Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 58952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
He’s the last bachelor up for auction and a grumpy, last-minute stand-in.
Neither satisfies the other’s requirements but they might just be what each of them needs.
With Lauren Connelly’s ex marrying her sister, the last thing she wants is to show up at the wedding without a date. Which means finding a fake boyfriend ASAP. The charity bachelor auction provides a solution to her problem, except the man she bids on turns out to be a gorgeous but grumpy executive who scowls more than he smiles.
Chase Gossard wants nothing to do with Lauren’s plan to make him her plus-one at a destination wedding and pretend that he’s in love. He doesn’t do relationships, fake or otherwise—but she paid a lot of money for the privilege. So why does their touching, kissing, and sharing one bed feel all too real?
Lauren is smart and witty and sexy as hell. A down to earth combination that somehow softens his hard edges, and somewhere along the way, he’s falling hard for his fake date. But when the truth comes out and it’s time to part ways, can the confirmed bachelor convince his pretend girlfriend to make things real?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Lauren Connelly ate a bite of her breakfast cereal, her gaze fixed on the wedding invitation she’d propped up against the saltshaker on the table. It wasn’t every day that her little sister, Ashley, got married, and she should have felt excitement and joy for her sibling. Instead, she couldn’t shake the dread at the thought of attending the nuptials and having to watch her sister marry the man Lauren had once been engaged to.
The entire situation was bound to be awkward and uncomfortable, made even more so by the small town mentality of where she’d been born and raised. It had always dumbfounded Lauren that there had been no scandalous gossip revolving around her sister’s quick involvement with Greg after he’d broken up with Lauren. Rather, people looked at her with pity, because Greg had chosen the beauty pageant sister over the tomboy Lauren had been for most of her teenage years.
In Lauren’s opinion, the town’s perception was bullshit. Not many knew the real reason why their engagement had ended so abruptly, or that the two closest people to her at that time had deceived her. The truth would have blown up the gossip mill and branded Ashley as the other woman, and as much as her sister’s actions had hurt Lauren, she’d never exposed their betrayal for a few different reasons. Lauren had never been the vindictive or spiteful type and she didn’t want to fracture and divide their close family unit. And most importantly, long before she’d caught Ashley and Greg locked in a passionate kiss, she’d known that he wasn’t “the one”.
None of that excused the affair they’d had behind her back, but the painful breakup had been the impetus for Lauren to do the one thing she’d always dreamed of and leave her small Massachusetts town and move to New York City, where she now lived and worked as an event coordinator at the Meridian Hotel.
So, yes, awkward and uncomfortable was an understatement when Lauren thought about going back home for her sister’s wedding.
“You know, if you stare at that invitation any harder, you’re going to burn a hole in it,” Lauren’s roommate and good friend, Tara, commented, startling Lauren out of her pensive thoughts. “And that RSVP card is not going to send itself, by the way.”
Lauren sighed as Tara settled into the chair across from her with a plate of avocado toast and a cup of coffee. “I know, I know,” she said, setting her spoon in her cereal bowl. “I need to mail it this week. I’ve been dragging my feet because I want to take a plus-one to buffer things with my family, except I don’t have a plus-one in my life.” Because, unfortunately, the few men she’d met on dating apps had been complete duds. But maybe, possibly, she had an idea…
Tara grinned a bit mischievously and spoke before Lauren could share her thoughts. “You should shock the hell out of them and take a really bad boy to the wedding. Like a biker type. I could hook you up with someone from the shop, we could give you a few fake tattoos and body piercings—”
Lauren held up a hand to stop her friend’s wild suggestion before it got even more outlandish, even though she was laughing at the image Tara painted. “Thank you for your offer, but no.” A bad boy biker was more Tara’s type. Her friend worked at a tattoo shop as a receptionist, had a full arm sleeve of colorful tattoos and a few extra piercings, and was drawn to rebellious men who bucked societal norms.
Tara feigned a pout, emphasizing the gold ring in her lip. “You’re no fun.”
Lauren grinned. “There’s fun, and then there’s giving my conservative parents a heart attack.”
Tara rolled her eyes as she picked up her toast slathered in avocado. “Your straitlaced family could use a bit of shock and awe in their lives.”
Lauren didn’t disagree, but the last thing she wanted to do was draw unnecessary attention to herself while home for the wedding. She needed a low-key type of date, someone understated but attentive, so the gossip—and there was no doubt in her mind that there would be speculation about any man in her life—would lean toward Lauren having moved on from being dumped by her ex-fiancé for her sister, and was living a blissful life in NYC.
Lauren hated that she had to even consider such a ridiculous scenario in this day and age, but she couldn’t change the small town mentality of where she’d grown up. Her parents constantly worried about her well-being despite Lauren assuring them she was doing well in the city. Then there was her eighty-three-year-old gramps whom she adored, and he worried about her, too. Throw in the town’s old busybodies who felt sorry for her, and yeah, drastic measures were necessary.