Accidental Roommate

by Jolie Day

  The next morning, I woke up with her pressed against me. I was lying against her back, and I could feel my cock hardening against her ass. I cupped her breast, and my thumb brushed over her curve.

  “Babe, I love you,” I whispered and pulled her into a tender embrace.

  She turned around and kissed me on the mouth, her lashes flicked against my cheek.

  “I love you, too.”

  I ran my hands through her hair. “Would you like to take a weekend trip?”

  I sensed her heart fluttering in her chest. “Where?”

  “Well, after talking to Rick, I think we need to smooth things out, and I’d love to see him again.” I paused, and I felt her stiffen in my arms. “I know you miss him. Maybe we can tell him about the wedding.”

  She jumped up and leaned on her elbow. “Are you serious? You want to… to tell him, make it official with my family?”

  I smiled and kissed her nose. “Absolutely. There’s nothing I want more. You’re all I need, and whatever makes you happy, makes me happy. Rick’s a part of your life. He should be part of mine, too.”

  She threw her arms around my neck and pounced on me. “You’ve made me the happiest woman alive.”

  “No, you gave me something I never knew I wanted: the love of a good woman. The woman I thought I’d lost.”

  Tears sprung to her eyes. “You’ll never lose me, Ethan. I’m yours now and forever.”

  The End

  Continue the series in the next book, a top-of-the-line story, an enemies-to-lovers romance, dripping with sexual tension—His Fake GF. Check out the sneak peek on the next pages.

  More Books by Jolie Day

  Do you want to read another romance book in my steamy series? Join me for a ride you won’t forget. Find thrills, chills, and joyous shrills in:

  His Fake GF

  Aaron Patterson.

  Cold. Controlling. Domineering jerk.

  CEO of our rival company.

  ...And my new fake boyfriend.

  When Aaron Patterson, New York’s most brilliant marketing CEO, asks Audrey Miller to pose as his fake girlfriend, she has a few ground rules. No sex and no more trying to buy out her family’s business. But as she gets to know the man she’s sworn to hate, Audrey begins to suspect her heart just might get the better of her.

  An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Novel by USA Today Bestselling Author Jolie Day.

  His to Protect

  He’s the toughest homicide detective in Richmond—

  Nobody has solved more cases than he.

  But there is a case he can’t crack: Her.

  Getting involved with the wrong woman can destroy you. Jacob Sawyer has changed his entire life to get away from one. Now he’s considered the toughest detective in Richmond with the best crime-clearance and case-solved rate in the city. The last thing he needs is to repeat past mistakes. When she unexpectedly contacts him, the woman who almost knocked him off track, he knows he’s the only one capable of solving her case.

  A Second Chance Romance Novel by USA Today Bestselling Authors Jenny Foster and Jolie Day.

  Nobody can resist the explosive appeal of Jacob and Clara—a top-of-the-line story, a sparkling romance dripping with sexual tension, and an ending that will surprise everybody.

  Saint or Sinner

  Rich. Cocky. Hotter than sin.

  Says he’s innocent.

  I don’t believe him.

  When the successful self-made millionaire, Connor Carmichael, returns to New York after seventeen years, he is aware that anything could happen to him. He could deal with old enemies and even an attempt on his life, but he did not expect to find that a cute eight-year-old girl had grown up to be a woman who is able to get under his skin. Mira Dumont is everything he desires in a woman. Everything he wishes for. However, she is also the daughter of the man he supposedly killed. And she hates him with every fiber of her being. Connor won’t accept a ‘No’, however. To make her his, he has to find out what really happened on that fateful day…

  A Second Chance Romance Novel by USA Today Bestselling Authors Jenny Foster and Jolie Day. 270 pages of romantic suspense with thrilling scenes and a gripping storyline.

  Continue the Series

  Continue the Series in the Books

  His Fake GF

  His to Protect

  Saint or Sinner

  More books coming soon!

  Do you want to be notified as soon as the next book in the series becomes available? Sign up for Jolie Day’s mailing list here for updates, free books, new release details and more:

  www.subscribepage.com/jolieday

  Sneak Peek His Fake GF

  I stood naked by the window, 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 currently stood 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 the distraction I needed from my demanding work life, and I’d provided her 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. The 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 sat 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 had gotten in an extra workout on top of the daily cardio and weight session 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 mid-morning. 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 my suit jacket on and instead slinging it over my shoulder. 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 hurried to straighten his stance, lowering the cup from his lips.

  “Evening, Mr. Patterson,” he greeted, 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 slammed the door shut 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, it didn’t mean I was above human failings like fatigue.

  By the time I opened my eyes again, Charlie had pulled up outside my apartment.

  “Be back at seventy-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. During 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 those 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. 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 I had developed after pushing myself too far in the lean startup years of my company’s growth.

  I kicked out of my shoes, stripped once more, and, after carefully hanging my suit in my walk-in closet, I slid beneath the sheets of my California king-sized bed. Sleep came quickly, just as it always did when I decided to let it in.

  The next thing I knew, the alarm clock on my nightstand woke 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 hopeless 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 most.

  One of my recent hires, Patrick Mercer, had set up the meeting. Mercer came from a monied, 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 yet proved to me 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 the 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 in 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 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 off Nora 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 the nasty habit of running late, and 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 taken the account from Mercer and given it to someone with more experience was my brother’s insistence that I not.

  “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, 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 understood 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, voice mild despite my annoyance. “The whole 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. “Understood,” she said.

  We had reached my office, and I slipped inside without paus
ing, 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 out my window as I sipped my morning beverage. 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 the company, 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 envisioned from the start.

  The first company I worked for out of college had been a joke. They had been more interested in keeping things “business as usual” than in expanding and being innovative. In the year I worked there, I met the CEO maybe once. Half the time, he was on vacation or in an important “business meeting.” I saw my coworkers miss deadlines, pressure clients, and deliver barely acceptable work while the CEO had his head shoved up his own ass. The day I marched into his office to discuss my displeasure, only to find him doing a line of coke on his desk, was the day I quit. I vowed to myself to be the leader he should have been and to hold my employees to the same standard I held myself.

  My phone alarm went off, reminding me of the Matrix meeting. Finished with my coffee, I threw the cup away and headed for the conference room.