About four years ago…
Candy had always known lies were a slippery slope. She’d grown up in politics, after all.
She just hadn’t realized how slippery.
In the weeks following the lie, her mother kept asking when Candy was going to bring Ren out to meet the family. She flooded Candy’s inbox with wedding spam, badgering her with requests to fly back to DC for dress shopping and venue selection. When was Candy sending out her save the dates? How many people would Ren be inviting from his side? She already had a preliminary guest list, of course.
When her mother had asked her fiancé’s name, back at Charlotte’s reception, Candy had blurted out Ren’s without thinking. Showing her mother the goofy, grinning selfie of the two of them on her phone had helped sell the lie. She’d figured she would wait until she got back to LA and come clean, but she’d put off the unpleasant business of honesty and her mother had kicked into wedding-planning mode.
She’d gone the cowardly route—sending a vague Sorry, Mom. There won’t be a wedding for you to plan email. It wasn’t until she got back the reply—Did you break it off? One of your father’s former aides is running for lieutenant governor in California, I’ll give him your number—that she realized the matchmaking was never going to end.
After a bottle of wine that should have been labeled Bad Decisions, Candy had photoshopped the hell out of some pictures from Ren’s modeling days and sent her mother another email: No wedding to plan because we already eloped!
And then life just became damage control. Her father wanted to meet him—could Ren fly out before her father was shipped off to whatever ‘Stan he was about to visit on a diplomatic mission?
No, he could not.
Would they be coming home for Thanksgiving this year?
No, they would not.
The lie continued, gaining a life of its own.
And seeing Ren only made it worse. Somehow she felt like she was lying to him as well, involving him in her farce. Though at least the guilt helped her stay away from him. And without her jumping him at every turn, they did slowly become friends again. It was almost a blessing in disguise.
At least that’s what Candy told herself.
Just friends was better. She was almost positive it was better.
* * * * *
Present day…
Candy could have saved her warning. If anyone was going to get “accidentally” shot in the face, he had a feeling it was going to be the groom. And Ren might not even be the one pulling the trigger. Both the father of the bride and younger brother of the bride looked equally willing to put a round in Tug Newton’s face.
Tug had spent the entire drive out to the family hunting lodge bragging about his unsurpassed hunting prowess, gloating so loudly he’d probably scared off half the game in a hundred-mile radius. When Ren had confessed that he’d only shot targets before—he wasn’t morally opposed to game hunting, it just wasn’t a very popular pastime in Southern California—Tug had patronized him with assurances that no one expected him to be good his first time, even though Tug had taken down a ten point buck when he was only eight years old.
When Thomas Raines explained to his future son-in-law that they were far from deer season and would instead be hunting squirrels and groundhogs—and also that the family never kept hunting trophies but always donated their take to Hunting for the Hungry, Tug immediately switched his tune to brag that he would bag the biggest groundhog and give the most meat to the starving people of Virginia.
Ren held his tongue. And carefully avoided commenting when it became immediately apparent that Tug couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Aiden, who seemed less interested in shooting than he was in shooting the shit, stood at Ren’s side with his own rifle cradled loosely in his arms and didn’t bother to contain his amusement when Tug declared his weapon defective.
“He has terrible luck with weapons,” Aiden commented idly. “His gun was defective during the spring turkey shoot too.”
“You aren’t shooting?”
“I have two small daughters. If Daddy starts taking out Sleeping Beauty’s friends, he gets in big trouble.” He shrugged. “I was always more of a social hunter anyway. I’m not the competitive type. Which, of course, horrifies my mother.” He eyed his future brother-in-law. “No doubt why she loves Tug. Everything is a competition with that guy.” They moved deeper into the woods and Aiden kept pace at Ren’s side. “Don’t take it personally if you aren’t her favorite son-in-law. Bodyguard doesn’t sound as good as State Department when she’s trying to compete with her friends at the DAR for the most impressive offspring.”
“Is that why she never came to visit us?”
“You thought it was because you aren’t an appropriate shade of albino? No, I’m pretty sure she likes being able to say she has an off-white son-in-law. None of the other DAR ladies can say that. She just likes to be fawned over and Candy doesn’t do that. In fact, I got the impression Candy didn’t want visitors. I offered to come out there as part of a business trip last year and she made it sound like your place was in the Outer Mongolia of Los Angeles. Where are you two living these days? I don’t think I ever heard if she kept her condo after you got married.”
Ren froze. Shit. He didn’t know if she was supposed to have moved in with him or he with her. “Hm?” He pretended to be focused on an imaginary squirrel and took a shot. Then nodded over at where Tug was crowing his domination over a small red squirrel. “Looks like he got one.” Or someone in his general vicinity had and he’d decided to take credit.
“The poor thing probably had a heart attack at the sight of him.” Ren saw an actual squirrel then and lined up his shot—taking out an innocent knot on a log ten feet from the animal.
“Nice shot,” Aiden commented wryly.
“I wouldn’t want to face your daughters if I started taking out Bambi’s playmates.”
Aiden grinned. “Maybe we should mention that excuse to Tug so he stops blaming the weaponry.”
Ren snorted, relieved that his dodge over where he and Candy lived in LA seemed to have passed unnoticed. But as soon as the men and women reconvened that afternoon, it was the first thing he asked Candy when he managed to pull her aside for a private moment.
“Where do we live? Your place? Mine?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh God. I don’t think I ever said one way or another—but if I’d moved it probably would have come up so you probably live with me?”
He frowned. “My place is nicer and in a better location. Why wouldn’t you have moved in there?”
“How are we going to explain how you can afford that place on the same salary I make without telling anyone who your parents were?”
“Good point. Your place, then.”
He started to move back to join the group, but she caught his arm, pulling him back. “You proposed at work. We were sparring. Very private.”
His gaze flicked over her face, reading the truth there. “I wasn’t the only one who got tripped up this morning?”
“God, we suck at this. But at least my sister just thinks I’m crappy at telling engagement stories and hasn’t figured out it’s because I’m a horrible liar.”
“If you were a horrible liar, you wouldn’t have gotten away with it for so long.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Honestly, neither am I.”
He started to move them toward the rest of the group again, but she caught his arm a second time. “Ren…” She held his arm, studying his face questioningly. “Are we good?”
* * * * *
For a second she thought he was going to say no, then his confused expression eased into something comfortingly reassuring and he lifted his hand to brush her jaw with his thumb. “We’re good. I’m sorry about last night—”
“No. I’m sorry. I should have said something about Venezuela. It just… I don’t…”
“You don’t talk about it,” he provided.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t.”
“Okay.” His thumb traced another path along her jaw. “But if you ever want to, I’m here.”
Her heart clenched hard in her chest. That was Ren. Always too good to her. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Maybe not.” He grinned and suddenly the weight of the conversation lifted. “But you know you’d do the same for me.”
“Would I?” she teased, taking the olive branch of levity. “Are we sure about that?” She looped her arm through his and they began to stroll toward the rest of the group gathered on the back terrace for afternoon cocktails.
“Does your sister realize she’s marrying a man who is a walking billboard for his own awesomeness?” Ren asked under his breath as they approached.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she knows.” Candy eyed Charlotte where she was preening at Tug’s side. “And she loves him in spite of it. Or because of it. It’s hard to tell sometimes with Charlotte. Reggie was very dominant in a different way, but she certainly seems to gravitate toward men who tell her what to do.”
“They say women marry men like their fathers, but Tug doesn’t seem much like your dad.”
“No. My mother keeps saying he’s exactly like my father, but the only similarity I can see is that they’ve both done a stint at the State Department. I’ve only met Tug a couple times, but he certainly seems more like my mom. Image conscious. Competitive. Controlling—it probably seems very familiar to Charlotte, since that’s what we grew up with. Scott’s like that too, when he’s sober.”
Their conversation faded away as they approached where Tug was orating. “Of course I had a bachelor party,” he declared to Scott, who had been needling him about the lack. “Biggest, raunchiest bachelor party you’ve ever seen. Made The Hangover look tame.”
Scott arched his brows, wearing his superior look of mild contempt—which meant he hadn’t yet started drinking and gotten the loose, sarcastic expression brought on by alcohol. “I thought you and Charlotte agreed you were above such vulgar displays.”
“For Charlotte,” Tug insisted. “It’s unnatural for women to do that kind of thing before their wedding. Men have always needed to let off some steam and sow some wild oats before tying on the old ball and chain, but this new thing where women put on dildo necklaces and run around Vegas panting after men slathered in baby oil, it’s disgusting. I’m marrying a lady, thank you very much. Not some trashy piece of ass who needs to prove how modern she is by debasing herself.”
“Was that a compliment?” Ren whispered under his breath.
Candy didn’t know how to answer that, especially when Charlotte seemed to think so. Her sister glowed at his side like she was honored to be the “lady” marrying a prince like Tug.
“Did you have a bachelorette party, Candy?” Scott asked, clearly in the mood to goad even though he hadn’t started in on his scotch quotient of the day.
“Nope. Just a quickie wedding.”
Tug nodded knowingly. “How old are your kids?”
It took Candy a moment to get his meaning, so it was Ren who responded. “We don’t have any. We didn’t have to get married in a hurry. I just wanted to lock it down before she changed her mind.”
Tug didn’t apologize for the assumption, nodding like assuming they’d had a shotgun wedding was the most natural thing in the world. “We’re going to have two,” he announced to the group at large. “A couple boys to carry on the Newton family name.”
“I thought you always wanted a big family, Charlotte,” Scott poked again.
Tug chuckled as if Charlotte’s wishes were just adorable and answered for her. “Two is plenty. We are not going to be like those freaks who have eighteen kids. Charlotte knows better than that.”
Somehow Candy managed not to kick him in the teeth.
* * * * *
“You know, I thought if I got to know him better, he wouldn’t be so bad, but I think he actually gets worse the longer you talk to him.”
“Your beloved future brother-in-law, you mean?” Ren watched as Candy flopped down on her back on the bed. They were supposed to be changing for dinner, but she looked so damn good sprawled there it was hard for him not to lie down next to her and forget the rest of this fiasco.
Candy rolled her head without lifting it to keep him in view as he moved toward the closet. “Do you think he could really make her happy? That Dipshit McAssholeface is honestly what she wants out of life?”
“I don’t know her very well, but she didn’t look upset when he was verbally patting her on the head.”
“Yeah. She was eating that shit up like a lapdog.” Candy wrinkled her nose. “Did you notice how whenever anyone disagrees with him, he immediately reverts to anger and tells them that their opinion is not just wrong, it’s abnormal to have it? How much do you want to bet he made sure ‘obey’ will be in their wedding vows?”
“I’m guessing we took that out of our imaginary wedding vows.”
Candy snorted. “Hell, yes, we did.”
“Anything else I should know about our imaginary wedding?” The bed looked too inviting—and so did she. He gave up on pretending to get dressed and came over to stretch out next to her on his side facing her. “Did the bride wear white?”
“I should show you the pictures. It was that slinky white dress—the one you said made me look like a twenties movie star.”
“The one you wore to the Golden Globes that time when you were doing soft cover for Sandy Edwards?” He was half-hard just thinking about it.
“That’s the one.”
He groaned. “That dress would not have lasted long on our imaginary wedding night.”
She chuckled, the sound fading into a sigh as she met his eyes. “Thank you, Ren. For never treating me like Tug treats Charlotte. Jessica’s a lucky girl.”
He jolted, startled by the reminder, and the truth spilled out before he considered the wisdom of telling her. “Jessica and I broke up.”