Page 41 of Fake It For Him

I thought it over for a beat before I shrugged. “Again, it doesn’t really matter. The nature of my relationship with Ella is contractual. She’s being paid to do a job.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she has to do it well.” He gave one last, pointed look before he dropped his gaze back to the papers in front of him and I did the same.

Only, where he seemed to be focused on the administrative work again, I still couldn’t get my head in the game. This time, however, I wasn’t only thinking about what Ella and Freya might be up to. I was thinking about Ella and me instead, and about whether I was pushing her too hard.

In life, I was ruthless. Determined. I did what I wanted and got whatever I set my sights on. It was just how I lived. How I’d always lived. I didn’t waste time with feelings and emotions. All that messy shit that other people got tripped up by.

That, however, was exactly how I’d gotten myself into a position where I needed to pay half a million fucking dollars for a woman to pretend to be in a relationship with me. Maybe it was time I eased up a little.

At least for the next six weeks or so. Ella was my partner in crime, and treating her like a piece I could move around the chessboard probably wouldn’t work in the long run. I closed my eyes, breathing through the discomfort brought on by the unfamiliar.

I wasn’t an unfriendly guy. I just also wasn’t overly friendly. I had many acquaintances. Some I even loosely considered friends—if friendship was defined as inviting them to one of my clubs or bars for drinks on occasion or hitting a golf ball around once or twice a year.

I’d never had a friend of the female variety and I wasn’t interested in Ella as a friend anyway. I wanted her too much in ways that friends definitely weren’t supposed to want each other, but I supposed that was where the whole with benefits part of friends with benefits came in.

I just had to come up with a way of treating her more as a friend than an employee. As I thought it, I glanced at Joe. He was one of the few close friends I really had, if not the only one. I was about to ask him if he had any tips for me on winning her over to my side when a familiar face appeared in the doorway.

I recognized him immediately as the guy from Ella’s apartment. Her friend for whom she’d made dinner and who was with her that night I’d run into her here in New York. My eyes narrowed. He looked around before he zeroed in on me and came right over. He dropped into the chair beside me at the bar.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did you find me?”

Whatever this was about, I was absolutely sure it was no coincidence that he was here. He’d come to speak to me, not just grab a drink.

Mikey gave me a droll look. “You’re not that hard to find, Calan Reid. The tabloids practically salivate over you and it’s a pretty well-documented fact that you hang out here a lot.”

“Hang out isn’t really what I’d call it. It is my place of work, but let’s not split hairs over the semantics. Why are you here, Mikey?”

He hadn’t introduced himself again, but I remembered him well enough. Hell, he’d called me a pimp just last night.

With the floppy hair and the stubble on his jaw at all times, the baseball cap seemingly glued to his head, the oversized shirts, and the chinos with sneakers uniform he seemed to favor, he was a bit childlike for my liking. I would never be able to see him as a friend, but I supposed I didn’t have to.

“I’m here as a friend to Ella,” he said, trying for a hard, stern expression but really only managing to look like a petulant toddler. “She’s a good woman, Calan. To the very core of her soul, Ella is good. She’s got a heart of gold and it’s gotten her into trouble before. She deserves only the very best and you are not that.”

My brow swept up. “Oh, wait. I get it now. You’re in love with her, but she doesn’t know, does she?”

The boy scoffed, his features drawn tight as he shook his head. “No. I’m not. She’s like a sister to me, but the fact that you seem to think I could only possibly be here to stand up for her because I’m in love with her is exactly why you don’t deserve her.” Pushing away from the bar, he gave me a final nod. “Don’t hurt her.”

I chuckled. “Is that a threat?”

“Not even remotely.” He shook his head. His eyes were so narrow on mine it almost looked like he was trying to develop x-ray vision in an attempt to find out what was wrong with me for even suggesting such a thing. “It’s a request from a friend who doesn’t want to see Ella get hurt again.”

It was then that it occurred to me that answers to all the secrets my girlfriend was keeping were locked in this guy’s head. One real, honest conversation with him and I could find out everything about her past, learn about all of the deep, dark things I knew she’d done but I didn’t have the details about. It could shine some light on all the mystery she was shrouded in.

For a second, I considered asking him to stay for a drink, but as tempting as it was, I doubted he’d tell me anything anyway. I could’ve tried to buy the information from him, but something told me he was one of those people who didn’t have a price.

Besides, if I was going to stick to my recent revelation about not treating her like some kind of possession or pawn, then I was going to have to wait until she told me about it herself. Patience had never been a virtue in my book, but I was going to have to force it this time.

“I won’t hurt her,” I said eventually, looking him right in the eyes. “I don’t have the power to do so. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Don’t I?” His gaze lingered on mine. “This situation is really fucked up, man. You might not think you have the power to hurt her, but from where I’m standing, you’ve got all the damn power. Too much of it, even. However this all ends up, it’ll be on your head. Remember that.”

Without another word, he spun on his heels, his head shaking again as he left the bar. As I watched him go, I realized that surprisingly, my heart rate had increased significantly and my pulse was thundering along much faster than usual.

I didn’t know what it was about, but Joe poured us each a whiskey from a bottle of ten-year Isle of Reid and frowned at Mikey’s retreating back. “Who the hell was that guy?”

22

ELLA