Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Because I caught feelings. It’s dumb, I know, but I let myself start to get attached to my fake husband, even though it’s been clear from the start that we’re only together for five years at the most. He’s with me because he wants something—and I’m with him for the same.
Now he can get that something from a different wife and he doesn’t need me anymore.
It’s fine, he was honest from the start about what this was, and I still let myself want him. I feel stupid and mortified and I just want to bury my head until this all goes away on its own, but that’s not how life works.
I’m the girl that got two jobs to help support her dad when shit went truly bad. I can get over myself and do the right thing, even if that means having a really awkward conversation.
I pace back and forth across the living room. Dad’s at a doctor’s appointment and the house is empty, but he’ll be back in about a half hour. I’m almost ready to call this whole thing off when a truck pulls up and parks out front.
My stomach’s doing flips. I open the front door and watch Simon walking toward me, looking gorgeous even though he just came straight here from a freaking prison. His jeans fit his muscular thighs like a glove and his button-down shirt’s basically one cough away from popping off. His arms are veined, muscular, and gorgeous, and the way he looks at me makes my heart do stupid, silly things.
“Thanks for coming,” I say because I’m not sure how else to get into this. He pauses at the bottom of the porch and looks up at me, head tilted to the side, eyes inscrutable. I want to scream, or maybe I want to throw myself into his arms and beg him not to leave me. Either one’s stupid so I just motion for him to follow me.
I make uncomfortable, rapid-fire small talk as I lead him upstairs. He doesn’t say much, mostly grunts in reply and keeps on staring at me like he thinks his eyes can make me melt—and it’s honestly working. My body’s betraying me as my heart races and sweat beads on my back and a tingling, buzzing sensation drives up between my legs and into my core. The bastard has a sex stare and it’s killing me.
“I know this is weird, but I just found it today when I was straightening up his room.” Dad’s not the best at taking care of himself on account of being in his seventies so I’m in the habit of tidying when I get the chance. I gesture at his closet, a little walk-in with a mirror hanging on the back of the door. Simon goes over to it and hesitates before pulling a light cord.
The clothes are all shoved to the side, leaving the walls mostly uncovered. Papers are tacked up all over the place, some of them printed off his computer and some of them official-looking documents, with tacks and red string connecting everything. It’s a dense web of associations, and my face went numb when I saw it earlier.
Simon doesn’t panic. He goes deeper into the closet, tracing the lines and squinting at the pages. I didn’t have the nerve to get that far, only saw the mess and instantly thought Dad was losing it again. He didn’t drop down the rabbit hole like this last time, but he definitely was paranoid and short with me toward the end when he realized what was happening and didn’t know how to stop it.
But this closet is a whole new level of batshit.
“It looks like a serial killer,” Simon grunts, not looking at me.
“Can you please not say that?” I hug myself tightly, anxiety going wild. “I know it looks crazy, okay? I don’t know how to help him.”
Simon lets out a long breath and gestures me over. “Look at this.”
I hesitate, partly because I don’t want to venture into my dad’s madness, but partly because I don’t want to be in a cramped closet with Simon right now. I’m feeling too many things for him and physical proximity isn’t going to be good for my self-esteem, but there’s no other option.
I stand right near him, doing my best not to touch, but it’s impossible. My elbow grazes his and our sides are nearly pressed together as I lean in and squint at what he’s showing me.
“It’s the last check,” I say in astonishment. It looks exactly like an official government document would, but Dad wrote out VOID in big red letters. “Did he forget to cash this or something?”
“I don’t know. But look at this.” Simon follows a string to a print-out that looks like a business listing from another government website. “That’s one of my LLCs. And look, he’s got a dozen more pages just like this one.” He stares, mouth tightening into a line. “Motherfucker. He figured it out.”