What the hello kitty ka.., p.1
What The… Hello, Kitty-Kat!: Sugar Curves, book 4, page 1
What The… Hello, Kitty-Kat!
Sugar Curves, book 4
Megan Wade
Contents
1. Ada
2. Keaton
3. Ada
4. Keaton
5. Ada
6. Keaton
7. Ada
8. Keaton
9. Ada
10. Keaton
11. Ada
12. Keaton
13. Ada
14. Keaton
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Free BBW Romance!
Also by Megan Wade
Ada
“What do you know about Keaton James?” My boss, Marta, asks after calling me into her office. She looks at me expectantly while tapping her pen against the folder in front of her.
“Keaton James?” I wasn’t prepared for a quiz today. I slide a finger up the bridge of my nose and push my glasses back onto my face, racking my brain for information on the mystery man. “The guy with the surfing cat?”
“That’s the one,” she says, dropping her pen and picking up the folder she was drumming on, holding it out to me. “I need you to be his girlfriend.”
If I had coffee, I’d be spitting it all over the place. Instead, my mouth falls open. “His what now?” Surely I heard that wrong.
“His girlfriend,” she repeats, shaking the folder at me until I take it.
“Can I ask why?” I open the file and find an information sheet and an itinerary, along with a bunch of other formal looking papers like an NDA and a contract.
“He’s gotten himself in some hot water, and we need him to do something big to refocus the attention. I think marrying an everyday girl like you will do just that.”
“You’re asking me to do this because I’m ordinary?” I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or insulted. Actually, no, I’m pretty sure I should be insulted.
“And because you like cats.” She smiles before she steeples her fingers and leans forward. “I know we don’t talk a lot, but I do notice the stray hairs on your sweater. Tell-tale sign of a cat owner.”
I blink rapidly. “We speak every day. I’ve even shown you photos of my cat. I’m your assistant...and this...” I lift the folder for emphasis, “Isn’t part of my job description. I can’t fake date the surfing cat guy. Don’t we have actresses on our books to do this sort of thing?” As one of the country's biggest PR firms, we shape and mold the public images for everyone from influencers to movie stars. But as an assistant in said firm, I never liaise with the talent unless it’s forwarding their call through to Marta. I operate behind the scenes which suits my very introverted personality just fine.
“I need a very specific look, Ada. We are willing to pay you handsomely for the trouble. And really, how hard will it be? The guy is gorgeous to look at. You’ll hang out together, attend a few events, get some photos taken and everyone will marvel at how a girl like you managed to land a guy like him.”
“A girl like me?” Yep. Definitely insulted. “No. Find someone else.”
“There is no one else,” she says. “Not at this late stage. We need someone fast, and everyone else capable of doing this is…well, they don’t look the part.”
“But I do?” Nice. Like everyone, I’m well aware of the image that looks back at me from the mirror. I know that I’m rounder than most women and bigger in every other way. I’ll never be a model, I accepted that a long time ago. But I’m an excellent friend, and I’m great at my job. I don’t deserve to be treated as less than just because I don’t fit inside the Hollywood mold that our public relations agency puts forth. I don’t care how much money they’re offering me to do it. I’m not going to put myself out there to be torn apart by the general public because they don’t think I deserve a hot guy. No thank you. No way.
“Yes.” She purses her lips together and tilts her head, her blonde bob draping over her slender shoulder. “You wanted this job, Ada. If I remember correctly, you begged for this job, and up until now, I’ve considered you a team player. Anyone else would jump at this chance.”
“Are you saying that if I don’t do this I won’t have a job here anymore?”
“I’m saying that you should look at it for the opportunity to advance that it is. And I’m also saying that you should look at how much we are paying you to do it before you make a decision.”
“I don’t care about the money,” I say as I flick through the folder and find the remuneration section on the contract. Once again, my mouth falls open. “That’s a lot of, um, zeros.” That would be enough to clear out my student loans and add a hefty sum to my bank balance. My life could be a lot easier with that amount of money in the bank.
“I take that as a yes?” A smile stretches across Marta’s face. She knows she has me.
I close the folder and clear my throat. “On one condition: I get to hang out with the cat.”
Keaton
Note to self: never mention a disaster or express your condolences over lives and property lost during a wildfire on a sponsored post. It’s a social media faux pas I unwittingly fell into. In my defense, I had to post as part of my contract. And I added my condolences because those fires were fucking devastating. Cue the social media storm telling me I’m an insensitive, conceited fuck who deserves to be shutdown. When I was attacked by my followers, I tried to backpedal and only ended up making it worse.
I don’t think I can be trusted to human anymore, which is why my PR firm has decided to take over before I lose all of my sponsors. To be honest, I wouldn’t care if the whole fame side of my life just disappeared and I went back to being a regular Joe Shmoe. Life was a hell of a lot easier back then. It was just me and my cat, surfing the waves and hanging with friends. But then we were ‘discovered’.
“What time are they getting here?” I ask my friend slash manager, Tony. He’s been my buddy since the third grade, so he knew me before the money and helps keep my head out of my ass.
“Marta said they were on their way about thirty minutes ago.”
“They?” I ask, sitting up a little too fast and scaring my cat, Rexsi, off his perch on the couch. He pauses and hisses at Tony. My cat hates everyone but me.
“You’re getting a fiancée to improve your image,” he says quickly, his eyes struggling to meet mine as he quickly scurries to the kitchen and buries his face in the fridge.
“Whoa! Don’t drop a bomb and fucking scurry away. Man up and tell me what the fuck, Tony?”
He closes the fridge and turns to face me. “Your image is fucked right now, so Marta and I agreed that it would be a good—actually, a great—way to make you seem more down to earth and approachable.”
“You and Marta agreed?” I repeat. “And at what point were you thinking of telling me? I mean, it’s just my life here. What if I don’t want to get married?”
“You don’t have to,” he says. “it’s just a sham. We’ve got you this sweet homely girl who’ll make you come across as this unpretentious guy who doesn’t care about looks or his image, and it’ll endear you to the public, bag you new sponsors and when the wildfire debacle is but a memory, you two break up amicably and you get to start fucking models again.”
“I was never fucking models,” I retort. “That was you. I’m here saving myself for the woman Rexsi approves of.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “You make me sick.”
“Why? Because I have standards?”
“Because you suck at being a man. Two years you’ve had women throwing themselves at you for no strings sex, and for two years you’ve been a fucking pussy and refused to accept the open legs god has been providing you.”
“God does not want me taking advantage of willing women.”
“Then why would he bestow them on you?” Tony holds his hands out to the side, his expression the picture of serenity. I roll my eyes.
“He didn’t,” I say, moving past him to grab a can of soda from the fridge before I take it outside by the pool.
Rexsi is sitting on the diving board, tail waving from side to side as he dips his front paw in the water. He’s not like most cats. He loves water. In fact, the reason I became famous was because of a video I uploaded of him and me surfing at Zuma. Then that thing went viral, and suddenly I was an influencer with millions of followers and my own YouTube channel where I chronicle Rexsi’s and my adventures.
For years, it’s been me and Rexsi against the world. I adopted him from a rescue as a kitten during a time where I was really struggling with my own headspace. He seemed to know what I needed and would snuggle in the crook of my neck when he was tiny, and now he’s my constant buddy as a fully grown cat. While Tony has been my best friend since we were kids, Rexsi is my soul buddy. He just cares that I’m around, no judgment. Which is why I can’t even entertain the idea of having a woman around that he doesn’t approve of. It just wouldn’t work.
Ada
“I really wish you had let me go home to change,” I say, pulling my skirt down my hips as I try to smooth out some of the wrinkles in the beige fabric. This is my least favorite work outfit, the one I wear when everything else is at the dry cleaners. It looks like it belongs on an eighty-year-old librarian and not hugging the abundant hips of a twenty-six-year-old woman. A beige skirt, high-necked blouse, flat shoes, and glasses are not my typical ‘impress your fake fiancé attire’ but then, does anyone have an official outfit for such a thing?
&
A-dork-able? Insult count so far today: three. And it’s still morning…
“Marta!” A man I don’t recognize with a slight build, blond hair, and a Hawaiian shirt answers the door and holds his arms out like he and Marta are old friends.
“Tony,” she says, smiling in the way she only does for clients before she embraces him. “What do you think?” Marta gestures in my direction like I’m a delivery of some sort. I’m thinking I’m just going to call this the day of feeling insulted and forget the tally.
Tony places his index finger against his pursed lips as he walks a slow circle around me. “What are these for?” he asks, swinging a finger around my face in a figure eight.
“Are you talking about my glasses?” I ask. “They’re for seeing.” What the actual…
“Can we lose them?” he asks. “We’ll have reflective issues, and I think you’ll photograph better without them.”
“Um. No,” I say. “I need them to see.” What part of this isn’t he getting?
“We’ll get her contacts,” Marta says, waving a dismissive hand before she pulls my glasses from my face. “For today, we’ll just take photos with them off. Does that work?”
I blink to try and clear my vision, frowning at the now blurry people in front of me. “Can I at least wear them until the photos happen?” I ask, swiping a hand out to where I think Marta is holding them and completely missing.
“She’ll do,” Tony says. “Three months, right?”
“Three months,” Marta confirms. “Then we stage a breakup that paints Keaton as the hero, and the endorsements will come rolling in,” Marta says, grabbing my wrist and pressing my glasses against my palm. When I put them back on, they’re all smudged. Excellent.
“Then let’s get her in here to meet the big guy. He’s out by the pool, sulking.”
While I try to clean my glasses on the bottom of my blouse, Marta shuffles me into the house, her hand at my back as we follow Tony out to the pool. All I can see are blurry shapes and light, but I’m not so blind that I can’t see where the floors and doors are.
I manage to get my glasses back on just as we make it outside and I’m face to chest with a mammoth of a man, my fake-fiancé to be—Keaton James. My mouth falls open as my eyes drag across his wall of a chest then up to his bearded face and curious brown eyes. Despite having seen him in photos and online, I wasn’t expecting him to be so huge. He’s easily six-foot-six or seven, and a whole head and neck above my five-foot-nine status. Wow.
“Keaton, I’d like you to meet Ada,” Marta says, smiling up at him. “Isn’t she just perfect?”
Keaton grunts before he nods down at me. “Hey,” he says by way of greeting.
“Hey,” I say in return, a shadow of a smile crossing my lips. Did somebody say awkward?
“How is this even supposed to work?” he asks, looking to Marta who moves us all over to the outdoor table setting where she and Tony outline the three months of Keaton’s and my fake relationship for the cameras. We’re given a back story about meeting at Trader Joe’s and falling in love in the cereal aisle, a posting and appearance schedule, and at the end of it, I’m handed a box with a ring in it.
The moment I open it and see the shining diamond inside, this all hits me. Every little girl grows up imagining this moment. It’s supposed to be filled with love and possibility. But in my case, I’m about to agree to fool the world into thinking I’m engaged for money. If my parents were still alive to see this, they’d be horribly disappointed in me. Hell, I’m disappointed in me. Too bad I already signed the contract.
“Can I use the restroom, please?” I ask, my voice barely heard by anyone except Keaton. He looks at me for a moment, his face seeming to war with the same emotions I am.
“Straight down the hall, second door on your right,” he says, his voice soft and understanding. For a fleeting moment I wonder if he’s going to back out of this and let us both off the hook. But in my experience, celebrities will do anything they can to stop going back to being a regular person, even lie about a fake relationship.
When I’m finished in the bathroom, I take a deep, calming breath and head back toward the others, stopping when I spot a fluffy ragdoll cat slinking in through the back door, it’s blue eyes meeting mine from its adorable grey-furred face. “You must be Rexsi,” I say, lowering to my knees in front of him. He meows.
“You know, you’re the reason I agreed to do this. I’m not much of a people person. But I am a cat person. My roommate even threatened to charge me more rent since I have three cats now. I called them Wynken, Blynken, and Nod after a poem my mom used to read to me at bedtime.” An overwhelming sense of loss hits me in that moment. It’s been sixteen years since she passed, but it’s when my life feels upside down and inside out that I really wish my mom was here to talk to. “I miss her,” I whisper, confiding in this inquisitive cat.
Rexsi mews again then trots over to me, rubbing his face on my hand until I lift it and let him slide his sleek body beneath it for a full-length body pat. It makes me smile. “I like you too,” I say, scratching him behind his ear as he closes his eyes and purrs. “And this is only three months, right? Three months and all my worries are over. Maybe we can get through this together?”
“Meow.”
Keaton
“Of course the first post featuring you and Ada together will be the engagement announcement,” Marta says, running the tip of her finger down the list in front of her. “We can do that out here with the pool in the background. And I think your cat should be in the photo too.”
I shake my head. “Rexsi hates peop—” The word gets caught in my mouth when I glance up and find Rexsi weaving in and out of Ada’s legs as she crouches on the ground just inside the doorway. She’s smiling and petting him every time he loops around, and when she speaks, he stops and listens to her, letting her scratch him under his chin at the same time. What in the world?
“Oh, my god. It’s a fucking miracle,” Tony says, following my shocked gaze and getting up from his chair.
“What is? Am I missing something?” Marta asks, lowering her reading glasses and looking around. When she sees Ada with Rexsi, she rolls her eyes. “We’re working here, Ada. If you could quit playing with the animals and do your job, that would be fantastic.”
“I’m sorry,” Ada says, shooting to her feet. Rexsi meows up at her then stands on his hind legs, reaching up his front paws like he wants her to hug him. She picks him up, and he tucks himself against her chest, his head buried in her golden-brown hair as she pats his back like he’s a baby while she walks back over to us. Tony and I exchange flabbergasted glances.
“What the— Did you just—” He points over his shoulder, his mouth moving like a fish out of water. “That never happens.”
I can’t even get a word out. I’m just sitting here wide-eyed as she takes the seat beside me and Rexsi curls up in her lap and starts purring. What is happening?
“Seems I’ve stolen your cat,” Ada says with a smile as I look from Rexsi to her.
“Marry me,” I blurt, unable to contain my bewilderment. I’ve always said that if a woman came into my house and Rexsi took a liking to her then she’d be my soul mate. I never thought it would happen since Rexsi would rather scratch and hiss than be touched. But this woman has walked in here and literally charmed the pants off my cat. She has to be the one.
“Isn’t that why I’m here?” Ada laughs, her green eyes crinkling in amusement. It’s the first time since she arrived that I look at her—really look at her—and I have to admit I’m enamored. She’s beautiful in the girl next door kind of way with her long straight hair and big round eyes. She doesn’t have much makeup on, but she doesn’t need it. And she’s got a figure that’s begging to be grabbed and squeezed and sunk into…I have to shut that thought down before I get a hard-on. But let’s just say that I really like her curves.
