Caspian (Carolina Reapers 8)

I blew out a breath, thinking. “Wouldn’t pretending to date me get in the way of your other…conquests?” I know he had to have several on the line any time he came home, small town and all that. “Like Rose?”

He hissed. “Shit, this really is a small town.” He shook his head. “Rose and I have always been no strings, and I haven’t even seen her since I got back. If we do this, you can rest assured that I won’t mess around. I take favors very seriously.”

I glanced up at him. He looked like he took everything seriously whenever it mattered—his body, his hockey career, his family—and yet he could be so aloof too. “Won’t it bother you?” I had to ask. “That it would all be fake. That I’d be trying to get Chuck back the whole time.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Like I said, I’m in this to help my mom, but if it helps you too? Win-win. I’m not trying to fuck you Ryleigh, I’m trying to be the nice guy, here.”

My eyebrows shot up at his words, and damn him, I couldn’t stop the heat from uncurling in my belly. It had been a long time since I’d been fucked properly, and looking at him? That’s definitely one thing he wouldn’t have any trouble doing.

But I didn’t want to get fucked—okay, maybe a little—but not enough to ruin four years of plans. Four years of working toward a dream just for it to go up in smoke.

Life was too short to give up that easily. I’d learned that when my father passed a year ago, hence, me staying home to run the hardware store instead of chasing a different dream.

No, I needed to get back on track. Chuck got cold feet. That’s all. And if seeing me with Caspian Foster helped him realize that? Then what did I really have to lose? Especially since it was clear Caspian had no interest in me romantically whatsoever. And why would he? He’d known me when I was an awkward, rambling tween. That’s probably what he still saw me as—a little kid—and to be fair, I still totally rambled whenever I got nervous.

I shrugged. “You really think it will work?”

“Oh, I know it will,” he said. “But, if on the rare off-chance it doesn’t? What harm can it do?”

He had a point. “Fine,” I said, maneuvering around him and back through the store. “I guess it definitely can’t make things worse.” I took up my place behind the counter, my heart racing as I saw Chuck head through the store’s front door.

Caspian grabbed his box off the counter and flashed me a smile that would’ve melted my panties if I hadn’t been in on the game we just started. “I’ll pick you up before London’s shower,” he said, then turned toward the exit. “Hey there, Chuck,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough that Chuck stumbled to the side. Caspian grinned deeper before heading out the door.

And from the way Chuck glared at his back before heading toward the back of the store?

I couldn’t help but smile.

This might actually work.

3

Caspian

Ryleigh’s front porch hadn’t changed in the ten years I’d been gone, but the woman now filling the doorway sure as hell had. Whoa. I blinked once, then twice, my brain somehow unable to compute that this Ryleigh was the same knobby-kneed neighbor I’d grown up avoiding.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” she muttered through glossed lips, heaving a sigh that could have brought down an entire barn.

“Nice to see you too,” I teased as she stepped onto the front porch, shutting the door behind her as she juggled two wrapped gifts and her keys.

“Thanks for picking me up here. Mom forgot her present and asked me to grab it.”

“Let me,” I mumbled, taking the presents.

“Thanks.”

That dress though…damn. The mint-green sundress wasn’t even provocative, and yet the way the gauzy little skirt swished along the backs of her thighs as she turned had me biting into my lower lip.

“You look great.” That was the toned-down version. Pretty sure if I told her how edible that dress made her curves, she’d run for the hills.

Not for you, Foster. Eyes forward. I yanked my attention up her back but was only met with the sight of the sweet swell of her hips and sweep of her waist. Screw a ten, Ryleigh had grown into an eleven.

“Thank you, and you, too.” She glanced down my frame and whipped her head back around, a faint blush staining her cheeks. “I’m only wearing a dress because it’s London, and I really wanted to avoid the fight with my mother. She insisted that bridesmaids wear dresses, and I just wasn’t in the mood to jump into the whole this-is-the-twenty-first-century debate.” She fumbled with her house keys as she turned the lock, muttering a swear word under her breath.