Chapter 8 #2
“Is that a book or something?”
Her eyes widened in shock. “How uncultured are you? It is one of the best, if not the best, romantic comedy movies of our time.”
“Apologies, I don’t have a whole lot of time to watch television, never mind romcoms.”
“It’s not like I can say I am surprised, you are a man after all. But I swear your gender would learn a lot if you watched those sorts of movies.”
“If you say so.”
“The whole romance genre of books and movies is basically a guide for you men on how to treat women. But alas, this is why fictional men will always remain superior.”
A low chuckle rumbled through my chest. “Let’s get back to your rules.”
“Rule number one, in public you need to act like my boyfriend,” she stated. “We will need to give off the illusion that we’ve been dating for a while, but have been keeping it secret. We can say we were waiting until we got more serious or something.”
“Simple enough.”
She muttered, “Why do I get the feeling this will be the furthest thing from simple?”
“We’ve both been in relationships before. Pretending that we are a proper couple is the easy part.”
“You call it pretending. I call it lying, and I hate lying.”
Pretending, lying, it was the same thing, and at this point, it was pretty much all I was good at.
What was one more lie to add to the list?
“We only have to do it until after your sister’s wedding.”
“Which brings me to rule two.” She clicked the top of her pen twice. “There will be social events, engagement parties, family dinners, everything a boyfriend would attend. Meaning you have to be there. There’s a lot I will need from you over the next four months.”
“Four months is nothing,” I assured her, “and think how much easier it will be having me there at your side and not some overly-touchy old man.”
“You are the best of a bad situation.”
“I’ve been called worse,” I smirked.
Livi rolled her eyes. “Rule three: we’ll be spending a lot of time together, and I think it would be easy to blur the lines between what is real and what is fake if we aren’t careful. So, we must remember what this is and not form any attachments to each other.”
“Ah, so you are scared you’ll end up falling in love with me.”
“Trust me, I have my own rules involving my love life and they consist of never being fooled by love again.”
“Sounds like a way to live a very lonely life.”
Ignoring me, she asked, “What about you? Do you have any rules or thoughts on how this insane plan of yours should work?”
Apart from somehow putting my life back together?
“I don’t have any rules per se,” I said. “Only thing I need from you is to drop by the hospital once or twice and act like the doting girlfriend in front of Lorenzo.”
All I had to do was pray to every mythical being out there that she would believe it. That it would be enough for Lorenzo to give me what I came here for, because without it….
No, I don’t want to consider it.
This had to work. One way or another, it had to.
“While we’re on the topic of your job, how exactly are you going to fit in this whole fake relationship?” She clicked her pen again. “You said it yourself; you work a ridiculous amount of hours.”
“The hospital has new rules that state I can’t work over a certain number of hours per week. Meaning I now have a whole lot of free time on my hands, free time that I am certain I can squeeze a fake relationship into.”
A fake relationship that may just be enough to save me from my own ruin. If it worked, if we pulled it off, I’d never have to tell Frederic the truth.
Life could go back to normal.
“My fourth rule is, at the end of the four months, we call it quits.” She circled a date in the binder. “A clean break-up that we can both walk away from with our heads held high. We can say we realized we were better suited to being friends.”
“Works for me.” I nodded. “Oh, I do actually have one rule.”
She looked up from her notes. She really did have the most earth-stilling pair of eyes, two pools of heavenly gold-flecked chocolate that tempted me to get lost in them.
I cleared my throat, grounding myself back to reality. “I don’t think we should date or sleep around with other people during this. I get that it’s a big ask, but other people can complicate things.”
“That makes sense,” Livi rested the tip of her pen on her bottom lip and sent a surge of blood down between my legs as my mind pictured something much less innocent resting there. “Are you sure you can go that long without sex?”
It had been coming up on one full year since I touched another person, let alone myself; what was another four months?
“I’ll survive. Can you?”
“Celibacy is one of my own personal rules, Dr. D.”
“Celibacy,” I repeated. “You mean, like a nun?”
“Something like that.” She nodded. “So, we’re really doing this?”
“Fake it till we make it, baby.”
Her entire body went still, her eyes widening and kissable lips parting. But before I had a chance to ask what was wrong, she removed the binder and pulled out her phone. “Give me your hand.”
Silently, I placed my hand into hers. Her soft touch awoke every nerve ending as if I had stuck my finger into a live electric socket. The way her fingertips glided along my knuckles, the heat of her skin seeping into mine, brought my heart to a complete standstill.
“What are you doing?” I asked thickly.
“Starting the lie before I come to my senses.” She set her hand next to mine and positioned it to cover her fingers. “No time like the present.”
She didn’t hesitate, angling her phone with her spare hand, she opened her camera and took the shot. In a matter of seconds, she’d cropped, filtered, and uploaded the photo to her social media story before either of us could second-guess it.
No going back now.
“Four months,” she said, more to herself than me. “We can do this. We can totally do this.”
“We can do this,” I repeated like I believed it.
I had no other choice but to believe it.
Because yes, the whole fake girlfriend plan would hopefully land me the promotion, but it would also be the perfect distraction from the anxiety that wrapped itself tightly around me when I was alone.
All alone with nothing but the voices telling me: to gamble, to drink, to self-medicate, to feed the inner demons that wanted nothing more than to drag me deeper into the darkness.
If I couldn’t use work to outrun the parts of me I hated, then I’d use Livi.
After all, this was what this whole plan was about, using each other, right?
Turns out, I was wrong about before—this was my all-time low.