Single Dad’s Fake Fiancée: A Cowboy Romance

by King, Imani

  “I love you,” he says. “I’ve always loved you.”

  No.

  “I didn’t know how to say it. I’m so sorry. You deserve…better but…I really want you.”

  I can tell. That part of him is aching between us, twitching, and I truly do believe he’s in physical pain.

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  His hands seem almost uncertain as they grip my legs, pushing them apart softly. The tip of him slides between me, a bit of precum.

  Oh God.

  This was happening. With Preston. His shirt is open, exposing his sculpted chest. His pants unzipped. And I’m naked, completely naked, and he’s looking down at me like I’m some sort of fairy creature that will disappear at any moment.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” he whispers, bringing his hand down to caress my cheek. “I’ve thought of this for so long…”

  “Don’t think about it any longer.” Don’t let me think about it any longer. I don’t want to break the strange spell that’s fallen over us. Me, hearing everything I’ve ever wanted to hear from Preston. All the beautiful things I’ve wanted him to say that I know he would never say. Maybe they are just beautiful lies, but tonight, they are my beautiful lies.

  I tremble, for a moment, telling myself that I’m weak. That I shouldn’t give in this easily, so easily, to him. That this is some sort of cruel game.

  Then, his mouth comes down over mine, and I’m lost again in that sweet darkness of uncontrollable desire.

  He pushes my legs back, grip tightening on my knees. My core clenches as the tip of him pushes in.

  “Aaahh!” I cry out as he opens me.

  “Tachell,” he whispers in my ear, not moving, allowing me to adjust to his size and the sudden pain.

  For a few moments he just holds me, and I hold him back, my pussy pulling on him and his low, pleasured breaths coming in my ear. I wrap my legs around his back, and he moans.

  “Okay,” I tell him.

  His hands shake. “Tachell…”

  “I’m okay. Now.” I pull back just enough so I can feel his eyes. “I want to.”

  His expression is so serious suddenly. Concentrating on nothing but me. He moves slowly, elegantly, and that night is everything I could have imagined it to be. Everything I have ever dreamed of. Perfection. Everything I wanted.

  I allow all the feelings to come out for this boy.

  This boy who teased me about my hair, about the way I looked, about the way I could play sports like a boy.

  This boy who I caught glancing at me with a look of respect when he thought I wasn’t looking. This boy who stood up for me when I wasn’t watching. This boy who could never tell me how he truly felt until now.

  And how he felt was everything I could have dreamed of and more.

  So much more.

  We finish together, breathless, inexperienced maybe, but only in the feelings that consume us both, because we move naturally, our bodies already in tune to pleasing the other, taking so much joy in giving joy to the other.

  And he kisses me again, rolling to the side, holding me against his chest. So warm, his heartbeat slowing. I curl into him and he hugs me tighter.

  And he says it again. Those three little words I never thought would mean so much, especially coming from him.

  “I love you.”

  ***

  I wake up cold.

  I frown, stretch, reaching for the other side of the bed.

  It’s empty.

  That’s strange. Did he leave…? Why would he leave? I get up, put on my clothes. Well, I didn’t expect my first morning after losing it to be like this, that’s for sure. But Preston is probably off doing something important. Normally, I would just go home, but I’m hungry and I know they have chefs out doing breakfast so I see no reason not to go back to the main house.

  I cross the lawn. I don’t look any different. I indulge a bit in the mirror.

  “Preston loves you,” I whisper to my reflection.

  Dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair. The exact opposite of his type, which is pretty clearly blonde and blue eyed and fair skinned, though he will occasionally go with someone with a tan.

  I can’t help but smile.

  He said he always loved me.

  It seems…too good to be true. I still can’t help but feel like I’m being played, but even if it was just a one time thing, I’m glad it was him like this. Even if we don’t end up together forever. I mean, I know that it’s very rare for high school relationships to work. We haven’t even gotten to college yet, and we’re going to different schools.

  But maybe this summer…

  Andy there would be Reggie. I wonder what he’d think if he knew his best friend was nailing his twin.

  Oh man. That was gonna get real awkward real fast.

  But Preston could take it, and I could take it. I was willing to fight for this, for him. Because I believed. And maybe that was stupid and not something that I should believe in, but I couldn’t help it. It meant something to me.

  I walk across the lawn, my flip flops swinging from the pointer finger and middle finger on my right hand. My left hand shades my face, taking a good look at the view. Such a beautiful property. It was crazy that one person lived here. That Preston lived here.

  I didn’t come over that much. Maybe a few times as a kid when I was playing with Reggie, but as I got older I avoided it like the plague.

  Still, I know my way around. I head for one of the side doors around the back of the house. It’s where I enter.

  When I get inside, I hear something.

  God.

  The woman starts screaming, and then there’s the distinct sound of an ass slap. “Shut up. Someone will hear you,” another feminine voice says.

  There were two girls in there? Wow. Some people really did love to go at it. Everyone thought the girls at our school were all prim and proper because they had money, and they were—but they also knew how to indulge and they had such high status that it wasn’t like anyone could go after them. Not like a girl like me. Everyone was constantly looking down at me, and any indiscretion was seen as a blight against my family. Double standards were so ridiculous.

  “Oh God,” she whimpers. Now the other girl is crying too.

  I shake my head and walk past, but then I hear something. “Oh Preston.”

  Another ass slap.

  “Preston!”

  I freeze. Every hair stands on end.

  Walk away.

  I can’t breathe. There’s an ice cold fist gripping my heart through my rib cage.

  I turn towards the closed door.

  Go. Go. Go. Go.

  But I step towards it. My heart hammering faster and faster with each step, so loud I can’t hear the cries of the women inside.

  I open the door.

  No.

  My trembling hand falls to my side. I’m too shocked to make sense of the images before me. All I can do is feel. It’s like my lungs are collapsing, my throat is constricting and—yes, I realize how cliche it sounds—my heart is breaking.

  They always make a broken heart sound like something trivial, but it isn’t. It’s like every single cell was frozen by black ice and then slammed into the ground,and shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Preston is currently sliding his dick out of one girl and sliding it into the next girl.

  I am sick. I want to throw up everywhere. I want to wash out my mind. I want to take back the past twelve hours. They didn’t happen—this couldn’t be happening.

  He looks up at me mid thrust, suddenly aware that I’m in the room.

  The woman beneath him wiggles her ass. “Come on, Pressy.”

  Pressy? What the hell kind of nickname was that? Is this the kind of person he decided to leave me for?

  Perfect on the outside. Lightly tanned skin. Brilliant blue eyes like the pool outside. Bleached blonde straight hair that she doesn’t have to straighten each morning.


  He has the decency to look embarrassed, at least, for all of two seconds before that characteristic smirk is back. “Hey Tachell. See something you like?”

  I inch towards the back of the door.

  His eyes darken. “You’re welcome to join, if you want.”

  He slaps the ass of the other girl he just pulled out of and she laughs.

  I can’t deal with this.

  I turn, slamming the door shut behind me.

  Breathe.

  My throat’s too tight. My stomach is knitting my intestines into knots. Everything hurts. Everything. My throbbing head.

  The rooms outside are filled with people waking up, climbing off the floor, complaining of headaches and laughing about who they woke up next to this morning. I wonder if that’s why Preston slipped out. Was he too ashamed to wake up next to me? Did he regret it that much? I burst out the front doors into the brilliant, mocking sunshine, taking off across the lawn with my bare feet. I need out. Out. I don’t want anything to do with this world, and truthfully, I didn’t have to keep up with it. I could be anywhere I wanted. I was going to college. I was going to succeed. I would put all this behind me.

  I didn’t realize until three weeks later that he truly didn’t remember a thing from that night after he cannon balled buck naked into the pool from the top of his roof.

  He didn’t remember taking my virginity.

  He didn’t remember saying all those sweet lies to me.

  He didn’t even remember leaving the pool house.

  He’d left sometime in the night and walked over to the house, fell over on something else, woke up next to two blondes and, well, what does Preston Easterbrook do when he wakes up next to two blondes?

  We all know what he does.

  I try to take comfort in that. He doesn’t remember what he did, well, I didn’t have to remember either. It could be like it never happened. But my heart wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily. It still yearned, desired, longed for those sweet lies.

  So I closed it off.

  I wasn’t going to let any boy rule me, and certainly not someone like Preston Easterbrook.

  I had my whole life ahead of me, and he was not going to be a part of it.

  Not ever.

  Chapter 52

  “Get out,” I whisper.

  He frowns, concerned. “Tachell?”

  I shut my eyes. “I said, get out.”

  “Tachell, what is it? Did something happen?”

  “God damnit Preston!” I scream. “Get out of this room! I can’t look at you right now! I can’t look at you ever again!”

  He flinches and then looks at me, resolved. “No. I’m not leaving you like this. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Fine,” I whisper. “Then I’m going.”

  I push past him and start down the hall.

  “No, Tachell!” he yells, chasing after me. When it becomes obvious that I won’t stop, he races ahead of me and blocks my exist.

  I glare at him, nostrils flaring. “Get out of my way.”

  “I’m not letting you leave.”

  “So I’m your prisoner now?”

  “No,” he tells me. “But you’re upset. Tell me what’s wrong, and after we’ve talked, if you still want to go, we can call Sondra.”

  I open my mouth.

  I can’t tell you. I don’t want to tell you.

  He’d hurt me so bad. I didn’t want to remember; I didn’t want him to know. It was so awful and embarrassing. I…I…

  I turn and run in the direction opposite of him to the bedroom. His footsteps pound after mine, but luckily he’d been too eager to get ahead of me when he’d tried to keep me from escaping. I have time to shut and lock the door.

  “Tachell!” he yells, pounding the door. “Don’t do this!”

  “I want to go!” I yell back.

  “Okay, okay,” he whispers as he ceases his pounding. “You can go at any time. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  I shut my eyes.

  “Please, Tachell. Please.”

  I shiver. “It’s about…the first time we were together.”

  “What happened, sweetheart? Are you regretting the pregnancy?”

  “No!” I call out quickly. “Never that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  His voice is so close to mine. I think we’re both leaning on the door in the same place. I curl my hand into a fist, shivering. I want to keep this a secret, but I know there can be no more secrets between us. Not after what we shared, because as much as I hate to admit it, it was real and it was beautiful. And because of what we shared and who he is now, he deserves to know even if it breaks me. “That night a few months ago wasn’t our first time. I’m talking about our real first time—my first time—back when we first graduated High School.”

  He’s silent for a moment. “What?”

  “It was at the graduation party at your place. In the pool house. And the next morning, I found you with two girls… right after you were with me, I found you with two girls…”

  I can’t finish. I slide to the ground, holding my stomach as the horrible memory plays again. I hear Preston’s voice from the other side of the door, but I can’t recognize his words. I hold my knees to my chest and rock back and forth on the floor.

  Please, let this be a cruel dream. Please, don’t let this be real.

  But it isn’t a dream, and it is real. And I don’t know if I can deal with it.

  ***

  I hear a knock at my door.

  “Go away,” I sniffle.

  “Tachell?”

  “What are you doing?” I ask, standing. “I told you I don’t want to see you. I never want to see you again.”

  There’s a telling silence. Then, a soft, “I brought you pancakes.”

  Pancakes? My heart aches. “Your pancakes?”

  “Yeah. When it became obvious you weren’t gonna come back out, I went to the kitchen. I figured you could use some food.”

  “No, you wanted to bribe me to open the door.”

  “That too,” he admits.

  Asshole wasn’t even gonna deny it. Smart man. I walk to the door, shaking.

  Could I really let him in? Could I really forgive him after all he did to me?

  My stomach growls.

  “I won’t say anything. I promise,” he says. “I’m just gonna give you pancakes. After you finish, we can call Sondra.”

  This is a mistake.

  He’s a cheating manwhore.

  He didn’t love you. He didn’t care. He didn’t even remember.

  Everything you’ve seen up until now has been a lie.

  You can’t trust a man like this. You can’t keep a man like this.

  My hand trembles as I reach for the door.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! Don’t do it!

  But I do, and when the door swings open, I don’t see a cruel, manipulative player. I see the man I love with a sorry expression on his face and know that he never meant to hurt me.

  Tears are threatening to cascade down my cheeks. Again.

  “Tachell,” he whispers.

  “I can’t do this, Preston. I just can’t.”

  “You don’t have to do anything but eat. Just sit.”

  I do. “This isn’t a problem pancakes can solve,” I whisper.

  “I know. I just want you to feel better, and I know that pancakes make you feel better.”

  Damn, when the man is right he is right. And right now, I want to drown these horrible feelings in sugar and fat. I let him sit beside me on the floor and accept the plate of pancakes he offers.

  I look up at him. “Are you really going to just stand there and just watch me eat pancakes?”

  He gulps. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now. Nowhere else I’d rather be ever.”

  I shut my eyes and cut into the pancake. I know I shouldn’t. It’s just going to cloud my judgment and melt my heart with it’s yummy goodness. I can’t give him a pancake pardon. Not with this.


  I swallow my first bite, still resolved. “I’m not forgiving you.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t ever forgive you.”

  “I know.”

  I set down the fork. “You hurt me so bad, Preston. I never wanted to love again, and the fact that I do love again and that that person is you devastates me.”

  He crouches beside me. “I did so many horrible things to you. So many stupid, horrible things. I allowed everything else to get in the way of what I really wanted, of what really made me happy, of what really mattered. All because I was too stupid to recognize how much I loved you and incapable of communicating just how much.”

  I shut my eyes. “I thought…I thought it meant something. You told me you loved me.”

  “I did,” he whispers. “I did.”

  I continue, “And I went to bed thinking that it meant something. Thinking that it was something beautiful. That I loved you, too. I even said it. And then…the night after we…the very next morning…I woke up and I found you in bed with two girls. Sleeping with them.”

  He shuts his eyes. “I don’t even remember, Tachell.”

  “I know, and I can’t deal with that either. It was the most important moment of my life and you don’t even remember it. I thought that since you didn’t remember, I could pretend like it never happened, but I can’t.”

  His shoulders shake. “I’m so sorry. That would have been the most beautiful moment of my life, and I can’t remember it. I’ll never remember it, Tachell. And, even though it meant so much to me, I made you regret it.”

  “How can it mean so much to you when you can’t even remember?” I whisper.

  He looks at me, eyes glassy and blue. “I told you I loved you, didn’t I? I dreamed of telling you that every day. And I dreamed that, after I told you, we’d make love and spend the night together. I dreamed of holding you against me and looking down at your sleeping body beside mine. I dreamed of whispering that I loved you, again, as you slept. I had that. I had that, and I ruined it. I’m so sorry.”

  He leans in close. His minty breath spills over my cheeks.

  Ask me to forgive you.

  He doesn’t.

  He wouldn’t.

  This is too big, and he knows that he can’t ask that. It’s up to me to decide if I want him or not. I know now, more than ever, that if I walked away he would let me go. He would accept my decision. And even though he accepted it, he would still support me and his child. He would still love us both. He would spend a lifetime repenting.