Page 31 of Fake It For Him

He shook his head, his eyes a little red and watery. He dropped his glasses back to his nose and looked at me. “Nah, but the world of web development never sleeps. I need to keep up with all the latest trends and stuff because that, I do have a quiz coming up on soon. Once a month, we’re expected to score seventy-five percent or higher on a quiz about what happened in the industry in the past month.”

“Wow, that seems extreme.”

He chuckled and swiped a pencil up from the desk, tossing it lightly at me. “It’s not. Now, stop trying to avoid my questions and tell me where you were last night and why you’re so mad.”

My teeth sank into the inside of my cheek. Before, when Della had first called, I’d told them about my big break but I’d been vague on what exactly I would be doing for the money.

I didn’t think I could do that anymore. If I was going to survive these next couple of months with that frustratingly sexy McDouche who somehow knew exactly what to say to get me to bend to his will, I was going to need their support.

So I came out with the whole story, telling him everything and knowing I was going to have to do it all over again when Kara got home later. Mikey’s eyes were wide and disbelieving for most of the story, but when I got to the end and told him about what Calan had said in the car, he cursed under his breath and frowned.

“It sounds like this guy is a real douchebag, Ella. But you knew that already.”

I nodded enthusiastically. “Tell me about it, but I signed the contract and I’ve met his family. I need to see it through. I just need to figure out a way to do it without backsliding.”

“Is it really worth being stuck with him for two months? I know it’s a lot of money, but you can earn enough money to live some other way, babe.”

“Money, yes. Half a million dollars? No. There’s no way I’d be able to earn that much. Not in two months. Hell, not even in two years.”

“Sure, but you’re not paying rent here. You might not be able to earn that amount of money, but do you really need to? You could stay right here with us for as long as you need to and⁠—”

“No, Mike. I appreciate it, I really do, but this guy is my ticket out of New York. If I want to get out, and I do, then I need to follow through. Besides, like I said, I already signed the contract. I don’t know if I could get out of it even if I wanted to.”

Mikey sighed. “I really wish you wouldn’t keep letting Spencer run you out of the city. It’s a damn big city and he doesn’t own it. So what if you run into him? You’re tough, capable, and you can do hard things. You don’t need to run away from him, Ella.”

“I’m not running away,” I repeated, really wishing that I had a bedroom I could run and hide in right about now.

Instead, I marched out of the room and into the bathroom, turning the faucets in the shower to hot before I stripped down and got inside. Once the water was cascading over me, I was surprised at the emotion that came with it.

Tears pressed at the backs of my eyes.

Four years ago, I’d had Calan to blame. In my mind, I’d turned him into the villain. The big bad guy who hadn’t broken my heart but had damaged it again when it’d already been held together with little more than spit and duct tape.

With everything I’d learned since, I now knew exactly what his frame of mind had been that night, but he still didn’t know what it had meant to me to have gone to bed with another man. The thing was, I had gone to bed with him. Willingly. Enthusiastically.

He hadn’t pushed me to do anything I hadn’t wanted him to do. In fact, I’d begged him to do everything he had done.

I’d also realized that it wasn’t exactly sexy to say stuff like, oh, baby, this is such a great one-night stand. While I’d held on to my flimsy reasoning about having been mad at him because he’d made me believe there could be something more between us, he hadn’t really said anything that wouldn’t simply be considered dirty talk.

Which was something I now knew he was rather fond of.

At the end of the day, I’d made a series of decisions before I’d left here that had ended in disaster, and then I’d fled across the pond and I’d made another bad decision there. Which led me right back here, to where I was today, standing under the shower spray with tears running down my cheeks and no real idea why I was crying.

Sure, the guy was an ass, but he was honest about it. Last night had been good—really fucking good—and as much as he was an indecent prick for saying it out loud in a nonsexual setting, the truth was that I probably would be back.

Not because I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t big on blaming my body for betraying me when it was my brain that made the decisions consciously. So no. It wouldn’t be a situation of me not being able to help myself.

I would be back because, despite it all, I still wanted him. Part of me even still felt like I wasn’t that different from him.

I wanted to be, but I just wasn’t.

Calan was an escape. A distraction. The money he was paying me was the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.

And none of that was even why I was crying.

My friends thought I was running away. From Spencer. From my parents. My problems, and they weren’t entirely wrong. I was damaged goods, and while I didn’t want to feel like I had to leave again, I also didn’t feel like I had much of a choice.

Life had been simpler in the United Kingdom and in Europe. Better. Easier. So much less complicated.