Page 24 of The Hanukkah Hoax
Especially not when it came to a woman he’d sworn to help.
Then Sid leaned his tall frame over Alec, his bald head eclipsing the living room lights and casting them both in an eerie shadow. “Good. We’ll let her keep you, then.”
The handshake that came next was so strong, it nearly crushed Alec’s swollen knuckles. But his muscles had managed to strengthen themselves just in time, especially as the back slaps and shoulder squeezes came into play.
From within the cheerful circle of newfound pseudo-acceptance from Marisa’s friends, Alec had yet to check on his own friendship with her, however.
Was that what they had? A friendship? Or was it more of a partnership? One that had originally been steeped in surface-level deception but had now come to grow with far deeper implications? After what he’d done this evening and who he’d met and had likewise somehow ingratiated himself into their company, though he still had no fucking clue how?
Calling what Alec shared with Marisa a mere friendship, though, felt equal parts right and wrong and made his chest itch.
As if owing to his tumultuous thoughts, when his gaze sought Marisa out and she threw him another one of those quiet smiles, he hesitated. The reward wasn’t quite as sweet as before. No, this time, it was strained.
Because before, he’d not met firsthand the people in her life who loved her enough to defend her heart—with perhaps less-than-legal tactics—if he were to crush it.
And crush it he would. Because none of what they were doing was real, was never supposed to be real. After the holidays, he’d have to go back to England, where he’d hopefully be cleared to resume play and prove to his agent and team that he wasn’t just owed a new contract but worthy of it.
For the first time, he saw the true dilemma of their charade. The hesitancy in her smile. The lack of certainty in her eyes.
Without examining things, they’d entered into something there was no going back from. Not easily, at least. Not without a bit of pain on her part. Pain he would acutely, selfishly, cause when he’d return home so he could get on with the life he’d worked so hard to build.
But the stakes had been made clear and were punctuated by three blokes with criminal records who now had an abundance of money, resources, and immense brotherly affection for the woman Alec had just claimed to care for, in a way.
If he broke Marisa’s heart, even falsely, he’d have far bigger problems to worry about than a stupid contract renewal.
Problems that came in the form of a mess he’d be leaving Marisa behind to deal with on her own.
Chapter 10
If guilt was the emotional throughline that tied the majority of Marisa’s family interactions together, then shame was the glitter all over the package that never left any surface clean.
Marisa sat in Alec’s car outside her parents’ house and looked for any excuse not to go inside. At first, the heating vents had to get her Goldilocks treatment of finding just the right angle, then she’d pulled down the visor and checked her makeup, wondering whether a third coat of lipstick would be too much—it wouldn’t have been, but she restrained herself anyway. By the time she’d started burrowing through her bag for a possible piece of gum she hadn’t carried on her in at least the past two years, she’d reached the end of her rope, and Alec finally had to call an audible—or whatever the rugby equivalent would have been.
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. It’s your birthday, after all.”
“Of course I have to go. I said I would.”
“So? Just because I’m a man of my word doesn’t mean you have to be a woman of yours or that the words can’t change if you’re uncomfortable.”
Marisa banged her head against the back of the seat, then rolled toward him, cursing the good-natured smile encouraging her to take the out he offered, which helped not a whit. In what world could she disappoint a man who looked that good and had braved toll roads to get her there?
Not having a clue how fancy to dress as the guest of honor for an event that was more to honor the woman paying for the affair rather than the star attendee, Marisa couldn’t offer that much help to Alec when it came to appropriate party attire. For her, she’d pulled on her standard-issue black sleeveless cocktail dress that she always doctored with cardigans of various colors. Tonight, the cotton-poly blend covering her shoulders was a royal blue—a nod to the occasion, she supposed. Topped off with simple stud earrings, her one pair of heels that didn’t destroy her instep after thirty minutes, and just enough makeup to look like she’d tried but not too hard. It was about as glamorous as she got these days.
Which was a goddamn shame because Alec Elms and glamorous obviously had a very different relationship.
Forget the one wedding/funeral/Bar Mitzvah suit that always made appearances by most of the guys she’d dated. Alec had foregone a suit altogether in favor of a silk burgundy button-down shirt that hugged more than it hid, expertly tailored gray slacks, and a charming smile that hadn’t left his lips ever since he’d picked her up and chariotted her across two full Garden State Parkway exits, plus an interchange.
Again, she wondered whether all Scottish men were so annoyingly cheerful and friendly or if she’d been blessed with the most good-natured one in the bunch.
Certainly the most good-natured one in Jersey, at any rate.
“I swear, you really are like one of those Scottish deerhounds,” she huffed under her breath.
Alec quirked his head to the side in a very doglike fashion and smiled. “What?”
“What?”
“Did you just say something about?—”
