My Big Fat Fake Wedding Read online

  My Big Fat Fake Wedding

  Lauren Landish

  Edited by

  Valorie Clifton

  Edited by

  Staci Etheridge

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Landish

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Excerpt: Dirty Talk

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Lauren Landish.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design © 2019 by Coverluv.

  Edited by Valorie Clifton & Staci Etheridge.

  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.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.

  Also by Lauren Landish

  Bennett Boys Ranch:

  Dirty Fairy Tales:

  Beauty and the Billionaire || Not So Prince Charming || Happily Never After

  Bennett Boys Ranch:

  Buck Wild || Riding Hard || Racing Hearts

  Get Dirty:

  Dirty Talk || Dirty Laundry || Dirty Deeds || Dirty Secrets

  Irresistible Bachelors:

  Anaconda || Mr. Fiance || Heartstopper

  Stud Muffin || Mr. Fixit || Matchmaker

  Motorhead || Baby Daddy || Untamed

  Prologue

  Violet—Five Months Ago

  This can’t be happening. He can’t be leaving me.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  My heels click across the hospital floor as I race down the hallway. I’m in such a panic, the words blaring over the PA system hardly register from the blood rushing through my ears in a dull roar.

  “Code blue, room four! Code blue, room four!”

  I nearly trip over my own feet as I break into a shuffling run, boomeranging for the nearest patient room. I swear my heart is going to explode when I spot the correct door and burst inside to see . . .

  “Nana!” I exclaim as I see my grandmother, Angela Russo. She looks up from where she’s hovering like a hen over my grandfather. The scowl on her face highlights the parentheses of wrinkles around her lips, making her worry immediately apparent.

  My grandfather, Stefano, looks up at me, his unusually pale face widening into a huge smile. But even with the happiness blooming, I can tell he’s worn out, aged decades in the short time since I last saw him.

  “My beautiful little flower, Violet!” he sings, his Italian accent coming through as he holds his arms out to me. “I knew you would come. Come here so I can give you a kiss!”

  “Oh, Papa, I was so scared!” I say, rushing into his arms and collapsing into a ball of relief. “I dropped everything and came as soon as I heard.”

  Papa looks over at Nana with a triumphant wink of his eye as he rubs my shoulders. “See, Angie? This one loves me the most. Do you see any of our other granddaughters here?”

  “That’s because you’ve scared them all away with your crazy stories,” Nana growls, but there’s an undercurrent of affection for the man who is both a thorn in her side and her everything.

  Papa laughs and squeezes me with a fierce strength that belies his shrinking frame, raining kisses down upon my forehead. I feel comforted, enveloped in his familiar scent, leather and spicy meats . . . masculine and comforting. For a moment, I forget the direness of the situation as he rocks me back and forth in his arms like I’m a child or the one in need of comfort, though he’s the one in the hospital bed.

  But the moment is fleeting as reality slams back into me, and I rise to my feet to ask Nana in a rush of words, “What happened? Is he going to be okay? How long has he been like this?”

  “The old fool was working out back in the summer heat after I told him he should take it easy and come inside,” Nana says with a frosty scowl at Papa, but her voice softens as she speaks, revealing how frightened she really is. “I found him lying face down in the dirt.”

  “Papa!” I say in admonishment. “You know you’re not supposed to be taking on a heavy workload, doctor’s orders. Why didn’t you listen to Nana?”

  Grandpa waves away my worry with a bony hand. “I don’t see what the fuss’s all about. A man has to work, and I’ll do what I need to until the day they put me six feet under. I just tripped and had a little fall, that’s all.” He says it like he believes that to be the truth.

  Nana gives me a sour look that says, ‘That’s definitely not what happened.’ “He passed out—” she begins.

  “I fell and was getting up before you came squawking like a worried hen, making things worse,” Papa interrupts. “So, I decided to lie back and let you do what you were going to do. You shoulda done the same for me.”

  “Nonsense!” Nana snaps. “If I hadn’t found you, who knows what would’ve happened?”

  “Nothing.” Papa dismisses Nana with a nonchalant shrug. “I’d be fine, maybe about to pass out from eating some of your overcooked pasta—”

  “Why, you old bast—”

  “Bah! Hush, woman, you worry too much. I’m more likely to drop dead from all of your hen clucking than I will from a little heat.”

  Their bickering is comforting in a twisted way, the camaraderie of being together for decades and knowing which buttons to push to get a rise out of each other but also which ones are entirely off limits.

  He pulls a long cigar out from the side of his bed and offers it to her. “Here. Calm yourself and have a stogie.” The shit-eating grin on his face says he knows he’s poking the bear, and I realize he’s giving her something to focus on besides worrying about him. He’s a slick old fox, I’ll give him that.

  Nana snatches the cigar out of his hand, brandishing it as if it’s a weapon. “Have you gone pazzo? They don’t even allow smoking in the hospital. And really? A smoke when you’re supposed to be recovering?”

  “Sure, why not? I’d rather have a smoke than act like a pagliaccio!”

  Nana throws her hands up in frustration, the cigar flying from her hands in a perfect arc that ends in the trashcan. If she wasn’t so riled up, I’d give her a round of applause, but as it is, I’m staying out of their battle. For now, at least. “Oh, fanculo tutto! You’re impossible!”

  “I know.” Grandpa tosses me a mischievous wink meant to lighten the mood. “That’s why you married me. You like the challenge.”

  The two continue to bicker as I look on fondly, feeling a sense of relief. Whatever happened to land Papa in the ER hasn’t robbed him of his feistine
ss, so it couldn’t have been too bad, could it?

  It’s a particularly hot summer, and it’s not uncommon for the elderly to overheat when they underestimate the weather. Maybe he’s right and this is all a lot of fuss for nothing. He just needs a slap on the hand to follow the doctor’s and Nana’s orders a bit better, and everything will be fine.

  Even as I tell myself that, I know it’s wishful thinking and childish hopes. A girlish desire to deny the mortality of a man who has always seemed larger than life to me. Deep inside, I know he’s no more immortal than the rest of us, but even so, I need to know this isn’t going to happen again. I love him too much to lose him. Especially not now, and if I had my say, not ever.

  After being reassured several times by Papa that he’s fine, I excuse myself from the room to let him and Nana bicker themselves out.

  In the hall, I run into a man wearing a long white coat and carrying a binder with Papa’s name on the spine. His name tag says Dr. Lee, and he has an aura of calm control that seems to relax me immediately.

  “Are you Violet?” he asks before I can say anything, giving me a warm smile.

  I nod. “I am. How’d you know?”

  He grins. “Your grandfather wasn’t concerned in the least about his health and has been talking about you since the moment he came in, telling anyone who’ll listen about his granddaughter. If you didn’t know, he’s quite fond of you.”

  I smile. “That definitely sounds like him. Can you tell me what happened? I’m not sure I trust his version of events.”

  Dr. Lee’s expression turns solemn and the energy around him shifts, making me instantly nervous. “It appears that, due to the heat and overworking himself, your grandfather’s blood pressure dropped and he lost consciousness.”

  “That’s what Nana said. So, if we can keep him from overdoing it, he’s going to be okay.” I say it definitively, like I’m adding tying him to his recliner in the air-conditioned living room to my to-do list.

  Dr. Lee tilts his head, his lips pressed together. “Well, as I explained to Angela and Stefano, we’re waiting for tests to come back for a more complete picture, but I don’t need the tests to tell me that his heart isn’t in good shape. It hasn’t been in quite some time.”

  Oh, no.

  “But he’s stable now . . .” I say, like I’m refuting his medical knowledge with only the power of my hope.

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Violet, but . . .”

  The growing look of sorrow and despair in Dr. Lee’s eyes says everything, and I’m forced to grab ahold of a wall rail to keep from falling.

  No.

  It can’t be.

  It just can’t.

  My worst nightmare come to life.

  “How long does he have?” I ask through the lump in my throat. The words sound surreal, like someone else is saying them.

  “At his age, it’s hard to say,” Dr. Lee muses, shrugging his shoulders. “Anything I say is at best an educated guess. Six months? A year, maybe? But he’s a stubborn mule who refuses to follow orders, which complicates things. To be honest, he could go at almost any time if we can’t get his heart to function properly and him to be compliant.”

  His words, an awful confirmation of what I feared most, hit me like a sucker punch to the gut, the air leaving my lungs in one forceful gust.

  Six months to a year? Or less?

  How can Papa, the only father figure I’ve ever known, the man who practically raised me from a pigtailed toddler to adulthood, the man who could take on anything the world threw at him and live to tell about it . . . have such little time to live?

  In that moment, all the should’ve, could’ve, and would’ves flash in front of my eyes. It’s as if everything I expected to experience with Papa has turned into a puddle that’s evaporating quicker than I’d ever considered.

  But the worst part is, the one thing he’s wanted to see the most is likely to never happen, and that looms like a dark umbrella over my breaking heart.

  When’s my beautiful little flower getting married so I can walk her down the aisle?

  To say marriage is a huge tradition in my family is like saying a tsunami is a little wet. An understatement of such magnitude, it’s laughable, especially for my grandparents, who look forward to the next generation of weddings with teary smiles and proclamations of the continuation of their legacy with another branch on the family tree.

  Hell, most of the women in my family are married off before they’re old enough to drink alcohol. In fact, I’m probably the only woman in my family, at age twenty-six, who isn’t married with a wagonload of kids.

  Due to my busy career, I’ve been single for as long as I can remember, although I’ve always dreamed about having this big fairytale wedding. I used to use Nana’s curtains as a makeshift veil and Papa would pretend to walk me down the aisle. I want him to do that for real, hold my hand as I greet my husband-to-be, bless us with a marriage as long and happy as his and Nana’s has been, and see that I’ve finally grown into the woman he always told me I could be. Successful, loved, happy.

  Now it’s never going to happen.

  As if sensing my tormented thoughts, Dr. Lee adds, “If there’s anything you need to say or anything important left for you to do with your grandfather, I’d do it very soon. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Gee, thanks for the guilt trip, Doc.

  Whatever else the doctor says fades off into the background as I watch Nana and Papa bicker through the glass window, happier now and blissfully unaware of the countdown looming.

  In that moment, denial surges and I clench my fists.

  This can’t happen. I won’t let it.

  Six months to a year?

  I can make it work.

  Suddenly determined, a feeling of resolution washes over me as a plan formulates in my mind.

  Don’t worry, Papa. I’m going to find myself a husband so you can walk me down the aisle on my wedding day before you leave this earth . . . if it’s the last thing I do.

  Chapter 1

  Violet

  “I still can’t believe it!” I squeal, wiggling my fingers and watching my engagement ring flash as the overhead lights reflect on the diamond’s faceted surface.

  Having already heard this once, or maybe two dozen times, my two best friends sigh but rally with the appropriate oohs and ahhs, even throwing me a bone of another “Congratulations, girl!”

  My lifelong bestie, Abigail Andrews, and Archie Hornee, my interior design assistant, are basically saints for putting up with me at this point. “Colin and I are getting married!”

  Archie arches one perfectly sculpted eyebrow and presses a palm to his black T-shirt-covered chest, which is most definitely manscaped. Ever the sarcastic ball of sass, he deadpans, “Dear, we know.” He continues the performance by pulling a Vanna White, slapping a big fake smile on his face and gesturing widely to the roomful of wedding gowns surrounding us. When he finishes, his face goes right back to his usual blank ‘fuck off’ mode.

  As if we’d be at a wedding dress shop for any other reason. Lord knows, Abigail and Archie aren’t looking to get married, and obviously not to each other since Abigail lacks a rather important piece of the perfection that Archie is looking for, a never-ending appreciation of his special brand of hilarious, off-the-cuff, don’t-care-about-being-politically-correct, catty-bitchiness.

  So nope, not for them, for sure. We’re here for me! I can’t believe it’s really happening.

  It’s been five months since Papa’s diagnosis, and what a busy five months it’s been.

  Initially, I thought there’d be no way I’d ever get married before his heart gave out. After all, his doctor had painted a grim picture with no happy ending.

  But despite the odds, Papa has miraculously held on long enough for me to reconnect with an old high school fling and get engaged after a whirlwind romance where we both said we wanted the whole nine yards—wedding, marriage, kids. Luckily, since Colin and I alre
ady had a history, it wasn’t starting at ground zero, and instead, we moved quickly after a short get-to-know-you-now phase. He’s a really good man, and I think we can be happy together.

  Serious relationship, party of two . . . here! I think, adding a shimmy to my ass as I raise my hand, peering at the weighty sparkle resting there again.

  But despite my excitement, the rows of gorgeous gowns, and two friends with a sharp eye for fashion, I’m currently trying on what has to be my twentieth wedding dress. Ride or Die Bride, an edgy bridal shop that calls itself the Number One Bridal Shop for the Modern Badass Chick, is failing to deliver a dress that is The One.

  They’ve got everything from fairy tale princess to woodland nymph to Vegas stripper, mixed in with classic beauties covered in expensive lace and hand-sewn beading. My dress is here, I know it is. But in the three appointments I’ve made, I haven’t found it. Yet.

  I need perfection.

  It has to be. Everything about my wedding has to be perfect in order to do it right for Papa.

  “I’m so happy for you!” Abigail declares, rushing forward and pulling me into a fierce hug. A moment later, I feel another set of arms wrap around me, Archie’s, and I’m encased in a group hug.