Pretend I'm Yours: A Fake Marriage Romance

by Ella Miles

He frowns. “You can’t. You will never be in my debt.”

  I grimace, completely confused. “But, if that’s your business, then why don’t you want me in your debt?”

  His lip twitches. “You don’t get to know that. You need to forget about me. Forget about this place. Find yourself another Italian boy to satisfy you for the next couple of weeks. That man won’t be me.”

  I don’t understand, but it’s clear that I’m not going to get any more answers out of him tonight. But I’ve got enough for now. Enough to form a plan because I’d do anything to be in his debt. Even after he tortured me by locking me in the bathroom. I still want a chance to fuck the man that saved me one second and then has done everything to keep me away from him the next. A man that could have just told his guards not to let me in, but instead put me on the guest list and then locked me away when I came for him. I want to know what kind of man does something so contradictory.

  “Zip me up,” I say instead of asking more questions.

  I turn around and wait. To my surprise, his hands firmly grip the zipper, and he slowly zips up my dress. I can feel his hot breath on my neck, and his grip on my hip makes me think that he wants to be unzipping my dress instead of zipping it up.

  When he’s done, he turns me around and grabs me by the neck, tightening his grip so that I truly can’t breathe.

  “Stop, Nina. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Stop flirting. Stop coming after me. Or I’ll make you stop.”

  He releases my throat, and I cough.

  “Gregorio Manuel,” Arlo says.

  A man enters the room, who I recognize as the security guard from before. He’s been waiting outside the door for who knows how long.

  Did he follow me the whole way to Arlo’s room?

  “Escort Miss Young away, please, and make sure she doesn’t return for the night,” Arlo says before walking out of the room.

  The security guard looks at me and then grabs me by the arm. He escorts me out into the empty hallway. Arlo has already disappeared. My mind races with everything he said as the guard leads me down hallways. I assume he is taking me out of the mansion. But that’s not what happens. Instead of leading me back out, he takes me down a staircase and into a dark room.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “As Mr. Carini instructed, making sure you don’t return tonight or ever again.”

  He pushes me into the dark room, which looks like a dungeon, and closes the door. He locks it, trapping me for the second time tonight.

  5

  Nina

  The light beams in as the door to the room is flung open. I sharply turn my head away, trying to avoid the pain in my eyes from the sudden brightness. I don’t know why I bother though when a slight pain from the light is nothing compared to the pain I feel in my body.

  “Let me help you up,” Gregorio, the guard, says.

  I don’t respond. I don’t look at him. I don’t move. I just sit like I have been sitting all night. I clutch my legs tight against my chest with my arms wrapped around them for warmth while I sit on the dirt-covered floor, freezing. It turns out, a dark dungeon without air-conditioning, even with my clothes on, is much colder than a heated bathroom without my clothes.

  “Get up, Nina,” he says as he reaches toward my hand.

  When his rough fingers brush the skin on my arm, I jump.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say as I push his arm away and stand up on my own.

  I stare at the man who has held me captive all night.

  I spent the first hour shouting at him through the bars in the door to let me out, that he couldn’t do this to me, that it wasn’t legal. But the man never broke. He just stood there, silently guarding me, not getting any sleep either. He should be just as sleep-deprived and agitated as I am, but he doesn’t seem to be that way. He seems so calm, cool, and collected.

  But the guard isn’t really the man I should be angry with because he isn’t my captor. Arlo is. And, unlike this man in front of me, I feel completely broken. All it took to break me was one night alone in the cold dungeon, but I’m a fast healer. And it has just made me even more determined to get what I want.

  “There is a car waiting to take you home.”

  I start walking toward the door. “Tell Arlo—”

  “I will tell Mr. Carini nothing but the answer to the one question he wanted me to ask. Will you leave Mr. Carini and his whole family alone now?”

  I pause for a second, staring into his eyes that although dark also seem kind. He’s just a man doing his job. He is just the messenger. There is not the same touch of evil in his eyes like there is in Arlo’s. I should say yes and not let him know my plans. But I tried surprise before, and he was already one step ahead of me.

  “No,” I say.

  He sighs. “Mr. Carini said that you would say that.”

  “Then, why did you even bother asking?”

  “Because I hoped you were smarter than the rest of them.” He releases his grip on my arm. “Your ride is waiting out front. I’ll escort you.”

  He leads me out front, and the warm sun beats down on us. I don’t know what time it is, but I guess it’s eight, maybe nine o’clock, in the morning. The bastard left me in there for close to ten hours.

  He opens the door to the black town car, and I climb in without a word. He slowly closes the door after climbing in next to me, and continues to stare at me as the driver begins to drive off without me saying a word of where I live, but of course, he already knows.

  I’m angry, and my whole body aches with pain from the cold and lack of sleep. I want nothing but revenge. And that revenge is going to be sleeping with Arlo.

  For a split second, the guard’s expression holds my attention. He looks like he just witnessed a death.

  I smirk. Maybe he did because I sure as hell don’t feel like the same person.

  I don’t want Arlo anymore because he’s the hot, mysterious man who has threesomes in his fancy mansion. I’m obsessed with Arlo because he tried to get rid of me by leaving me broken and helpless. I will never be that girl again. I plan on destroying him. The first step is getting him to fuck me because, for some reason, I think it would hurt him a lot more than it would hurt me. Make him fall for me. Then I’ll rip out his heart.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Eden asks when I walk into our apartment.

  “You don’t want to know,” I say, walking past her.

  “Please tell me that it was some filthy sex thing that you and Arlo did in the woods, and now, he’s out of your system.”

  I laugh. “Something like that.”

  “Well, whatever it is, we’ll have to talk about it later. We needed to leave for class, like, five minutes ago, so get changed, and let’s go.”

  I’m exhausted. I look down at my filthy dress. I touch my hair and feel the grease and oil from not having washed my hair, and I’m sure my mascara and eyeshadow are now smudged all over my face.

  “I—”

  “You are not skipping class. You are going to go wash your face and put your hair up in a ponytail while I go pick out some clothes for you. Got it?”

  I nod and walk to the bathroom. I start trying to wash off the makeup that is now caked onto my face. Before I even finish half of my face, Eden is back with jeans, a T-shirt, and new underwear. She stands in the bathroom doorway, waiting for me to finish washing my face before thrusting the clothes into my hands.

  “Put them on now.”

  I get dressed, and then Eden basically drags me to class about five blocks away. We step into the lecture room that’s already filled with the thirty other study abroad students, and we end up taking the only two seats left in the back.

  “Thank God Italians run on a much more relaxed schedule than we do in America,” Eden says. “It would’ve been so embarrassing to walk into a class that had already started.”

  I give her a fake smile. She has no idea what being embarrassed really means.

  An older ge
ntleman with frazzled hair and tiny, rimmed glasses walks toward the front of the room. “Welcome, everyone. I hope you’ve been enjoying your time in Italy so far. I’m Professor Gianpaolo Tullio, and I’ll be teaching you everything I can while you’re here.”

  The professor rambles for a little bit about the importance of art and history and what his areas of expertise are before he says, “But the best way I find to learn about art is to create it yourself.”

  Several small moans can be heard throughout the room. There is a reason most of us are art history majors instead of artists.

  He motions for us to stand up, so we do. Then, we follow him to another room where easels are set up throughout the room.

  “Take a seat. We are going to work on two paintings. The first will be of an object, and the second will be of a person.”

  I sigh. I’m a horrible painter. I’ve tried countless times, but it’s just not a skill I’ve ever learned to harness. I love art, and I love history. I would love to be able to contribute something meaningful to this world, but I realized that I would never be the kind of person who could paint, draw, or do anything artistic. I’m the kind of person who will study it and teach others how to use their gifts and learn from the past.

  “Start by painting this beautiful bouquet of flowers.”

  That’s all the direction he gives us after showing us the vase of flowers, and then he sits in the front of the room. I don’t understand what we are supposed to learn from this class if he’s not going to give us any amount of instruction. I could attempt a crappy painting of some flowers at home anytime. But I should be happy because it gives me time to mindlessly think about Arlo.

  “So, are you going to tell me what happened last night?” Eden asks five minutes after we’ve started painting.

  “Not today.”

  I get lost in painting until I have a picture that resembles a vase of flowers that a five-year-old could have painted.

  “You’re a good painter,” a man sitting to my right says.

  I raise an eyebrow. He’s got to be kidding. Most people looking at my painting wouldn’t even be able to make out that I painted a vase of flowers. I turn my attention back to the boy on my right. He is very good-looking with light, sandy blond hair and a bright smile. I’m sure most girls immediately fall for his charm.

  Why can’t I go after someone like him?

  Because he’s a boy, not a man. Because he’s easy, not hard. Because I can already guess every boring thing about him. He’s not the excitement that I crave.

  I open my mouth to say, Thank you for being so nice, but I know you’re just trying to sleep with me, when I hear a deep voice say, “It looks like shit. You should tell her that if you want to get into her pants. I’m sure she’d spread her legs for a good-looking boy like you.”

  My mouth drops as I look up and see Arlo standing over us with a wicked grin on his face.

  “He’s right; it does look like shit. While I appreciate you trying to give me a compliment, my painting skills are not what you should be complimenting me on. And, as far as sleeping with me goes, he’s right.”

  I watch both men’s eyes grow wide.

  “The only men I don’t sleep with are those who lock me in a dungeon and think they can control me,” I say, glaring up at Arlo.

  “Oh, Mr. Carini, you made it,” our professor—I already forgot his name—says as he runs over to Arlo and kisses him on each cheek.

  Arlo walks to the front of the room as the professor says, “Everybody, this is Mr. Carini. He will be helping us with our paintings this afternoon.”

  I watch as Arlo removes his black leather jacket and hangs it over the back of a chair. My mouth waters, and my cheeks flush when he begins unbuttoning the dark blue shirt that he is wearing underneath his jacket.

  I turn my attention back to the professor, who’s still rambling, but I do manage to catch his last word.

  Nude.

  We will be painting Arlo in the nude.

  Arlo smirks as I realize that I’m going to see him naked and be forced to attempt to paint him naked while keeping my composure. I’m sure I won’t be the only one who struggles with painting a naked man. I glance around the room, but no one else seems to be blushing or fidgeting in their seat like I am.

  Arlo continues to undress with his eyes locked on me. Today, he seems to be in a better mood, probably because he got a good night’s sleep while I attempted to sleep on a dungeon floor. I’ve seen him almost naked before, but somehow, him undressing in front of us makes it all the more intimate, especially when his eyes stay on me the entire time he’s doing it.

  My cheeks flush a bright shade of pink when he pulls down his pants and briefs all in one motion, and his cock springs free. I try not to stare even though I know every other warm-blooded female in the room is doing the same.

  God, his body still draws me to him just as much today as it did before he locked me up.

  “Paint. Free your mind, and just paint,” the professor says, breaking the spell that I’ve been under since Arlo came into the classroom.

  I stare down at the canvas in front of me, and I start painting, knowing full well that there is no way my painting is going to look anything like Arlo. I paint, hardly ever looking up at Arlo. Every time I do, his eyes are always watching me, making me nervous or so filled with lust that I can’t think straight. So, I just paint, mostly from memory, not that it matters anyway.

  I look over to see how Eden is doing. Her painting looks exactly like Arlo. I’m going to have to steal hers later when I’m thinking dirty thoughts about him.

  “It doesn’t look that bad,” Eden says, lying to me.

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Okay, it looks horrible. How did you manage to make him look like a mix between a rhinoceros and a gorilla?”

  I laugh and shrug as I look at the painting. “It’s a talent, I guess.”

  “Let’s all thank Mr. Carini for being the inspiration for all your paintings today. We’ll be going through everyone’s paintings over the next few weeks, and at the end of your time here, we will paint again and see how things have changed in your appreciation of what’s important to capture in your painting.”

  I frown. “This guy does realize this is art history, not a class about how to paint, right?” I ask Eden.

  She shrugs. “Well, at least I’ll get an A.”

  “I might as well drop out now because I’m going to fail this class.”

  I begin to gather my things as Arlo walks out of the room. It’s the wrong decision. I know it the second my feet leave the ground to start running after him. But I’ve never been good at doing what is good for me.

  “You really think I look like a hippo, Miss Young?” Arlo asks as he continues to walk forward without looking behind himself to know who is following. He just knows, or at least presumes, it is me.

  “No, I think you look more like an ass. Too bad I’m not a skilled enough artist to convey it.”

  He chuckles and stops, waiting for me to catch up to him.

  I’m shocked that he’s talking to me, but maybe he feels that he’s warned me enough, and any decision I make from this moment on is mine to make.

  “Why did you let art history students paint you? Surely, they could have paid some college student who needed a buck or two instead of having you get naked in front of a room full of strangers.”

  “I did that because it was fun—the same reason I do everything in my life.” He turns and starts walking.

  “Arlo!” I shout.

  He stops and turns, studying me.

  “Why would you do that after everything you did last night? You made it your mission to keep me as far away from you as possible. Yet here you are, showing up in my classroom the next day.”

  He grins. And then he leans down and firmly kisses me on the lips. It’s a sweet, chaste kiss with only a bit of his tongue and a tease of what more he could give me. But it’s enough to make my craving for him uncontrollable.<
br />
  He pulls away. “Maybe it’s because I want you.”

  I blush. “I want you too. I want to come to one of your parties and actually be invited this time.”

  “No, you don’t. The only way you become one of the women is if you become indebted to me.”

  The wheels start turning in my head again. I still don’t know what he means by being in his debt.

  “Stop thinking about it. You’ll never be indebted to me.”

  “Fuck me, and I’ll stop thinking about it.”

  “Why? So that you could become even more obsessed? Clingy? No, thanks. I have more than enough women who fawn over me.”

  And then Arlo leaves me alone. Confused and frustrated.

  I want him more than I’ve ever wanted a man before.

  But, right now, I’ll have to relive the kiss over and over again while I make sense of his bizarre behavior. What kind of man kisses me, but won’t fuck me unless I’m in his debt? Some sort of twisted, messed up man that’s who. A man that makes me want to know everything about him.

  6

  Nina

  “What is up with you? You’ve either been a bitch to anyone who talks to you or you have been completely silent all week,” Eden says when she walks into the living room where I’m curled up on the couch.

  “From that description, seems like I’m my usual self.”

  Eden grabs the quilt off my body.

  I growl, “Give it back! It’s freezing, and I’m taking a nap.”

  “You are not napping on our first of only three free weekends that we have here.”

  I close my eyes. “I’m taking a nap.”

  I don’t want to walk around the town. Everything will just remind me of Arlo again. All I can think about is his damn kiss anyway. He’s the most confusing, infuriating man I’ve ever met. I’m frustrated that I have already let a week pass without trying to come up with a plan for revenge. I’m way out of my league. So, my new plan is to sulk and stay away from him until I leave. It’s a good plan that will get me into less trouble anyway.