Decoy Date Read online

  Also by Mira Lyn Kelly

  The Wedding Date

  May the Best Man Win

  The Wedding Date Bargain

  Just This Once

  Back to You

  Hard Crush

  Dirty Player

  Hot Friction

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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2019 by Mira Lyn Kelly

  Cover and internal design © 2019 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Dawn Adams/Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover image © Shirley Green Photography

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  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—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Epilogue

  A Sneak Peek at May the Best Man Win

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Chapter 1

  As a rule, Brody O’Donnel was an easygoing guy. He liked to laugh, he made fast friends, and he tended not to get too spun up about shit outside his control. He’d been told he had an old soul, a generous heart, and wisdom beyond his years. Nice stuff.

  If you asked him, though, he’d tell you he was a perceptive guy with realistic expectations and an appreciation of the things that really mattered: good friends, warm crème anglaise, and landing an open spot in front of Belfast on a Saturday night.

  His skin was thick, and not a lot got under it.

  But this? He blew out a disgusted breath and slammed the car door. This was where he hit his limit.

  Gwen Danes was already out of the passenger side when he rounded the front end of his SUV, a frilly little goody bag from Bret and Claudia’s wedding shower dangling from her fingers, and her warm, whiskey eyes trained across the street to where a few other friends who’d been at the couple’s shower were already on their way into the bar. A few friends and Ted, the object of Gwen’s apparently unrelenting secret obsession and the pencil-neck dickweed currently throwing his A game at some out-of-town cousin just in for the weekend.

  What did she see in that guy?

  “Enough’s enough, Gwen,” Brody said, meeting her at the curb and tucking her under his arm as they waited for a break in the traffic. “If I have to watch you moon over that tool another month, I’m going to lose it.”

  Gwen elbowed him in the ribs. “I wasn’t mooning over him.”

  Like hell. He’d give her this, she was subtle about it. Most of her friends didn’t know about the crush she’d been harboring for at least a few years. But he’d known the score within minutes of meeting her.

  There was a gap between cars and they jogged across, but Brody stopped her outside the bar’s front entrance. “It’s time for you to get over Ted.”

  Gwen crossed her arms, the light jacket she’d worn to the shower not enough protection against Chicago’s biting November wind. “I’ll get right on that. Now can we go inside?”

  He opened the door for her and followed her in. When she looked like she was going to head over to their other friends, he caught her elbow and leaned close to her ear. “Hold up. Come with me, and I’ll make you a drink first.”

  Her eyes lit with anticipation. Yeah, he had her number all right. She loved his drinks.

  Leading her to the bar, he nodded to a few of the staff and regulars. There was an open seat at the end, and Brody directed her toward it before circling around to the back side and pulling out one bottle after another.

  After missing most of the afternoon and evening for the shower, he ought to be tending to the crowd or checking on his crew. Maybe even catching up on the paperwork Jill kept reminding him was still on his desk in back. And he would. But after.

  Working quickly, he mixed the cocktail and finished it with a pass of the small kitchen torch.

  Planting his hands on the high-shine finish of the bar, he leaned in and waited, his focus locked on the lush swell of Gwen’s burgundy-glossed lip cushioning his best martini glass. The dark-chocolate concoction he’d spent the night before perfecting tipped back, and he held his breath in almost painful anticipation. Just a sip for the first taste. But then, as he’d hoped, her mouth curved as she went back for a second, longer swallow before letting out the moan of appreciation that got him half hard every damn time he heard it—even though that’s not how it was between them.

  Carefully setting the glass on the polished bar in front of her, Gwen smoothed the thick spill of honeyed blond back from her face. She shook her head, giving him the awed expression that had had him creating a new drink for her every week for the last two months. “Brody,” she sighed. “That was better than sex.”

  He barked out a laugh and shoved his fingers through his mess of curls, binding the hair back with the elastic he always had on hand. “The drink’s good, but better than sex? Someone’s been doing you a grave disservice, gorgeous.”

  Raising a brow, she conceded, “Maybe I just don’t remember.”

  Which brought him back to the issue at hand. The pencil neck.

  “I’m serious about Ted. You’re wasting your life waiting on that guy.” And worse, it wasn’t as though she was holding out for him to realize he was madly in love with her. Brody had never actually seen them together that way, thank fuck, but he knew without question that at some point over the years, the friendship Gwen swore up and down was enough for her—and protected as fiercely as a lioness w
ith her cub—had included indulging in a few benefits on the side. She said she wasn’t waiting for more, but he knew better.

  What really pissed him off was that Ted didn’t care enough to set her straight. No way the guy was dumb enough not to recognize how Gwen felt about him. And if he knew, how the hell could he justify taking advantage of her that way? Playing like they were both on the same page, when anyone with eyes and enough sense to see past the epic-and-enduring friendship would know they weren’t.

  “Hey, I’m not waiting on anything,” she said, looking around to make sure they hadn’t been overheard. “I go out with guys.”

  “They don’t even have a shot with you, Gwen.”

  “What?” And now she was giving him that indignant, fired-up look he shouldn’t enjoy quite so much as he did. “Lies! I went out with Ben four times and Niles six.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know how you are about giving things a fair chance.”

  “You don’t say yes if you aren’t willing to try.”

  Right. He’d heard it before.

  The “fair chance” was Gwen’s thing, and she took it pretty seriously.

  “You might have meant to, but, Gwen, you were checked out on those guys before they ever showed up at your door. Thing is, you’re not going to be able to give anyone a fair shot until you let Ted go.”

  She didn’t want to agree, but she wasn’t able to deny it. Her shoulders slumped, and the light in her eyes dimmed. “It’s not like I haven’t tried. I mean, sometimes I think I’m over him, but then…”

  Brody got it. Getting over Ted would be a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t make a habit of giving her false hope.

  Wiping his hands on a towel, Brody cleared out of the business side of the bar and took the stool that had just opened beside her. When he had her attention, he leaned closer. “Ted’s not the right man for you. I know it. But the only way you’re going to believe it is if he shows you himself.”

  Her brows pushed together, and her nose screwed up. “Ted’s a good guy, Brody. We’ve been friends forever. I don’t know what you think he’s going to show me that I haven’t seen a hundred times before, but—”

  “I think he’s going to show you that once you actually have him, you won’t want him.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, confusion in her tone.

  “I mean I’m going to help you get Ted. Just so you can get him out of your system and get on with your life.”

  * * *

  Gwen sat back on her stool. “You can’t be serious.”

  But the look Brody was giving her said that’s exactly what he was.

  And he was telling her he thought he could get Ted for her.

  Ted, who’d been playing with a few strands of Janna Houseman’s hair while he gave her the crooked half smile Gwen had seen too many times and remembered all too well having directed toward her. That smile wasn’t about friendship. It was about closing.

  “Maybe I’m misunderstanding. What exactly do you mean by helping me get Ted?”

  “I mean that if you agree to what I’m suggesting, Ted is going to be the one waiting for you at the end of the night. And it will be for more than a shady hookup he’s going to pretend didn’t happen the next day—”

  “Hey, that’s not how it was.”

  “Please, I’m begging you not to give me the details on how it actually was. I can barely stomach the idea of you guys being friends.”

  She gasped, but his reaction wasn’t a surprise. Brody had taken an instant and intense dislike to Ted, one she still didn’t understand.

  “Then why are you offering to help me with him?”

  “Look, I don’t like Ted. But I do like you, and I want you to be able to move on from this. Because this thing between you two isn’t love, Gwen. It’s a persistent crush that should have been kicked eons ago. You don’t think straight about him because you’re so caught up in this suspended state of want. Once he’s yours, letting his Tic Tacs click against his teeth while you watch Netflix every night, leaving the toilet seat up, and barking like a damn seal in your ear all the time, the spell will be broken. He’s going to be just another meh boyfriend, and you’ll be able to let him go.”

  Gwen blinked, shifting back in her seat. “You’ve put some thought into this.”

  He shook his head. “It’s obvious. You just can’t see it yet.”

  She disagreed. Brody was the one who couldn’t see it. She knew everything there was to know about Ted. If by some twist of fate he realized he was in love with her, she’d never give him up.

  But Ted suddenly declaring his undying love for her wasn’t going to happen. After all these years, she’d mostly accepted it. And sometimes she even thought she’d moved on. This, apparently, wasn’t one of those times.

  Gwen drummed her fingers across the bar. “So what exactly is your plan?”

  Brody laughed and cocked his head. “Shake him up some. Ted already knows you’re into him.”

  When she blanched, he leaned an elbow on the bar and angled his body so they were facing. “Gwen, come on. He has to know. That little eye contact at the end of the night? The way you’re always close at hand…waiting.”

  She could feel the heat pushing into her cheeks. “Is that what I look like?”

  He waved her off. “Not to anyone who hasn’t slept with you.”

  “You haven’t slept with me.”

  “Yeah, but I’m an unusually perceptive guy. Believe me, if anyone else had seen it, they’d be talking about it. And if people were talking about it, I would have heard. I haven’t. But Ted? He knows. He likes it. Your attraction, your affection, he’s had it for…what, a couple years now?”

  “Yeah, years,” she replied, shifting uncomfortably on her stool. More years than she was willing to admit to Brody or anyone else.

  “Right. So your affection is like a warm blanket for this guy. Something he keeps on hand in case he gets cold or lonely. I’ve seen it. The way he pulls you back in when another guy starts talking to you. How he suddenly needs to touch your arm, your hair. Something. But then as soon as you refocus on him, he’s back with the buddy-buddy friends business.”

  Gwen was shaking her head. Perceptive or not, Brody was reading that wrong.

  “What we need to do is take the blanket away. Ted needs to believe he’s about to lose it for real, for good.”

  “A blanket?” She thought about the threadbare, lumpy quilt Ted kept at the end of his bed. It was beige and had a few suspect stains she’d never wanted to ask about. There had to be a better metaphor. “I don’t want to be a blanket.”

  Brody’s jaw shifted to the side, his deep-green eyes locking with hers. “So don’t.”

  That wasn’t what she meant, but whatever. The guy was big on making points. And dead wrong about Ted, who she was beginning to feel a little protective about. Until she glanced across the bar to where Janna bit her lip and peered up into Ted’s eyes. That girl was definitely going home with him tonight. And knowing Gwen’s luck, she’d probably end up running into Janna in the stairwell when she was coming back from the gym tomorrow. She’d have to smile and stop to chat as if there wasn’t a reason in the world not to. And Gwen would do it too, because Ted meant the world to her, and she would do anything to protect their friendship. Even if she was dying just a little inside.

  She turned back to Brody and took another long swallow of the decadent creation he’d mixed for her. “So, what are you suggesting? I play hard to get for a while? Make myself less available?”

  It wouldn’t work. She’d tried it before, but in the end, their friendship had won out, and they’d been back to morning coffee and being each other’s default dinner partner whenever they went out.

  “Nah.” Brody shrugged, then seeming to refocus on her, he leaned closer, lowering his voice as he spoke directly into her ear. “We’re
going to make him think I took his blanket…and I’m using it so good, it’s wrapped around me so tight every single night, that he’ll never get it back.”

  When Brody leaned back, Gwen could barely look at him. Her cheeks were on fire, and she felt a nervous fluster she hadn’t experienced in what seemed like forever.

  She cleared her throat and, hazarding a glance at the heavy-lidded green eyes dancing across from her, shook her head. “That was so dirty-sounding. And so completely wrong. I’m not kidding. I don’t want to be the dirty blanket. Draw another comparison.”

  He laughed that warm, rumbling laugh of his. “Get over Ted, and you can be anything you want, Gwen.” Then more seriously, he asked, “So what do you think?”

  Truth time. “I think if you could make Ted want me, I’d never let him go.”

  She didn’t know why, but that quiet admission in the middle of the bar took something out of her. It left her feeling hollow and more alone than she’d ever let herself feel.

  Brody peered up at the ceiling and ran his big hand over his mouth. “Fair enough. Either way, you win, right? So what do you think?”

  Tipping her glass back, she downed the rest of her drink. “What’s this one called?” she asked, licking a bit of toasted marshmallow from her lip.

  “Gwen’s Campfire Kiss,” Brody replied with a wink, crossing his thick arms over his chest so the seams of his dress shirt strained around the bulk of his arms.

  “I think maybe I’d better have another. I’m about to do something crazy.”

  Chapter 2

  Two Campfire Kisses later, Gwen was feeling warm and loose but still not completely sold on Brody’s plan.

  “How is anyone going to buy this, Brody? You’re a relentless flirt, and we’ve been hanging out for months as friends. I even told Ted there wasn’t anything between us, so he’s not going to buy some sudden change of heart.”

  Brody took a long swallow of his Guinness, nodding as he set it aside. “Allow me to address your concerns point by point. First, I may be an unrepentant flirt in general, but take my word that what’s about to happen with you is going to be significantly different.” He leaned closer. “You’re going to like it.”