Home Run Fiancé (Faking It Book 2) Read online

  Home Run Fiancé

  Marika Ray

  Marika Ray Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by Marika Ray

  All rights reserved.

  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.

  Special Thanks to:

  Amanda Walker - Cover Designer

  Judy Zweifel - Proofreader

  Shayne Ryder - Proofreader

  For my mom, who took us to Dodger games every summer growing up, where I fell in love with the seventh inning stretch, the sound of the crack of the bat, and learned to do the wave. I may have even taken home some grass in my pocket that one time they let us onto the outfield for the fireworks…

  Contents

  HOME RUN FIANCÈ

  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

  Epilogue

  Note From the Author

  Reading Order

  HOME RUN FIANCÈ

  (Faking It Series #2)

  It’s all home runs and after parties until your sports agent-slash-best friend tells you to get a new image STAT or you won’t get that trade you desperately need in order to be there for your family. So what’s a guy to do except hire a fake girlfriend and go on pretend dates and then ask her to marry him in front of millions of fans?

  In hindsight, I shouldn’t have hired my agent’s little sister.

  And I definitely shouldn’t have kissed her, or taken her to meet my family, or envisioned an actual life with her.

  Three strikes I’m out. Now she wants nothing to do with me and there’s nothing fake about how I feel.

  I’m in love with my best friend’s sister.

  1

  February

  Jake

  I’ve reached my breaking point.

  Slamming the door to my condo shut behind me, I tug on my collar, feeling like I can’t get a full breath into my lungs. The silk tie slides through my fingers as I grapple with it. I need it off my neck right freaking now. Asher’s already on a phone call, either with his assistant to get a statement out to the press right away, or to my team’s manager with the news. The tie finally cooperates and I toss it onto the glass table. My suit jacket follows, a crumpled heap that would make my tailor faint. I really shouldn’t wrinkle a three-thousand-dollar suit—I’m not that big of a prima donna—but today has been an exceptionally frustrating day.

  I shouldn’t even be in a suit. I should be out at the batting cages with my teammates, getting ready for Spring Training. Right before Thanksgiving, a woman I’d gone on a couple dates with went to the press and told them she was pregnant with my baby. As her side of the story went, when she’d told me the news, I’d dumped her and refused to have anything to do with her.

  The accusation was so preposterous I laughed when I first heard it, thinking Asher, my agent, was pulling a prank on me. She and I were so casual I hesitated to even call us dating. We’d met through a mutual friend at a party and had gone to a few social events together when I needed a date and she wanted a nice evening out on the fancy side of town. It was entirely mutual to go our separate ways as we had zero chemistry. We hadn’t even taken things farther than a simple peck on the cheek at the end of our “dates.”

  I’m foggy on anatomy and physiology, but I’m pretty sure you can’t get pregnant from a kiss on the cheek. I’d told everything to Asher, and to the press, but I found myself having to hire a legal team and appear in court when she didn’t immediately drop it. After shelling out the cash for a noninvasive DNA test, we’d shown up in court that morning to learn the results.

  She’d burst into tears when the judge read the baby wasn’t mine. He’d given her a stern talking to, suspecting she’d only made the accusation because she thought she could shake me down for some money.

  I could barely look at her. I just thanked the judge for his time and walked out of the courthouse to flashing cameras, head held high.

  Didn’t stop me from being frustrated though.

  I’m so sick of women using my professional athlete status for their own gain. Jake Kersh is no longer a guy who likes to play baseball. I’m a commodity, a celebrity of sorts, to be used and discarded at whim.

  “Yeah, that sounds perfect. Release it immediately.” Asher hangs up and flops down onto the opposite end of the black leather couch. He’s already re-dialing. “Gotta call Joe.”

  I lay my head back on the couch cushion and close my eyes. One measured breath at a time brought my adrenaline down slowly but surely, just like in the early days when I’d be petrified to take the field. Back then I would have never thought I’d need the same technique for a situation like this. Back then, I just wanted to play the game. Still wanted to just play the game, but when you’ve gone to the World Series twice and hit home runs on the regular, you got famous enough to be recognized on the street and things changed.

  Asher droned on and on to Joe, the general manager of the Los Angeles Dangers, the professional baseball team I played for. They hadn’t been happy about the accusations either, telling me to get it taken care of without tarnishing their reputation and then get my head back in the game.

  Thank goodness for Asher Close. He’s been my agent for ten years and I couldn’t be in this profession without him. We’d been in an elevator together in the same hotel, on our way to my high school’s baseball award ceremony ten years ago. He was just starting out as a sports agent, visiting with high school athlete hopefuls, trying to score some clients even if it was a long shot. A gorgeous girl had gotten on the elevator too, but exited just one floor down, not nearly long enough for either of us to try out a line on her. As soon as the doors slid shut, Asher looked at me and said, “How come the elevator never breaks down when you want it to?”

  I’d been thinking along the same lines, so we laughed together and introduced ourselves. Right from the beginning he’d given off a good vibe. Honest. Upstanding. Trustworthy. Could have been his boy-next-door good looks, or the way he’d get everyone to laugh with him. He looked like a freaking cherub. Maybe it was the fact he was only a couple years older than me and really seemed to understand me. Not long after that elevator ride, I’d been drafted straight onto a farm team in Oklahoma City with talks of bumping me up to the majors sooner rather than later. After telling my mom and my brother the news, my first call had been to Asher. He worked for me for peanuts the first few years, treating me like I was a bigger deal than I was. When I got bumped up and got paid better, I made sure he was paid the going rate. Every deal that had gotten me to where I am is because of him. We became friends over the years, and I trust him implicitly.

  “Dude. It’s done.” Asher places his phone down on the glass table and looks over at me with a big grin.

  I pop my eyes open and look over at him warily.

  “What? Aren’t you happy with the outcome?” He splays his hands out like all is well in the world.

  “Happy?” Lifting my head, I give him a glare. “No, I’m not happy. I should never have been accused in the first place. I should never have had to hire that lawyer, or give repeated press conferences, or waste my time managing the press’s gossip
about me. Yeah, it’s over, but I ain’t happy.”

  He nods, a serious expression on his face, but I know him. He’s already slipping into “placate Jake mode.” I hate when he does that. Makes me feel like some egomaniac celebrity client who needs to be handled with kid gloves.

  I cut him off before he can get started, hopping up with the intention to change out of the constricting suit. “I’m disgusted by women in general at the moment. Maybe for a long while. I just want to get out on the field and play.”

  Asher hops up too, trailing me through my condo. “I get that. I totally do. But here’s the thing.” He grabs my arm, stopping me just outside my bedroom doorway. “Your reputation sucked long before that woman came forward. You know that, I know that, and more importantly, Bobby Maddon knows that.”

  I clench my jaw, not needing this crap right now. “All of which you know is not my fault.”

  Asher folds his arms across his chest like he intends to stay a while. “You can keep saying that all you want, but the fact remains, your reputation speaks far louder than anything you can say in a negotiation. Bobby’s not going to take you on if you’re known to be nothing but trouble.”

  “I’m not trouble!” I run my hands through my hair, messing up the carefully gelled style meant to impress the judge. “Damn women just keep complicating things and then the paparazzi is right there taking pictures at the wrong time. They don’t even bother to ask me to get the real story, they just make crap up and publish it.”

  “Listen, I believe you. You know I do. But I also know we have to clean up your image so Bobby will believe you and be open to trade talks. You know how Texas is. They want good ol’ boys, not big city punks who don’t care for rules.”

  Yeah, I know exactly how Texans are. I’d grown up there, my family and friends were still there. And if things go my way for once, I’ll be moving back there this season to play for the Texas Sliders. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing for the Dangers. They gave me my first chance and stuck by me for ten years. I owe my career to them.

  But my mama is sick. And she trumps everyone.

  I need to get back to Texas so I can help my little brother take care of her. What good is all that money in my account if I can’t be there to help the woman who gave me life?

  My head feels like it’s going to blow with all the bottled-up anger I can only seem to diffuse smashing some balls with a wooden bat or running until the sweat pours out of me. I need to get changed and get to the gym to at least somewhat salvage the day, except Asher is here nagging at me. I just can’t deal with him in my current frame of mind.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath. I don’t want to lose my cool with Asher, but I think I just need to be alone right now.

  “Can we please talk about this later?”

  Asher sighs. “Let’s hit the gym and then we can talk later. Good?”

  I nod, already walking into my bedroom to get changed.

  “Holy crap,” Asher pants, bent over with his hands on knees, looking like he’s going to puke.

  We just did a fifty-foot weighted prowler push across the turf in the training gym open 24/7 to players and staff. It’s nice being the top dog. I can get Asher into the gym with me anytime I want with a grin and a wink. Considering he’s almost as strong as me, we make for good workout partners. But I always smoke him on the cardio.

  I slap his butt and move over to the pull-up bar. “Come on, man, that all you got?”

  He moseys over, still gulping air, sweat dripping down the sides of his face. “Sorry, not sure if you know, but I’m a sports agent, not an actual athlete.”

  When I hit thirty pull-ups, I hop down and gesture that the equipment is all his. While he struggles through a measly fifteen pull-ups, I do burpees to keep my heart rate up.

  “Dude, that’s not right.” Asher hops down from the bar and looks at me like I’m some sort of alien.

  I just laugh. He’s actually in phenomenal shape, but he’s right. He’s paid to do all my media stuff, not have a body like a machine. This is just what I needed. My mood is a hundred times better after just an hour of sweating it out. I decide to take it easy on him.

  “Ready to grab some dinner and celebrate my court win?” I slap him on the back and toss him a fresh towel from a stack on the counter, right next to the bowl of fruit someone always keeps replenished.

  “Oh, now we’re celebrating? We couldn’t have done that an hour ago when I suggested it?” Asher mops his face and neck, the grin on his face giving him away.

  “Please. You love working out here and getting your butt kicked. Just admit it already.”

  “I admit nothing. Chinese or pizza?”

  We walk out of the gym into the fading light of a winter day in Los Angeles. I pull my hat over my head and automatically hunch over a bit, hoping to go unrecognizable as we walk to my SUV. The LA fans go crazy for their team and while I love it, I also wish to go incognito sometimes.

  I snort. “That stuff’s crap. We should—”

  “Please don’t with the Lamborghini analogy. I’ve heard it one too many times. You gotta eat some healthy crap to feed the machine, I know, I know. Where to?”

  A smile threatens to hit my face. “How about that organic salad place you said you liked.”

  After I unlock my Escalade with a beep, Asher slides into the passenger seat. “I didn’t say I liked it. I said it wasn’t as bad as some of the other organic, vegan, raw, whatever places you’ve taken me to before.”

  “I don’t eat vegan,” I bark.

  Asher side-eyes me. “Easy, killer.”

  He should know better than to say anything to remind me of that woman. The woman I’d actually dated and had feelings for during my time in the minor leagues. She was a broke actress going to auditions for commercials, television extras, basically anything to get her break. I was thinking of asking her to move in with me when Asher confronted me one day, telling me he’d seen her out to lunch with some guy. Being suspicious, he’d followed her and gotten a grainy cell phone pic of them making out in his fancy Jaguar.

  Being young and trusting, I hadn’t believed him. I confronted her anyway, wanting a plausible explanation, and she’d admitted she’d been sleeping with a television producer like it was no big deal. Like that was expected behavior in Hollywood. Despite living in LA and eating, sleeping, breathing the goal of making it into the majors instead of the Class-A team in Rancho Cucamonga, I was still just a kid from Texas. That kind of relationship was the exact opposite of what I wanted. We broke up, she hadn’t taken it well, and Asher had to take out a restraining order to keep her away from me.

  I’m back to clenching my jaw and trying to hold on to the feel-good endorphins from my workout. That was not a happy time in my life and it goes without saying I don’t like to talk about it. Asher can get away with it, being one of my best friends, but even so, I’m not happy about it.

  “You know not all women are out to get you, right?” Asher’s voice is quiet, all teasing gone.

  I shake my head and start driving to the restaurant. “I don’t know about that. I’ve run into some real pieces of work. I’m just not sure a person in my position can really trust anyone totally, you know?”

  Glancing over, Asher presses his lips together and looks as grim as I feel. “Maybe now’s not the best time to bring this up, but I have an idea to help you get to Texas.”

  That isn’t the direction I expected the conversation to go. “I’m all ears.”

  Asher takes a second to collect his thoughts and I’m instantly preparing myself for something I don’t want to hear. Whenever he pauses like that before spitting something out, he’s trying to come up with the best way to convince you to do something you don’t want to do.

  “The only thing holding you back from being the perfect third baseman choice for Texas is your reputation. The paparazzi have painted you to be a total bad boy, going through women like candy. Whether that’s actually true or not won’t mat
ter to Texas. Your reputation will affect them. Period.”

  He takes a deep breath as I pull into the parking lot and slam the vehicle into park. I’ve already completely lost my endorphin high and he hasn’t even gotten to this idea of his yet.

  “This is radical, but I think it’ll work. So hear me out.” He shifts in his seat and faces me across the console. “Let’s have you get engaged to a steady, normal woman.”

  He stops there and just looks at me expectantly.

  I don’t move, simply waiting for the rest of his idea. You know, the part that will actually make sense.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah. I heard you, man, but nothing about that sentence contains any logic.” I can feel my blood pressure climbing and my stomach growls needing replenishment after the workout.

  Asher’s hands start flying in the space between us as he outlines his plan in more detail, getting more excited the more he talks. “You don’t understand. It’ll be a fake fiancée, not for real. Having a stable girlfriend and then fiancée will help your reputation. Everybody loves a reformed bad boy settling down. Plus, with her by your side, women will stop throwing themselves at you at every function. It’s brilliant really.”

  If I glare at him any harder, I’ll give myself a headache. “What the—?” I run my hands over my beard, a nervous gesture I’ve tried hard to rid myself of. “Do you even hear yourself? Fake fiancée? That’s insane!”