The Bear's Fake Bride (Bears With Money Book 1) Read online

  Charlie grinned, sly and teasing, and leaned farther towards him. “Of course,” she agreed. “It’s not any fun if you don’t,” she reasoned. “And what’s the point if we aren’t having any fun?”

  Whatever they were talking about by then, it was not the same thing that had started the conversation. Both of them seemed to realize it then, and Charlie’s smile dimmed slightly, self-consciously. Slowly, she leaned back until she was sitting flat on the floor again, and she folded her arms over her chest.

  “We should probably, like… start thinking about wedding stuff?” Charlie suggested, shifting back and forth on the floor. “I’m assuming it’s going to be some giant spectacle.” The weddings of rich people were always spectacles, weren’t they? They always made the news, and they always had a billion camera people and they always needed to be put together by a small army of people.

  Charlie didn’t think she was judging, per se, but to someone who had never thought she could even afford a wedding more extravagant than a tent in a yard, it all seemed like such a foreign idea. What was so fascinating about watching two people say ‘I do’ like that? Were the guests hoping some of the money might rub off on them, if they wished the bride and groom well loudly enough?

  (Once she was thinking about it, though, she couldn’t actually consider that thought surprising. People were superstitious in all kinds of ways, especially when it came to money, and most especially when it came to vast amounts of money.)

  “That depends on how much of a spectacle you want it to be,” Zeke returned mildly. “There will likely be a crowd, of course, just based on how many people my parents will insist I invite, since arguing with them about it just won’t be worth the headache I would get, but there will only be a true show if you want there to be.”

  Charlie opened her mouth, ready to say that she was fine with keeping it simple, but she paused.

  She hadn’t really planned on inviting her whole family, just the parts of her family that she actually got along with. But suddenly, she had an idea. “I think,” she began slowly, her tone contemplative, “that I would like to put on a show,” she decided, smiling slowly, sly and impish. She would invite her entire family. The brothers and sisters, the nieces and nephews, and her father. And the ones she got along with would undoubtedly be happy for her. And the ones she was on less pleasant terms with would be stewing in impotent, jealous outrage. It would be hysterical, and she always welcomed a bit of cathartic schadenfreude.

  (She had, after all, never claimed to be the best person, but merely a good person. Everyone had their hang-ups.)

  As if he had some idea of where her thoughts were going, Zeke huffed out a quiet laugh. “A spectacle it is, then,” he agreed. “Will it be a traditional spectacle, or something more fitting a Cirque du Soleil performance?”

  “I want—” Charlie paused, trying to think of a word to describe what she was seeing in her head. “Colorful,” she decided on, nodding her head once. “Maybe not for the dress, but I’ll still need to think about that, but at least for everything else. Just… let me pick out the flowers, and then you can do whatever you and your money want to do.”

  Zeke nodded once. “Duly noted,” he agreed. Charlie was rather getting the impression that she could tell him she wanted the wedding to be underwater and for all the staff to be exotic gnomes and he would still agree to it. He could probably even find a way to make it happen.

  Luckily for him, Charlie had no intentions on turning into Bridezilla.

  And if nothing else, it was nice to get the ball rolling on the wedding, even if it was only with the vaguest of vague talks. It felt like a productive day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Zeke was walking Charlie the short distance to the elevator when he paused, slowing to a halt. Charlie glanced over her shoulder at him when his footsteps slowed. “What, did you leave the stove on or something?” she wondered dryly.

  “Are you free for dinner tomorrow?” he asked, ignoring the question.

  Charlie blinked at him, before she smiled crookedly. “Ah, yeah, sure,” she agreed, shoving her hands into her pockets. “Are you picking me up from work again?”

  He nodded once. “Just let me know what time your shift ends and I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

  It was appreciated, that he agreed to meet her about as close to the restaurant as he could get, not even giving Richard a chance to try anything. Charlie’s smile softened to something slightly more earnest.

  “I might be a bit late meeting you,” she warned him playfully. “I’ll need to get changed inside before I meet you.” She grinned. “I would change in the car, but you would probably crash into a lamppost or something like that.”

  Zeke scoffed. “I would go over the curb, at worst,” he protested mildly, and Charlie snorted out a laugh.

  “Silly me,” she drawled blandly, turning towards the elevator once again. As she started walking, Zeke fell into step behind her. She stepped into the elevator, and as the doors slowly slid closed, she offered, “See you tomorrow, then,” just before they closed completely.

  *

  Something about changing clothes in a stall in the restaurant’s women’s bathroom, so she could meet her fiancé in the parking lot to be taken to dinner, made Charlie feel a bit like she’d been transported back into high school, if not for the fact that none of her high school boyfriends had been able to drive.

  (She had been picked up on a bike a few times, and there was something sort of nostalgic about sitting on the handlebars or standing on the back of it.)

  At least she wasn’t sneaking out of a window. She had done that a few times in high school, too. It had invariably been more trouble than it was worth. Because really, most guys weren’t worth trying to climb down from a second story window while wearing a miniskirt and trying to make sure her high heels didn’t fall out of her purse. Then she would probably have snapped a heel, and would have to go right back in the window to get new shoes.

  Luckily, there were no high heels that day. There wasn’t even a miniskirt, though her dark green shorts were rather short. In place of high heels, she was wearing a pair of black canvas high tops. After the photography expedition, she had learned that dressing in case of a great deal of walking was perhaps a better idea, and she was satisfied with that as she made her way out of the bathroom.

  She waved to her boss and one of the busboys on her way out of the restaurant, absentmindedly straightening her black blouse as she did. Zeke’s car was in the same spot it had been in the day before, gleaming like mercury in the late afternoon sun, the top down. Wordlessly, Charlie pulled her hair tie off of her wrist and tugged her hair back into a ponytail as she approached the passenger side of the car. She tossed her bag into the back seat, tugged the door open, and slid into the passenger seat.

  “So, where are we off to?” Charlie wondered, buckling her seatbelt into place as Zeke turned the key in the ignition. It was possible she should have asked about that detail in advance, but it hadn’t seemed important at the time. Up to that point, Zeke had shown reasonably decent judgment.

  “It’s a little hard to explain,” Zeke replied, backing the car out of the parking space and pulling out onto the street. “You’ll just have to wait until we get there.”

  Charlie lifted her hands to wiggle all of her fingers at him as she cooed in the spookiest voice she could manage (which was, unfortunately, not especially spooky), “Ooh, it’s a mystery.” Turning sideways slightly to face him, she crossed one knee over the other, folded her arms over her chest, and leaned back against the car door. “How far away is it?”

  “It’s a bit of a trek,” he admitted, though his tone suggested that he didn’t consider it a big deal, so Charlie was going to assume he wasn’t doing something zany like whisking her across state borders without any warning, “but it’s best after dark, anyway.”

  Slowly, Charlie arched one eyebrow. “Why do I feel like this is a bit more complicated than just dinner?”

&
nbsp; “Because I’m not especially subtle and you’re equipped with more than seven brain cells to rub together,” Zeke returned blandly. At least he was self-aware. It was a respectable quality to have.

  With a snort of laughter, Charlie leaned over enough to swat his elbow, earning herself a very proper, “Don’t assault the driver.”

  Holding her hands up in surrender, she leaned back against the door again and made a show of crossing her arms once more.

  The drive passed in silence, for the most part, but it was a contented sort of silence. Companionable, in a way. Charlie was happy just to watch the buildings pass outside the car and to let the wind tug at her hair.

  *

  She wasn’t actually sure what she had been expecting. Or if she had even been expecting anything at all. But after forty-five minutes of driving, when the car finally pulled into a parking lot that was actually a poorly mowed field with a group of barely pubescent boys and girls directing cars into unmarked spaces, Charlie was quite comfortable in deciding that she hadn’t been expecting it.

  Heedless of her confusion, Zeke put the car’s top up and climbed out, motioning for her to follow him. Brow still furrowed in confusion, Charlie fished her purse out of the back of the car and followed a few paces behind him.

  As they walked through the field with a handful of other people, the sounds and the lights in the distance gradually got louder and brighter, until Charlie could make out the shape of a Ferris wheel in the distance, lit up and swirling with colors as it spun. Music trickled towards them across the grass, and everything was strung with multi-colored lights. Or at least everything that wasn’t sitting beneath a floodlight was.

  She hadn’t been to a fair since she was a kid.

  By the time they made it to the ticket booth, Charlie could smell funnel cake, and while she knew that didn’t actually count as dinner, she also didn’t care. Just then, that was all she wanted. And a ride on the Ferris wheel.

  …On second thought, the ride on the Ferris wheel should probably come before the funnel cake, or any other sort of food.

  Neither happened immediately, though. Once they had their tickets and were on their way through the main gate, everything was a distraction, and Charlie was content to be distracted by all of it. There was a barn filled with horses and a stubby, fluffy donkey that begged for attention, and there were pens full of sheep and goats and pigs, and there was another barn full of nothing but cows, including one that had unexpectedly been born at the fair. It was curled up in a ball being zealously guarded by its mother’s owners. Warily, they parted so Charlie could take a picture of the calf with her phone, but no one was allowed to touch it.

  There was a carousel, and Charlie felt compelled to ride it. She had never ridden one before. Zeke was content to humor her in that regard and he waited with her in line, but he stayed on the ground beside the carousel while Charlie climbed up and picked a noble steed.

  It was more complicated than it looked. In theory, it looked pretty simple: sit on horse, hold onto pole, enjoy the ride. In practice, just staying seated on the horse was awkward, and once it started moving up and down, Charlie felt like she was going to go sliding off the side with every motion, and she wound up clinging to the pole for dear life. It wasn’t helped by the way she watched the rest of the fair swim past as the carousel circled.

  Still, it was beautiful. The horses were lovingly detailed and beautifully painted, and Charlie took a picture of a few of them after she staggered off the ride.

  (She was pretty sure Zeke was laughing at her. He was doing a very good job of hiding it, to his credit, but she could tell regardless. She had a sixth sense for that sort of thing.)

  There was a makeshift runway just outside the fence to the western side, where a small airplane was giving people rides. Charlie had no interest in actually getting in the plane, flying was never one of her preferred activities—but she watched it take off, buzz through the air for a few minutes, and land once again.

  Despite her earlier decision that eating should wait until after a ride on the Ferris wheel, they walked past a funnel cake booth before they walked past the Ferris wheel, and Charlie’s willpower was evidently taking a vacation on a different continent that evening.

  It had been years since she’d last had funnel cake. And she could get it with powdered sugar and chocolate cookie crumbs on top. She didn’t know if it would be good or if it was pure nostalgia that had her craving it, but she didn’t care; she needed to order it.

  It was amazing, thankfully. It took the two of them about seven minutes to finish off the plate, and Charlie knew she was just going to be hungry again in half an hour because funnel cake consisted of absolutely nothing useful or beneficial, but it was worth it.

  She tossed the paper plate, flimsy with grease, into a trashcan, scrubbed her hands off on a handful of paper napkins, and took off at a lope into the crowd, leaving Zeke to jog to catch up.

  Ahead of them, the Ferris wheel was looming, twirling and glowing like it was trying to hypnotize everyone who saw it, and maybe that was why Charlie was so set on riding it. Or maybe it had just been a long time since she had ridden one.

  It had been fun, last time. She had been small, though, so she supposed most things had still been fun. But her uncle had been perfectly willing to let her and her siblings drag him around the fair all day. It had been a good day.

  (She still missed him, now and then. But courtesy of her father, she had lost contact with most of the family on her mother’s side. They were only willing to put up with so much bullshit, no matter how much they loved Charlie and her siblings. She didn’t fault them for that, though; she was only willing to put up with so much bullshit, too.)

  She bounced as they waited in line, and Zeke watched her with amusement, his eyes soft, like he thought it was cute.

  Maybe he did. She sort of hoped he did. She wasn’t a little kid or a puppy or anything, but it had been a long time since anyone had considered her cute.

  It was an older Ferris wheel, though still in good condition. Its baskets were simple benches with bars across the front to hold people in place, rather than completely enclosed carriages. She was glad for that. It seemed right, to be free in the air save for the small bench beneath her. As they reached the front of the line and were ushered into the next empty basket, her thigh pressed against Zeke’s, leaving no space between them, and as she shifted on the bench to get comfortable before the bar was lowered, their arms brushed together. He was warm.

  Charlie curled her fingers around the bar as the Ferris wheel began to move in earnest, and soon enough, they were moving steadily upwards.

  The view from the top was spectacular.

  It was so corny. Charlie knew it was corny. She also didn’t especially care. Sometimes corny was a good thing. If something was a bit corny, that didn’t mean it had to be a bad thing.

  As they made it to the top of the Ferris wheel, Charlie could see the entire fair spread out below them, crowds in every direction muffled into incoherence beneath the music and the volume of people, everything lit up in primary colors. For a second, she just stared. And then she turned to look at Zeke. He looked like he was going to say something, but Charlie didn’t give him a chance to say it. She leaned over, curled one hand around the back of his neck, and slotted her lips neatly into place over his.

  Nothing happened at first, but Charlie wasn’t worried. Indeed, after only a moment’s hesitation, Zeke lifted a hand to cup her jaw, tilting her head so he could deepen the kiss.

  It didn’t last long, but it didn’t need to. It was exactly what it was supposed to be.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The walk back to the car seemed strangely charged, as if electricity were dancing just beneath Charlie’s skin. When she looked at Zeke and found him looking back at her, his eyes were intense, and she thought maybe he felt that same charge as her.

  “We should go back to your place,” she decided, the words spilling out before she was fully aware
she was even speaking. She felt no inclination to take them back, though, and at the subtle smile she got in return, she knew Zeke was glad.

  The car ride seemed to happen in a flash. One moment Charlie was sliding into the passenger seat, and the next moment the car was pulling to a halt in Zeke’s parking space. The two of them all but jogged into the building, and once they were in the elevator, keeping their hands to themselves was an exercise in willpower.

  (More people than just Zeke lived in the building, after all, and Charlie was fairly sure that the other tenants might object to walking in on them just as much as they might object to being walked in on.)

  Once the elevator’s doors slid open in the penthouse, though, all bets were off. They took two steps out of the elevator before Charlie rounded on him, and he caught her as she surged towards him, his hands sliding around her waist and pulling her close. She had to stand on her toes and he had to bend his neck for them to kiss, but it was fantastic all the same.