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  Grace’s Fake Groom

  Beach House Memories, Book 1

  Francesca Lane

  Grace’s Fake Groom

  Beach House Memories, Book 1

  Copyright © 2020 Francesca Lane

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This novel was briefly released previously as

  Grace’s Fake Marriage.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover Design by Tugboat Design

  FRANCESCA LANE writes sweet beach romances ... for any time of year. For a free eBook, visit: FrancescaLane.com

  Contents

  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

  Want to read more?

  Sneak Peek of Daisy’s Secret Billionaire

  Also by Francesca Lane

  In Grace’s Fake Marriage …

  He needs a fianceé. She needs a job. When they join forces, what could go wrong?

  Daisy’s Secret Billionaire - Beach House Memories Book 2 is now available!

  One

  Grace stepped into the unusually still office corridor, her heart beating in her ears. So quiet today. The Law Offices of Ryan & Ryan usually hummed with energy—scratch that, they screeched. Yes, that was more like it. In the six days that Grace had toiled as a very junior lawyer at the firm—a job that she had clawed her way into, by the way—she’d already learned not to wince at the sounds of heated voices, ones in the midst of tense negotiations. Especially those coming from far down the hall where the two lead attorneys of the firm wrestled over cases—and with each other.

  Chase Ryan and Kate Little. Or as some around here said, Chase and Kate. They weren’t a couple any longer, and though she personally found the idea of exes running a law firm a little unusual, she admired the two for carrying it out.

  Not that either one had any idea who she was, as she had yet to meet the former couple.

  A phone slammed against its base.

  A grunt flew.

  There it was—signs that though the office appeared empty, she was not alone. Grace bit her upper lip and stepped softly into her own small office, the one she shared with Mick, a new hire, who, like herself, thanked his lucky stars about once an hour that he landed this job. They’d bonded over coffee, bar exam horror stories, and her personal favorite—the number of resumes they had each sent out until finally landing here.

  She beat him one hundred and nine to his ninety-seven.

  The rumble from down the hall grew. Something heavy landed against a wall. Her gaze fell to a note stuck to her desk. The edges of the paper were jagged, as if torn from a notepad in a hurry, the writing scrawled in uneven lines:

  See me in my office.

  To her moderately trained eye, the unsigned directive appeared to have been written by the head of the firm, Chase Ryan. When the office file clerk had inexplicably disappeared yesterday, Grace had found herself searching through a pile of documents that had not yet been filed. From that experience, she grew to recognize his use of terse language, the hard pressure of ink on the page, and the way his letters neither slanted right nor left.

  Abruptly, she stood, her hands sweaty and cold. A sign of anxiety that was annoying, but thankfully not that difficult to hide. A pep talk would help. Maggie could talk her off of this ledge, if anyone could.

  Her phone!

  She’d left it charging inside her car. Great. Now she couldn’t easily dash into the women’s room to call her sister. Worse, her car battery would likely be dead by the end of the workday.

  Grace slid a glance outside the window to the colorless day. She swallowed. If she hurried, she could zip downstairs to grab her phone and be back before Mr. Ryan expected to see her in his office.

  By the time she reached her car, her palms had earned their sweat, only they were no longer cold. She instructed Siri to call Maggie.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

  Her sister was not one to spare words. And frankly, neither was she.

  “I’m here. Something’s up. I can feel it. Help me calm down.”

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

  Grace blew out a breath, sending strands of her long blonde hair aloft. “Fine. I showed up here early, you know, to get a jump-start on the week—”

  “And to show up everybody else, I presume. Girl power, and all that.”

  “Are you gonna listen?”

  “Proceed.”

  “It’s just that, strangely, no one else is around. It’s Monday, and I’m the only one here. Well, except for the boss.” Her eyes flitted about the half-empty underground parking lot. “At least I think I heard him in there.”

  “So you were calling me to make sure that everyone else wasn’t raptured into heaven?”

  “Ha ha.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Grace. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to put a positive spin on whatever might—or might not—be going on at work. And then you’ll have them following after you.”

  “Actually, there’s more. My boss left a note on my desk.”

  “You mean Judith?”

  She shook her head. “No, not the woman who hired me, the big boss, the one that sends the entire place running for the fire exit when he thunders down the hall. Chase Ryan.” She paused. “He wants to see me.”

  “Maybe he just wants to compliment you on the exceptional job you’ve done your first week.”

  “Considering we haven’t met, I doubt it. But maybe.”

  “You don’t sound sure. Are your hands clammy?”

  Grace wiped her palms down the hip line of her skirt. “I’m worried about what he’s going to say about me taking a vacation so early into my new job.”

  Silence.

  “You did tell the human resources department about your non-negotiable month off, right, Grace?” Suspicion rang in her sister’s tone.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Grace Morelli!”

  Grace pressed her hand to her temple. “You don’t understand, Mags. This was the only interview I received after literally more than a hundred job applications.” Though she was usually the one to say what she had to say, she would never confess to her family just how high the tally of her college loans had grown. Each one of her siblings had problems of their own. Why would they care about hers?

  “I get it, I’m broke too, but we’ve been over this a hundred times and you drew the short straw. Remember, you were the only one with free time when our family situation was all settled.”

  “I know, I know. I still don’t understand why our parents put that weird stipulation in their will.”

  “You know as well as I do that there’s no getting around it. We’ve tried. If we want to inherit Mom and Dad’s beach house—the only thing they’ve left us—then we each must live there for one month and fix up the place on a budget. No exceptions.”

  Grace nodded. She pushed back the frustration her eccentric parents’ final words had caused and marched back across the parking lot to her office building.

  A whimper caught her attention. She stepped closer to the only thing nearby, a shopping cart with an empty bag in it. Something in the bag rustled, and hesitantly, she p
eered into it.

  Her sister’s voice called through the phone. “Grace? Are you there?”

  Two marble-shaped eyes looked back at her.

  “Grace?”

  She whipped her chin toward the phone. “Sorry, Maggie. Gotta go. Will call you later.”

  The whimper grew more pronounced.

  Grace threw her phone into her bag and hitched it over her shoulder so her hands could be free. “What are you doing in there, little one?” she cooed. The puppy wiggled in her hand, his black fur soft, his eyes barely open.

  Grace searched around for whoever may have left the dog in the cart, unsure of what she might say to someone who would do something so dangerous and uncaring. When she didn’t see anyone, she frowned.

  She brushed a look into the puppy’s questioning eyes. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

  The puppy answered her by aggressively licking her fingers with its sandpaper tongue.

  Grace flipped her chin upward in a why me stance, but knew what she needed to do. “C’mon, little guy,” she said, and tucked him into the oversized bag hanging over her shoulder.

  If she hurried, she could find a safe place for the creature, freshen her lipstick, and show up in Mr. Ryan’s office with no questions asked.

  Grace moved quickly, noting the building’s open door. She charged toward it, only it wasn’t open. Just clean. She ran headlong into the glass, hitting her chin and nose and nearly knocking herself unconscious. Well, maybe not unconscious, but she’d be sore the next morning, no doubt.

  A husky voice cut through her self-loathing. “Are you all right?”

  Chase Ryan. She hadn’t seen him there, standing inside the lobby.

  She covered her face with her hand, nodding uncontrollably. “Yes, yes. I’m fine.”

  “Do you need a medic?”

  She peered at him though open fingers. Was he teasing her?

  His eyes continued to focus on her, concern knotting his forehead. He was either genuinely concerned or thought she was an idiot.

  “You’re Grace.”

  She rolled her eyes. Her older brother Jake used to say that to her, mockingly, especially when making fun of her. “Pass the butter, Your Grace” or “Answer the phone, Your Grace.”

  The purse of Chase’s tempting lips startled her. Maybe he hadn’t been kidding.

  “You are our new hire, Grace, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, yes. Sorry. Yes, I am, Mr. Ryan.” The bag on her shoulder squirmed.

  His eyes narrowed. “If you are not in need of medical attention, meet me in my office in ten minutes when I return.”

  She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  He stood watching her longer than was comfortable, his gaze sliding to her bag. She ignored the puppy’s whine. Perhaps he would think the sound came from a passing car.

  “And your bag is in need of attention.”

  He knew. She nodded and began to pull it from her shoulder.

  He pointed. “Wet spot forming.”

  She stopped and glanced at her purse. Sure enough, a circular dark spot had formed on the outside fabric. She lifted her gaze to his and shrugged. “Guess my lunch leaked.”

  He nodded once. “You have ten minutes to handle that.”

  She would do.

  Too bad he had to let her go.

  Chase’s jaw clicked as he moved across the pavement, his mind unusually disorganized. “Pull it together, Ryan,” he muttered.

  He couldn’t fathom why she had shown up for work today. Unlike the others. Although maybe she had plans to hold that fact over his head somehow. Wouldn’t put it past her.

  He pressed his lips together, certain a grim line stretched across his face. Though he had not actually met his new employee, he’d noticed her, especially the way she clipped her way through the office in form-fitting skirts, her chin up, an I’m-here-to-take-on-the-world expression on her delicate face. She had tried to keep up that stance when he’d watched her slam into the entry doors back there. Despite her shock, she had looked him in the eye, a noble attempt to wow him with a certain defiance, but he wasn’t buying it. She was nervous. Unsure.

  Would have been a perfect new hire, if only his life hadn’t changed so dramatically in the last twelve hours. Chase strode toward the security booth at the entrance of the business complex that his father owned, intent on getting some answers. What did the parking attendant know about what had transpired in his office? What had he seen? With each step his anger grew. Kate Little had started out as his paralegal, but after she’d passed the bar and quickly proved herself as a force in law, she became one of his top employees—and more than that, actually.

  He should have known that their union would be too good to be true. Had he not learned as a child that relationships weren’t meant to last? That men weren’t always at fault? Forget fuzzy Mother’s Day ads, the truth was, women could be as ruthless as men were purported to be. He’d seen it firsthand and had decided long ago to put his trust in himself alone.

  Though Kate had, temporarily, changed his mind.

  But today she had proven him right the first time. He thought about the look on the new recruit’s face—on Grace’s face. He couldn’t recall her last name, though he had seen it on a memo that had circulated.

  No matter. If he were a different man, one of those sappy types that followed after women with puppy dog loyalty, she might be an easy target. But he’d never let himself tumble down that path again. Wasn’t his calling.

  Instead, when Chase Ryan returned to his office, he would call the blonde beauty into his office—and anyone else who bothered to show up—and then he would cut her loose.

  Grace shut the door to her office and opened the wide drawer of her credenza. All through law school she heard about the long hours lawyers kept, so she had already stocked her office with extra food and clothing. The tiny cans of tuna in there would be put to good use for her new friend—sans the crackers.

  Quickly, she set down her purse and watched the puppy scuttle out, nose to ground. She sighed. If she left him running around unattended, he might get hurt.

  She glanced again at the open drawer and made a bed from several blouses, topping it with a sweater. “I’ll probably have to get rid of all of this, you know,” she muttered.

  Then she lifted the doggy and gently laid him in the drawer. He yelped once, then collapsed into a perfect circle. Before she’d had a chance to take a second breath, he was snoring.

  She laughed. Spoiled! Must’ve tired the poor little guy out …

  Grace slapped her hands against her thighs, blew out a breath, and stood. No sense putting this meeting off any longer. She dashed a note to Mick, still wondering why he hadn’t yet made it in, and left it on the desk.

  Puppy in my credenza. Don’t ask. Please don’t shut the drawer all the way. Will explain later.

  She made her way out of her office, closing the door behind her, and headed down the long hall. Light shone from Chase Ryan’s office. She glanced around. Darkness prevailed everywhere else. Truly no one had shown up for work this morning, but how could this be? Today was not a holiday, though even if it were she’d probably have come in anyway, eager to build her presence here, to bill more hours—to get out of deep debt.

  Her heartbeat sped up, a catch at the base of her throat. No turning back now.

  Grace stepped into the open doorway of Chase’s office and raised her hand to knock on the frame. She froze.

  Though on his feet, he was bent over his desk, his hands rolled into fists, supporting him. He lifted his chin and looked her over, his jaw set, those watery green eyes of his intense. When she’d encountered him this morning she’d thought how they reminded her of a fresh pool of water at the base of an unrelenting waterfall.

  But not now. Now the green in his eyes had turned grey and steely.

  He straightened, never taking that hard gaze from her face. “You chose to stay.”

  “If you mean that I showed up to work on what appears
to be a holiday for everyone else, then I suppose you’re right.” She paused. “I have a lot on my desk right now.”

  Who was she kidding? Her day included copying files to send to a client, summarizing records, possibly even a run to the post office. Not exactly the tasks that she planned on doing forever, and certainly not the skills that warranted the hefty law school debt she had accumulated.

  Chase walked around to the front of his desk, one hand shoved into his pocket. He eyed her, his expression a mixture of wariness and curiosity—possibly even distrust.

  “You really have no idea what happened around here.”

  Was this a trick? His question was more of a statement, as if he truly was testing her. She licked her lips and let her eyes do a brief survey of the room. An electric pencil sharpener lay upside down at the base of one scarred wall. The quiet began to reveal other things she had not noticed earlier. The click of a clock. The whir of AC. The lack of printers printing and keyboards clacking, of phone calls being made and coffee brewing.

  She swallowed. “Was it … did something … happen?”

  He clenched his jaw, heightening the effect of his angular cheekbones. “Have a seat, Grace.”

  Silently, Chase walked to his high-back office chair and sat, his hands resting on both hand rests. He fixed his gaze on her. “Kate Little has left the firm and she’s taken most of the staff with her. And half the files. The good half.”

  Grace gasped. A dozen thoughts elbowed their way into her mind. “How-how do you know?”

  He lifted a file and dropped it with a thwack. “It’s all in there. She came in yesterday, apparently, and stole half of everything. Even the staplers.”