Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“Tell me,” I repeat. “Maybe I can fix it.”
“You can’t,” he mutters, his words low against my skin.
“I can,” I argue. “I’m fucking rich. Whatever it takes.”
“Jules is pregnant.”
My world fucking stops turning.
I haven’t touched anyone but him, but his words gut me. I never even considered that he might be seeing someone else. Jules is the woman that saw me leave his room that weekend. I took the surprise in her eyes as shock to see a guy or a rock star coming out of his room. I never once considered that surprise was because she was in an intimate relationship with him as well.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, reaching for me and making me realize I’ve stepped back from him.
“You’re having a baby?”
“That’s what we’re telling everyone.”
I tilt my head in confusion. “It’s not your baby?”
He shakes his head.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated,” he mutters, and now it’s his turn to look away from me.
I grip his jaw, forcing his eyes back to mine. “I’m not dense. Fucking explain it to me.”
I have no idea which tact to take here. I don’t really have any authority to tell him how to live his life, but that doesn’t stop that part inside of me that believes some part of this man is mine.
“Kit is the father.”
“The man she was hooking up with at the wedding?”
“Correct. She’s Beth’s best friend.”
“The bride?”
He nods. “She doesn’t want Beth to find out that she hooked up with her brother.”
I angle my chin closer to him in bewilderment, my brain still not lining everything up.
“Jules fully believes that Beth will never speak to her again if she finds out.”
“And you’re agreeing to go along with this?”
He nods again, that repeated dip of his chin on the verge of driving me fucking crazy.
“Why?” His eyes darken. “Why would you go along with this?”
He shakes his head this time, and I realize I hate that action too.
I work through all of it in silence, and it doesn’t take long for me to figure it out myself.
Jules’s shock that day in the hotel hallway explains it all.
“She threatened to out you.” It’s my turn to shake my head. “The entire world believes we’re together. I don’t understand.”
“But the people in my life know we really aren’t. They know it’s work.”
Work.
As if what we just shared in my bedroom was something the man was getting paid for, as if him seeking me out when he’s upset was part of an assignment.
Is he fucking blind?
I’ve held back for weeks, praying the man would open his fucking eyes and come to me. I wanted him to realize that the connection we share isn’t common. There’s something between us that many people will never experience.
I take another step back, my back hitting the cold tile. It’s one-sided. What’s special and magnificent for me is only him getting off. I’m his secret vice, the man who gives him what he needs simply because he can’t take the risk of satisfying those urges with someone else.
“Get out,” I manage.
“Archer, please, I—”
“Get. Out.”
“The truth will come out, eventually.”
“You never should’ve agreed to it,” I say, trying to keep my focus on the lies he’s willing to go along with where Jules is concerned, but it’s the other lies, the ones involving him and me that are tearing me apart from the inside. “She’s absolutely despicable, and you should be ashamed for agreeing to it to begin with.”
He drops his hands, and I can see in his eyes that he’s going to choose that lie over me, not that I was ever part of the equation to begin with, seeing as I’m just work.
He steps from the shower, grabbing a towel from the rack, but he keeps his eyes locked on me.
“We can talk about this more tomorrow.”
“You’re fired,” I blurt. “I don’t want you to come back here.”
His mouth forms a thin line. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
Ah, gaslighting. I can honestly say I never expected that from him, but my eyes are suddenly open to a lot of things I’ve chosen to ignore these last couple of months.
“I’ll find someone else to provide security. Don’t worry, when I call Mr. Black in the morning to cancel the contract, I won’t tell him the methods you used to keep me out of trouble.”
“Archer—”
I hold my hand up to silence him, and surprisingly it works. “This fake relationship is causing me more trouble than a real one would. I don’t need the stress.”
The man looks crestfallen with my words.
“Fake?” He swallows, his head dipping as if he’s just now come to this realization. “I see. I wish you well, Archer Bremen.”
I plunge my face under the water because I don’t have the strength to watch the man walk away for the final time. It’s bad enough he’s leaving me with a broken heart and a sore ass.