by Eva Luxe
I fight hard against my bindings, but the tape is wrapped too tight, and there’s nothing I can do. I can only watch as Ty fights, for both of us, for all of us.
He swings, but the man blocks the blow. Ty leaps back to avoid the man’s flailing swing and jabs him back in his already broken nose. The man steps back, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a switchblade.
With a click, a black serrated blade snaps out and locks into place. He grins, licking blood off his lip, and advances on Ty. Taking a step back, Ty lowers his hands.
What is he doing? I think.
The man takes another step forward, pulls back his arm and lunges. I can only watch as the blade plunges towards Ty’s chest.
He’s not even moving! I shout inside. My breath catches in my throat.
Finally, as the blade is just centimeters from his chest, Ty slips to the right and grabs the mans wrist with one hand. In a blur, he brings his elbow down on the mans forearm, breaking it with a sickening snap.
The man’s scream is cut off as Ty drives his fingers into his neck. The blade drops to the floor as the man collapses onto his knees. Ty raises a fist high in the air, puts all his weight into it and hits the man hard in the face. His eyes roll back in his head and he faceplants onto the floor beside his fallen comrade.
“Are you okay?!” Ty says, racing over to me.
“Y-yes!” I stammer. He pulls at my hands but sees the duct tape. Quickly, he picks up the fallen man’s switchblade from the ground and cuts me free.
“I’m so sorry!” he says, lifting me into his arms and holding me tight. His embrace is like a drug, and I am instantly calmed as I feel the warmth of his body and the strength of his arms holding me to him. And there’s his smell. I bury my face in his neck and breath deep, feeling one with him.
“Who were those men?!” I ask him, pulling back to look him in the eyes.
“I can’t explain now,” he says quickly, setting me down. “Get Josh and Ella. We have to go.”
“But, the—” I motion to the fallen men on my living room floor.
“I’ll move them,” he says, grabbing the smaller man by the wrists and dragging him into the kitchen out of sight. “You are all packed?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ve got a car outside. Let’s go!”
Ty grabs the British monster by the legs and begins lugging him into the kitchen. I hear him grunt under the strain of moving so much weight. I move past him into the hall and knock gently on Josh’s door before entering. He’s sitting on his bed reading one of his books, his suitcase packed at his feet.
“Hey, honey!”
“What was all that noise, mom?” he asks me, looking slightly timid.
“Oh, that was nothing. Just moving some furniture! Are you all ready to go?”
He nods his head. “Can I read my book in the car?”
“Of course you can, honey! I’m just going to get your sister and we’ll get going. Okay?”
“Okay!”
With a smile, I pull his door shut and open Ella’s. She’s playing on her phone as usual, but I breath a sigh of relief when I see she’s been wearing headphones this whole time and probably has no idea what just happened in the living room.
“Ella,” I say. “Ella! You ready to go?”
She pulls out one of her ear buds and glances up at me. “What?”
“Are you ready to go?” I repeat. “Ty’s here.”
“Yeah,” she says casually, looking back at whatever she’s doing on her phone. I step out into the hall and peer into the living room. Ty is standing there waiting. I catch his eye and he gives me the thumbs up.
“Okay, let’s go,” I tell her, opening Josh’s door. “Time to go, hun!”
“Okay!” he says, leaping up and coming over to my side. Ella comes into the hall and we walk together towards Ty.
“Here we go,” he whispers to me as I step up beside him.
Here we go, I think as we take our steps out of the apartment for the last time.
Epilogue
Five months later …
“It looks like rain again,” I say, my eyes on the purple-grey clouds coming up over the hills. I check my watch: two thirty. Right on time. It always rains in the afternoon up here after the hot morning has passed.
“Just a shower,” Ty says, wrapping a sweaty arm around my neck. He’s been working on the driveway, fixing some potholes from the Winter frost. “How are you feeling?”
He brings his other hand across my waist and rests it on my belly. It’s really growing. I’d forgotten what it was like to be pregnant. I’m four months along now and my body is starting to change. Ty loves it. He can’t keep his hands off me and tells me it’s only going to get worse. My breasts have already started to grow, and he’s having all kinds of fun with them.
“Good,” I reply, taking a deep breath of the summer air and look back at our new house, a beautiful old farm house that Ty has been fixing up. He’d taken us here the same day we left my apartment behind. When we arrived, and Josh and Ella had settled into their new rooms, he told me everything.
A gangster named Little Nicky was forcing him to throw fights and was going to hurt us if he didn’t take orders. He was betting heavily on Ty going down and would have won a lot of money if things had worked the way he wanted. But Ty had other plans.
He had his old military buddies place bets on winning in round two by knock out, and then he made sure that happened. When he showed me the bag of money he’d collected from the bookies the next day, my eyes almost fell out of my skull. We had enough to last us for years, and on top of that, he’d sold his old house back in town as well.
“Jenny?” I hear a voice behind me say. “Would you guys like chicken tonight?”
I turn to see Ty’s mom standing on the porch, a flower print apron around her waist.
“That sounds great!” I say, waving back at her.
“I’ll get it started then,” she smiles.
Ty was able to get his mom the best treatment money could buy, and she’d responded well. The doctors said she was in remission and more than likely was cured. Things couldn’t have worked out any better. The house is big enough for all of us that we have our privacy but aren’t getting lost in a maze of endless hallways and rooms.
Nicky’s goons haven’t come after us, and Ty says we’re safe. And I believe him. He says his organization basically fell apart after he took out the top guys.
“Loyalty is bought with dollars,” he told me. “The rest of them don’t care about me.”
Ty told me about the drunk driver. About his wife and daughter. I could see the pain there, and I wasn’t sure he would ever fully get past it. I know he won’t. It will always be there, lingering in the back of his mind, but I hope I can now be enough for him.
When we decided to get pregnant—when he told me he wanted it, my heart just soared. Ella was indifferent, and Josh is excited to have a new baby brother, or sister, whichever it ends up being.
Who would have thought that the arrogant jerk I met that night at the club would end up being the man of my dreams? I’ve been able to stop dancing, and I will never go back. I have a stable family now, and life isn’t a struggle—it’s a dream.
I stare up at Ty and wipe a drop of sweat from his cheek. He’s gotten quite tan from working outside so much.
“I love you,” I tell him. He’s probably getting tired of hearing me say it. I remind him several times a day.
“I love you too, Jenny,” he tells me, kissing me on the forehead.
I take his hand and turn and walk towards the house—our house. A stripper and a criminal. Who would have ever thought a happy ending would be in store for us?
The end.
I Pretend Do: A Billionaire Fake Fiancé Romance
Copyright © 2018 by Eva Luxe; All Rights Reserved.
Published by Juliana Conners’ Sizzling Hot Reads.
Chapter 1 – Amelia
“Oh, fuck yeah, babe.” Jason
’s murmured words send his warm breath across the skin of my neck, and my body responds, hips thrusting harder, pulling him deeper inside me. The bed frame rattles beneath us as I dig my fingernails into the skin of his chest, my body hurtling towards climax with each thrust -
And then Jason is looking me in the eyes, saying, “I have a surprise for you, babe.” The pleasure stops as the door to our bedroom opens and I hear a familiar voice. “Hey, Amelia. Watch this.”
Suddenly I’m standing against the wall, my place atop Jason taken by a different woman - Violet. Her dark hair cascades down her naked back as she turns her head effortlessly to smile at me, and I see the ecstasy in her eyes ripple down through all her muscles as she cums on Jason’s cock -
“God damn it!” For the third night this week, that’s when I open my eyes. I’m in my bed, alone, which has become my new normal.
I can’t seem to sleep a night without having some kind of awful sex dream about Jason. My hands stiffen, realizing that my own juices are dry on my fingers. Great. I guess I was touching myself while I was sleeping again.
Apparently I can’t even touch myself without thinking of Jason the Jagoff and Violet the…bitch. I really need to come up with a more alliterative title for her at some point. Oh well.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that they’re still in my head - I mean, she’s nothing if not eternally selfish and grabby. He dumped me on a Tuesday and was parading around with her on his arm by Friday. Jason always had to have the shiniest tool in the shed. I should have realized it when he got with me after dumping his ex only a week prior. At least he had been single when I met him, though, which is more than Violet can say.
Now they’re off with each other, and somehow I’m still the one getting fucked without any of the fun parts. Sure, she’s gorgeous, but her personality is ugly. She takes great pride in bragging about breaking up our relationship. Whoever can do that is no one with any character and I know it, even if Jason’s doesn’t know it— or care.
I tell myself that what goes around comes around and that he’ll get his in the end. Still, it doesn’t do much to soothe my still aching heart. I’m all for karma coming back to get people, but why the hell does it have to take so long?
I roll over and open my bedside table drawer. Even in the near total darkness, the diamond ring inside still somehow glints at me. Every morning for almost four months, I’ve looked at it and resolved that today is the day I’m going to sell it. But every night, there it still is. Every glint off its surface is like the mocking laughter of the popular middle school girls who pushed me in the mud during recess in the fourth grade.
I used to be under the mistaken impression that life had gotten better since then. I’d grown up, gotten a job and a fiancé and things were going well. Until they weren’t. Now I’m left wondering if I’m destined to repeat my depressing school days forever.
I slam the drawer and flop back down into bed. I think about trying to touch myself again, consciously this time, but I have a bad feeling I won’t be able to stop thinking about Jason no matter which handsome actor’s face I try to conjure up. The last thing I want to do is think about him while pleasuring myself during my waking hours, even if I can’t seem to help doing it while dreaming.
I nearly smother myself with my pillow and will myself to fall back asleep instead. Everything will be better in the morning, I think, even though I know that’s a lie.
Chapter 2 – Amelia
Look in the mirror, Amelia, and realize that you look great. I tell myself this every morning in my ride on the elevator up to my office, and some days, I even do it. I try to speak positively to myself in the hopes that what I say will become reality. It was advice I received from a self help audiobook I listened to once. I’m not sure the advice always works, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to try.
In romance novels, women like me are always curvy, voluptuous, vivacious. In the real world, the phrases used to describe me are usually more along the lines of not my type, heavy, or just plain fat.
Today, these words don’t ring in my ears when I see my reflection in the full length mirror that’s on one side of the elevator. Today’s a good day, wardrobe wise at least. And I always think that dressing well is half the battle when going out into the world of love and war.
I’m wearing my favorite skirt, a sheer white one that ends just above my knees, paired with a deep blue blouse and a simple gold necklace to accentuate it. As I get off the elevator and walk to my office, the skirt sashays along with me.
So what if I don’t always feel sexy? I do today. Besides, lawyers like me are mistresses of the spoken word, not fashionistas.
The office is my safe place. Most of the time, anyway. I’ve been with Natti & Associates for almost 5 years now, long enough to earn a small private office of my own on the 13th floor of the building. I deal in Family Law - domestic disputes, divorces, and the like.
In retrospect, it feels like my career choice may have been a bit of laughable foreshadowing from the universe. It only makes sense that I solve other peoples’ relationship issues for a living, since I can’t manage to solve my own. Regardless, this is where I am, settling in to check my emails and enjoy my coffee and my once a week treat of an everything bagel with hickory nut cream cheese on top of it, when there’s a knock at the door.
“Oh, come on.” Bagel time is my time. Who’s up and running around the office this early in the day anyway? As soon as the door opens, I regret even asking the question.
“Violet.” Oh, right - did I not mention that the woman my fiancé ditched me for works in my office? For the same firm I do? Well, she does. And now she’s in my actual office.
“Amelia. Morning.” Violet’s got a smile on that’s only about half as fake as her artificially inflated cleavage, but that doesn’t really mean much. “Listen, I need the files for the Menendez divorce.”
“That’s in my caseload. Why would you need my case files?” I glower at her over my coffee cup, one eye still on my half-eaten bagel.
“Is it not obvious? Because it’s not your case anymore. Larry says the case is of ‘paramount importance,’ and I’ve got the lightest caseload in the office right now…meaning I have the most time to dedicate to such an important client.”
When I was a kid, my older brother used to make me watch wrestling with him. There was one wrestler whose gimmick was something called the “Curb Stomp.” I’d forgotten all about it, until just this moment - because right now, all I want to do is pull that move on Violet.
But I’m an adult who likes not having a felony arrest record, so instead I dig in the drawer of the credenza near my desk and hand her the files. Besides, if there was any time to beat the hell out of her, it really would’ve been four months ago.
“Thanks.” Violet takes the files and, apparently uninterested in letting me keep one little shred of the morning’s dignity, adds, “You’ve got a little - something on your face there.”
As she leaves, I reach up to my face, and my fingers come away coated in a gob of cream cheese.
I do the only thing I can do: give my closed door the finger. And then I lick the yummy goodness off of it, of course. It would be a shame to let my once a week treat go to waste. Violet may have ruined my relationship but I’m not going to let her ruin my damn bagel eating experience, too.
Chapter 3 – Amelia
“I’m telling you, we bribe the window washer!”
“The window washer.” It’s almost quitting time, and I’m sitting in my office with Rosa. Rosa’s my best friend, has been since I started here at Natti. She’s Hispanic, voluptuous, and has absolutely no filter.
This is our usual Friday afternoon routine - sneaking a drink from the “Cocktail Drawer” of Rosa’s desk, and shit-talking whoever’s on our bad side this week. For about 12 weeks now, that person has been Violet.
“Yes, the window washer!” Rosa’s hearty laugh fills the room. “See, you bribe the man to loosen one of the windows up on the 1
5th floor, and then you bump into her up there, just hard enough, and whoops, there it is! Like the song!”
“I think it’s ‘Woomp’ There It Is.” I kinda hate myself for knowing that. “And that got dark quick. Like, real dark.”
“Oh, come on! Last week you said we should dangle an engagement ring over an open manhole so she’d fall in and get eaten by alligators.” Rosa smirks at me.
“I mean…yeah. I did say that. But I was three cocktails in!”
“So, what I’m hearing is that you need at least two more cocktails.”
“No, no, no—” I wave her off, so she pours another for herself instead. That’s when someone knocks on the door.
“Ugh. It’s five o’clock! Who’s still here at five on a Friday?!” Rosa’s voice is a bit loud.
“Come in!” I call.
The door opens. “Sorry to bother you, Ms. Hope. You had a call come in and your voicemail is full, so I took a message…I hope that’s okay.” Cindy, our newest receptionist, looks like she wants to melt into the woodwork as she speaks.
She’s the very definition of a country girl in the big city: gorgeous, thin, blonde, and just a little bit clueless. But she’s already adapting to the work and making herself quite useful, so I think eventually she’ll fit in just fine.
“Thanks, Cindy. I’ll take it.” Cindy passes me the folded paper and turns to go, but not before I add: “Oh, and don’t worry about Rosa. She doesn’t really bite.”
“Unless you ask me nicely.” Rosa, suddenly flipping the sultry switch (the only one she likes more is the ON switch of her vibrator), looks at Cindy. “Then I might.”
“Um. Okay.” Cindy, blushing from the roots of her hair to her dimples (and I’m sure beyond), closes the door behind her.
