Fake Love (For Now) by Penny Wylder (great novels .txt) 📗

“Right. Breakfast.” Erin says. “I’ll be over soon—just take a few minutes to freshen up.”

I try to keep the grin off my face and fail absolutely.

Mrs. O’Neill looks at her daughter for a moment before pulling her into a hug. “This is such a surprise. But I am happy for you. Really. After everything.”

The words are quiet, but I’m close enough that I can hear them. Her mom sounds emotional, and the way Erin’s fingers are clinging to her, she’s emotional too.

“We’ll see you at breakfast,” Mr. O’Neill says, standing.

“Okay,” Erin says. She’s still quiet, but for the moment she doesn’t look panicked, and that’s about all that I can ask.

She walks them to the door, and there are a few more quiet words that I don’t hear before they head out and it closes behind them.

Erin comes back into the living room so slowly it’s like she’s moving underwater. Her face is blank. She looks up at me and blinks, suddenly realizing that I’m still here, and she wakes up. “What. The hell. Were you thinking?”

7

Erin

“What. The hell. Were you thinking?”

Those are the only words in my brain right now as I look at Hudson. Engaged. Engaged. He told my parents that we’re engaged.

“I’m sorry,” he says. And then he’s running his hand through his hair, pacing back and forth across the living room. “I swear that I really am sorry, but it was the only thing that I could think of that made sense with the story you told them about coming here and why you would be in bed with me.”

I roll my eyes and look at him. “You could have just said that we’re dating, Hudson. Jumping all the way to engagement is a little premature, don’t you think? Not that it matters now, we just have to go with it.”

Hudson smiles. “Yeah. I guess that would have been a little easier. I just—”

“You what?”

“I saw the look on your face,” he says. “The panic. The fear. The embarrassment. I didn’t want you to feel that anymore. And I thought that a fiancée would be…I don’t know. More respectable? Something that was more than just a boyfriend. I thought they’d be happier. I’m sorry, Erin. But I’m going to back you up on this. Completely.”

I hate to admit that he’s right. An engagement does lessen the blow of them walking in on us, though I don’t think that I’m going to recover from that anytime soon. The last thing that I ever wanted was for my parents to walk in on a screaming orgasm.

There’s no doubt that they heard me screaming Hudson’s name. Frankly, everyone on the property probably heard me screaming his name.

Regardless, my head is still spinning. What the actual hell just happened? I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. Or the fact that my parents seemed…happy? Are they pretending cause they’re just as blindsided as I am? Or are they actually excited?

Have I really been so out of touch that announcing a huge and unexpected life change is actually a good thing in their eyes?

My parents have never pressured me to get married or given me any hints about wanting grandchildren. Any of the things that my friends’ parents have done. Were they just holding those things back?

The panic is bubbling up under my skin again. It’s like a physical, tangible itch.

Hudson grabs me from where I’ve started to pace and holds me still. Looks me in the eye. “Erin. I need you to breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

“Are you?” he asks. “Cause right now it seems like you’re going back and forth between holding your breath and hyperventilating. Neither of which are great for you know…living.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why are they happy about it?”

Hudson pulls me in to his body and wraps his arms around me. He’s so tall that he can rest his chin on the top of my head. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

“It takes two to have sex. I’m not exactly blameless.”

He makes a non-committal sound. “I’m the one that asked you to have a drink, knowing where it could lead. I’m the one that stayed over. I’m the one that made you scream loud enough to attract attention.”

I tilt my face up so that I can look him in the eye. “Is this a mess? Yes. But you don’t have to be a martyr about it. I knew having a drink could lead to this. Hell, I hoped that it would. I could have asked you to leave, and I didn’t. I wanted you here this morning. So you can’t take the blame for it. Except for the fiancée part. That’s all you.”

Hudson chuckles, the vibrations deep in his chest resonating through me. Standing here wrapped up in him makes all my panic melt away. That doesn’t exactly make sense, given the fact that he’s the reason I have to panic. But nothing can reach me here. All I feel is calm and warmth.

After a few minutes, I realize that I’ve laid my head on his chest, and he’s let me, just holding me.

I swallow, unsure of the emotions rising in my chest at that idea. Focus, Erin. We need a way out of this. I think through everything.

“Okay,” I say. “We do this for the rest of the weekend. All the pretending while we’re in front of my parents, and we keep it low key in front of their friends. And then later, once it’s over…a little ways down the line, something can go wrong and we can call off the wedding. I don’t know, maybe you think I’m too loud in bed.”

His laugh fills up the room. “Of all the reasons I would ever break off an engagement with someone, them being too loud when I’m pleasuring them would not be it.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I was pretty loud. You could say that I was