But it could.
It could also be a wonderful thing.
Because sitting by the lake with Rose was a wonderful thing. Something he could get used to. For her, he’d try his best to overcome his fear. Maybe eventually, he’d actually go swimming with her.
Oh, yeah. He’d definitely work up to that. He was suddenly dying to see Rose in a swimsuit.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked with her own sweet smile.
Keeping his dirty, delicious thoughts to himself, he kissed her. “That I love you.”
And he’d show her how much every day of his life.
The End
Continue the A Conquering Fear Novel series in book two, Jade and Miles’s story.
https://amandasiegrist.com/book/conquering-fear-book-two/
https://janeblythe.com.au/book/out-of-the-darkness/
Amanda’s Newsletter:
https://www.subscribepage.com/AmandaSiegrist
* * *
Jane’s Newsletter:
http://madmimi.com/signups/eb8864d651b7469782c5bab2f9b8c5a6/join
About the Author
Amanda Siegrist
Love! Gimme some love and heaps of romance. I have a sappy heart that just loves two people meeting, going through the cycles of a relationship, and ultimately, falling in love. Give me a good book like that and I’m a happy camper:) I write contemporary and romantic suspense, but I am partial to suspense. I just love a good mystery. Besides writing, I love baking, crafts, and baseball ... oh, and meeting new people. *smiles*
www.amandasiegrist.com
Jane Blythe
* * *
Jane has loved reading and writing since she can remember. She writes dark and disturbing crime/mystery/suspense with some romance thrown in because, well, who doesn’t love romance?! She has several series including the complete Detective Parker Bell series, the Count to Ten series, the Christmas Romantic Suspense series, and the Flashes of Fate series of novelettes.
* * *
When she’s not writing Jane loves to read, bake, go to the beach, ski, horse ride, and watch Disney movies. She has a black belt in Taekwondo, a 200+ collection of teddy bears, and her favorite color is pink. She has the world’s two most sweet and pretty Dalmatians, Ivory and Pearl. Oh, and she also enjoys spending time with family and friends!
https://janeblythe.com.au
His Fake GF
Jolie Day
His Fake GF © copyright 2019 Jolie Day
* * *
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Created with Vellum
His Fake GF
Aaron Patterson. Cold. Controlling. Domineering jerk.
CEO of our rival company.
...And my new fake boyfriend.
* * *
The first time we met, he gave me nothing but a fake name.
And a promise of what he would do to me when he got me alone.
It could have been great.
But an urgent call forced me to leave.
Dressed, alone, without hope of getting naked with the hot stranger.
* * *
The next time I see him is on my turf.
He’s sizing me up and threatening to buy out my family business.
I’m so mad—but I’ll be damned if I let him intimidate me.
I’m a New York girl.
Top of her game.
Extremely competitive.
... And heir to a failing advertising company.
* * *
So, when he asks me to be his date at public functions, I accept.
Anything to get the goods on him.
The rules are clear.
No sex.
No strings attached.
And no trying to buy out the family business.
* * *
I know I’m playing a dangerous game.
So does he.
The battle. The closeness. The longing for more.
I’m in big trouble.
Falling for him wasn’t part of the arrangement.
As much as my mind protests, my body decides it doesn’t give a damn.
I’m screwed … And, evidently, not in a fun way.
1
Aaron
I stood at the window, naked, staring out at the New York skyline.
Even as the clock had ticked closer to midnight, I’d found myself wide awake, and I had eventually given up on getting to bed at a decent hour. My mind raced with the plans I had for the next day. Plans that would take me far away from the expensive hotel room I was currently staying in. Far away from the sleeping woman I’d be leaving in a few minutes.
I hadn’t caught her name, a rarity for me, but not necessarily unheard of. She’d provided me with the distraction I needed from my demanding work life, and I’d provided her with an evening of explosive orgasms she could gush about to her other single friends. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement of the oldest and simplest kind.
“You sure we haven’t met before?” she asked as she slithered closer, pressing her hot, slender body against my side. “I swear I’ve seen you around.”
Of course she had. Hell, everyone had. That spread Forbes Magazine had done on me last year had skyrocketed my already considerable notoriety, making it difficult to hide that I was the Aaron Patterson, advertising mogul, and so-called boy-genius.
At thirty-two, I was hardly a “boy” anymore, but the name had stuck with me through college and, after years of trying to shake it off, I had leaned into it. It reminded people that I was the youngest self-made billionaire in New York, that I was still hungry, still full of new ideas, and wild innovations. And, if they still managed to forget, I was all too happy to remind them.
“I’m sure,” I said. Tonight, I didn’t want to be Aaron Patterson. Tonight, I wanted to be a nameless stranger who gave this woman the time of her life—someone who could let go and enjoy the night, enjoy her. I got to my feet, downed the rest of my whiskey, and set my glass on the bar. “How about you come back to my room so we can get better acquainted?”
The sex had been good. Not great, but good enough to satisfy my libido for the time being. Good enough to give me that satisfied ache in my hips and shoulders that told me I’d gotten in an extra workout, on top of the daily cardio and weight sessions I always got in before breakfast.
Deciding I had lingered long enough, I turned from the view to retrieve my discarded clothes. The woman slept on, undisturbed, as I got dressed. Not that I expected her to wake up for several hours yet. She had already been two drinks in when she’d approached me, and if the alcohol hadn’t made her tired, I certainly had.
I’d paid for the room through the night, so she’d be fine until midmorning. By then, I’d be sitting in my weekly staff meeting, forgetting the color of her hair and the shape of her face.
I dressed in record time, not bothering to slip on my suit jacket, and slinging it over my shoulder instead. It was mid-August, and the humid air pressed in on me as I strolled out
the front door of the Chatwal.
My driver, Charlie, stood outside the town car, a Styrofoam coffee cup clutched in his meaty hand. As I approached, he hurriedly straightened his stance, lowering the cup from his lips.
“Good evening, Mr. Patterson,” he greeted me, trying to appear awake. He’d sounded groggy when I had called him to request a pickup, and I suspected he’d been fast asleep just seconds prior. But, he hadn’t complained. In fact, Charlie never complained about the ungodly hours I kept. It was one of the reasons I had kept him on for so long.
I climbed into the backseat. “Home.”
“Yes, sir.”
Charlie shut the door and hurried around to the front seat. Exhausted, I laid my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. Just because I had a reputation for pulling all-nighters and, getting so worked up by a new idea that I couldn’t sleep for more than two hours at a time, didn’t mean I was above human failings, such as fatigue.
By the time I opened my eyes again, Charlie had pulled up outside my apartment.
“Be back at seven-thirty sharp,” I said, straightening my cuffs as I stepped out of the car. “I have a meeting at eight I will not be late for.”
I slammed the door before he’d even opened his mouth to respond. After all, I already knew he would agree. He, like many other people in my employ, knew better than to turn me down.
Once inside my two-story loft, I finally let myself relax. There were perks to living alone: a list I had readily available any time my mother asked why I hadn’t married yet.
Everything stays in its place.
It’s always quiet.
Nothing changes unless I want it to.
Any time I listed the items off, she would roll her eyes and pat my arm, but I knew it saddened her to see her eldest son alone. But that was how I preferred it—no one to distract me from my goals, or complain about my erratic sleep schedule, or divorce me four years into a marriage because I was neglecting her.
The press seemed even more concerned about my romantic life than my mother did. At benefit galas and other public events, I often found myself fielding questions about the ladies who accompanied me. The tabloid journalists—who let rats like them into an upscale party, anyway?—could never quite believe that my dates were business colleagues or old friends from college or potential investors. Gossip columns in New York were itching for the story of chronic bachelor, Aaron Patterson, finally settling down. As if there weren’t more important things to report on.
I didn’t have time to settle down, nor did I have the desire to do so. In fact, I never even spent the night with any of my conquests—a rule I had imposed in college after a particularly clingy classmate had refused to let me slip away the next morning. There was no sense in getting anyone’s hopes up about the kind of man I was. I was not boyfriend material, much less husband material.
Bringing my focus back to the present, I realized that I hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. I knew if I didn’t lie down soon, I wouldn’t be able to function later: an internal gauge, after pushing myself too far in the lean startup years of my company’s growth.
I kicked off my shoes, stripped once more and, after carefully hanging my suit in the walk-in closet, slid beneath the sheets of my California king-sized bed. Sleep came quickly, just as it always did when I decided to let it.
The next thing I knew, the alarm clock on my nightstand was waking me as early morning sunlight crept into my room. I was up and in the shower five minutes later.
At seven forty-five on the dot, I strolled into Patterson Advertising, dressed in a three-piece black Burberry suit, just as I did every day.
Heidi, the receptionist, gave me a toothy smile, arching her back so her tits thrust forward.
“Good morning, Mr. Patterson,” she cooed.
I didn’t acknowledge her on my way to the elevator. Heidi was new, and she had been trying to get my attention for about a week now. I gave it two more weeks before she realized I was not a prospect and started paying more attention to her job.
Time was money, and small talk with employees was a waste of both. There was always work to do, and if the people I hired had the time to stand around and chat, then they didn’t have enough of it. I could remedy that with the snap of my fingers.
When I arrived on the seventh floor, the handful of employees not sitting at their desks, each made a beeline for their respective stations. My assistant, Nora, was the only one to approach me. Short and in her early forties, Nora was a married woman from Queens who kept to herself. She did her job, and she did it well—a rarity nowadays.
“Your coffee is on your desk,” she said by way of greeting. “Matrix Publishing confirmed your meeting with Jonas Rift today at eight. They’re looking to transfer from Pace to us. I had them set up Conference Room A with the usual pastry spread.”
She handed me an iPad, and I scrolled through the file on Matrix while we walked toward my office.
“I had them push the staff meeting to ten-thirty to accommodate,” she continued. “Then, you have lunch with your brother …”
I tuned her out after that, already well-versed in my schedule for the day. The Matrix meeting needed my attention the most. One of my recent hires, Patrick Mercer, had set up the meeting. Mercer came from a moneyed, well-connected communications family, and he had been gunning for a promotion since he had arrived a mere six months ago. He was a sales associate, who felt the job was beneath him, but he hadn’t proved to me yet that he could handle more responsibility.
His performance had always fallen short, and his attitude left a lot to be desired. He often pouted about the larger leads being given to senior members of the staff and, on more than one occasion, I’d overheard him badmouthing our marketing manager and director of sales. The only reason I hadn’t fired him yet was that, despite his shortcomings, he was great with clients and knew how to make money.
Still, Mercer was on drugs if he thought he had any chance of moving up just because he brought in one big client. Judging by his attitude around the office in the days leading up to this Matrix meeting, however, that’s what he thought he deserved.
I had to admit that I was impressed he’d managed to get a contact with one of the fastest-rising publishing companies in the city. Matrix was dynamic—churning out literary bestsellers and well-loved genre novels alike, while sticking to a personal-touch, boutique structure that usually wasn’t sustainable once a publisher scaled up to their size. They were unique, eager to cooperate with a new marketing firm, and their share price seemed to double every time I checked the market.
“Make sure Mr. Rift has anything he wants,” I said, cutting Nora off as she continued to run down my schedule. I passed the iPad back without meeting her eyes. “Also, make sure Mercer is there before the potential client arrives. If he wants me to take him seriously, he needs to show me he deserves it.”
Among his other faults, Mercer had a nasty habit of running late, and I had decided that the meeting would go forward with or without him. I wasn’t going to make a potential client wait indefinitely. The only reason I hadn’t just taken the account from Mercer and given it to someone with more experience was because of my brother’s insistence that I didn’t.
“Oh, just let him have it,” Devon had said. “If he fails, hilarious. If he doesn’t, we have a new client. Either way, it might be nice to let him show you what he’s really made of.”
Devon was my vice president of marketing and sales, and one of the few people I trusted to handle such a position. We had gone into business together from the start of the company, and we had come a long way from when we’d barely had two dollars to rub together between us, no investors, and a huge city full of competitors with more money and experience.
The board had scoffed at my choice of hiring. My brother was several years younger than me and didn’t have nearly the same experience. Devon was … shy and a little forgetful, and he was terrible at negotiating. However, he shared my vision and un
derstood what I wanted to accomplish, and he was someone I could train and mold.
“Of course, Mr. Patterson,” Nora said. “Will you need anything else from me?”
“Only what’s on the list I emailed you ten minutes ago,” I said, my voice mild despite my annoyance. “The only reason I send it every morning is, so you won’t waste my time with questions. Don’t make me have to remind you to check your email again.”
Nora tried to act unfazed by my abruptness, but I saw her jaw clench for the briefest moment.
She nodded. “Understood.”
We had reached my office, and I slipped inside without pausing, shutting the door behind me before she could follow. Alone once more, I sat at my desk and took a sip from the coffee that Nora had left for me: extra-large, one milk, no sugar.
I didn’t look at my computer or my phone, just enjoyed the view from my window as I sipped my morning drink. This was one of my few sacred moments of peace in a sea of hectic meetings, teleconferences, and phone calls. The rest of my day belonged to work, clients, and investors, but the first minutes of the morning were mine, and I treasured them, drawing them out as long as I could.
When I finished my coffee, it was time to throw myself into work.
As the founder and CEO of Patterson, the scope of my job was endless. I had a hand in every aspect of the company, including decision-making, management, and communication with the board of directors. Patterson was my legacy, and I had done everything in my power to ensure we moved in the direction I’d envisioned from the start.
Sweetest Obsessions - Anthology Page 206
