Fake Marriage to Her Ex-Husband

“Viewer, you’re on with Carolina.”

Long pause. Carolina tapped the key on her computer that increased the volume and tried again. Her show’s live format was so new that she hadn’t worked out all the kinks. “You’re on Ask Carolina. What relationship problem can I help you solve today?”

“My boyfriend…”

The female voice faded back into silence, either intimidated by the idea of being on-air live or distraught enough over whatever infraction the jerk she’d pledged allegiance to had committed.

Carolina had plenty of compassion for both.

“Honey, tell me about your boyfriend. That’s what I’m here for.”

“He’s amazing.” The caller went on to sing praises to his name for several beats. A rare one. Usually they were pretty down on the guy by the point they decided to consult a professional. “We’ve been together for four months, and every second has been great.”

“Sounds like a winner. I’m guessing something changed or you wouldn’t have called.”

“Yeah.” There came the thread of discord in the caller’s voice.

Carolina could sniff it out a mile away. Psychology wasn’t just about what they said. It was how they said it, when they said it, and what they didn’t say. Her job was to figure out the right way to get those things on the table. And then fix it.

“The thing is,” the caller continued. “He got a job in Washington. The state. And we live in South Carolina. I didn’t even know he was looking for a new job!”

And here we have the crux of the issue in one fell swoop. “Oh, honey, that must have been so upsetting for you to learn that he’d been making plans without talking to you first. That’s not the sign of a man who’s in it for the long haul, is it?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” the caller wailed. “Why would he deliberately look for a job in another state? And not like Georgia which is within spitting distance. But Washington, which borders a whole different ocean. I mean, it would be one thing if I could easily move, but I own my own restaurant that I spent two years building from nothing…”

Carolina stared straight into the camera on her laptop and let the caller air her grievances for a minute because that’s what her viewers tuned in for. Drama.

And then she gave them the other thing they craved. Hard-core advice.

“Listen to me, honey. This was not an accident. Your boyfriend wants a change, and he went out and found it. Don’t wait for this new job to end your relationship. Take charge of your life and tell him to jump in the Puget Sound because you have better things to do than cry over a loser who’s so spineless, he can’t just tell you he wants out.”

“You think that’s what happened?” She sniffed, but Carolina could hear the anger starting to creep in. Good. That was what this caller needed. Righteous indignation. That would carry her through the pain of betrayal. “He’s done with me, but he’s too much of a coward to tell me straight out?”

Bingo. But there wasn’t much point in rubbing the caller’s face in it. “I think you’re going to be so much better off without him. Tell him you’re not a doormat for him to wipe his feet on, kick him to the curb and go create a new dish for your restaurant called Spineless Jerk in his honor. I’ll send everyone I know to eat it.”

That was one of the great things about having ten million followers—she could gently guide a few thousand in the direction of this caller’s restaurant and set her back on her feet at the same time. Then she’d be too busy to think about what’s-his-name. That was always a good recipe to move on, as Carolina well knew.

The caller blubbered her thanks as Carolina wrapped it up, pleased with how that one had ended. The possibility of something going south on a live show had kept her awake on more than one night, but the new format felt more immediate than the recorded version of her show she’d been doing for a few years.

“Caller, you’re on the air with Carolina. What relationship problem can I help you solve today?”

“The mystery of why you’re so against men.”

Male. Familiar. Dangerous. She registered all of that and more in a split second as the rich voice of the caller rolled through her blood before she could stop it. “Well, well. If it isn’t Two-Buck Chuck, the self-styled love artist himself, calling in to my own little show. My dear viewers, you’re in for a treat. Today is the day I hang up on the man whose advice is worth exactly two dollars. After the bills have gone through the shredder.”

Charlie, who had never actually gone by the name Chuck in real life, laughed like a moron, and just as she stuck an index finger over the key on her computer that would disconnect him, he said, “Hold up for a minute, CK. I have a relationship problem. Isn’t that what you do here? Help people with problems?”

“I do,” she responded sweetly. Somehow. She hated it when Charlie called her CK, as if addressing someone by their initials was a legitimate nickname. He could have picked Panther, after the Carolina Panthers, and the football reference would have annoyed her less. “But only people who can be helped. Egotistical, arrogant advice show hosts with questionable philosophies need not apply.”

“Guess this is going to stretch your abilities, then,” he countered smoothly.

He cared not at all about whether she maligned him, his show or his ridiculous premise that women could be won with the so-called tools that Two-Buck Chuck regularly championed on his show.

The fact that Charlie’s pickup lines had once worked like a charm on Carolina wasn’t the point. At all.

“Since we’ve already established that I’m anti-men, curious why you’d bother calling into my show.”

“Because only you can help me. Unless you think you’re not good enough.”

“Reverse psychology does not work on me.”

Except…it did and he knew it. He’d piqued her curiosity. Just as he’d meant to, and it did not put her in any frame of mind to be civil. But then, nothing could have done that. She’d been totally unprepared to have a showdown with her ex-husband. Live.

And here she was squirreled away in her condo without a friend in sight. That’s what she got for having to do the live show someplace quiet.

He let the pause drag out, correctly guessing that the dead air would crawl across her last nerve.

“Physician, heal thyself,” she said through gritted teeth and forced herself to relax.

She had a live camera feed so the viewers could see her, but she couldn’t see them. Most people calling in would rather not be on camera, so she honored that.

“Obscure Biblical quotes. I’m impressed. You’ve really brought your A-game to your new live format.”

Carolina counted to three, the longest span of silence she could stand. “Lay it down, Charlie, or I’m moving on to the next caller who actually needs my help.”

There was no way the host of Two-Buck Chuck had called in to Ask Carolina, a rival relationship advice show hosted by his ex-wife, with any intent of soliciting guidance.

“All righty then. It’s come to my attention that some of my viewers are having trouble with their girlfriends because you’re advising them all to leave.”

Oh, man. That had escalated quickly.

“You should advise your viewers to stop being jerks and treat their girlfriends like respected partners instead of hotrods that just need an extra torque-wrench twist to start running right.”

“Touché.” Charlie paused, not because he was at a loss for words, but more likely because he was conferring with the devil on his shoulder. “For the record, I have never instructed my viewers to treat women like cars. The term tools is just a metaphor.”

“If we’re done with the English lesson…”

Her finger hovered over the disconnect key. But she didn’t push it. This whole scenario smelled funny, and she couldn’t end the call without finding out the reason for it, or she’d stew about it all day.

She hadn’t spoken to Charlie in months. Not since the annulment was finalized. And even then, there hadn’t been much talking. What else was there to say? They’d gotten married too fast and ended it too slowly—it had taken the state of Nevada far longer to legalize the annulment than it had to allow the marriage. Irony at its finest.

You’d think a place with a slogan like “what happens here, stays here” would have a better process in place to erase a quickie marriage that never should have happened. Especially since she needed it done before he charmed her into something else that wasn’t in the plan. He was good at that—figuring out ways to get her to make dumb decisions just because he’d flashed his cute dimple at her.

“The lesson here,” Charlie continued without a hitch. “Is still unfolding. I’ve got a bone to pick with you, and you need to be taught a thing or two.”

A bright, hot burst of anger put a smile on her face designed to chill his blood. He wanted to play, did he?

She settled back in her chair. This was live broadcast gold and it wasn’t even Christmas yet. “Oh, I cannot wait to hear this. Please teach me, O wise one.”

Her viewers would love a good setdown of the man she’d walked out on. She didn’t just advise them to leave bad situations—she’d done it herself. That’s why they trusted her.

“It’s a long-term project,” he said. “One that requires your physical presence. So I can prove my relationship tools work on the queen mother of prickly women herself.”

“What are you even talking about? It sounds like you’re asking me on a date so you can try your smarmy pickup lines. On me.” Which was dumb. He’d already had his shot.

“If that’s what it sounds like, then I’m not doing my job. Let me start over. Hey, Carolina, you’re looking lovely today.”

She rolled her eyes. “If that’s the kind of lame lines you’re gifting your viewers, no wonder they’re up in arms.”

“They’re up in arms because they’re not being given a chance to make things right. Listen to my show occasionally before you throw stones. Love can win, if you open your mind to it. Your advice is never to stick it out and see if the guy can change. It’s always get out.”

Oh, she listened to his show all right. Only to keep tabs on her competition. Not because she missed the sound of his voice sometimes. “Sage advice in almost all situations. Men don’t change anything but their socks.”

“You’re wrong. And I can prove it. All you have to do is give me two weeks to show all my viewers that my tools will work. Even on you.”

The laugh bubbled up in her throat before she could catch it. Not that she would have. Such a cockamamie idea deserved to be laughed at. “You’re never going to prove that. Why would you even suggest such a ridiculous idea?”

“My professional reputation is at stake. Obviously.”

There was a slight undertone to his dark chocolate voice that only someone with intimate knowledge of the man behind it would pick up on. “Try again. Your professional reputation hasn’t suffered from being a loser in the relationship department thus far. What’s changed?”

“Clearly not a blessed thing,” he said jovially like she hadn’t just blasted him for all of America to hear, which was frankly one of the reasons they’d been like oil and water. He never took anything seriously, least of all her. “You’ve still got a razor blade for a tongue. Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“Which would only be true if I agree to this madness, and I haven’t. Nor will I. I’ve got nothing to prove. Therefore, I have zero reason to continue this conversation.”

She lifted a finger in full view of the camera so he’d be crystal clear that she was a millisecond away from cutting him off.

“Tell you what,” he interjected smoothly. “I happen to have a line on a T.V. show. Relationship advice. The producers want someone solid in the host chair.”

All of this was starting to make a whole lot more sense now. “So you need to show them your platform isn’t all arrogant preening. Good luck with that.”

“I need a great social experiment that will prove I can crack the toughest nut on the planet. My ex-wife. You know you’re curious what I have up my sleeve.”

“I’m not the slightest bit curious.”

She was. Rabidly.

But not enough to actually do it. Subject herself to his signature brand of charm and wit, coupled with a killer body and a smile that could melt asphalt? No. Charlie Wilson was her ex for a reason and he needed to stay that way. He was bad for her sanity. No other man on the planet could have talked her into a Vegas wedding a scant four months after they’d met. And she’d barely escaped that.

“Curious enough to strike a bet, though,” he said.

This time, she let the pause drag out because he’d just put her in the driver’s seat, and she was not about to give up the wheel. He was the one who needed her, not the other way around.

“Here’s the deal,” he said and probably she was the only one who heard the slight note of exasperation. Which made her smile. “Two weeks. You give me that honeymoon we never had. At the end, if you’re not on board with a second chance, you win. I’ll recommend you to the show’s producers to fill the host chair and go about my day.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” A throbby, fluttery beat started up in her chest that might be dread. Or anticipation. With Charlie, it was hard to tell the difference. “What you are you saying, we’d get married again?”

“That’s the only way this will work. My tools are designed for committed relationships, not casual pickups.”

The insanity continued. “So we honeymoon like everything is peachy, you lose, and then what? Another annulment?”

“And you get the T.V. show. I’ll hand it over, fair and square.”

There was that. It sounded too good to be true. Like she was missing something important. “Why would you even propose something like this? It’s guaranteed to fail.”

“Guess you have nothing to lose, then.”

Except what was left of her marbles. His nonchalance was disturbing. “Which is why none of it makes a lick of sense.”

“Oh, I see your confusion. Keep in mind there’s no down side for me. Because I’m going to win.”

Cocky as ever. It should be his middle name. And that alone flipped the crazy switch in her head, the one that Charlie Wilson always seemed to have a finger on. She had a feeling that he’d laid this thing out with exactly that in mind so she couldn’t possibly say no.

“No.”

Later that night, after Carolina had taken a detox bubble bath that did not erase the sound of Charlie’s voice from her head, she checked her Ask Carolina social media accounts. No shock to see more notifications than one single person could wade through in a year.

They’d been coming in since her live show. By the thousands.

Charlie’s impromptu call today had generated an enormous amount of interest from her viewers. They all wanted her to do it. Of course they did. They were frothing at the mouth to see her kick a man to the curb in real time. She’d earned every single one of her viewers with her trademark blend of sarcastic wit, blind faith that the caller was the injured party, and above all, her time in the trenches.

She’d walked the walk, and they loved her for it.

And now they wanted to see a prime example of how it was done. They’d all but popped the popcorn. What was she supposed to do about that—marry Charlie again in some kind of experiment to prove that his tools were a joke? The joke would be on her viewers. And her. Because the man made her crazy enough that she couldn’t trust herself around him. Let alone trust him.

Someone knocked on the door of her condo. Three beats, pause, then three more beats. Hugo. He was utterly predictable, but she’d forgotten he said he’d stop by tonight. She’d forgotten Hugo entirely while she’d been on the call with Charlie, which didn’t bode well for the little flirtation she’d struck up with the cute billionaire who owned the building.

Her pal Hugo was the perfect distraction from the ghost of Charlie Wilson. Maybe she could even get him to ask her out this time.

She swung the door wide, a smile already on her face. “Mr. Bishop, how lovely of you to take time to visit your serfs.”

“That’s Lord Bishop to you, cheeky woman.”

She laughed and curtsied, but despite the jokes, she’d known Hugo long enough that she could tell something was on his mind. She invited him in and crossed her arms, still standing in the foyer instead of moving the party to her cheerful living room, just in case this was a drive by visit, which seemed pretty likely given the grave expression on his face.

“You heard the show today I take it.”

A total guess. But a good one since he nodded.

“I didn’t know you’d been married,” he said almost apologetically, as if he thought it might be bad form to discuss it, despite the fact that millions of people had tuned into the show the same as he had.

“It wasn’t worth mentioning. The whole thing was a mistake.”

She’d love to blame her brief marriage on prescription drugs or a bout of particularly black grief. But she had no excuse—Charlie had popped the question on the eve of their four-month anniversary and she’d been so deliriously in over her head with him that she actually thought he was taking their relationship seriously. That he’d quit with the teasing comebacks and flirty lines whenever she tried to talk to him about…well, anything that wasn’t surface level.

Before she could blink, he’d swept her away on a romantic weekend to Vegas. The second she’d said I do, he’d kissed her within an inch of her life and then asked if he could call her Mrs. Wilson, which proved he knew nothing at all about her. And that’s when she’d panicked.

Hugo ran a hand through the longish flop of hair that fell down over his forehead, which wasn’t even the most adorable thing about him. “Do you think you’ll reconsider his wager? It seems as if he must still have a thing for you.”

“He didn’t even have a thing for me the first time. That’s the reason he’s the ex-Mr. Carolina. Trust me, we’re finished.”

Why would Charlie spring such a stupid idea on her, unless he really was angling for a second chance? It had all the hallmarks of one. After all, in order to win the bet, she’d have to agree that he’d won. Which would mean that he’d somehow not only convinced her that love really did exist, but that he was in love with her and vice versa.

Pure fantasy. That’s the kind of thing that got her in trouble with Charlie. Imagining that things were completely different from reality.

“I just don’t want to get in the middle,” Hugo confessed, his cheery gray eyes growing a little dimmer than normal. “Not that I’m saying I am. Or I could. I mean, you and I are not dating, not yet anyway, though I was hoping…”

She took pity on him because it was wonderfully sweet to see a man with his kind of money and personality at such a loss for words.

“I keep waiting for you to ask me out.”

He hadn’t though. Which had kind of been bothering her, honestly. Was it too much to ask for a man to be clear about his interest?

“Oh, well you know, I’m so busy with managing the merger for my father’s company.” Hugo glanced down with an apologetic smile that wasn’t so adorable all at once. “I’ve been back and forth to London so many times I’m starting to feel like the jet is my office.”

A woman couldn’t be clearer about her interest than throwing down a blatant invitation for a man to ask her out. Since he wasn’t taking the bait, that pretty much answered the question. Hugo Bishop was single and dateless because he had a problem with commitment that extended to dating a woman he’d been cozying up to for a month or more. Disappointing. But far from unusual.

“You are the CEO of a billion-dollar company,” she said with false cheer, choosing to let him off the hook because he was still the owner of her condo building and lived just one floor above her. She’d mostly likely run into him at some point, despite his weaseling about being out of town too much to ask her on a proper date. “One day you’ll be able to take a vacation. I’ll still be around.”

“Brilliant. I’ll check my schedule for some time in the next few weeks.”

Sure. Because a man who ran a billion-dollar company didn’t have the power to rearrange his schedule at a moment’s notice, if he’d found something that required his full attention. Carolina expected that and more from a man she was dating.

Which definitely explained why she hadn’t dated a single soul since the annulment. High standards. And apparently a lack of interest, even from a man who she’d have said was very interested.

Hugo extracted himself without ever explaining why he’d said he’d come by tonight and it was only after she shut the door behind him that a band tightened across her chest, threatening to cut off her oxygen.

So that was over. If you could call something over when it had never even started in the first place. Thanks Charlie.

This called for ice cream, stat. She texted Eliza.

Eliza appeared with Ben and Jerry’s less than four minutes later, because what Carolina lacked in a good man, she more than made up for in girlfriends.

“Joaquin is in L.A.” Eliza held up a pint in each hand. “And he won’t be back until Friday, so I stocked up. Your timing is impeccable.”

For once. “Great. What are you going to eat then?”

Eliza quirked a brow. “That bad? Charlie still begging you to take him back?”

“What? No.” She shook her head a little too hard. “What is with everyone and their insistence on painting Charlie with some kind of besotted lover brush? This is a publicity ploy, nothing more.”

With a non-committal grunt, Eliza skirted Carolina and went to the kitchen to pull two bowls from the cabinet, one dark purple and one tomato red. None of Carolina’s Fiestaware matched, by design. That way, if she broke anything, she didn’t have buy a whole new place setting to replace it. Though the funkiness of mismatched dishes suited her to the ground, just like the condo’s décor of sloppy chic and modern lines hidden by a layer of dust and stuff she’d forgotten to throw away.

A successful advice show run by one person did not happen in an eight-hour day, leaving Carolina a ton of time to do something as useless as cleaning. Stuff just got dirty again the next day. When she thought about it, she booked a cleaning service to come in and do a torch and burn to the whole house. That hadn’t happened in a while.

Eliza just moved a discarded jacket to the back of the couch and settled in with a heaping bowl of Caramel Sutra. She pointed at Carolina with her spoon. “If the ice cream isn’t for Charlie, who’s it for?”

“Hugo.” Carolina snagged her own bowl from the counter, but dumped the rest of the Caramel Sutra on top of her Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough because why not? “He bowed out. Says he’s too busy to date right now.”

Eliza flipped her spoon upside down to lick off every last drop of caramel. “Excuse city. I’m sorry. I mean, I get that he has to travel a lot but a man with his own plane can find a minute or two to sweep a woman off for a romantic something if he really wanted to.”

Yeah. Carolina just wasn’t worth the trouble, apparently.

“I’m not all that upset.” She really wasn’t, oddly. “He’s nice and everything but way too much of a doormat as it turns out.”

“Yeah. Charlie’s a hard act to follow.” The death stare Carolina leveled in Eliza’s direction changed her friend’s expression not one iota. “Oh, come on. You’re not going to sit there and lie to me. You know Charlie did a number on you. Why is it so hard to admit that you haven’t moved on because you still have a thing for him?”

“Because it’s not true.” It was. Totally, one hundred percent true. The only problem was that the thing she still had wasn’t the same thing Eliza meant. “He’s just an ex. That’s all.”

“Sure.”

Her friend made a great show out of eating her ice cream, going so far as to drape her legs over the arm of the couch as she scooped frothy mounds into her mouth. The casual pose didn’t fool Carolina at all. “Spill whatever’s on your mind, honey. I can take it.”

“I’m just thinking that if you’re really over him, then why not take the bet? I mean, where’s the harm, right? You spend a couple of weeks letting him romance you, do a few shows to let your viewers know how unaffected you are by his pathetic attempts, and in two short weeks, you have an iron clad resume to present to some bigtime television producers. Where’s the downside?”

Wearily, Carolina sank down in the armchair she’d chosen for this inquisition, her mind splintering into a thousand pieces, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them emblazoned with Charlie’s name.

Eliza had only voiced what had gone through Carolina’s head the whole time she’d been in the bath. Well, that and a whole lot more. Hugo was smarter than she’d given him credit for, bowing out. If she’d really been interested in him, she’d have asked him out. There was no rule that said she had to wait around on a man. She hadn’t pursued that connection for a reason.

Charlie.

Dang it all. Why hadn’t she realized this before now? What good was a psychology degree if you couldn’t recognize the hidden traps in your own heart?

Everything in her life came down to that infuriating man. Her show was a success because she’d funneled her disappointment and heartache over what had happened between them into advising the lovelorn how to be happy without a man.

Obviously she hadn’t learned her own lesson.

“I have to do it, don’t I?” she said.

Now that she’d said it out loud, it made a strange sort of sense. She hadn’t fully gotten over Charlie because she’d fled within an hour of saying her vows. She hadn’t given him a chance to prove that the relationship would fall apart anyway.

And he’d just handed her that opportunity. Because of course that would be the result. Not some contrived happily ever after once he’d plied her with his silly relationship tools. But closure to their whirlwind romance and epic breakup. Finally.

This bet would be like a measles shot. An inoculation against all future Charlie-induced rashes of crazy bad decisions. She could take two weeks to get him out of her system, prove his entire platform was bunk and move on.

As if she’d conjured up the man simply by talking about him, her phone buzzed and she didn’t have to glance at the screen to know what she’d see.

Charlie: I’ll be by at nine in the morning to pick you up. We have to apply for a marriage license asap.

She rolled her eyes and texted him back: I haven’t changed my mind. You don’t know me as well as you think you do.

Charlie: You’re wearing pink Converse with either mint-green leggings or purple jeans.

She unlaced her pink Converse and kicked them across the room.

Carolina: I’m not wearing shoes. So there.

Charlie: I’ll move in with you. I don’t mind giving you home court advantage.

“What’s he saying now?” Eliza called in a sobering reminder that her friend was still in the room, which she’d actually forgotten in the scant few seconds that Charlie had invaded her mind.

“He’s volunteering to move in with me.” What was the point of pretending she could maintain some sense of mystery when apparently everyone knew her better than she knew herself? “He’s up to something.”

“He wants to make it as attractive for you as possible, so you’ll do it,” Eliza suggested with maddening pragmatism as she set her empty bowl in the sink and ran water into it. “Which frankly, you should.”

“Really. Do tell.”

Eliza perched on the arm of Carolina’s chair, a gentle smile on her face. “You spend a lot of time trying to convince everyone your heart is made of stone but secretly, you’re a romantic.”

That was just wacky enough to get a laugh out of Carolina, despite the band around her chest that hadn’t quite gone away since Hugo left. “Have you met me?”

“A time or two. And that’s why you can’t fool me. Why would you go to so much trouble to make sure all of your friends find love and happiness if you didn’t believe in it yourself?”

“Because it’s totally different to help other people pull their heads out of their rear ends so they can see what’s right in front of them. Nomi and Malone were already in love with each other. I just pushed them into figuring that out for themselves. Lilith was a bit trickier, but she got out of her own way long enough to fall for Dane once I laid the path down for her. Shiloh was easy. Anyone could see she already had Kellan’s heart in her hand. Except her. All I did was open her eyes.”

Eliza’s expression got decidedly smugger the longer the list grew. “Go on. Get to the part where you did all of that because you’re cynical and bitter about love.”

“I’ve never said I was cynical.” Carolina stuck her tongue out, even as her heart twisted over how hard it was to see everyone else deliriously happy when that wasn’t in her future. “I just like being right. And I was, in every case. Including the one where you needed a real man instead of a virtual one.”

“Exactly my point. If I can fall in love with a movie star, anything is possible. Even you and Charlie.”

“Charlie and I are not happening. That’s why I have to take the bet.” She couldn’t risk anyone thinking she wasn’t over him and that was the reason she’d declined. “To prove the opposite. Love is not in the cards for everyone. Which, by the way, has long been the philosophy I preached.”

“It’s okay. I still love you even when you’re being obtuse.” Eliza patted Carolina’s knee. “If there’s anyone on this earth who’s perfect for you, it’s Charles Wilson.”

“Ha. Then I’m doomed to be single for the rest of my life.”

Which was pretty much the conclusion she’d drawn the first time she’d married him. Nothing had changed. The only way he’d hurt her was if she let him, and surely she was smart enough not to fall for his tricks this time as well. Plus, she’d get to take him down a few notches at the same time. There really was no downside to Eliza’s point.

And the upside? She’d banish him from her heart, once and for all.