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  Real Fake Love

  Copper Valley Fireballs #2

  Pippa Grant

  Copyright © 2020

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing by Jessica Snyder.

  Cover design by Lori Jackson Designs.

  Cover art copyright © Michelle Lancaster | www.michellelancaster.com

  Contents

  Introduction

  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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Bonus Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at Flirting with the Frenemy!

  Pippa Grant Book List

  About the Author

  Introduction

  REAL FAKE LOVE

  A Fake Relationship/Grumpy Hero/Jilted Bride Romantic Comedy

  If people have polar opposites, Luca Rossi is mine.

  His butt is in the baseball hall of fame. Mine’s comfortably seated in the hall of lame.

  When he’s not snagging fly balls out in center field, he’s modeling in shampoo commercials. I once jammed my own finger while stirring cookie dough, and sometimes I forget shampoo is a thing.

  He’s a total cynic when it comes to love.

  I make a living writing love stories.

  But after my latest broken engagement (no, I don’t want to talk about how many times that’s happened), it’s clear he’s exactly the man I need.

  If anyone can teach me to be the opposite of me, it’s him. The first thing I want him to teach me?

  How to not fall in love.

  And as luck would have it, he’s in desperate need of a fake girlfriend to get a meddling grandmother off his back.

  We couldn’t be more perfect together, because the last thing Luca Rossi will ever be is the next man to leave me at the altar.

  Or will he?

  Real Fake Love is a line drive straight to the heart featuring a grumpy athlete, a jilted bride, a fake relationship, and the world’s laziest cat. It stands alone and comes complete with sibling rivalry, the world’s most awkward shower scene, and a sweetly satisfying happily ever after.

  Keep in touch with Pippa Grant!

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  Other books by Pippa Grant:

  Copper Valley Fireballs Series

  Jock Blocked

  Real Fake Love

  The Bro Code Series

  Flirting with the Frenemy

  America’s Geekheart

  Liar, Liar, Hearts on Fire

  The Thrusters Hockey Series

  The Pilot and the Puck-Up

  Royally Pucked

  Beauty and the Beefcake

  Charming as Puck

  And more! Visit Pippa’s website at www.pippagrant.com for the most up-to-date book list, suggested series reading order, and more.

  1

  Luca Rossi, aka a man who has no idea how many problems he’s about to have

  There’s a massive wedding cake glaring at me.

  And by massive, I mean you can see it for miles around, because it’s not actually a cake.

  It’s a monument.

  A wedding cake monument. It’s taller than all of the buildings in this dinky farm town—okay, wedding town, but it should be a farm town—and it’s glaring at me.

  “Stop looking at the eyeballs,” my mother mutters next to me.

  “You first.”

  She shudders. “I can’t.”

  “Exactly.”

  If this were a normal monument that someone had defaced with giant googly eyes, I could look away. Hell, I might’ve even been the guy to participate in giving a monument googly eyes, and I’d probably be amused as hell.

  But wedding cakes give me the hives. Check that. Weddings give me the hives. And here we are.

  At a wedding in a weird little town so obsessed with weddings that they have a wedding cake monument with googly eyes that won’t stop glaring at us. Behind us is a country club and a lake—Harmony Lake, naturally—and on the other side of the cake is a street lined with wedding shops, and inside each of those shops are people who believe weddings are the greatest thing on earth.

  “Why are we here?” I ask Mom.

  “Guilt, Luca. We’re here because of guilt.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “Be glad Jerry insisted on a Monday wedding during your all-star break so you could make it, or I would’ve had to be here alone in the middle of their festival.”

  Now we’re shuddering in unison.

  I hate weddings. Hate them. Thousands of dollars down the drain for two people to be all dopey-faced and in loooooove while wearing ridiculous get-ups that they’ll never pull out of their closets again, with hundreds of people that they’ll feel obligated to send holiday cards to for the rest of their lives merely because Timmy brought a toaster and Rosalee donated to their honeymoon fund.

  A horny uncle will grope the bride’s butt while they’re dancing and everyone will pretend he didn’t. A drunk relative will spill all the beans about some sordid story from the groom’s past. And for the next two to twenty years, depending on how long they make it, the families will look at the photos and pretend that those wide-eyed, terrified, exhausted expressions the bride and groom are wearing in all the pictures is joy and happiness instead of stark raving madness.

  Nope.

  I’m not jaded about weddings and marriage and love at all.

  Yet for some reason, I keep getting invited to the damn things.

  Today, for instance, I’m here because Jerry Butts, who was the scrawny rich kid on the playground who stopped his high-class friends from making up stories about me to get me in trouble while I was the poor little scrapper keeping the bullies from breaking his glasses, calls me three times a year to talk about how we used to be such best friends, but he never sees me, even at the holidays, and can we play a round of golf sometime?

  And also because he specifically told me he and his bride picked a day during baseball season when they knew I’d have the best chance of being free on the off-chance that I didn’t make the all-star game and that I’d want to come.

  You can’t not come when someone plans their entire wedding so that you can be there, and somehow manages to make it not insulting whe
n they suggest you’re not good enough to play in the all-star game at the same time.

  Or when your agent hears you got invited to a wedding and he’s working on sealing a deal for a formal wear endorsement, and could I please go and dress up nice somewhere?

  You know what would be nice?

  It would be nice if I could stick to playing baseball and avoid all this other bullshit.

  “Luca? Hey! Luca, you made it.”

  My shoulders briefly bunch at the sound of Jerry’s voice, then Mom and I both turn. He’s in a gray tux with his hair slicked back to reveal his thinning hairline, and he doesn’t look like a man ready to take a leap of faith into the blissful pool of matrimony as he rounds the corner of the country club with a photographer on his heels.

  He looks like he ate a can of beans three years past their expiration date and his body can’t decide the best way to take care of the problem.

  And I’m not saying that because I hate weddings.

  I hold out a hand. “Hey, man. Good to see you. Congratulations.”

  He grips me by my fingers and squeezes like he’s drowning and can’t quite get a grip on the whole life raft. “Thanks. Thanks. Good to see you. Glad you could make it.” With his free hand, he tugs at his collar. “Warm one today, isn’t it? But Henri’s always dreamed of an outdoor wedding, and July won’t stop us from making a bride happy, will it?”

  “You poor dear, look at you sweating.” Mom whips a pack of tissues out of her small clutch and dabs his face the same way she used to when we were kids in the Chicago suburbs.

  Much like when we were kids, he blinks at her like she’s the brightest star in the heavens.

  His own mother never gave him popsicles.

  Mine always did.

  “Won’t they let you sit inside in the air conditioning until it’s time to walk down the aisle?” she asks.

  He stares for a beat longer, jaw slightly unhinged like a bug headed straight to a zapper, before he blinks quickly and blushes.

  Blushes?

  No. Surely he’s not blushing. Weather’s hot, that’s all.

  “Pictures,” he stammers. “None with the bride before the wedding, but me before the wedding. Wow. That cake has eyes. That cake didn’t have eyes last night, but it has eyes today.”

  He slides a look at me.

  I lift my hands in innocence.

  He laughs awkwardly and steals a look at Mom again.

  Is it weird here, or is it the wedding cake?

  Mom seems to be wondering the same thing. She gently clears her throat and slides her sunglasses down from the top of her head to cover her eyes. “It’ll make for memorable pictures.”

  “Memorable. Yeah. Did you see my parents? They’re down at the lake. Fretting. Everyone frets. Did you know everyone frets? But it’s a wedding. Of course they do.” His laughter comes out high-pitched and panicked, and I’m glad I’m already wearing sunglasses. “Luca. How about them Fireballs? Good season for a team that almost got sent back to the minors last year. Guess that’s you playing for them, huh?”

  “It’s all of us. You doing okay, Jerry? Need a drink or something?”

  “Is it too early for a Long Island?” He snort-laughs, tugs his collar, and gazes at Mom once more.

  She gingerly tucks the sweaty tissue back into her clutch and takes a half-step back. “We should go find our seats and stop distracting you from your groomsly duties.”

  “No, you’re not—wait.” He looks between us, his pupils dilating more, his chest practically convulsing because he’s breathing so fast. “Can we talk for a minute? Privately?”

  Dread slogs through my veins.

  Mom and I share a look, and even with both of us in sunglasses, I know she’s thinking the same thing I am.

  We should run.

  Fake coming down with temporary insanity, go jump in that lake behind the country club, streak through the small crowds of guests gathered as everyone waits for the ushers—something, anything other than going somewhere to talk to Jerry privately.

  Mom smiles brightly at him. “We can talk after the wedding, sweetheart.”

  I swear he turns purple. “No, really—now.”

  “Well, of course, anything for the groom.”

  I glare at my mother as my stomach rolls over. She glares back, like she’s saying, you’re the one who insisted he was your best friend for all those years. And yeah, you can feel the glare through the dark lenses, because it’s that kind of glare.

  “This way.” He tugs on my arm, and Mom and I hustle after him as he leads us around the corner of the country club, inside the chilly entrance, and then shoves us into the coat closet.

  Mom lifts her glasses. “Well, this is lovely.”

  Since it’s the peak of summer and there aren’t any coats hanging in here, save for a lone fur number that’s dangling like it’s about to fall off the hanger, there’s almost enough room for all three of us.

  But there’s not enough room for the body odor. Especially as Jerry leans closer. “Remember when you left Emily?”

  My stomach bottoms out and my skin breaks out in goosebumps while a surge of heat floods my veins and makes my face go hotter than the sun. Voices from somewhere outside the closet drift in, and I wish I was with that group, whoever they are, instead of in here.

  Mom shoves me out of the way. “Jerry, sweetheart, that’s not what you want to think about on your wedding day.”

  He peers around her, and is he—is he sniffing my mother? “But it made me think—you remember that Thanksgiving after, when we hit the course for eighteen, and you said—you said love is something people say they’re in so they can manipulate each other.”

  Mom turns raised brows on me, and my toes start to go numb as the voices get louder. Is that door made of paper?

  “Jerry. Shh. I was talking about—” About people richer, more famous, and in better shape than you.

  Hell.

  I can’t say that to a guy on his wedding day, no matter how much I hate these damn rituals.

  Not that it matters what I say. He’s rambling, and getting louder, and he’s raking his hands through his hair and making it stand on end, and why didn’t his photographer tell him he still has a piece of toilet paper stuck to his chin where he clearly nicked himself while shaving?

  “It’s like, every time my mother says she loves me, I know. I just know she’s only saying it because she has to. And then I think about Henri, and her cat, and the way she loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer even though it’s like, old, and her weird glittery tea mugs, and about how some days she forgets to shower, and—”

  “C’mon, man, you know you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have real love with her.”

  “Do I? I don’t know if I love her that way. But you’d know, wouldn’t you? How do you know?”

  Christ on a manicotti, he’s going to make me spew lies.

  I hate lies.

  I hate lies almost as much as I hate weddings, but I stay neutral. I don’t encourage or discourage people from getting married.

  Bad press if you do, plus, who the hell am I to punch a hole in someone’s fairy tale? Live and let live. I speak quietly, in the hopes that he’ll follow my lead. “You just…know.”

  Even my mother winces.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know, though. I don’t. Love’s this…this thing that people want to have so badly that they lie to themselves and say they’re in it when what they really want is to know there’s someone who has to have sex with them every day for the rest of their lives, or someone who’ll make sure the bills get paid, or someone to harp on because they want to be in control. Love’s not real.”

  “This is cold feet, man.”

  “I can’t marry Henri,” he shrieks. “I can’t do it. She’ll drive me fucking insane within six months. I thought I loved her because she’s like this siren who preaches that love’s so real and it’s awesome and I do like having sex regularly, and I thought I felt it, but it was all what I w
anted to feel, and not what I feel at all.”

  “Jerry. Shh. Quiet, man, they can—”

  “Do you regret it? That’s what I need to know. If you had to do it over again, would you have gone through with the wedding?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  This is not the time and place to answer that question.

  “That’s what I thought. Ever since I put a ring on it, I’ve been wearing a noose too. And not a noose around my neck. It’s like a noose around my balls. It doesn’t feel good. I realized I can’t marry Henri, and for the first time in weeks, I can breathe without my nuts choking.”

  There’s a gasp outside the door, and Jerry goes as white as the damn monument outside.

  Minus the black googly eyes, of course.

  “That’s her,” he whispers. “Oh, god, that’s her. Hide me. Save me. Protect me.”

  The door wrenches open, and gaping at us in the doorway is a fresh-faced woman wearing a button-down flannel shirt that would make her look like she’s planning to go cut down a few trees if it weren’t for the hoop skirt covered by a plastic trash bag hanging off her hips and the rollers standing tall in her brown hair.