From Fake to Forever (Newlywed Games 2)

“Careful, or you’ll find yourself putting your money where your mouth is.”

He grinned as if she was kidding and glanced at his watch. “Gold top. White pants. Get a move on, Mrs. Lynhurst.”

Mrs. Lynhurst. Why did that make her shiver with a strange combination of apprehension and wonderment? She’d come to New York for a divorce. And yet she’d agreed to tell the world she and Jason were married in hopes of turning their relationship into something more than an advantage.

She handed him the remote. “Make yourself comfortable. I plan to take a while getting ready while I practice how I’m going to tell Hurst I quit.”

“But we’re already late,” he protested.

“You asked for a wife. You got one. And all the idiosyncrasies that come with it. Welcome to married life.”

She flounced to the bathroom and the only reason she slipped into the gold top was because she never had to see Allo again. She’d throw Jason a bone for that one.

Ten

Fortunately, Bettina was still waiting patiently at the restaurant, despite the fact that Jason and Meredith walked in almost an hour past the time she’d specified. Grinning like a loon, Bettina’s gaze skittered right over Jason and fastened on the woman he’d brought.

“Sorry, Mom.” Jason bent to kiss her cheek and opted not to offer a lame excuse for why it had taken him nearly sixty minutes to convince his wife to let her mother-in-law buy them dinner. “This is Meredith.”

“Ms. Lynhurst, it’s a pleasure.” Meredith held out her hand and after a perfunctory shake, she slid into the chair opposite his mother and leaned in, elbows on the table. “Your jeans are my favorite. The fit is divine. You’re one of the reasons I learned to sew when I was a teenager.”

Jason did a double take. That was laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t it? But Meredith’s face exuded sincerity and his mother was eating it up.

Bettina beamed. “Call me Bettina. I’m so happy to meet you at last. Jason is off my Christmas list for not introducing us at the Garment Center gala the other day.”

“Geez, Mom.”

“Oh, I know,” Meredith said on top of his protest and shushed him. “I was disappointed when he hustled me out the door so soon after we’d arrived. He couldn’t wait to get me alone.”

With a curse, Jason took his own chair and signaled the waiter. It did not distract either woman from their conversation...which apparently didn’t include him.

Bettina laughed. “I’ll bet. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you the entire time I was talking to him. Obviously, he was thinking about taking you home then.”

“Really?” Meredith’s hand found its way onto his thigh and she shot him a sideways glance that he had no trouble interpreting. It was hot and wicked and set his blood on a low simmer.

This was not exactly how he’d envisioned dinner going. Or their marriage, for that matter. This was the problem with Meredith; she had her own vision of how things should go and it rarely coincided with his.

“That’s enough about the gala,” Jason interjected before his mother could say something else risqué that gave Meredith the wrong idea. He wasn’t hung up on Meredith like his mother had made it sound. He’d only been watching her so closely because she’d been talking to Avery.

Mostly. You couldn’t blame a guy for noticing how beautiful Meredith was. Or how smart and funny and...good for his plans. That was her best quality, he reminded himself.

“Well, you should have told me Meredith was your wife when I mentioned her.” His mother ordered an obscenely expensive bottle of wine from the waiter and waved him off to focus on Meredith again. “How do you like working for Hurst?”

Meredith wrinkled her nose. “It’s got no soul. The designs are good, but not great. All the people are in it for the money, you can tell.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” The woman Vogue had once dubbed the First Lady of Fashion contemplated the composed younger woman across the table. “Where did you study?”

“Meredith didn’t go to college,” Jason said, a little miffed that he’d been excluded from the conversation thus far.

The temperature from his wife’s glare nearly gave him a sunburn and her hand slipped away from his thigh. And now that it was gone, he wished she’d put it back.

“She was talking to me.” Meredith flicked a fingernail at his arm, her tone mild, but he could tell she was not happy with him. “You’ve had her attention for thirty-some-odd years. Now it’s my turn.” She refocused on Bettina. “My sister is a designer and I’ve been working with her for a couple of years. Other than that, I’m self-taught.”