Trophy Husband

  Trophy Husband

  by Lauren Blakely

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright (c) 2013 by Lauren Blakely

  LaurenBlakely.com

  Cover Design by (c) Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  PHOTO COPYRIGHT (c) Gabi Moisa

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Sneak Peek of Playing With My Heart (Caught Up In Us #3)

  Coming Next

  Sneak Peek of Impact of You by Kendall Ryan and Unbreak Me by Lexi Ryan

  Contact

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Caught Up In Us

  Available at all fine e-tailers

  Pretending He’s Mine

  Available at all fine e-tailers

  About

  Sometimes you can't help falling in love, even when you try to do the opposite...Successful fashion blogger McKenna Bell has spent far too long protecting herself after the way her ex-fiancé left her at the altar for a college chick he met the night of his bachelor party. Loving again, trusting again, well, that's just not in the cards. Especially now that her ex is back in town with his new woman, demanding custody of McKenna's favorite creature in the whole world--her dog. No effing way. McKenna's had enough of him, and she decides to even the score by finding her own hot young thing -- a Trophy Husband. Sure, she's only twenty-seven, but doesn't that make it even more fun -- and infuriating to her ex -- to pursue a younger man? When she declares her intentions on her daily blog, her quest quickly skyrockets in popularity, and that's when Chris enters the picture, and he’s got all the assets. He's handsome, successful, and turns her inside out with a kiss to end all kisses, the kind that makes you feel like a shooting star. But loving again could mean losing again, and it's so much easier to focus on getting even, isn't it? Unless, you just can't help falling in love. Which means McKenna will have to come face to face with what she really wants in life -- protecting her heart from hurt, or letting go of her fears of a new beginning.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my family.

  Because they put up with me, and I love them madly.

  Prologue

  Present Day

  The stars twinkle and the night air is warm as we leave the Tiki Bar and walk slowly up Fillmore. At the top of the hill, I see my friend’s maroon Prius that I’m tasked with driving home tonight. I point to it.

  “These are my wheels.” I click on the key to unlock the car. Then I reach for the door handle. But it doesn’t open. I try again. Same thing happens. “Damn. What is up with these hybrids?”

  “They have to calibrate to your heart rate.”

  “Then how the heck am I supposed to drive it home?”

  “I know a trick,” Chris says.

  “You do?”

  “Want to give me the keys and I’ll show you?” he asks, holding open his palm for me.

  But before I can pull away, he closes his fingers over mine, gripping my hand in his. That’s all it takes. Within seconds I am in his arms, and we are wrapped up in each other. His lips are sweeping mine, and I press my hands against his chest, and oh my. He does have the most fantastic outlines in his body. He is toned everywhere, strong everywhere, and I am dying to get my hands up his shirt, and feel his bare chest and his belly. But if I did, I might just jump him right here because I am one year and running without this. Without kissing, without touching, without feeling this kind of heat.

  He twines his fingers through my hair, and the way he holds me, both tender and full of want at the same time, makes me start to believe in possibilities. Start to believe that you can try again, and it’ll be worth it. His lips are so soft, so unbearably soft, and I can’t stop kissing him. He has the faintest taste of Diet Coke on his lips, and it’s crazy to say this, but it almost makes me feel closer to him. Or maybe I feel closer because he’s leaning into me, his body is aligned with mine, and there’s no space between us, and I don’t want any space between us. I want to feel him against me, his long, strong body tangled up in mine, even though we’re fully clothed, making out on the street.

  He breaks the kiss. “I wanted to kiss you all night.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, that key thing was just an excuse. Sometimes you just have to hit the button a few times to get the car to open.”

  I laugh. “So you said that to kiss me?”

  He nods. “Totally.”

  “I’m glad you tricked me,” I whisper, as he bends his head and kisses my neck, blazing a trail of sweet and sexy kisses down to my throat, and it’s almost sensory overload the way he ignites me. Forget tingles, forget goosebumps. That’s kid stuff compared to this. My body is a comet with Chris. I am a shooting star with the way he kisses me. I don’t even know if I have bones in my body anymore. I don’t know how I’m standing. I could melt under the sweet heat of his lips that are now tracing a line down my chest to the very top of my breasts as he tugs gently at my shirt, giving himself room to leave one more brush of his lips. Before he stops.

  He looks at me and the expression on his face is one of pride and lust. He knows he’s turned me inside out and all the way on.

  “That was so unfair of me,” he says with a wicked grin. “Getting a headstart like that on all the other candidates.”

  How can there be any other guys after a kiss like that? It’s a kiss to end all kisses, it’s a sip of lemonade in a hammock on a warm summer day. It’s a slow dance on hardwood floors while a fan goes round overhead, curtains blowing gently in the open window.

  If he feels half as much for me as I do for him, then I want to sail away with him in the moonlight, and that scares the hell out of me. I have to extract myself before I let this go any further. I don’t mean the contact. I mean the way my aching, broken heart is reaching for Chris.

  Chapter One

  Four weeks ago…

  I used to have sucky parking karma,
the kind where every single time I needed a spot, and especially if I was racing to a lunch meeting, the only one I could locate would be in the next county, and in some cases, the next time zone.

  Then one year ago, a miracle occurred. No, my ex-boyfriend didn’t fall back in love with me and announce it was all a joke when he eloped with some chick in Vegas at his bachelor party the night before our wedding. But another miracle transpired. Since then I have never failed to land a parking spot on the same block as my destination. I am quite sure this is the universe’s way of making up for precisely how he said sayonara – via voicemail mere hours before I was about to walk down the aisle.

  And because of this awesome, amazing, powerful parking karma I no longer worry that I’ll drive around scouting out a spot in the city of San Francisco, even though time in this city can truly be measured by the quest for a parking spot.

  One less thing to stress about is a good thing in my book, so I give my gorgeous dog, Ms. Pac-Man, a kiss on the snout as I grab my purse from the entryway table. She wags her flag-sized, blond fluffy tail and places a big paw on my leg, her way of saying goodbye. She’s a good dog, she’s well-trained, and she’s also particularly well-mannered when I leave her home alone in the Victorian she and I share just a few blocks from San Francisco Bay. She spends the entire time I’m gone snoozing on her Pac-Man decorated dog bed. I know this because I once set up my phone camera to verify what I suspected – that she was indeed a perfect canine.

  “I’d tell you to be good, but I know you will,” I say, as I scratch her ears. She leans her soft head into my hand, and I smile as I pet her. Sometimes, I think this dog is the only reason I’ve smiled at all in the last year. Not much has made me happy, but yet here she is, ably filling that role as only a dog can.

  Then I’m off to another solo Sunday breakfast, heading down the stairs, to the garage, into the car, and onto the street, driving past a local grocery store where bag boys fill canvas sacks with organic chickens, locally-grown asparagus and all-natural, wheat-free cereals, then a membership-only nail salon that I don’t go to. Because I do my own nails, in alternating colors, and today I am wearing mint green and purple.

  I turn the radio up louder, and even though I should listen to angry girl rock given how my heart’s been in a sling for the last year, I can’t bring myself to like that kind of music. Because deep down I am still the old standards I love. So I sing along to the music – Frank Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin – as I motor up steep hills that burn legs while walking, then down a rollercoaster-y dip on my way into Hayes Valley. The station shifts to the King, another favorite of this retro-loving girl, and he’s now crooning Can’t Help Falling in Love.

  My favorite song ever.

  The song Todd didn’t want to be our wedding song since he’d insisted on Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, the perfect tune since that’s how he felt about me, he claimed.

  A red Honda scoots out of the prime spot right in front of the restaurant. As I glide my orange Mini Cooper into the space, I mouth a silent thank you to the parking gods. Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful for the way they look out for me and reward me with perfect little nooks for my car, but I have other daydreams too.

  Yet those ones seem so far out of reach.

  Mainly, I’d like to find a guy who’s not a weasel. The kind of fella who doesn’t ring you up from Sin City to call the whole thing off the day before you’re supposed to slip into a gorgeous white dress with that perfect ‘50s flair you were looking for.

  “Listen, I’ve had a change of heart,” Todd said on my voice mail because I was on another call with the cake shop. It would have been a perfect wedding. We had what I thought was a perfect life. Cramped but cozy apartment in the Mission, my business was taking off like crazy and he’d helped launch it, we’d even picked out names for kids we might have some day – Charlotte for a girl and Hunter for a boy.

  Then he had an epiphany at a poker table in Vegas when he met a gymnast he married instead.

  The day before our wedding.

  “I don’t really see myself having kids with you, or a life with you, so let’s nip this thing in the bud,” he said in his phone message.

  So yeah. That kind of sucked.

  But as I listen to this song, I find myself longing for something more in my life. For someone to join me for breakfast at my favorite diner in the city. Maybe a sweet kiss, a nice goodnight make-out session, and maybe some love too, the kind of love that lasts, always and forever, without leaving you in the lurch, I admit silently, as Elvis croons about taking my hand and my whole heart too.

  Why do I do this? Why do I listen to this music that tortures me? I thought my almost-hubs and I were meant to be, and I was wrong, but yet as The King sings about falling in love, I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind falling in love again.

  The kind where you can’t help it.

  The kind that takes your breath away.

  The kind that’s meant to be.

  I know, I know. It’s like asking for the moon, so I’ll stop my silly daydreaming.

  But, hey, at least right now I have a coveted parking spot.

  I snatch my purse with its saucy cartoon of a winking pirate girl on the side and head into The Best Doughnut Shop in the City. It’s not really a doughnut shop. It used to be a doughnut shop and then the owner converted it into a diner with green upholstered vinyl seats. It’s my absolute favorite diner in the whole city and it feels a bit like my special place.

  I tell the hostess I’m a party of one, and look, I’m not going to lie – it still hurts to ask for that solo table, even though Todd never once, in all our five years together, came with me to this diner. He said he didn’t care for cheap, hole-in-the-wall eateries. Snob.

  But even when I came here all by myself for Sunday breakfast, at least I was still part of a two-some, even if the other someone was sleeping in. Now, it’s just me. Party of one.

  I keep my chin up as the hostess guides me to one of the last remaining two-tops. The place is packed. See Todd? You don’t know what you were missing. This cheap diner knows how to bring it in the breakfast department.

  I sit down and smooth out my flouncy knee-length poodle skirt. Even if I’m all by my lonesome, I still like to dress up. Fashion is like a shield to me. The clothes I wear center me, make me strong and steely with their distinctive style.

  I order my usual – scrambled eggs, toast and a Diet Coke. Yep, I’m one of those people who drinks soda in the mornings. I’m sure I should kick the habit for many reasons, including the fact that Todd was my Diet Coke partner in crime, and we both downed the carbonated beverage morning, noon and night. But I refuse to let the memory of what we shared ruin my favorite drink.

  One minute later the waitress brings me a glass that’s fizzing just the right amount. I thank her and take a drink, then reach for my laptop from my bag. I might as well work on my fashion blog as I wait for the food. As I flip open the computer, the waitress guides a gorgeous young redhead over to the two-top next to me. I scan her outfit first. The gal is wearing sparkling white running shoes with a pink swirly stripe, black workout pants and a color-coordinated snug workout top. There’s something about her face though that’s eerily familiar. Like I’ve seen her somewhere, but I can’t place it.

  She flashes me a warm smile. “Hi,” she says.

  “Hey.”

  “This placed is jammed today.”

  “It’s like this every Sunday. The food is amazing.”

  “I’ve heard great things about it. I’m so excited to finally try it.”

  Okay, maybe I won’t need the laptop. Maybe this gal and I will chat for the next thirty minutes, seeing as she’s mighty friendly. I wouldn’t mind the company, to tell the truth. It beats eating over a keyboard. “You will not be disappointed. Everything’s good.”

  “My husband said he’s been wanting to go to this place for the longest time. He’s just out parking the car,” sh
e says and tips her forehead to the door.

  I half expected her to say her dad was going to join her because she looks like a teenager. But maybe she was a teenage bride. “Well, both of you will love it then. I’m a total regular. A devotee, as they say.” I add in a silly little affected accent that makes her laugh.

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Anything. Except for hard-boiled eggs, because they’re totally gross.”

  “Oh god, yes. They’re like the most disgusting food ever.”

  I lean closer and say in a conspiratorial whisper. “My ex used to love them. I couldn’t even be in the house when he ate hard-boiled eggs.”

  “You want to hear something funny? My husband used to love them too. But I laid down the law. No hard-boiled eggs ever in my house. I cured him of his hard-boiled egg addiction like that.” She snaps her fingers.

  I hold up a hand to high five her. “You deserve major points.”

  “Oh, look. There he is,” she says, and when I turn to follow her gaze, it’s as if I’ve had a pair of cleats jammed into my belly, and I don’t even play softball. But I bet this is what it feels like when the batter slides into home and you’re the catcher who’s not wearing a chest protector.

  Blindsided.

  Because she’s looking at Todd.

  The diner is shrinking. The walls are closing in, gripping me. I can’t breathe. This has to be a mistake. An error. She has to be joking. I have to be seeing things. There is no way her husband can be Todd. There must be another man behind him, maybe a short man I can’t see. A pipsqueak little fellow right behind Todd, who’s walking over to her table. But there’s no mini man hiding behind him. It’s just him, and he freezes when he sees me, then quickly recovers, taking the seat across from his wife.

  Wife.

  It’s as if there’s a knife in my heart, digging for all the soft spots and scooping them out. Serving them up on the table for the two of them. The girl-child I’ve been chatting with, my new fucking breakfast best friend, is the college-age creature from Vegas who stole my about-to-be-husband.