A Model Fiancé Read online

  A Model Fiancé

  Nikky Kaye

  to

  Angela Evans

  Kristen Echo

  and

  Nora

  in hamster heaven

  Contents

  Coming Attractions

  1. DEV

  2. Audrey

  3. Dev

  4. Audrey

  5. Dev

  6. Audrey

  7. Dev

  8. Audrey

  9. Dev

  10. Audrey

  11. Dev

  12. Audrey

  13. Dev

  14. Audrey

  15. Dev

  16. Audrey

  17. Dev

  18. Audrey

  19. Dev

  20. Audrey

  21. Dev

  22. Audrey

  23. Dev

  24. Audrey

  25. Dev

  26. Audrey

  27. Dev

  28. Audrey

  29. Dev

  30. Audrey

  31. Dev

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Attractions

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  * * *

  He has a million followers, but she’s #TheOne

  There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t ask Audrey to pretend to be my fiancée. For starters:

  1.She’s my best friend’s sexy little sister.

  2.She’ll have to travel around the world with me.

  3.The paparazzi will eat her alive.

  4.So will I.

  But I also have a million followers on social media who think we’re already engaged, and there are millions of dollars at stake.

  So what have I got to lose?

  1

  DEV

  “I want to get married, like right now.”

  I glanced over to where my oldest friend sat by the window. The club chair beneath him was almost quivering as his knee nervously moved up and down like a piston.

  “You can’t wait two more days?” I shook my head as I cracked open a couple of sodas from the hotel minibar.

  Brett had always been so impatient. He was the kind of guy who was early for everything and annoyed if other people were merely on time. He grunted and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window at the crowded street twenty floors below us.

  In some parts of the country autumn had begun, but September in Las Vegas was still hot as hell.

  On the sunbaked Strip were tourists taking pictures, men handing out flyers luring the beautiful people to nightclubs, and “actors” littering every block in costumes from comic book heroes to showgirls. Across the street from us I spotted at least five Avengers.

  Somewhere down there was also Brett’s soon-to-be wife, Shannon. She’d gone out with two of her girlfriends for a fancy lunch at another hotel. I’d managed to distract my buddy with an hour at the tables, but now he was preoccupied with missing his fiancée.

  He scanned the street as though he’d be able to spot her in the crowd. “We could still get married tomorrow instead of the day after.”

  “Everyone isn’t here yet,” I reminded him as I sat on the end of the bed, the can cold and wet in my hand. “Shannon’s parents will flip out if you not only have a Vegas wedding but also don’t wait for them to show up for it.”

  Brett hummed in assent, still staring out the window.

  I cleared my throat. Paused. Took a sip. Feigned nonchalance. “Your sister’s coming, right?”

  “Yeah, Audrey said she’d be here sometime tonight, but she didn’t give me her flight details.”

  Audrey.

  My pulse jumped just hearing her name.

  Audrey Carlin had been a “surprise” baby, five years younger than us. When Brett and I became friends in middle school, she was the annoying brat who tried to follow us around and completely messed with every video game we tried to play. She was in middle school herself when Brett and I went off to different colleges. I saw her briefly during holidays, but was too self-absorbed to notice her growing up.

  Until that Christmas.

  Graduation was on the horizon, and we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Brett was all set to go to law school, but my degree in political science wasn’t exactly a slam-dunk in the job market.

  When Audrey opened the door to their house on Christmas Eve, it was like I hadn’t seen her in ten years. Or maybe I just hadn’t noticed her since then.

  In the time it had taken me to learn about the evolution of democracy, she’d evolved from a whiny kid to a doe-eyed siren. Her dark hair spilled over the shoulders of her clingy red sweater, and her blue eyes narrowed at me before widening with a sparkle.

  “Hey, Dev.” She stepped back to let me in.

  I could swear that I felt a cloud of warmth greater than just the house when I moved toward her. “Audrey.”

  Stop looking at her boobs, stop looking at her boobs, stop looking at her—

  Her smile lit up the entryway. “It’s been a while, huh?”

  “Huh.”

  “I saw your commercial,” she said, referring to my first appearance on TV in a Gap ad.

  I ducked my head in embarrassment. I’d been doing catalog modeling on the side to make some cash—first as a kind of Zoolander joke, but the money was starting to add up. Now I was wondering if the light at the end of the college tunnel might be from a spotlight.

  After all, I could go to grad school anytime. I wouldn’t be this pretty forever.

  I threw my coat over the end of the banister as I had hundreds of times growing up. But this time, she reached for it and grabbed a hanger from the little closet.

  With her back to me, I had six glorious seconds to take in the curves of her body in the sweater and skinny jeans. The long legs and the perfectly rounded ass. The sliver of creamy skin at her waist when she raised her arms.

  Holy shit, the irritating brat was hot as sin now.

  “Uh, what grade are you in now?” My question served as both small talk and a reminder to my traitorous dick that she was still young.

  “Eleventh.” She turned back with a coy smile. Her pink lips pointed in the middle as she fake-pouted. “You missed my Sweet Sixteen.”

  Jail. Bait.

  I cleared my throat. “Have fun?”

  Her laugh sounded like bells. Had it always sounded like bells, or was the holiday season just getting to me?

  “Yeah, a little too much fun,” she confessed, her cheeks coloring.

  Her blush elicited a visceral response in me. Had she been drinking? With a boyfriend? I tried to tell myself that I was just reacting like an older brother would, but… yeah, I wasn’t.

  As I followed her down the hall to the family room where everybody was hanging out, I willed my body and brain into submission. I spent the next two hours in a kind of daze where I felt disconnected from everyone around me but acutely aware of where Audrey was at every moment.

  It confused me.

  It bothered me.

  It ended me.

  Brett walked me to the door as I finally managed to break the spell. His eyebrows were halfway up his forehead as I shoved my arms in my coat.

  “Dude, are you high or something?”

  I shook my head, letting out a half-sigh, half-laugh. “Nah, just… I dunno. Whatever.” When I opened the door, the frosty air outside pierced my lungs like needles. It was the wake-up I needed. “Merry Christmas, man.”

  That was their last Christmas all together.

  Just before we graduated, Brett and Audrey’s parents were killed in a c
ar crash when some asshole kid combined his already questionable judgment with a fifth of bourbon.

  I didn’t make it to the funeral.

  After four years of studying political theory, my agent had me modeling full-time. Instead of standing beside my grieving best friend, I was posing under studio lights, moving carefully so that the strategic clips at the back of my designer suit didn’t show on camera.

  Brett deferred law school for a year and moved home for Audrey’s last year of high school. Somehow, with all the moving around and life shit happening, I hadn’t seen her since.

  Five years flew by, right under my nose. I traveled. I worked out—a lot. I had teeth whitening sessions and serious carb cravings. I had a string of casual relationships, mostly with other models. Yeah, yeah, don’t judge. There was a photographer that lasted almost a year, but we barely saw each other and it ended badly.

  And now here I was, in Las Vegas, checking in for Best Man duties. Brett was still the better man of the two of us, I believed.

  “Is she still working at that law firm?” I asked him now with a frown.

  Their parents’ insurance barely covered the mortgage. So, instead of going to college, Audrey had become a paralegal and helped Brett through most of his law school.

  The lines between his eyebrows deepened. “Fuck, man. Didn’t I tell you?”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Tell me what?”

  “I told you she was engaged to that lawyer she worked with, right?”

  “What?” My back straightened in shock. “She’s only, what, twenty-one?”

  “Twenty-two, going on thirty-two.” He swallowed the rest of his drink. “You haven’t seen her, Dev. She grew up fast after…”

  Brett trailed off, falling into silence. It probably wasn’t the first time he’d thought about his parents’ absence from one of the most important days of his life. I let him have his moment—but only a moment, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  “So?”

  My friend sighed. “So something happened, and poof! Engagement over. I don’t know all the details. Hand me a beer this time, man.”

  My hand was tight around the can as I passed it to him. I might have dented it. “I don’t know what to say, man.”

  Brett stared out the window again. “She’s living with us again. Gave up her apartment to save money.”

  Just what every newlywed couple needs—a live-in little sister. I grimaced at the idea of Brett and Shannon radiating bliss while Audrey listened to sad music in her room like an emo teenager.

  Except she wasn’t a teenager anymore.

  She’d had to deal with more tragedy than most women her age. Hell, more than most people. My biggest problem right now was trying to pin down a lucrative contract with a luxury goods conglomerate in Asia.

  “So, yeah.” Brett’s laugh was short and curt. “I’m a little worried about her.”

  “No shit.” Now I was, too.

  He looked at me, lines carved around his mouth. “I feel guilty for being happy right now.”

  “Fuck that noise,” I told him. “Be happy. You deserve it.”

  But somehow Audrey didn’t?

  We fell into an awkward silence as the sun dipped behind us, activity on the Strip below still flowing like an ant farm.

  Brett glanced down at his phone when it buzzed.

  “Audrey’s here. I guess Shannon met her in the lobby as they were coming back.” He frowned. “That was a long fucking lunch.”

  In the mirror on the wall of the elevator, I tried to school my expression into one of bland friendliness, no pity allowed. After years of modeling, you’d think I’d be able to wipe every emotion from my face. I was paid handsomely to do it.

  But when I took one last look before leaving the elevator, something still burned in my eyes—something unfamiliar and intense. No doubt a photographer would kill to catch it, but who knew if I’d ever have that look on my face again.

  Brett clipped along beside me as we followed the path of flashing lights and clinking electronic noise from the penny slots. We slowed up behind a family with two kids in strollers.

  “Who the hell brings their toddlers to Vegas? he muttered to me. “I can’t help but worry about her. Just—can you look out for her? She’s been kind of depressed.”

  “Of course.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and pressed my shoulders back. “I got you.”

  I’d have Audrey’s back, too. I would be her friend. I would be a rock. I would be a priest. I would be a—

  “Yo, asshole! Woooooo!”

  Brett and I jerked our heads up to see Audrey standing on an upholstered bench in the lobby, a bottle of champagne in her hand.

  Her long legs, under a short black skirt, wobbled on the hooker-high heels she wore. Her chestnut hair was pulled back in a perky ponytail, highlighting the flush on her cheeks and her velvety red lipstick.

  Shannon held her hand out. “Audrey, get down.” She sounded like she’d been laughing. Her friends certainly were.

  Audrey hooted again, loud enough to attract attention from the front desk.

  “We’re celebrating!” Her eyes glimmered as she looked down at her almost sister-in-law. “You’re getting married! It’s the most amazing, beautiful, romantic thing in the whole fucking world!”

  I tilted my head toward Brett. “This is depressed?”

  What did a happy Audrey look like?

  “You’re a princess, Shannon,” she breathed out, before swigging from the champagne bottle. “My brother is so lucky to have you. You’re so lucky to have each other.” Her hand fluttered down to Shannon’s cheek. “It’s just so—hiccup—magical.”

  Brett sighed. “Aud…”

  She pointed the bottle at him. “You! You better be good to her, you hear?”

  “I am!”

  Sagging a little, she smiled. “I know, because you’re a prince like she’s a princess. You guys have a pure love, an everlasting love. A movie love! Your names should be combined, like Brannon or Shatt! I’m sooooo happy!”

  Shannon’s hand shot out as Audrey’s ankle turned. The tufted bench and stiletto heels were not a good combo.

  “It’s like a fairy tale,” she trilled, beaming as bright as any light in the casino. “You go together like fries and ketchup, like fries and gravy, like fries and mayonnaise, like—” She broke off as she lost her footing again, using the champagne bottle as a counterbalance.

  I murmured to Brett as we walked closer, “Apparently fries go with everything. Your marriage is doomed.”

  He gave me the finger.

  “Like fries and chocolate milkshakes,” she continued. “Like fries and—Dev?” She looked down at us as we rocked to a halt, Brett by Shannon’s side and myself square in front of the bench.

  Do not look up her skirt, do not look up her skirt, do not look up her skirt.

  But it was so very short.

  “Oh god, Dev’s here!” She minced from side to side on the bench, trembling like an excited Chihuahua. “Brett, did you know? Dev!”

  I heard my buddy snicker. His fiancée let out a huffing noise as she swiped at the wavering wine bottle.

  “Time to get down,” she ordered an increasingly unstable Audrey.

  I smiled at her shaking knees. Do not look up her skirt, remember?

  “Hi, Dev.”

  When her voice went soft and quiet, my gaze slid up to meet hers.

  “Hi, Audrey.”

  She crumpled like a lame flamingo and fell into my arms.

  2

  Audrey

  The movies made this look a lot more graceful than it was in real life, I realized too late. Instead of landing like a feather and being cradled in Dev’s strong arms, my hands flailed out as I teetered over.

  Then I kneed him in the solar plexus on the way down.

  At least he was a gentleman and broke my fall.

  Somehow I found myself lying on top of him, my skirt riding up my ass as I straddled his thigh. My knee slipped and
slid on the polished stone floor, driving me further into him.

  He groaned, blinking at the ceiling. When I felt his heat and growing hardness beneath me I startled, my palm skidding over the puddle by his hip.

  Oh my god. “Please tell me I didn’t pee my pants.” And please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.

  Dev lowered his chin, paralyzing me with a lazy grin. “Well, you did seem really excited to see me.”

  The magnum of champagne rolled away from us, leaving a small stream of very expensive bubbles in its wake. It stopped at Shannon’s foot. I looked down again at the man lying beneath me.

  Dev Sharpe, whom I hadn’t seen since I was a blushing teenager.

  A lifetime ago.

  Now I was a blushing adult.

  All those Instagram pictures didn’t do him justice up close. Sure, I followed him. So did a million other women.

  His dark hair was long enough to curl at his ears and neck, and his eyelashes were an affront to mascara-addicted women everywhere. His warm brown eyes blinked at me, but the sandpaper scruff distracted me on his olive-toned skin. I had to fight a strange compulsion to rub my lips against his chin, to see what it felt like.

  With his father emigrating from Ireland and his mother from India, he had a look that could have been Spanish, Hawaiian, Arabic—but to me he looked like every day was summer in his world.

  Envy tugged at me. It hadn’t felt like summer in my world for a long time.

  Maybe in Las Vegas.

  “How are you?” he murmured.