The Wedding Agreement (5 page)

Cass continued. “You know what I'm saying though. Tessa's out of bullets. We just have to keep up the charade long enough for Tessa to leave for their trip. Once she's gone, she'll be too focused on Pete the Protein Peddler to worry about your relationship status. Plus, it'll be too late to do anything about it even if she wanted to.” Cass shrugged as if the whole thing was no big deal. “That's when we let our fake relationship fall apart, just like all of the real ones out there,” she said, obviously pleased with herself. “Totally believable. Not to mention, you have the added benefit of proving to Tessa that you're able to handle Nina for extended periods of time by yourself. That'll go a long way in court if you want to fight for more custody in the future.”

Alex had to admit that the plan wasn't half bad. Except for one thing. “What happens when we have to break the news to Nina that we aren't getting married? She's been through enough the past few years, and she really likes you. This will just hurt her more.”

Cass put a hand on Alex's shoulder and rubbed gently. “I'm not going anywhere,” she assured him. “We were friends before our engagement—”

“
Pretend
engagement,” Alex corrected her.

She rolled her eyes. “
Pretend
engagement. And we'll be friends after it. I mean, I know that doesn't happen often, but it
does
happen. I'll still be in Nina's life, so in that regard, Nina won't notice a difference. The only adjustment will be that we won't actually get married. And she'll get over that. Right now she's just excited about the wedding. She's seven years old,
Alex. She probably doesn't even have a complete understanding of what a wedding means. She just wants to pick out dresses and tiaras and other shit nobody cares about.” Cass paused for a moment and adjusted her position so she could see Alex's face, which was now directed absentmindedly on the backyard. “She'll be disappointed for a little while, but she'll get over it.”

Alex let out a long breath. “You really think so?”

“Sure. Kids are resilient. If you want, we can break the news to her right after we tell her Santa isn't real. Even a canceled wedding can't compete with that bombshell.”

Alex let his head flop to the side so he could look at Cass, knowing she would recognize the defeat written across his face. “If you leave now, you might be able to make it to Oz in time to get a heart.”

Slowly she reached out to take his hand and wrapped her fingers around it. “I promise it'll be fine. It's more important that Nina has her father than a wedding.”

Alex knew that was the truth. He would do whatever it took to have his daughter in his life as much as possible, even if it meant planning a pretend wedding with the heartless creature sitting beside him.

“What?” Cass asked when Alex still hadn't said anything.

He inhaled a long breath before finally speaking. “Cassidy Mullen, will you pretend to marry me?” This time Alex couldn't hold back the laugh that surfaced. And once he started, it was difficult to stop.

“Yes! Yes, of course I'll pretend to marry you!” Cass yelled, throwing her arms around Alex and jumping onto his lap for a kiss. “I can't wait to start
planning our fake wedding.” She put a finger to her lips as if she were thinking hard about something. “But I think you need to get me a ring first.”

Alex stared at her intently before replying, still shell-shocked about what they'd just agreed to. “Fine,” he said. “But I hope you like Cracker Jacks.”

Conspiracy

It had been nearly a week since Cass had ambushed Alex with her proposal, and she'd barely spoken to the man since. Now that she thought about it, sending him the “Congratulations on your engagement” e-card had probably been in poor taste, but she didn't know how else to restore some much-needed humor to their situation. She could own the fact that she'd acted impulsively, but Cass still didn't think her decision was a bad one. What better way to get Alex's ex-wife off his back than to fake-plan a wedding with a successful businesswoman?

But as she pulled open the door to Mickey's Bar and Grill, nervousness hit her almost as hard as the music from the blaring jukebox. She stepped inside the local bar and let her eyes surreptitiously roam the room in search of her friends. Catching sight of them, Cass hesitated. They were sitting around a table, sharing pitchers of beer and laughing. Alex looked
especially relaxed, and she suddenly found herself wondering if her presence would put a strain on his happiness.
Get it together.
These were her friends—she'd known the girls since seventh grade, and the guys had infiltrated their pack seamlessly when Lauren hooked up with Scott. She had no reason to feel awkward. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she approached them with the confidence she prided herself on.

Simone was the first to notice Cass. “About time you got here. Where've you been?”

Cass decided Alex's tensing and sudden interest in his glass were a figment of her imagination. Or at least she'd pretend they were. “Ugh, got caught up with a client. I swear, I don't understand why people hire a PR agency if they're not interested in what we have to say.”

“I don't know how you deal with that crap all day. Trying to find ways to make some people look good to the public has to be exhausting,” Lauren said.

Cass grabbed a glass and poured herself some beer. “It's not that much different from what you do as a psychologist, when you think about it. You help people uncover their strengths so they can feel good about themselves. I uncover their strengths to make
other
people feel good about them. Though you do have the added perk of being able to medicate them.”

Lauren laughed. “I can't prescribe medication. I'm not a doctor yet.”

Cass tilted her head in Scott's direction. “I'm sure this one can get some samples for you to pass out. You can hook a few people up.”

“Speaking of hooking up,” Quinn interjected, “how's the wedding planning going?”

Cass didn't miss her sly smile. “I'm assuming
since you're looking at me that your question wasn't directed at Lauren.”

Quinn shook her head slowly.

“Not sure.” Cass shrugged. Deciding that she wasn't going to suffer in the spotlight alone, she jerked her thumb toward Alex. “I'm still waiting on a proper proposal from this one.”

Alex huffed out a laugh. “You're going to be waiting a long damn time.”

“Now, now, that's no way to talk to your future spouse, Snookums.”

Alex allowed his middle finger to respond for him.

Scott leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “Seriously though. What are you guys going to do about this whole thing? I mean, you can't just take it back. It makes you look bad to be engaged one day and single again the next.”

Alex sighed and sat back in his chair. “We're not going to take it back. We're going to just . . . let it run its course.”

“Run its course?” Scott furrowed his brow. “It's not the flu. You told your ex-wife
and
daughter that you were getting married. You—”

“I actually did
not
tell them that. She did,” Alex asserted as he pointed a finger at Cass. A finger Cass very much wanted to bend backward until it snapped. “And like you said, it would make me look bad to back out of this farce right after Tessa found out about it. I don't need to give her any more ammunition to use against me. So we're just going to go with it.”

“How are you ‘just going to go with it'?” Simone asked. “A wedding involves tangible things: dresses, flowers, a venue, a ceremony.”

“A ring,” Quinn added.

“You mean I can't keep borrowing yours?” Cass asked with a smirk.

“Not if you value your life,” Quinn responded. Tim draped his arm over his wife's shoulders, looking ridiculously pleased at how much the ring obviously meant to her. They were so cute, it was nauseating.

Alex rubbed a hand over his face. “I know. Nina already asked me when she could pick out her dress for the wedding.” He seemed disgusted by the idea.

Cass' ego took a hit. “Listen, being engaged to me can't be
that
disturbing of a concept. I have a lot to offer a fake fiancé.”

“Like what?” Simone asked, looking genuinely curious.

Cass' eyes widened. “You do realize you're supposed to be on
my
side, right? You should be listing my finer points.”

Simone seemed to rack her brain, her silence signaling she'd come up empty.

“You're just bitter because you're the last single girl at this table,” Cass huffed dramatically, causing the others to laugh. “It'll all work out. I mean, some people are engaged for years before they actually go through with it.” Cass turned her head slowly toward Lauren.

“Fuck off,” Lauren muttered.

“We just need to keep up the charade long enough for Alex to get Nina for the summer. Once Tessa leaves, Alex and I can break up quietly, and it'll all blow over. We just have to go through with some of the tangibles to sell it effectively, but we're both pretty good bullshitters. We got this.”

Alex looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “Since when am I a bullshitter?”

“Oh, come on. Are you seriously telling me the FBI is full of Boy Scouts? You guys lie all the time.”

“You have no idea what my job entails.”

“Please,” Cass scoffed. “I've seen
Criminal Minds
. Sometimes you have to lie to catch the bad guys. No one's blaming you.” Cass knew she was baiting Alex, but she couldn't help it. He was acting like she'd harvested one of his kidneys while he was sleeping. She had only been trying to help him. And she
would
help him—as soon as he got his head out of his ass.

“Blaming me? I help get violent criminals off the streets. Why would I ever think someone was blaming me? Have you lost your mind?”

“I don't know. You tell me. You're the one who's supposed to be good at reading people.”

“Uh-oh,” Simone interrupted. “I sense an annulment on the horizon.”

Cass snorted out a laugh. “Like I'd involve the church in this sham. It'll be a civil service all the way.”

Alex stared at her for a second before releasing the tension he'd been holding. “You're totally fucking with me, aren't you?”

Cass nodded. “And I'm clearly really good at it. We won't have any trouble convincing people that we're a couple.”

Cass was relieved to see a small smile tilt Alex's lips up at the corners. This was who they were: a pair of ballbusting friends who legitimately enjoyed each other's company. If they were ever going to pull this off, they'd need to work together and keep their friendship intact. Cass may have never been interested in a serious romantic relationship, but she was a damn good friend. Alex was going to need to have a little more faith in the fact that she'd never let him down.

Alex took a long drink of his beer before putting it back on the table. “Okay, fine. So you want to marry me, or what?”

*   *   *

“Nina, Mom's here,” Alex yelled up the stairs as he walked toward the door to answer it. Truth be told, he was nervous as hell to open the door. When he'd picked up Nina the previous day, he'd been—for the first time—happy that it was Pete who'd been there instead of Tessa. Alex wasn't up for discussing his engagement.

He took a deep breath, ran his hands through his hair, and then opened the door. “Hey, Tess.”

“Hi.” Such a simple word, but said with enough coldness to freeze an Inuit.

“Uh, yeah. So, Nina's getting her stuff together. You want to come in?” Alex stepped back from the door so Tessa could enter.

“I'm good here.”

Alex released an audible breath and moved forward slightly to resume his previous position in the doorway.
This is off to a good start
. “Okay.” Alex dropped his eyes to the floor briefly, then quickly swept his gaze over everything
except
Tessa. He wondered when he'd subconsciously decided she was akin to Medusa and direct eye contact would immediately turn him to stone.

“While I have you alone for a second, maybe we can talk about the sudden change in your relationship status.”

Alex's hand flexed as the impulse to scrub his face hit him, but he managed to catch the movement before his hand had more than twitched. He needed to be strong, assertive, or else Tessa wasn't going to
buy that his engagement was as serious as it was. Or as he was supposed to pretend it was.
God, this is so fucking complicated.
“What about it?”

Tessa narrowed her eyes and jerked her head back. “Are you kidding me? You never even mentioned that you were dating someone, and now you're getting married?”

“Why would I tell you about who I was dating? It's none of your business.”

“Who you bring around my daughter is absolutely my business.”

Alex snorted. “Really? So when do I get to weigh in about Pete?”

Tessa's lips pressed into a thin line as she clearly struggled to keep her anger leashed. “Nina has never even mentioned this woman besides a fleeting comment here or there. Shouldn't your daughter be a little more familiar with someone you're planning on making her stepmother?”

“How well did Nina know Pete before you moved in with him?”

“God, will you stop answering my questions with questions? I'm not a criminal you're psychoanalyzing. I have a right to know these things.”

Alex took a few steps over the threshold, forcing Tessa back so that he could pull the door behind him, leaving it only slightly ajar. “Why?” His voice was low and calm, but there was a sternness to it that he had perfected over his years with the FBI. He didn't want to fight with Tessa, but he was also reaching the end of his patience. He was a good man—an even better father—and Tessa damn well knew it. So her standing there questioning him like he was some deadbeat who couldn't be trusted to make good
decisions was grating on his last nerve. Granted, he was lying to her—even he couldn't ignore that bit of irony—but Cass wasn't some back-alley hooker he'd picked up on a whim one night and decided to propose to. She would be a great role model for Nina, someone he was comfortable allowing his daughter to be around.

“Why what?” Tessa crossed her arms over her chest.

“Why do you have a right to know? You have never given me even an ounce of the same courtesy. I didn't know you were fucking your trainer behind my back until I called you out on it. I didn't know what type of man you were allowing near my daughter, other than him being someone who was evidently supremely comfortable breaking up a marriage. I wasn't even informed that sending Nina to Jersey for the summer was a possibility until it was already a done deal. So, why the hell do you think I need to run any of my decisions past you?”

Tessa clearly tried to maintain eye contact with Alex, but the watering of her eyes forced her to look away. She sniffled and took a moment before responding. Finally she released a heavy sigh and looked back at him. “I guess you don't.”

Alex felt some of the tension that had coiled in his muscles drain as he looked at a chastised Tessa. For all the hell she'd put him through, he knew that she wasn't solely to blame for their problems. He was an FBI agent whose wife had been cheating on him for almost six months before he realized it, because he hadn't bothered to pay her enough attention to be suspicious. He knew that. They'd hurt each other enough. He thrust his hands in his pockets and willfully softened his expression. “Listen. You know me, Tessa. You
know how much Nina means to me. I would never allow someone near her who wasn't a positive influence. So just . . . have a little faith, okay?”

It took a few seconds, but Tessa eventually nodded and uttered a quiet, “Okay.”

“Good. I'll go check and see what's keeping Nina.” As he turned and left Tessa standing in the doorway, he silently prayed his words to her didn't come back to haunt him. He was asking her to have faith in him while he hoped like hell that putting his faith in Cass wasn't the biggest mistake of his life.