment was definitely not part of our arrangement. I didn’t need to allow myself to get attached to him, and I needed to do what I could to keep him from growing attached as well. I had to remind myself it was just a business arrangement as I left the café and got back in my car.

It hit me that I had left abruptly as I started to pull away from the curb, but I had a lot to do, especially if everything was going to rest on my shoulders. I had to come up with a story that my father would believe. Why had this guy just popped up out of nowhere? And how did we realize so quickly that we wanted to get married? Had he been pining after me all these years after our unceremonious breakup back in high school?

I laughed to myself. My father would see right through any story I could come up with. He would know right away that I was just making something up. It would be obvious that I had just made an arrangement with Jake because we had a history and we both needed it.

I had to make it believable. I couldn’t show up with a ring on my finger, but I needed to go ahead and pick it up on my way to talk to my father. I needed to be able to present it at the announcement dinner I knew my father would make me schedule.

It seemed like an awful lot of work just to earn my rightful place in my father’s company. I needed to get used to putting on a show though. I was going to be doing a lot more of it as the new head of the company and as the wife of a celebrity.

I drummed on the steering wheel as I turned it all over in my head. While it was certainly stressful to start with, it was going to work out in my favor. I was going to come out on top once it was all said and done. I just needed to get the ball rolling and not lose my head as everything went along.

As the heiress to a small fortune and a sometimes-socialite, I had my own jeweler in town. He ran a private business dealing specifically with the most elite clientele in the city. I knew he would be able to help me get just the ring I needed for my engagement, and for the right price, no one had to know I picked it out and paid for it myself.

That was step one—get the ring. Step two, once the ring was in my possession, was going to be to tell my father. The plan was coming together. Once my father announced the dinner, I would be able to tell Jake. At the engagement dinner, we’d have to tell everyone we hadn’t decided on a date yet; we were going to have to try to work around each other’s schedules. Then, we’d come up with a date on our own and figure out how to make the wedding itself work.

I wanted something small. He wanted to go to the courthouse. And my father was going to demand something extravagant. We were going to have to compromise somewhere, somehow. Then, we were going to have to decide whether to postpone it far enough out so that we would end up calling it off after everything worked out or to get it over with quickly to move our goals right along.

My head was spinning again by the time I pulled up to my jeweler’s private office. There was no time to think that far ahead anymore. I needed to focus on the current step and what was next. One foot in front of the other.

Jake

The night came for the big announcement dinner hosted by Mr. Scott, Brooke’s father. The dinner was hosted on his estate. Mr. Scott’s story was an impressive, real-life rags to riches story. He had come from nothing, started his own company when he was still relatively young, and grew his small operation to a large, successful national corporation, making him one of the wealthiest men in the city.

The Scott estate sat on a large plot of lush green land behind a low wall that completely circled the grounds. My driver pulled through the gate and followed the driveway up to the house. It looked like a star-studded gala as cars pulled to the front of the house and unloaded well-dressed socialites to attend the dinner.

I had expected a few members of the Scott family and some close friends, but it seemed Mr. Scott was really going all out for his daughter’s engagement announcement. The dinner attendees looked like they were attending a charity event instead of a private dinner.

My stomach sank as I realized what I was getting into. I had amassed my own fortune as a pro athlete, and I was used to being hounded by the press. But I had never been to an event quite like this one before. Everyone was in tuxedos or evening gowns.

As the car stopped in front of the house and one of Mr. Scott’s men opened the door to let me out, I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I was one of the guests of honor for this event. I knew I was going to end up having to stand in front of the people I saw arriving for the dinner and probably address them to say something about the engagement.

Brooke and I had rehearsed the story several times already. I had it memorized. She had decided to tell her father that I had looked for her all the years that we had been apart. Once I ran into her the other day at the grocery store, I had decided I couldn’t let her slip through my fingers again. She was the one who got away. I was satisfied with that story, and apparently her father was, too.

Brooke met me at the door as I walked in. She was gorgeous in a form-fitting blue gown with thin straps and a low front that showed off just enough skin to hold my eyes. Her golden hair spilled down over her shoulders. She greeted me with her warm smile and beautiful blue eyes.

“Relax,” she said, taking my arm as I approached.

“Let me see the ring,” I whispered in her ear before we walked into the dining room.

She held up her hand to show me the exquisite diamond ring she had purchased for herself as a sign of our faux-engagement.

“Wow! It’s beautiful,” I told her.

“I should hope so. It’s the one you gave me.” She winked as she turned to lead me to our places at the main table.

The way the room was situated, we were seated at the front of the dining hall in the center of a long table with her family. The rest of the room was populated with round tables covered in white cloth spaced around an open section of the hardwood floor, set apart like a dance floor. It wasn’t a dinner. It was a party!

“You have to forgive my father,” Brooke said quietly in my ear as we approached the table. “He can be a bit extravagant at times.”

“A bit?” I asked her, joking.

“I tried to talk him down. I don’t want all of this to scare you off.”

I laughed. “He’s not going to scare me away. I’ve been to clubs bigger and wilder than this,” I assured her, patting her hand.

As we approached our seats at the table, we heard the distinctive
ting
of someone tapping a champagne glass with a piece of silverware. Though the room was full of people talking and laughing, and music filled the air, the sound was able to cut through it all and silence everyone. The room quieted down almost immediately, and all eyes were on the man standing at the head of the table.

Mr. Scott was tall and thin with salt-and-pepper hair. His straight posture and composure demanded attention and respect. He always wore the most expensive tailored suits. He may have come up from nothing, but he sure wasn’t afraid to show off the wealth he had amassed over the years. I noticed that his daughter lived very modestly by comparison. She wasn’t going to squander her wealth, not that her father was ever going to be in any danger of spending too much. The man had more money than God.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the guests of honor have entered the room and are being seated as we speak. As you all make your way to your seats, please join me in welcoming my beautiful daughter, Brooke, and our hometown football star, Jake Hall.”

The room filled with the sound of applause as we nodded and sat at the table.

“Do we have to sit facing everyone?” I asked Brooke as we sat down.

She smirked. “I wish we didn’t, but yes, for tonight we do.” She patted my hand again.

I wondered what I had gotten myself into. This arrangement just seemed to be getting bigger by the moment. All I needed was someone to pose as my girlfriend. Judging by the size of the announcement dinner, Mr. Scott wasn’t going to let us off with a small wedding. He was going to milk this for all it was worth.

I laughed and shook my head. I had been in some pretty tight positions before. I had found my share of trouble over the years, but this situation with Brooke could easily turn out to be the most complicated.

“Is everything alright?” Brooke asked.

“Yeah, I just really didn’t expect all of this.
Everyone
is going to know we’re getting married,” I told her.

“That’s part of the plan. One of the reasons I didn’t fight for a smaller dinner was because I figured the attention could help you with your image for the team as well,” Brooke explained.

“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed. It was going to be a long night.

As everyone took their seats, Mr. Scott’s kitchen staff began serving dinner. The steady hum of voices quieted down as the guests all turned to their food. I tried to enjoy my food, but I could only think about the coming announcement. I knew that once everyone was settled, it wouldn’t be long before we were called upon to speak.

Again, the
ting
of silverware on a champagne glass rang out through the dining hall. Mr. Scott stood up from his chair to make an announcement.

“Friends and family, I have gathered you all here tonight because my beautiful daughter has an announcement to make.” He looked so proud.

The room applauded as Brooke stood up in her gown with a glass of champagne in her hand.

“You’re all too kind,” she said. “I really wasn’t expecting this kind of turnout for tonight, but you know my father. He doesn’t know how to go small.”

The guests laughed. Even her father had a good chuckle.

“As my father has said, I have a special announcement to make tonight, and I have someone I wish you all to meet.” She looked down at me and nodded for me to stand next to her.

I rose to my feet with my glass in my hand. I took advantage of the situation and slid my arm around her narrow waist. I felt her press herself to my side. The show had begun, and I began to think it wasn’t going to be too much trouble after all.

“Jake Hall and I are getting married,” she announced simply, holding out the engagement ring she had bought herself.

I gave her a squeeze and turned her to face me. I leaned in for a kiss, but just as our lips were about to meet, her father interrupted us.

“We will begin planning the wedding immediately,” he announced. His voice bellowed through the dining hall. “We are going to have a huge wedding, one for the tabloids.”

I groaned and relaxed my hold on her waist. I smiled for the dinner guests and drank from my glass of champagne. I sat back down and kept my remarks to myself while Mr. Scott began planning the huge wedding he wanted.

I could see the distaste for his idea in Brooke’s face as well. She kept a courteous smile on her face, but I could see it in her eyes. Her patience with this whole thing was beginning to wear thin, but through it all she was able to keep up appearances. Our arrangement was in good hands with her.

“Yes, it will be one for the papers,” she said, flashing her beautiful smile. She cut her eyes back down to me before sitting down.

“A toast,” her dad called out, standing back up to take the floor. He wasn’t giving up.

We raised our glasses, but we didn’t stand back up. She placed a hand on my leg, just above my knee, and squeezed to let me know she was about as pleased as I was that her father was still talking.

“To my wonderful daughter and her fiancé, Jake Hall. Jake, son, I knew there was something special about you the night you showed up to take my darling Brooke to prom during your senior year. Everyone!” He threw his hands up and turned to address the guests.

“How much has he had to drink?” I asked Brooke under my breath. It would have been amusing to watch him mortify his guests of honor if we hadn’t been them.

“Stop it,” she hissed, fighting back a giggle.

“To Jake and Brooke!”

We held up our glasses and nodded gratefully. We took a sip of our drinks, and the rest of the dinner party went back to their plates of food.

“I need to talk to you,” I said quietly to Brooke, turning my head away from the other people at our table.

“Okay,” she said. She pushed her chair back and leaned forward to tell the people across from us at the table, “We’ll be right back. I just need to show him the bathroom.”

“I hope that was family,” I told her as we walked away.

“I don’t know who they are,” she said with a laugh. “My father invited them.”

“Comforting.”

She led me away from the dining hall to a small balcony overlooking the pool. Her father really spared no expense in his home. The patio and the pool were well lit. The light from the pool danced on the wall of the house as the water seemed to be in perpetual motion, even with no one in it.

“No one can listen in on us here,” Brooke said as she pulled me outside and closed the glass door to the balcony.

“But we’re outside,” I argued.

“And everyone else is inside, so it works. What’s on your mind?”

“This is just business right?” I asked. “You’re not going to let all of this big wedding talk go to your head, are you?”

“No, of course not. In fact, once this is over, I’m going to sit him back down and find out why he’s talking about hosting a huge wedding. I’m going to remind him that we decided on something small. I don’t want him to spend a lot of money on a big wedding, especially since this is just for business,” she assured me.

“Well, see to it that you change his mind,” I told her, maybe a little more forcefully than I intended. I was starting to get nervous about our arrangement, but I didn’t want to tell her I was worried about anything. I wanted to seem in control, or like I could at least take charge when things got out of hand.

“Yes, sir,” she said facetiously. She straightened her back and gave me a fake salute.

“Okay, maybe that sounded a little more commanding than it should have,” I admitted, “but I really don’t want to do anything too big. I’ve got a reputation to think about off the field, and you need to save up for a real wedding one day.”

“Hey, isn’t that reputation why you’re having to do this in the first place?” she teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t remind me.”

In the light coming up from the patio, she looked good enough to kiss. I caught myself wanting to pull her to me and plant my lips on hers. We hadn’t kissed once yet. It seemed to me we were missing out on a great opportunity to take advantage of our arrangement.

Then again, it was just business. If I wanted more, I knew I would probably have to go find it discreetly.