Read All Fired Up (Kate Meader) for Free Online Page A

weirdness, was man enough to deal with it.
    As the likelihood of Cara finding this paragon was negative ten thousand, she had apparently hit upon the perfect solution: ply a stranger with hard liquor and when she had him soused to perfection, drag his catatonic ass down the aisle. Perpetuating fraud was her only option because there was no way she could get a husband by fair means. What sober guy in his right mind would want a freak like her?
    Certainly not a friendly, gorgeous guy like Shane.
    Now here they were, living under the same roof. Like man and wife. An illicit thrill fluttered in her chest at the thought, but she quickly punched it into submission.
    No, not like man and wife. He would lead his life—late hours at the restaurant, later hours at the dank speakeasy all the chefs gravitated to after service—and she would lead hers. Working from her perfectly appointed office above Sarriette’s kitchen, organizing bachelorette brunches and wedding rehearsal dinners before hitting the gym and kicking the shit out of the rock-hard abs of Mikhail, her personal trainer. There was no reason she would have to cross paths with Shane Doyle, either at work or at home.
    Shane Doyle. Her husband.
    “Everything okay?”
    She jolted at Lili’s voice, though she’d known she was here with her in Cara’s bedroom, pulling exquisite shoes and stunning designer clothing out of even more beautiful bags. Sometimes, Cara thought she was paying a premium for the fabulous packaging. She looked down at her hands, now filled with shredded tissue paper.
    Lili’s liquid blue eyes met Cara’s. “Are you upset about Shane?”
    “I’m not upset. Why would I be upset?” She fought hard to dial down the hysterical hitch she imagined in her voice.
    “I didn’t realize how much you dislike him.”
    “Don’t be silly,” Cara snapped. “Of course I don’t dislike him.”
    Lili picked up one of Cara’s tops, a celadon silk halter in a size six that old Cara would have considered a sign of the impending apocalypse, and sighed.
    “This looks like something a doll would wear.”
    Not exactly, but it was sweet of Lili to say so. Going up three sizes from her usual zero was an achievement Cara was trying to be proud of. Fear of gaining weight was a constant for women like her, but her recovery demanded she look at all the positives associated with gaining. With added weight came added confidence, spontaneity…and a new husband. Not a positive per se, but somehow she doubted old Cara would have acted so instinctively.
    Reverently, Lili placed the top down on Cara’s silver-gray coverlet, the only splash of color in her all-white, Hamptonesque beach-style decor. Embalmed in such purity was supposed to help center Cara after a bad day at the office or an unsatisfying bout at the gym. Or, you know, finding out your secret husband is living less than ten feet away from you. Right now, the serene surroundings were doing nada for her nerves.
    “He needed a place,” Lili said. “He’s been crashing on a friend’s couch for a couple of weeks.”
    Grabbing the halter, Cara beelined to the celadon section of her walk-in closet. Yes, she had a celadon section, slotted between hunter and jade. The closet’s ordered rows and vicious categorization appealed to her rigid personality, and after living in a studio the size of a prison cell in New York, it had been first on her list when she moved back to Chicago six months ago. Jack had given her carte blanche to rehab the apartment and she’d spent three months overseeing its transformation into a space worthy of Architectural Digest . A space worthy of the life she had always imagined for herself.
    “So it’s okay that he’s living across the hall?” Lili called in after her.
    “What?”
    “Shane. Is it okay? You seemed a bit surprised when you saw him.”
    Cara hung the top, careful not to crumple it as she slid it between a Jason Wu and an Isaac Mizrahi. A real Mizrahi, none of that