Dirty Little Midlife Mess: A Fake Relationship Romantic Comedy (Heart’s Cove Hotties Book 2) Read online

  Candice spins around in her chair to look at the kitchen, the blond tips of her ombré hair brushing the table as she flicks her ponytail over her shoulder. She purses her lips, narrowing her eyes, then dips her chin once. “Definitely. I see it.”

  “You’re both lunatics.” Fiona dumps another spoonful of sugar in her coffee.

  “Don’t pretend you’re not imagining it. A man with a body like Fallon’s wearing nothing but an apron? Dirt smudged on his forehead, hammer banging down on the anvil with so much force you feel it rattling your bones? Just because you have Grant satisfying all your womanly needs now doesn’t mean you can’t look at another man and appreciate a good view.”

  A bang in the kitchen makes us all jump. Jen glares at us through the opening in the wall. “We can hear every word you’re saying, you know.”

  “No, no. Don’t stop them.” Fallon glances over his shoulder, pale eyes shining with barely-suppressed glee. “Go on, Simone. You were saying I’m wearing nothing but an apron? What happens next? Do you enter the forge in need of my services?”

  “Men just have to go and make everything into a porno, don’t they?” I grumble, but I can’t quite keep the grin off my face. I need someone’s services, otherwise my week with Wes will end with me embarrassing myself.

  Don’t think of sexy maid costumes. Don’t think of sexy maid costumes. Definitely don’t think of Wes removing a sexy maid costume from my body…

  Candice giggles as Fiona hides a smile behind her mug. I suck on my iced coffee to cool my heated cheeks, giving Fallon a coy wink. He just laughs, and Jen mumbles something as she bangs around the kitchen.

  “I was thinking of hosting Thanksgiving at my place.” Candice glances at Fiona before shifting her gaze to me. “We opened the café just over a month ago and I thought we could celebrate. Boyfriends and kids invited, too.”

  “Fiona’s the only one with either of those.” I grin and open my mouth to tell them I won’t be able to make it. Thanksgiving is smack bang in the middle of Wesley’s little family reunion, and I’ll be in full-on maid mode with Wes—but what can I say? Sorry, can’t make it, I’ll be playing servant to a grumpy loner and his uncle to make sure we can keep the café!

  Yeah, that would go down well. None of them know how I convinced Wes, and I don’t feel like explaining. This is my present to Fiona for being my best friend and for giving me a fresh start in this town. If I have to be a maid for a week, who cares?

  The other thing is secrets don’t last long in Heart’s Cove. This little town on the northern Californian coast is a bustling center for the arts, and also the home of the biggest rumor mill I’ve ever witnessed. Even Dorothy, one of the women who owns the Heart’s Cove Hotel, and Agnes, her sworn enemy, will put down their swords to share a juicy bit of gossip. Last week, I saw Agnes duck into the hotel. Thinking there would be trouble, I followed. All I found was Agnes telling Dorothy that one of her neighbors was seen sneaking out of another woman’s house while his wife was at work. He’d done it ten minutes prior. Then Agnes left with a spring in her step. No violence. No projectiles. Just a friendly conversation between two elderly women who make feuding with each other a professional sport.

  If I were to tell my friends about my deal with Wes, his family would probably know we were faking the whole maid thing within minutes of arriving in town. They’d know he doesn’t have a full-time staff. They’d know he usually lives in the cabin on his own. They’d probably use that as leverage to force him out of that will, or whatever it is he’s got going on. None of my business.

  No, in order to fulfill my end of the bargain, I need to keep this to myself. I’ll either have to think up some other excuse to miss Candice’s Thanksgiving dinner, or I’ll have to tell Wes I need the day off.

  “Dinner sounds great,” Fiona says to Candice, and I have no choice but to nod along.

  The conversation continues, we finish our coffees, but my mind stays stuck somewhere on the edge of town, thinking of a man with forest-green eyes.

  One week is doable. Any longer, and my hormones might get the best of me.

  2

  Wesley

  The shrill sound of my phone ringing cuts through the silence of the woods. I stand, tossing the weeds I’ve plucked into the waiting wheelbarrow. It’s been two days since Simone came to talk about our upcoming week together, and I haven’t been able to shake the uneasy feeling that it’s a bad idea.

  When she pounded on my door and begged for the lease on my parents’ old café, I didn’t want to agree. Apart from the house, that café was the last thing I had of them. Letting someone else take over the café that had been Mom and Dad’s pride and joy felt like the end. The real end. My parents passed away nearly a year ago, but letting go of the café still felt hard.

  But Simone stared at me with those wide, pale blue eyes, and something shifted inside me. She said she’d do anything. The desperation was painted all over her face, and I had a moment of weakness.

  I’m already regretting it.

  Her voice was hoarse. “I’ll help you with anything. You need online marketing? Social media management? Copywriting?” Her eyes had widened then, and she’d clasped her hands in front of her. Oh, God. She was begging. “Someone to help you around the house? Landscaping? Money? Daily aromatic massages with essential oils? Come on, Wes.”

  I shook my head, but one of her suggestions had stuck. Help around the house was exactly what I needed.

  She’d leaned toward me, her sweet scent invading my space, shoving itself up my nostrils. Citrus and lavender. Her face was so earnest, so free of her usual sass. “We can’t lose the café, Wes. It would kill Fiona. She needs something good to happen in her life.”

  Their original café space a few doors down from my parents’ old place had suffered from an unfortunate flood. A Heart’s Cove municipal plumbing trademarked disaster, complete with a weeks-long underground leak. The building was condemned, and the women’s fledgling business looked like it would be no more. Heart’s Cove would once again be left without a café of its own.

  Maybe it was the way Simone looked at me, with that spark of hope in her eyes. The way she came to beg me to help her friend. She promised me anything within her power to give, and I could tell she meant it. I’ve never had anyone do something like that for me.

  So, I told her the one thing I needed: a maid.

  I still remember the way her lips dropped open, hope flaring in her eyes. It was early morning, and the woods around my place were quiet apart for the calls of a few happy birds. Sun glinted off her red hair, a wild mane around her head, and she looked like some sort of goddess sent down to test me.

  “A maid?” She tilted her head to the side. “You want me to clean up after you? What, like, once a week or something? For how long?”

  “My uncle is coming to town. I need some help while he’s here.” That wasn’t the whole story, but it was enough.

  How could I explain that my parents had put my inheritance in a trust, and there was no way I could access it unless I got married? My parents meant well. They really did. The conditions they put on the trust were probably meant to push me to look for a partner to share my life with. My parents had a great relationship, and they wanted the same for me.

  Too bad I tried that, and my ex-fiancée Alina broke my heart.

  I don’t know if my parents forgot to change the trust’s conditions after Alina and I broke up, or if they really meant for me to find someone else. But either way, they passed away and it was written and notarized: I need to be married in order to access my inheritance. If it doesn’t happen by the time I’m forty-five, the trust’s contents are chopped up and handed out to all remaining family members and charities my parents supported. I’ll get a fraction of what I would get were I married, and I’ll lose the house and land. That’ll go to my uncle, Sean.

  Probably why he’s coming here—to gloat.

  What Sean doesn’t understand is that I’ve accepted it. I’m okay with
not getting what’s in that trust. Deep down, I know I don’t deserve my inheritance. I lied to my parents about who I was, I lied about my business successes, and I never had the courage to tell them the truth about all my failures.

  No, I don’t deserve their money. They worked hard for it, and it shouldn’t come to me.

  Something still stings in my chest when I think about losing the house, though. It’s the last thing I have of my parents. It’s where I grew up. I turn forty-five in eighteen months, and I intend to enjoy the last of my time on this property. It’s my final goodbye to this place.

  But that day last month, when Simone looked at me and nibbled her lip, I felt something like regret. I didn’t want this to be the last year I spent here.

  She stuck out her hand. “Fine.”

  That handshake was the first time I touched her. After she left, my palm tingled for hours. Her skin was criminally soft. I felt like the whole world got brighter, somehow. I had something to look forward to, and my uncle’s visit didn’t seem so bad.

  A moment of weakness, that’s all it was.

  My phone rings again, and I shake the memories of that day away. Pulling the phone out of my pocket, I see Fallon Richter’s name on my screen and swipe to answer. “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Wes. You mind coming down to the café? There’s a problem with the roof.”

  “The roof? What’s wrong with it?” I peer at the blue sky through the trees. It can’t be a leak—the sun is shining.

  Fallon clears his throat. “It’s probably easier to explain in person.”

  Wonderful. Not only do I have to spend a week pretending to be Simone’s boss, but I also have to deal with all the joys of being a landlord. Yeah, agreeing to this was definitely a mistake.

  Fallon crosses his huge arms over his barrel chest, lifting a hand to comb his fingers through the beard hugging his jaw. I plant my hands on my hips, staring at a puffy white cloud floating across the sky.

  Thing is, I shouldn’t be able to see a cloud from here. I’m standing in the café’s back storage room, and a chunk of roof the size of a refrigerator is currently sitting on the floor.

  “Huh,” I say.

  “Yeah.” Fallon scrapes his beard some more. “Came back here this morning and saw it. Must have collapsed last night.”

  “Purlins look rotted.” I squint at the crumbling pieces of wood that used to hold up the roof. “We probably shouldn’t be in here until we get someone to look at it.”

  Fallon grunts, and the two of us head back to the main café space. It’s busy—just like it was when my parents were running it. A barista behind the counter smiles at Agnes, the local bookshop owner. Agnes inspects a pastry in a brown bag and gives a curt nod. The woman has a withering glare, and I mostly try to stay away from her.

  Candice, the woman who ran the original café down the street, walks toward us. Her brows are drawn together in concern. Her hair is piled on top of her head in one massive loop that flops every time she walks. “I’m cursed, Wesley. Cursed! First, water damage in the other place, and now this?” She shakes her head. “So? What’s the verdict?”

  “There’s a hole in the roof,” I answer.

  Someone snorts behind me, and I see Simone walking in from the back door. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” She arches a brow. “Any other revelations for us from that massive brain of yours? Please, bless us with another piece of wisdom. Maybe you can tell us that coffee is brown and sugar is sweet.”

  I ignore her. “I’ll call Grant. He should be able to fix it, or at least patch the hole temporarily. He knows all the contractors around here who’ll be able to give me a quote.”

  Simone moves closer, her arm just brushing mine as she walks past. I inhale the scent of her, feeling as off-balance as I did the first day she stepped out of the woods and into my life. There’s something wild about her. She doesn’t give a damn what people say about her, what they think, how they might perceive her. It’s like she’s lived through hell and came out the other side, determined to enjoy herself.

  I wish I could relate.

  I’ve lived through hell and ended up battered and alone, soon to be homeless and broke, too.

  “Grant is just finishing up his class at the hotel,” Candice says. “If you head over there now, you should be able to catch him.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Simone says. “I need to talk to the twins.”

  The twins, Margaret and Dorothy, are two older ladies who run the Heart’s Cove Hotel.

  We step outside together, and Simone inhales a deep breath of salty coastal air. Most things in Heart’s Cove are either on the main street, Cove Boulevard, or just off it. Properties along the ocean are prized, but there’s plenty of wooded, beautiful land away from the ocean too. Trees line Cove Boulevard on both sides, and in the summer their branches braid over the road in a dappled green canopy.

  This time of year, in early November, spindly branches shed the last of their leaves. It won’t get that cold here, but we can expect grey skies and rain for the next few months.

  Simone and I say nothing to each other until we’re halfway to the hotel, a short walk away. She tilts her head up to the sky, unbothered by the clouds and naked trees. She walks like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  “You still want to come to work for me next week?” I finally ask.

  “Define ‘want.’”

  I huff a laugh, then catch Simone glancing my way. “What?”

  “I like it when you laugh.” She glances at me from under thick lashes, searching my face. “It takes you from Broody McBrooderson to sex on a stick.”

  Sex on a stick, huh. “I don’t brood.”

  “Really? That’s the part of that sentence you choose to focus on?” She shakes her head. “That actually says a lot about you. You focus on the negatives.”

  I fight a grin. “How am I supposed to react? If I responded by smiling at you, you might not be able to control yourself.”

  “You’re right. Better keep that scowl on your face lest I lose control and tear your clothes off.” She says it like it’s ridiculous, but a spark of heat ignites in my gut. I douse it immediately. Not going down that road.

  We turn onto the path leading to the Heart’s Cove Hotel entrance, crossing over a patch of new asphalt where an unfortunate geyser tore up the parking lot a few months ago. Stealing a glance at Simone, I watch her lick her full bottom lip and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. When I pull the door open for her, she gives me an exaggerated surprised look and tells me she didn’t know I had it in me to be a gentleman.

  “Careful, Simone,” a woman’s voice says from inside the door. “That tongue will get you in trouble one day.”

  “Are you speaking from experience, Dorothy?” Simone saunters inside the hotel lobby, flashing a grin at the woman behind the desk.

  Dorothy is the town’s crazy aunt. She was my mother’s best friend, and I could fill a whole book with the nutty things she’s said and done. No raspberry bush is safe from her. Today, her long silver hair is braided in a thick plait lying on her shoulder. An animal-print scarf is tied around her neck, but the rest of her outfit is surprisingly subdued. Just a plain black dress. Dorothy steps out from behind the reception desk, and I spy a pair of sparkly animal-print shoes. Ah, all about the accessories today.

  “Honey, you don’t want to know how much trouble my mouth has gotten me into.” She spreads her arms and gives Simone a hug, then turns to me. “Darling boy, come here. You’ve been avoiding me.”

  Dorothy has been calling me ‘darling boy’ for as long as I can remember. My heart tugs at the old nickname, and I fight the tidal wave of memories threatening to overwhelm me. This is why I stay away from town most days. Ever since Mom and Dad died, it’s too hard being around people who knew them so well.

  Dorothy wraps her arms around me and pulls away, squeezing my bicep. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Grant.”

  “He should be out in a
minute. We had great attendance for his class today,” Dorothy says.

  “Well, yeah. It was the life-drawing class.” Simone snorts. “Who wouldn’t want to show up when Grant takes his clothes off? I only stay away out of respect for Fiona.”

  A pang punches me in the gut. It feels suspiciously like anger. Or jealousy. Where the hell did that come from?

  Dorothy waves a hand. “She wouldn’t mind. It’s art.” She tilts her head at Simone. “And you? Are you here to see Grant, too?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about the social media strategy for the next few weeks. Have you had a chance to look through the proposal I sent over?”

  “Margaret did. Marge!” Dorothy calls out toward the back room, and Margaret’s face appears in the doorway. Dressed in a navy pantsuit with her hair wrapped into a sleek French twist, Margaret has the exact opposite style to Dorothy’s artsy-fartsy one. “Ah, Simone! I was just going to call you. We’ve had lots of people interested in the latest advertisements you put out on social media. I need your help to answer them all. We’re inundated.”

  I take a seat on one of the floral wingback chairs in the corner of the lobby and wait for Grant to emerge. Simone leans over the reception desk as she points at something on the twins’ computer screen, and my eyes drift over her body. Generous curves, a trim waist, pants that hug her hips and ass like they’re painted on. The kind of body that makes me ache.

  I shake my head. She’s going to be working for me. Sure, she’s attractive, but I need to keep my distance. That’s the whole point of this business arrangement. I’m helping her out with the café space; she’s helping me out while I host my uncle.

  Simple. Clean.