Fake Me Read online

  Fake Me

  A Last Chance Beach Romance

  By

  Bonnie Edwards

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  FAKE ME

  First edition. August 15, 2021.

  Copyright © 2021 Bonnie Edwards.

  ISBN: 978-1989226063

  Written by Bonnie Edwards.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Fake Me

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Coming September 26, 2021

  Available Now

  About the Author

  Sign up for Bonnie Edwards's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Whole Lot O' Love

  For Lisa S...who steered me in the right direction. You rock!

  How to fake out a busybody matchmaker...fake date the match!

  International real estate broker Grady O’Hara, unkempt, miserable, and nursing his battered heart, is holed up in the Landseer Motel in Last Chance Beach.

  A first-class grump, Grady’s appalled that enthusiastic sprite, Farren Parks wants him to open his motel to single parents looking for love. He suspects his sister has sent Farren to lure him into a romance. Again. The last one ended in disaster.

  Farren expects him to tolerate children laughing. No! Crowds of happy families? No!

  He does not want a second chance at life. Or love.

  Unless Farren agrees to fake date him to fake out his matchmaking sister...

  Grady soon plays handyman, painter, and business advisor to Farren’s fledgling business, Singles Fest. The happy squeals of children in the pool doesn’t grate on his nerves as he expected. He sees parents making romantic connections that stir his heart.

  But an old flame of Farren’s has arrived and Grady wakes up to another looming loss if Farren gives her first love a second chance. The rival has brought his adorable kids to the motel. A rival who’s clearly looking for a new wife...

  Chapter One

  MAY 31 – THE LANDSEER Motel, Last Chance Beach

  Grady O’Hara liked a bit of meat on a woman. Curves were luscious and soft and deserved his attention. But what he didn’t care much for was the look of bossy persistence worn by the fireball standing outside his back door. From where he stood in the shadows in his kitchen, he watched her animated, determined face. He’d seen her curves yesterday, so he focused on her expression today. She pouted, she frowned, she glared at the curtained window in his kitchen door as if her eyes could set it aflame.

  This was day three of her determined assault on his privacy. She’d come the first time in the morning before any decent person would arrive, as if she wanted to catch him before he left for the day.

  Yesterday, she’d shown up around noon and tried to get him to answer his door while he ate his lunch. Not content with grimacing through the square window in the door, she’d stomped around to the living room window on the other side of the house. The private side that faced away from the motel’s center court.

  She’d peered in, covering her eyes with her hands to see better. The pose had given him a perfect chance to see her lush shape through the gauzy curtains. She’d been wearing shorts that clung to her round, pert bottom, a bright pink blouse that was tied at her waist, and sand on her legs. She must’ve walked the beach to the motel. The light dancing off the gold sand had accentuated her perfect calves and ankles.

  He’d almost opened the door to her then, but when she rapped on the glass of the window, he’d changed his mind. Besides, a man deserved to have a ham and Swiss cheese on rye in peace.

  But today—today—she stood in the breezeway pounding enthusiastically on his kitchen door at seven-thirty p.m. What? Had she smelled the scent of grilled steak and come running like a bloodhound?

  The only woman he knew who was more tenacious and ballsy than this one, was his sister, Delphine. And he avoided her, the Queen of Bossy, like the plague. Not always, of course, but these last weeks, she’d been banished from his life. Totally ghosted, like most of the world. Not that he’d told her, but surely by now she’d gotten the hint. He’d never tell her why. He wasn’t cruel, just angry about the way she’d taken a wrecking ball to his life.

  Sure, she was his twin and felt a compulsion to take care of him. Born ten minutes earlier, Delphine had always seen herself as the caregiver. Had always been bossy. When their mother had passed in their early teens, Delphine had become unbearable. He’d rebelled. Any fourteen-year-old boy would have. She’d become smothering and his grief had not allowed for it. They’d been prickly with each other ever since.

  He blinked away his too-common mental lament and heard the woman hit the door again. Faster this time, a tattoo of sharp rapid knocks.

  “Mr. O’Hara, I can see you through the window in the door,” the woman called. “Won’t you please let me speak with you? I promise I won’t bite or try to sell you something.” She put the lie to her words by biting her full, red lower lip. Then she brightened as if she’d thought of a new tactic. “I’m not selling religion if that’s what you think.”

  But the booklets in her hand told a different story. If he growled with the right tone, she’d never come back.

  Plus, he was curious to see what she wore today. More sand? Maybe wedged between her toes?

  He opened the door.

  Later, he realized that was his first mistake. His second was looking into her incredible purple eyes. If he’d seen the intriguing color before this, he never would’ve looked into them up close. As it was, his breath failed.

  “THANK GOODNESS, YOU opened your door. I was about to give up,” Farren Parks said, as she placed her shoulder on the doorframe so Grady O’Hara couldn’t slam his door in her face. She smiled beguilingly. It was her best smile and had gotten her out of her share of scrapes in her youth. It worked exceptionally well on men, her brothers in particular. And she should know because she had three.

  Delphine, Grady’s energetic sister, had told her Grady had gone to ground and no one had seen him in months. Which might work to her advantage. Lonely men could be chatty and the more she got him to talk, the better. Because if he talked, he’d have to listen, too. That’s how conversation worked.

  Both heavy eyebrows rose as he noticed her lean into his space. His eyes were stormy ocean blue. Appealing in a way. She dismissed her wayward thought. The man was a mess, emotionally and physically. And she had to get inside his house. Inside his head.

  If she could make him listen for a few minutes, she could make him love her plans for The Landseer Motel. She’d shown up for three days trying to get him to talk to her, and this was the closest she’d gotten to him. She wasn’t about to let a grumpy recluse get in the way of her plans, so she batted her eyes at him for good measure.

  She knew the power of her eyes. The color was striking and most people who looked this deeply into them noticed. What she didn’t expect was her reaction to his interested study of them. Rearing back didn’t break his stare.

  She was in battle with a master. He used his intense glare the way she used her eye color and her smile. The
y were in a stand-off she had no intention of losing.

  Clearly, Grady O’Hara glared to take adversaries off-guard, while she used her eyes to entice and get her own way. Two sides of the same coin. She gave herself a mental shake and leaned in closer. Batted her lashes again. Smiled more deeply. Coaxed with a tilt of her head.

  She would not fail. If she backed down now or ran like a coward, Singles Fest was doomed. Well, that might be harsh, but her fledgling business would take much longer to take off, and she’d have to reconfigure her plans and budgets. Not going to happen.

  Delphine had convinced her she needed The Landseer and Mr. O’Hara onboard for Singles Fest to succeed. Without the motel to work with, her ideal, perfect plans for Last Chance Beach’s Singles Fest would never pan out. She’d be broke and likely, homeless. At the very least, sofa surfing with one brother and the next. Ugh. Wouldn’t that be a bunch of I-told-you-sos.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have quit her job, after all.

  “Please, give me half an hour and your life will change.”

  “Who says I want to change it?” His voice was rough. As if he hadn’t used it much. Maybe he hadn’t. He’d been locked away inside the Landseer for months. Ever since his fiancée’s death.

  She sidled a couple more inches through the door. If he slammed it now, it would border on assault. And it would hurt. A lot.

  He didn’t look like an assaulter, if that was even a word. And Delphine would’ve warned her if her brother had violent tendencies. She hoped. But her shoulder would take the brunt of the slam and she liked her shoulder just as it was; functional.

  Breathe, Farren. He’s just a man. A grumpy, grieving man, but still...he was as close to a widower as a man could be and that was all-important. Grady O’Hara held the key to her success. All she had to do was convince him to open a closed motel, step out of his self-imposed exile, and rejoin the world. All in time for a launch of her new enterprise on the Fourth of July. She smiled wider.

  “You really should hear me out,” she said reasonably. “If only to keep your sister happy.”

  His startling blue eyes widened, and he opened his mouth as if to yell at her. She ducked inside before he could shut the door on her shoulder.

  He spun to track her movements as she stepped into his sanctum. It was all so ordinary, it felt anti-climactic to be inside. She’d expected...a total mess? Maybe a little hermit-like hoarding? But the kitchen was neat, clean, and sported shiny new appliances. Expensive ones. The kind with fancy features any cook would love.

  “Delphine,” he blustered. “I should’ve known she’d be behind a woman battering down my door for three days.” He rounded on Farren, big and bristly and bearlike. He had broad shoulders—the heavy kind—not the perfect ones on professional athletes. These were the shoulders of a carnival strongman who could lift women and toss them through the air.

  Still, even big, brawny, grumps deserved to be happy and Farren was just the girl to sort him out. All she needed was five minutes of his time.

  “Ten minutes.” She held up all her fingers and bit her lip. His glance swept her face, but he didn’t kick her out. Which was something. “Twenty at the most.” She flashed her fingers a second time in case he needed help counting.

  “I’m an event organizer,” she went on. “I used to do the weddings and conferences and other events at the Sands, and I have a plan for The Landseer Motel that you’ll want to hear about.”

  He loomed over her. “No.”

  She took a step back which took her farther from the door. She glanced through the kitchen into the living area. It was tidy in there, too. And as with the kitchen appliances, a new behemoth of a television hung on the wall. The man liked big and shiny and bells and whistles.

  “Please, hear me out,” she said as she batted her lashes at him. She quit when she realized how often she’d done it. “The Landseer is perfect in so many ways. Aren’t you curious about what I can do with it?”

  She raised her palms as if she held the fate of the world in them. That’s how it felt to her. Her whole future hung in the balance.

  “I’m not curious in the least if my sister has a vested interest in you being here.” He flicked his gaze from the top of her head down to her sandals. She’d opted to drive today rather than walk the beach, so her feet were sand-free for once. “If Delphine sent you, I guarantee there’s an ulterior motive, no matter what she told you.”

  The way he said you, made Farren’s back straighten. He made it sound as if Farren was the worst person in town. And she knew for a fact, she wasn’t. She was kind, generally had a happy attitude, and was friendly. She cared about people. Cared about making them happy, too. Cared about lots of things.

  That didn’t make her a bad person, it made her a good person. But she couldn’t tell him that, she’d have to show him.

  So, she smiled kindly, the way she did at little children. His shirt had once been meant to wear with a jacket and tie but hung open because half the buttons were missing. It was light blue with a small tan check and because he couldn’t button it, gave her intriguing glimpses of a vee of hair on his chest. Very distracting.

  “I’m confused by your focus on Delphine,” she began again, aiming her gaze away from the man’s chest hair. “I can’t see what ulterior motive she could have. Your sister’s my friend and thinks my plan is great.” Maybe them being friends was a stretch, but still, they were acquainted and had chatted several times. Delphine had been the one to pursue the relationship.

  Farren had kept it professional until that night last week when Delphine had bought her two glasses of wine in the hotel bar, when her limit was one. That had been the start of a three-hour gabfest that ended with Delphine’s insistence that Farren come here to meet Grady. “She encouraged me to see you, knowing how much you’d want to hear about my plan.”

  He nodded and slammed his large hands to his hips. “Of course, she did. My sister thinks you’re my type. Soft, lush in all the right places. Pretty and earnest.” His eyes bored into hers while she wrapped her head around the sharp left the conversation had taken. “She thinks it’s time I go back to New York and work from the office. Rejoin the world.”

  “What are you saying?” Shocked, Farren’s mind stalled and got hung up on the “pretty and earnest” part of what he’d said.

  “She’s matchmaking.” He spoke bluntly, then scrubbed a hand across his jaw as if his beard itched. Maybe it did. She didn’t want to look too closely in case he had food in it. “She thinks if you showed up here with whatever cockamamie idea you’re peddling that I’ll be overcome with lust and fall in with your plans.”

  “Lust?” She backed up again, her gaze darting for another exit or a weapon to use if necessary. She clutched her purse to her chest. Inside was a tablet, heavy enough to startle him with a solid whack. If she clunked him on the head with it, she could probably get out the door.

  But maybe that’s what he wanted; her running out like a coward. She squared her shoulders.

  “She sent me here to tell you about Singles Fest and how The Landseer would be perfect for my plan. None of this”—she waved a hand back and forth between their bodies— “has anything to do with, um, dating?”

  He snorted. “Isn’t that what I just said? That you have a plan? That she sent you? Here. To my house.” Had he leaned closer? She stepped back just in case.

  “Yes, but...” she trailed off, suddenly unsure. “She told me you needed to hear about—that you’d be receptive to—me.” She covered her mouth with her hand, appalled at this now-obvious ploy. “I quit my job for this,” she half-moaned to herself.

  “Delphine’s good, you gotta give her that,” he said with a shrug. His gaze sharpened. “You quit your job?”

  She nodded, reeling from the enormity of her misstep. Delphine knew that she had quit and had sent her here, knowing full well Grady wouldn’t be interested in her ambitious plans. He wasn’t “scouting” for new ideas.

  “I heard what I wanted
to hear,” she muttered. She looked into his eyes. They glittered as he watched the light dawn on her face. “She said that you’d be receptive to a business opportunity. She said you were looking for new ways to make money.” Farren had been desperate to leave her going-nowhere job and launch her own dating app and business. “Are you working from here?”

  He nodded.

  “But you’re not looking for new opportunity.”

  He stood silent and brooded.

  She closed her eyes against the truth. She’d been taken in by her desire to succeed and had ignored all common sense. She could see it now. O’Hara Enterprises dealt in international real estate, not financing start-ups. But Delphine...

  “You’re a busy man,” she said on a hollow whisper. Just because he’d hidden away in Last Chance Beach didn’t mean he was a lost soul. Grieving, yes. Lost, no. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  Farren gathered the little dignity she had left and turned toward the door to leave. She hoped she could make it outside before her stomach rebelled all over the floor. How embarrassing. She’d stormed into a grieving man’s home determined to get her own way. To further her own ambitions without a care about what he was going through. She felt lower than a worm.

  She reached for the doorknob but long, blunt-tipped fingers held the door firmly shut. He had very muscular forearms and the hair there was on the blond side of brown.

  “If my sister talked you into quitting your job, then you should at least get to do what you came for.” His voice held six levels of grudge and she could tell it cost him to issue the invitation.

  “I had no idea you and Delphine were at odds. She seemed genuinely interested in your welfare and convinced me you’d love this idea.” A niggle waffled through her mind. Maybe what Delphine had really said was that Grady was going to love her. In her wine-addled head, Farren had taken that to mean he’d love her idea. Her belly did another swoop. “I should never drink more than my limit of wine.”