Best Fake Fiancé: A Loveless Brothers Novel Read online

  Best Fake Fiancé

  A Loveless Brothers Novel

  Roxie Noir

  Copyright © 2019 by Roxie Noir

  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: Coverlüv

  Editor: Sennah Tate

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Reign

  Chapter One

  About Roxie

  Chapter One

  Daniel

  The officer waves me forward, one hand on his belt, and I step through the metal arch again.

  It beeps before my foot hits the floor on the other side. I go through my pockets again, nerves already jittery, resolutely ignoring the line of people forming behind me.

  “Keys, cell phone, wallet, beepers, watch, jewelry, belt, no weapons in the courthouse,” the guard drones. “Do you have any artificial body parts?”

  “No,” I say for the second time that morning.

  I dig to the bottoms of my pockets. Nothing. I pat my back pockets, but there’s nothing there either; nothing in the pockets of my suit jacket.

  Someone behind me in line sighs loudly. I ignore them.

  “Could be your shoes,” the guard offers, still speaking in a monotone. “Those steel-toed?”

  I look down at the wingtips I spent an hour polishing last night.

  “No,” I tell him. “They don’t even make — wait.”

  I pat the breast pocket of my suit and realize what the problem is.

  “Found it,” I tell him, and walk back through the metal detector. It beeps again, and I pull a charm bracelet out of the pocket. Another guard holds out a small plastic bowl, I drop the bracelet in, and he runs it through the machine.

  I finally step through without issue and gather my things on the other side: wallet, phone, belt, keys, briefcase. At last the charm bracelet comes through, all alone in its small plastic bowl. It’s still warm from my body heat, and I pick it up and tuck it safely back into my chest pocket.

  I feel its small, heavy weight as I head for the elevators. I know every charm on its short length by heart: a book, a ballet shoe, a musical note, a tree, a heart, a tiny Eiffel Tower, a radiant sun. Her mother gave her the Eiffel Tower. I gave her the sun.

  Rusty nearly missed the school bus this morning because she almost forgot to give it to me to take to court. She was already out the door and halfway down the driveway when she came sprinting in, backpack bouncing up the stairs, out of breath as she shoved it into my breast pocket saying Dad I almost forgot! before sprinting back down the driveway just as the bus pulled up.

  I take the elevator to the second floor, walk along the polished marble floor to Courtroom 220. I’m twenty minutes early, so I sit on one of the wooden benches outside and wait.

  A moment later, my phone buzzes.

  Charlie: Break a leg.

  Me: I’m going to court, I’m not in a play.

  Charlie: Then don’t break a leg.

  Charlie: Unless you think it would get you sympathy with the judge. Then maybe it’s worth a shot?

  Me: Or he decides that having a broken leg makes me an unfit parent and takes custody away.

  Charlie: I thought it was a visitation hearing, not custody, can he even do that?

  Me: If he’s in the mood, probably.

  Charlie: How about if I just say good luck?

  Me: Thanks :)

  Charlie: So picky.

  I put the phone back in my pocket, smiling to myself. Charlie — short for Charlotte — is terrible with dates, but she’s always remembered every court hearing I have. She must write herself a million reminders. The thought always makes me feel a little better.

  People are walking by, congregating in small knots throughout the hall. Most are wearing suits. Some are wearing what are clearly the nicest clothes they own — khakis and polo shirts, sometimes a button-down shirt. Then there’s the small smattering of people who could barely be bothered, wearing jeans and t-shirts, sweatpants, hoodies.

  I pace. There’s no way I can sit still. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been here, in this courthouse, for the exact same reason, at least twenty times. I still get anxious. I still need to move back and forth, do something other than sit.

  It’s just visitation, I remind myself. Crystal’s going to bitch about something or other, you’ll all agree to some new schedule, and next month she’ll be making excuses again about why she can’t see her kid.

  Just then, a man wearing cutoff jean shorts and flip flops wanders past, and I stare after him.

  His outfit isn’t what gets my attention. It’s the giant tattoo on his calf.

  I swivel my head, blatantly staring after him, double and triple checking that I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing.

  Then I grab my phone, because I have to tell Charlie about this.

  Me: Someone in this courthouse has a huge tattoo of Barney the dinosaur butt-fucking a unicorn.

  Charlie: Please tell me it’s a lawyer.

  Me: He’s wearing cutoffs. Unlikely.

  Me: Also, he has a tattoo of a beloved children’s character having anal sex with a unicorn, so he may not have graduated from law school.

  Charlie: You say that like lawyers can’t be perverts.

  Charlie: Also, how can you tell it’s anal? Is it that detailed?

  Me: I don’t know. He’s gone now.

  Me: Barney had a REALLY dirty look on his face.

  Charlie: I have so many questions about this.

  Me: I have no answers.

  Charlie: Was it a good tattoo?

  Me: Depends on what you’re into.

  “Thanks for being on time,” a voice says behind me, and I turn.

  “I know you’re always on time,” Lucinda, my lawyer, goes on. “But lately I’ve been trying to encourage good habits in my clients. You look good. Half-Windsor?”

  I touch the knot in my tie.

  I like Lucinda. I’ve liked her since the moment I first walked into her office, six years ago, and we’ve been a team ever since. We’re a somewhat odd pairing — a middle-aged black woman and a white man in his late twenties — but Lucinda’s a godsend, as far as I’m concerned.

  “It is,” I say.

  “That’s a good choice,” she says, then finally smiles. “How are you doing, Daniel?”

  “I’m well, Lucinda,” I say, smoothing one hand over the front of my jacket. “Yoursel
f?”

  “Also well,” she says, then sighs and gestures to a bench along a wall. “We should sit.”

  My palms suddenly start to sweat, my heart rate jumping up. Lucinda never tells me to sit for good news, but I do it anyway, the wooden bench cool.

  “Holden Hughes is going to be the judge on this case,” she says bluntly, her tone of voice making it clear that this is bad news. “I’m sure opposing counsel managed that somehow, and I don’t like it, but we can’t change it.”

  I simply nod, spine perfectly straight, hands folded in front of me, and wait for more.

  “Judge Hughes has a certain reputation,” she says, matter-of-factly. “He’s old school, conservative, and frankly he wishes it were still the Eisenhower administration, so he doesn’t like me much,” Lucinda goes on.

  I detect the tiniest of eyebrow quirks, as if somewhere, deep down inside, she takes pride in that fact.

  “Most pertinent to our current issue, he has a long history of siding with mothers over fathers,” she goes on, and she looks me dead in the eye as she says it.

  I nod sharply. Lucinda never sugarcoats things, and I love her for that.

  “It’s widely known that he believes in a traditional family structure,” she says, waving a hand. “The usual, married parents, father goes off to work at the office, mother stays home with the children, she vacuums while he golfs, et cetera. And he’s not exactly keen on updating his views, from what I’ve heard.”

  The corner of her mouth twitches. There’s a sharp look in her eye.

  Shit, Lucinda hates Judge Holden.

  The buzzing anxiety in my chest starts to rattle, like someone’s taken my heart and is shaking it. It feels like it’s going to shake a hole straight through me, and I realize that I’m rubbing my hands together over and over again, trying to calm the feeling.

  “What do we do?” I ask, amazed at how calm my voice sounds.

  “We do exactly what we were going to do,” she says, steely-voiced. “We show the visitation logs, how often she’s cancelled at the last moment, how willing you are to meet her more than halfway.”

  I nod, my heart still rattling.

  “We show the court your daughter’s report cards, her school records, the statements from her teachers, her dance instructor. We prove that she’s thriving in her current situation. And Daniel,” she says, lightly touching my arm. “We remember that this hearing is only a petition to change the current visitation arrangement.”

  I nod, swallow. I’m still rubbing my hands together. I can’t stop.

  “Of course,” I say. I still sound perfectly cool, calm, and collected, even though I’m anything but.

  Going to court rattles me like nothing else. It always has. Every single time I put on a suit and walk through these doors, I’m instantly and inescapably aware of two things:

  One, I don’t belong here, wearing a suit and tie, looking like a stockbroker or something. This is the only suit I own. This tie took me at least twenty minutes to get right. I may look the part but really, I’m a fraud. I don’t know how to tie a tie very well and I don’t know how to parent any better, even though I thought I would by now. But I don’t. Every single day I’m making it up as I go along, even though everyone else at the PTA meetings seems to have a plan.

  Two, they could take her away.

  That’s it. That’s the very worst thing that could happen to me, and it could happen here, ten minutes from now, and the judge that Lucinda hates could be the one to do it. I can tell myself a million reasons that it’s unlikely, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a possibility.

  I could walk into that courtroom with full physical and legal custody of Rusty, and I could walk out with nothing.

  It’s unlikely. I know that. But as long as it’s even possible, I’m going to hate coming to this place.

  “Don’t worry,” she says lightly. “This is all perfectly routine.”

  * * *

  At ten fifty-five, they let us into the courtroom for our eleven o’clock time slot. Before I enter, I text Charlie one last time: going in. She texts back a string of emojis, hearts and smiley faces and crossed fingers, and I shut my phone off.

  Opposing counsel isn’t here yet, so I soothe myself with my pre-hearing ritual, taking all my notes, the statements, the documentation, everything I’ve collected in my favor, and stacking it neatly in front of me on the wide wooden table. Having the weight of evidence right there, within easy reach, always soothes me.

  Last but not least, I take out the drawing.

  It’s a different drawing every time, because Rusty’s always making new ones, but I always bring one. This one’s got the two of us as stick figures — her, small, long-haired, wearing a bright green skirt, me twice her height and wearing only shoes for some reason — along with several trees and a small blob with feet that she told me last night was a wombat.

  Rusty’s really into wombats right now. Last week I told her that she couldn’t have one as a pet, and ever since then, she’s been casually mentioning various wombat features that would just happen to make them perfect pets. For example, their poop is square, so it’s stackable.

  She couldn’t believe it when that tidbit didn’t sway me.

  “Did you get a dog?” Lucinda asks, glancing over at the drawing. She’s seen plenty of Rusty’s artwork over the years, though this is the first time in about eighteen months, since things with Crystal have been relatively quiet lately.

  “It’s a wombat,” I explain.

  “Did you get a wombat?” she asks drily.

  “Not yet,” I say. “Though if Rusty has her way…”

  She chuckles. A door opens.

  Pete Bresley, the bailiff, steps in. He sees me and nods quickly, then steps to his usual spot and folds his hands in front of himself.

  “All rise for the honorable Judge Hughes,” he intones.

  We rise. The stenographer rises. The officials sitting off to one side rise.

  The plaintiff isn’t here yet, and I admit to feeling a not-small amount of satisfaction on that account.

  Before I can gloat, Judge Hughes sweeps into the room. Not all judges wear robes for a visitation hearing, but this one does.

  Judge Hughes is on the short, stocky side, but I’d bet money that he’s ex-military. He’s silver-haired, white, his face lined but still stern.

  “Be seated,” he commands as he sits, then finally looks up at everyone in the room. His face betrays nothing as he glances over Lucinda and me, but his gaze settles on the empty desk to our left.

  He laces his fingers together.

  “The plaintiff isn’t here yet?” he asks, pointedly looking at the clock on the back wall.

  “No, Your Honor,” answers Pete the bailiff.

  The judge is still glaring at the clock.

  “Well, thank you to everyone who managed to make it on time today,” he says, more than a note of irritation in his voice. “If the plaintiff has not shown up by five after, then we’ll have to table this matter and reconvene—”

  The door swings open, and we all turn.

  It’s a man I don’t recognize. He’s got on a dark gray suit with a dark blue tie. His briefcase is black and shiny. His shoes are black and shiny. He’s white, tall, probably in his fifties, and he smiles easily at Judge Hughes.

  The judge’s face softens.

  “Apologies, your honor,” the man says. “You know how it is with all the construction on the roads these days.”

  For a moment, I think that Crystal’s just sent her lawyer and hasn’t come herself. I actually let myself get optimistic.

  Then the door swings open again, and she comes through.

  Belly-first.

  My jaw nearly hits the floor. I barely even notice that she’s followed by another man, this one younger but just as well-dressed as the lawyer.

  Crystal’s pregnant.

  Crystal’s seriously pregnant, far enough along that it’s obvious, though the way she’s got both
her hands splayed over her swollen belly does call attention to it.

  When the hell did that happen? I think. My heart is rattling again, inside my chest, faster and more desperate than before.

  I just saw her six weeks ago, when I dropped Rusty off for a few hours. Was she pregnant then and I didn’t notice?

  She must have been.

  The belly’s not the only thing.

  It’s not even the thing that alarms me the most.

  Crystal’s wearing a suit. It’s a full-on pinstripe pantsuit, complete with heels, a nice-looking purse, and a string of pearls.

  The woman who once left a six-month-old Rusty home alone in her crib so she could go out and get hammered with her friends now has a brand-new lawyer and looks like a Stepford wife. The last time we came to court, a year and a half ago, her lawyer was considerably shabbier, and she was wearing torn jeans.

  My palms start sweating. I have to remind myself to breathe. My heart feels like it’s being wrung out. Something is going on, and I don’t know what.

  “The hearing began at eleven o’clock, Mr. Winchester,” Judge Hughes says, but his voice doesn’t have the same stern note that it did a moment ago. “Is everyone prepared?”

  Crystal, her lawyer, and the other man sit. The judge moves some papers around.

  “Yes, your honor,” her lawyer finally says.

  “All right,” the judge says, and picks up a piece of paper, looking at it through reading glasses. “I hereby call to session the matter of Partlow vs. Loveless, Virginia case number…”