Accidental Forever: Fake Romance Box Set

by Hazel Parker

  “Hey, I never said it was good, or that I was a hero,” he denied. “I did do this for almost entirely selfish reasons, I’ll admit to that.”

  “So then what are you trying to say, Brett? What are you defending, here?”

  “I’m saying that sometimes you start doing something for one reason and continue it for another,” he tried to explain. He didn’t have the words for what he wanted to say to her. Honestly, he didn’t know why he’d told her to have this argument in the first place—Anna was right. It should have waited. His stomach was churning both from hunger and the alcohol, his head was aching from drinking so much, and he felt exhausted all the way to his bones. Still, he wanted to make things right sooner than later.

  “What does that mean?”

  He sighed, massaged the back of his neck in an attempt to relieve some of the tension there. “I like you, Anna,” he admitted. “And I like my job. I’m terrified that once my grandpa is gone, I’m going to lose all of it because there will be no one to hold me accountable.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “You’re perfectly capable—”

  “No,” he cut her off, “I’m not. I never was. All my life, I’ve never been held accountable for anything, ever. I was yelled at when I didn’t make my parents proud, sure, but I never had to do anything for me. Everything I tried to succeed at was all about how it would make them look, so I never cared about any of it. I didn’t go to an Ivy League college because I didn’t care if they were disappointed and I’ve never had a real job because they gave me money instead of making me be responsible. I know I’m an adult now, and I should be able to just do that stuff for myself, but I don’t know how.”

  Anna was quiet for a long moment. He wasn’t sure if he’d said something wrong and made her mad again or if she was pitying him, though he didn’t really know which would be worse. After what felt like forever, she finally looked up from staring at her hands in her lap and met his eyes.

  “You’ve really never done anything because you were passionate about it?” she asked, and he shook his head. “You’ve never cared about something enough to work at it?’

  He leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his knees and she mirrored his posture, scooting forward so that they were only inches apart.

  “I care about you,” he said, “and I want to work at being your…”

  “Friend,” Anna supplied when he fumbled. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but if it were the best he could get, he’d take it.

  “Your friend,” he agreed. That was what they’d decided on, anyway.

  Anna still sat there, inches from his face, looking beautiful in even the dingy lighting of the elevator. He wasn’t sure how long it would be before anyone came to find them, but he figured that it would probably be a while, and they had nothing left to say. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her. On the one hand, it wouldn’t be the first time, and she’d seemed okay with it before. However, on the other hand, he was still only just beginning to earn her trust back. It was still fragile, and even the slightest wrong move could shatter it completely. Kissing her would be a risk. He could lose everything that he’d just worked for, make her walk right out of his life and never come back, or he could try to convince her of all the things that he felt for her that he wasn’t able to say with his words.

  Her eyes slipped shut as soon as he pressed his lips to hers, and she reached behind his head to run her fingers through his hair, pulling him in closer. He kissed her hard, desperately, pinning her to the floor of the elevator and straddling her. Her hands grabbed at him hungrily, but he pinned them to the elevator floor by her shoulders, ensuring that they didn’t get too far too quickly; as much as he wanted to have her here and now, they needed to control themselves, as they could be rescued from the broken-down elevator any moment.

  Anna moaned against his lips, making the self-control thing a whole lot more difficult as he heard his heartbeat in his ears and felt it pulsating through his body. He reached out to put one hand over her chest so that he could feel hers, too, rapid and strong. She was here, so vibrant and alive, and she was choosing him. It practically physically hurt to have to pull away from her and break their kiss, but he knew that he had to do it, so he dredged up the amount of restraint that it took to give her just one last, passionate kiss on her lips and sit back on his heels. Anna opened her eyes once he was sitting up, breathing hard and heavy.

  “We shouldn’t, you know, go any further,” Brett warned, and as soon as that had been said, Anna’s face flushed deep red.

  “I wasn’t trying to,” she denied. It may have been a lie, but he wasn’t going to call her out on it. “That would be crazy. And unsanitary.” Brett chuckled a little.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “A dirty elevator floor, where the doors could open at any minute…it’d be a bad idea.”

  Anna stood and smoothed out her skirt, so Brett stood, too. She leaned against the wall, intentionally looking away from him to try to avoid awkward eye contact, but really, it just gave him an excuse to stare without her noticing. This was far from the first time he’d noticed her perfect body: her thick thighs and big hips, the way that her clothes were somehow both tastefully loose-fitting but still managed to accentuate her curves. She never dressed overtly sexy, but there was no hiding the fact that Anna was an attractive woman. He scanned from the bottom up, not glazing over just how beautiful her face was, either. Her dark eyes and long lashes drew him in toward her, begging him to plant another kiss on her plump lips. This kiss seemed to surprise her as he leaned her into the wall and kissed up and down her neck and slowly lowered his hand to stroke her breast. She hooked one leg around his hips, and he grabbed it under her thigh, digging his short fingernails into her skin roughly but not painfully. He could feel the small space they were stuck inside heating up, becoming almost steamy, and it was making it hard to resist just tearing her clothes off right there. Just when he thought that he wasn’t going to be able to contain himself any longer, the overhead lights came on in full, illuminating the elevator in a much less romantic glow and effectively, thankfully, killing the mood as quickly as it had started. Brett released her from his grasp. The elevator lurched once, then began to move smoothly once more down to the lobby, where the doors opened to reveal a group of workers, who looked concerned as Anna and Brett stepped out.

  “You two alright?” one man asked, looking mostly at Anna. She nodded and smiled, seemingly composing herself completely in just moments. Brett knew that he needed another minute or so, and perhaps a cold shower before he’d feel ready to converse with strangers.

  “We’re fine; thank you for getting us out,” she replied. The men nodded, muttering a few dismissive affirmatives under their breaths as they filed into the elevator to continue working.

  Brett followed Anna’s lead out the front entrance where a line of taxis were waiting.

  “I think we’ll stop for food somewhere and then head home, okay?” she asked. Brett nodded—he could really use something to eat. “You’re crashing at my place tonight,” she added as she backed out of the parking space. “I don’t think that either of us needs to be alone right now.” He couldn’t argue with that, either, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he just rested his head against the window and closed his eyes.

  Early the next morning, Brett woke up to a phone call. He fumbled for a moment, forgetting that he was on Anna’s couch and nearly rolling off the side because of it, before reaching for his phone on the coffee table.

  “Hello?” he answered, his voice still gruff with sleep. The clock showed that it was barely eight in the morning, and his sleep on the couch had admittedly not been the best.

  “Brett Riggs?” the voice on the other end asked.

  “Speaking.”

  The woman on the phone took a breath. “Mr. Riggs, this is Saint’s Heart Hospital; I’m calling about your grandfather, Eustice.” Brett stiffened with fear.

  “Is he…?” he trailed off, finding himself unable to utter the w
ords.

  “He’s alive, but I think that you should come down here,” she replied. “He asked for you specifically, which is why I called. Normally, we would only inform his emergency contacts, but he begged me to get you down here.” He mustn’t have much time, then, Brett realized. Now fully awake, he stood up from the couch, hoping that Anna wouldn’t walk in on him wearing only his boxers, and remembered that he didn’t have an outfit here that wasn’t the suit he’d worn to Martha’s wedding.

  “I’ll be right there,” he reassured, “so tell him that it won’t be long. Thanks for calling.” She hummed in agreement, and he didn’t wait for her to say goodbye before he hung up, reaching for the pile of clothes he’d thrown on the armchair next to him and tugging on hopelessly wrinkled pants and the white t-shirt that he’d worn under the tuxedo shirt. He felt a little ridiculous being so overdressed for a hospital visit, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now. Instead of thinking about it, he knocked on the door to Anna’s room and waited until he could hear her shuffling around inside.

  “Anna,” he called quietly through the door, “you awake?”

  “I am now,” she replied, audibly stretching. “Something wrong?”

  “Can I come in?”

  She opened the door instead of replying, standing in front of him in just an oversized rock band shirt and a pair of shorts so small that they disappeared under it. Her hair was tousled from her pillow, and she was rubbing at one eye with the heel of her hand, somehow managing to look beautiful even first thing in the morning.

  “The hospital called,” he began, shaking his head when she gasped. “He’s alive, but I think…I’m pretty sure he wants to say goodbye, Anna.” She didn’t hesitate before stepping forward and throwing her arms around him in a hug.

  “I’m so sorry, Brett,” she empathized. This was exactly why he needed her there when it happened, he decided.

  “Will you come with me?” he asked, knowing before he even posed the question that she’d say yes. Anna would never let him do this alone.

  “Just let me change,” she replied. He didn’t want her to pull away to shut the door and get dressed, but he patiently waited the few minutes that it took her to toss on a blouse and a pair of jeans and to tie her hair up in a ponytail.

  “Ready?” he asked, and she simply took his hand and squeezed.

  Chapter Thirteen: Anna

  Eustice had been taken off the ventilator, which normally would be a good sign, but both of them had known not to get their hopes up. They’d probably only taken him off it because he’d begged. Though he had an oxygen mask on, there was a bluish tinge to his lips, and he was lying against the pillows as if he had no strength at all. He’d been transferred to a room instead of the ICU, but Brett had a feeling that was also simply because they knew he wasn’t going to recover.

  “Hey, gramps,” Brett greeted as normally as he could force himself to. Eustice didn’t perk up like he normally did when company came to visit him, barely even looked at him. He felt Anna squeeze his hand even harder. “How are you feeling? Any pain?”

  Eustice shook his head minutely, gesturing wordlessly to the IV full of pain medication. It was ironic, Brett thought, that they’d put him into the hospice center so that he could be somewhere more peaceful than a hospital when he finally passed, and the one day they’d taken him out for some fun, he’d wound up here in the hospital.

  “Hi, Mr. Riggs,” Anna greeted, giving a little wave when he saw her. She turned back to Brett. “I’ll give you some privacy if you want,” she offered, but he shook his head, knowing that he’d fall apart if she left the room. “That’s okay, too,” she reassured, sitting down in a chair next to Eustice’s bed and patting the one next to it. “I’m right here.”

  Brett sat down in the proffered chair and relinquished Anna’s hand to hold one of Eustice’s. Though he looked barely conscious, he turned his head to face them, reaching up with his other hand to tug down his oxygen mask so he could speak.

  “Hey, keep that on,” Brett tried to chastise, but Eustice ignored him.

  “Brett,” he said weakly, his tone faint and wispy, “you’re a fine young man, you know that?” Brett helped him to put the mask back on over his face to take a few deep breaths after even the short sentence seemed to leave him winded.

  “I know, Gramps,” he agreed blindly, trying to spare his grandfather the breath. “You don’t need to waste your energy—”

  “I want what’s best for you,” he paused for more air, “because I love you.” Brett’s eyes were welling up with tears already, but he fought them back. Anna tentatively reached out to touch his back, and when he didn’t push her away, she began to rub in small, soothing circles.

  “I love you too,” Brett replied tearfully.

  “You found a good one,” Eustice said, pointing to Anna. “She’ll keep you…on the straight and narrow.” Anna wasn’t about to disagree with him, so she simply smiled when he turned to her with a serious look in his eyes. “And Anna,” he called, his voice so quiet that she had to sit forward to hear him at all.

  “Yes, sir?”

  He smiled, if only barely, his face softening into a peaceful expression. “He’s not as tough as he looks,” he disclaimed. “Be careful with him.”

  Anna couldn’t help but smile even as her own eyes were filling with tears. “I will,” she promised. Eustice seemed to really take a liking to her, caring for her as if she’d really been dating Brett the whole time, and it had made it difficult to remain as detached from her patients as she normally liked to remain. In even such a short period of time, he’d loved her like one of his own, and she hadn’t been able to keep her own heart from getting tangled in that. She cared for him like he was her grandfather.

  “I’m leaving you money,” Eustice said to Brett. Though everything up until that point had been about the money—the relationship, the job, the argument—it was now the last thing that either of them were thinking about. “Use it wisely.” Brett nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll make you proud,” he swore.

  Working in hospice, Anna knew that often it was as if patients stuck around only until they had their final goodbyes. Eustice had gotten to go to the wedding, something that so many doctors had told him that he’d never see, and now he’d been able to see that his troubled grandson was finally going to be okay. Even if no one else was ready, Eustice was. He shut his eyes and Brett held his hand for a few more minutes until the monitor flat lined. Anna braced herself for a crash code team, but when none came, she knew that he must’ve signed a DNR since the night before. Perhaps this had been why he hadn’t signed it earlier, she thought.

  Brett seemed okay. Anna had prepared herself for any kind of reaction from grief to anger to shock, but really, Brett didn’t seem to be exhibiting any of those. He was sad, of course, but he’d been expecting this. Sometimes seeing the pain at the end made it almost easier to let them go, she knew, so perhaps that was playing into his ability to swipe once at his eyes and then turn to Anna and offer a small smile.

  “He’s proud of me,” he said, and Anna nodded.

  “Of course he is,” she agreed. “He always was.” It occurred to her that this was probably a first for Brett. Nothing he’d done had ever been good enough for anyone growing up, but now, the person whom he cared about most in the world was proud of him. She didn’t make a move to leave the room until Brett took her by the hand again and led her out.

  The funeral was much smaller than what Anna had been picturing. After all, the Riggs family was loaded, and after seeing Martha’s enormous wedding, she’d expected an affair so big that it would be tacky, but she was wrong. Eustice’s service was short and simple: just immediate family and friends, of whom there weren’t many, gathering in a small, understated funeral parlor to celebrate his life. Anna hadn’t been sure if Brett would want her there, honestly. It’s not as if they had to convince anyone that they were still together, after all, though she could see why he wouldn
’t want to add insult to injury and tell his family that they’d “broken up” so soon after Eustice’s passing. Today was about the whole family, and Brett didn’t need to give them reasons to feel especially sorry for him.