Mr. Man Candy: A Fake Boyfriend Romance Read online

  Mr. Man Candy

  Alessandra Hart

  Copyright © 2018 by Alessandra Hart

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Letitia Hasser

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Georgie

  2. Georgie

  3. Nate

  4. Georgie

  5. Nate

  6. Nate

  7. Georgie

  8. Georgie

  9. Nate

  10. Nate

  11. Georgie

  12. Nate

  13. Georgie

  14. Georgie

  15. Georgie

  16. Nate

  17. Georgie

  18. Georgie

  19. Georgie

  20. Nate

  21. Georgie

  22. Nate

  23. Georgie

  24. Nate

  25. Georgie

  26. Nate

  27. Georgie

  28. Nate

  29. Georgie

  30. Nate

  31. Georgie

  32. Georgie

  33. Georgie

  34. Nate

  35. Georgie

  36. Nate

  37. Georgie

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Georgie

  “Oh, god…”

  Bright sunlight crept into the room through the curtains, blazing through my eyelids and rudely yanking me out of my slumber. Since when was the sun this hot?

  I opened my eyes, though I was barely able to manage the minor action. I felt like someone had just scraped me off the bottom of their shoe. My mouth was dry as cotton, my brain was scrambled eggs, and pain and nausea were hurtling through my system like a bullet train from hell.

  I winced and looked down at myself. I was sprawled on a bed in nothing but my birthday suit. Notice I said a bed. Not my bed.

  Where the hell was I?

  I sat up straight and gathered the white bedsheets around my chest, my heart pounding as I rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t hallucinating. This definitely wasn’t my cramped bedroom in my cozy San Diego townhouse. It was far more spacious with a minimalistic yet expensive interior design. Nice, but not really my style.

  With a groan, I closed my eyes again, trying to piece together the hazy puzzle that was my existence at the moment. A few fragments returned to me as my obviously-hungover brain went into overdrive. That’s right, I was on Saint Clare Island for my sister’s upcoming wedding. This was my hotel room. But that didn’t explain why I felt so awful.

  So what on earth happened last night? Surely I didn’t drink too much. I was usually quite responsible in regard to that, and I couldn’t even remember the last time I drank to excess. After all, hangovers seemed to quadruple in their severity after the age of twenty-three. I was already five years beyond that.

  I looked to my right, trying to ignore the dizziness. A red dress and matching panties lay strewn on the floor, and a bra was hooked haphazardly over a bedside lamp. Apparently I’d undressed rather adventurously last night. Or someone else undressed me…

  My stomach did a somersault, and I slid my gaze away from the offending clothes. Then I looked over to my left as my peripheral vision picked up on a suspicious mound in the bed. An arm stuck out of the sheets, attached to a bare and well-muscled back. The man was lying face-down, head buried in the white pillow, but I recognized the shock of unruly dark hair immediately.

  Oh. My. God.

  My heart leapt into my throat and I stifled a gasp as I realized who I’d shared this bed with.

  Nate Scott.

  A tiny thrill shot through my system as I tried to recall what I’d done. What we’d done. A muddled selection of memories eventually materialized in my foggy mind. Last night, I’d touched the tanned arm which was now peeking out from under the sheets. I’d stroked my fingers over it, ever so slowly. Sensually. I’d let Nate slide it around me as I lay my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes last night.

  Another older memory filtered back to me, this one far less thrilling. I frowned, chiding myself for being even remotely excited at the prospect of sleeping with Nate, if that’s what I’d even done. It certainly looked like it, but perhaps I’d been wise enough in last night’s hammered state to stop it from happening. Perhaps we’d just slept in the same bed in a platonic manner. Naked.

  Yeah, that made sense. Totally.

  Quiet as a mouse, I peeled the sheets back and stepped out of the bed, reaching toward a nearby chair. I didn’t recall putting it there, but there was a white hotel robe draped over the back of it. As I wrapped the soft fabric around my nakedness, I spied something else draped over the chair. A deep part of me filled with sudden, inexplicable dread, and I tiptoed closer, my heart sinking more and more with each step. Surely this wasn’t what I thought it was. It couldn’t be.

  A quick onceover told me it was indeed exactly what I feared—a white satin sash with the word ‘Bride’ emblazoned on it in black calligraphy. Another sash lay underneath, a ‘Groom’ counterpart to the first. Oh, no. My stomach soured and my head began to pound as if my skull was a drum in a thrash metal band.

  This was literally the hangover from hell.

  I turned around and crept back over to the left side of the bed, still moving on my tiptoes. I didn’t want to wake Nate. Not yet. I wanted to figure out what on earth we actually did first, without it being colored by whatever he had to say. He wasn’t exactly what I’d refer to as the most reliable source of information.

  My first order of business was to collect my dress and underwear to see if they held any clues as to what exactly happened last night. Before I could pick them up off the floor, I spied something else that could provide an answer to my question. Everything in my mind seemed to come to a screeching halt as my gaze—and my limbs—froze on the spot.

  Finally, I picked up my feet and stepped closer. A collection of Polaroid photos lay scattered on the white bedside table, featuring yours truly wrapped around Nate as we stood outside a little island chapel—a chapel which was famous (or infamous, depending on how you chose to look at it) for its quickie weddings.

  In the photos, I was clad in the same red dress which now lay discarded on the floor in an incriminating heap. The ‘Bride’ sash hung loosely around my chest. A long gauze veil was attached to my mousy brown hair in a lopsided manner, further sealing my fate. My eyes were bleary, but my face-splitting grin told another story.

  I was blissfully happy. And drunk, apparently.

  I scrutinized Nate in the photos as I shakily leafed through them. He looked cheerful as well, though he also looked decidedly less intoxicated. Did that mean this had been his idea? If so, why? And how could I have been so irresponsible as to let it all happen?

  This was a nightmare. A catastrophe. A disaster of epic proportions.

  My eyes flickered over to the living, breathing Nate in my bed, and I glared at him as he snored gently. At some point in the last minute or so, he’d moved onto his side, kicking off some of the sheets and revealing more of his perfect, tanned body. Even in his sleep he seemed to flex his muscles like an Instagram bodybuilder. No surprises there.

  I tore my gaze from his body and returned it to the photos, squinting at them in the hopes they’d magically disintegrate under my glare, exposing all of this as nothing more than a bad dream.

  “Morning, Georgie.”

  My stomach lurched and my head jerked to the right. Nate
was awake now, propped up on one elbow in the bed as if my laser-like gaze from a moment ago had snapped him right out of his slumber. A lazy grin stretched across his lips. Those gorgeous lips.

  Stop it.

  I fixed him with a deadly serious glare. “What happened last night?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

  “Clearly, or I wouldn’t be asking you.”

  He pushed the covers off himself and stood up, revealing everything that had lain beneath the sheets and next to me all night. Mercifully, he wasn’t completely naked. A pair of black boxer briefs covered his private parts. The rest of him was on full display. The mere sight of him stole the air from my lungs, and heat twirled inside me, making me tingle as my eyes skated over his chiseled abs and chest.

  I ignored the tingling. I didn’t want this man. Not considering what I knew about him.

  Not under any circumstances.

  “What the hell happened?” I repeated, holding up one of the Polaroids as if it were a mugshot. If I told you I wasn’t quivering with nerves as I spoke, I’d be lying.

  Nate grinned and stepped around the bed, inching closer to me. “What does it look like, wifey?”

  Adrenaline flooded my body, and I let out a pitiful whimper. So it was true. I’d made the dumbest decision in the history of mankind last night.

  I went out.

  I got wasted.

  And I married my fake boyfriend.

  1

  Georgie

  3 weeks earlier

  Sex tape. Sordid affair. Insider trading scandal.

  That described the recent lives of just three of the eight famous men milling around in the studio before me, all poised to be shot for next year’s Monthly Man Candy charity calendar for the San Diego ‘Let’s Give Back’ community group.

  What a wonderfully compelling bunch. Man candy indeed… and that was just eight of them. Four still hadn’t bothered to show up yet, even though the photo shoot was supposed to begin with Mr. January ten minutes ago.

  I would’ve been more pissed about the situation if I wasn’t running late myself due to the fact that I was stuck on a three-way phone conversation with my mother and sister after forty-five long and painful minutes. Damn wedding planning. They’d roped me into it earlier by pretending it was just a quick five minute call to discuss the cake, yet here I was, still listening to my mother simultaneously discussing wedding favors and slyly insulting me over the fact that I was still single.

  Very single.

  Right now it seemed Mom and my sister Libby had forgotten I was even on the line, so I took the opportunity to gesture across the room at Tiana Jessup, my friend and favorite studio assistant. We’d worked together for years at various photography studios and marketing/design groups, and we could easily communicate with a few hand signals and meaningful glances.

  As such, when I widened my eyes, cocked my head to the side and held up four fingers, Tiana frowned, then scribbled in huge block letters on a piece of cardboard. ‘I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE. NOT IN MAKEUP OR HAIR?’

  She held it up long enough for me to read, and I shook my head. I’d already checked hair and makeup ten minutes ago, and the missing four men weren’t there. Tiana pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, sharing my sentiments about the latecomers.

  Back on the phone, Mom and Libby had started discussing napkin colors. Eggshell or ecru? I had to giggle at that. As a creative director, I dealt with color schemes for a living (among many other things), and even I didn’t give a flying fig what color the napkins were. No one ever went to a wedding and gossiped about the napkins afterwards. Unless they were stripy orange and lime green.

  While I was still tuned out of the conversation, I stepped outside into the hallway and immediately spotted the person I was hoping to see—Reuben Sanders, the studio’s head of security. I waved him down. When he approached me, I put my hand over the mouthpiece of my cell and murmured to him. “Reuben, a few of the Man Candy guys are late and the shoot needs to start. I know this isn’t your job, but I’ll give you a hundred dollars out of my own pocket if you can round them all up within the next ten minutes.”

  For once, I could actually afford to do such a thing. I’d recently won several thousand dollars on a lucky scratch card I found on the ground while out for a walk, and if giving some of it away was what it took to get this damn day started, I was willing to make that sacrifice.

  Reuben gave me a mock salute. “I’m on it. I think I saw a few guys loitering outside. Could be them. And you don’t need to give me a cent, silly.”

  I put my free hand on my heart. “Thank you. What would I do without you?”

  “Always be late?” He grinned, then headed off.

  Reuben had worked at Harborview Marketing Group for two years now, just as long as me, and we’d become quite good friends along the way. He was happily married with two kids, so our relationship was purely platonic, but he was always around to lend a helping hand or ear. Seeing as we both usually arrived at work earlier than everyone else, we chatted quite frequently, and I could rely on him for almost anything. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d enlisted his help in wrangling rogue models who’d somehow gotten themselves lost in the building or parking lot.

  “Oh, I just can’t believe my darling baby will be married in a month! In such a gorgeous place, too!” my mother chirped in my ear, reminding me I was still on the phone as I stepped back into Studio B.

  I stifled a sigh. Yup, just four weeks until my little sister was married, and only two weeks until her pre-wedding celebrations officially kicked off in paradise. I was beyond happy for her, but I couldn’t help feeling a slight pang of envy. Was it ever going to be my turn? Or did I already let that chance slip away four years ago?

  “Yes, I can’t wait!” I offered instead in a lighthearted tone as I shuffled through some of last week’s background test shots on a table in the set area. I didn’t want my mood to affect Libby in any way. She didn’t need anyone else’s emotional crap clouding the excitement of her wedding plans.

  She’d only known her fiancé for eight months now, but you know that old saying: when you know, you know. They’d been inseparable from the day they met, and he proposed to her after just five months. They were adorable together. Even their names seemed to match. Libby and Bobby. If it didn’t involve my beloved sister, I’d find the whole thing a tad nauseating. But it wasn’t. It was sweet and endearing, and I was happy for the two of them.

  I hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know Bobby very well over the last few months, as my schedule had been absolutely hectic since my promotion to creative director last year, but from what I’d managed to glean from my few experiences with the guy, he was perfect for my sister. He was steady, supportive, and understanding, and he’d never given Libby crap for her ambitions. That was more than I could say for nearly everyone else in her life.

  See, Libby wasn’t just stunningly pretty. She was smart, too. After graduating high school with a full-ride scholarship to an Ivy League college six years ago, everyone (especially our overbearing mother) expected her to pursue what they considered a ‘smart’ career path. Medicine. Law. Politics. Something like that. But much to Mum’s chagrin, Libby chose a more creative path, just like me. She completed a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing, and for the last two years she’d been trying to get her first novel published.

  It might not be the safest path, and maybe it didn’t pay the bills like other careers could, but I was damn proud of my little sister for following her dreams instead of caving to everyone else’s expectations. After meeting Bobby and seeing how he wholly supported her writing, I knew she was marrying the right guy.

  “You’re going to love the hotel. Bobby has been so generous in paying for everyone’s rooms, and he only booked the ones with the best views. It looks amazing,” Libby gushed on the other end of the line. We were on the subject of the venue now, seeing as Mom had mentioned how gorgeous it was a mom
ent ago.

  “Ooh, I know, I looked it up the other day,” I said, holding my phone between my chin and my shoulder as I waved at some of the lighting guys to fix a stand which was leaning precariously to one side. “The hotel looks beautiful. And I’m really looking forward to the vacation. Lord knows I could use a couple of weeks off right now.”

  She laughed. “Couldn’t we all?”

  The wedding celebrations were going to be held on the smallest of the semi-tropical Bunbury Islands—Saint Clare Island. Situated a couple of hundred miles south of Bermuda, the Bunbury Islands were a former British Overseas Territory that gained independence and became self-governing a few decades ago. Tourism kept the economy thriving, and the islands had become a popular party destination with their casinos, nightclubs and resorts.

  The islands were also known for their rather lax marriage laws and ease of obtaining a marriage license, similar to our very own state of Nevada. A marriage license from the Bunbury Islands held as much legal weight as one obtained right here in the States, so it wasn’t uncommon for people to gamble at the casino on the biggest island of Saint Australind, party at the beachfront bars on Saint Arnaud, then hop a quick ferry over to Saint Clare to drunkenly marry at one of its little chapels.

  Las Vegas with boats, essentially.

  It wasn’t really the kind of place I pictured my little sister getting married at, but when she showed me the photos of the resort she and Bobby had found a few months ago, I immediately saw why they’d fallen in love with it. The place was to die for. On the quieter side of Saint Clare, the resort overlooked gorgeous pink sand beaches and cerulean waters so clear you could see straight to the bottom. It was also separated from the main hub of the island by a thick green stretch of jungle, so unlike many of the other island resorts, it was relatively quiet and private.