Page 5

Jade

I wasn’t the type of girl to drone on, like woe is me and all that other bull.

For one thing, I’d learned at a very young age no one wanted to hear about someone else’s problems. They wanted to bore you with the pitiful details of theirs—I carried the world’s smallest violin in my back pocket for good measure—but when it was your turn, they always had something far better to do.

It baffled my mind how that wasn’t the case in the intro, chorus, or outro of the most played song in life—bitching.

That was why no matter how messed up my life was, I shut my mouth and moved on. Pick up the pieces and keep on going, that was my motto. Even on the days when I felt like my life was one great big tragedy. It could rival that of a natural disaster. It could—

Oh, I got it! The best way to describe my life—a nearly complete puzzle with a corner piece missing. There was no point in searching for it, either. It was no use. You’d never find it. The way I saw it? The box came without it. Yep, I was a damn puzzle with no corner piece.

All right, pity party over. It had to be.

Because it was a new day. I was engaged to a man I’d never even locked lips with.

Not that I didn’t want to. Red’s existence was a very valid reason for the male population to quake in their boots.

Granted, I hadn’t properly scoped out the goods, but I could only imagine.

And something told me that he was locked and fully loaded.

“What are you thinking about?” Jake—my childhood best friend—asked.

Before you got any dreamy ideas, this was not one of those times the childhood besties were going to wind up together.

There was no future for us. Unless it included being in an old home together, busting each other’s chops about who sucks the most at attempting to keep their fake teeth in.

I didn’t need a crystal ball to know that I’d suck more at that.

Mostly because I’d find it much more interesting to scare people by holding them in my hand and talking with no teeth in my mouth at all. I had a. . . unique sense of humor.

I shifted in the passenger seat of Jake’s car.

Finally, answering his question and sharing what was on my mind, I admitted, “Red’s penis.

” What? Lying was one of the seven deadly sins, and I sinned enough.

Plus, this was Jake, he’d heard it all from me before.

No point in candy-coating it with him now.

It didn’t stop him from shaking his head, though. “Don’t sleep with him. He may not be just another Pig, but trust me here. It’d be a mistake.”

Worst. Advice. Ever. Name one person who was told not to sleep with someone and actually listened.

Go ahead, I was waiting. Yeah, you couldn’t because it’d never happened before.

I was all for making history but not in that way.

That sounded like a bore to me. “Please. I don’t want to have to start calling you Daddy.

The kink is feeling overdone. Like we get it, we get it—daddies are hot.

” My body jerked forward and my hair flipped, landing squarely in my eye as he hit the brakes quickly, clearly not accounting for the brake lights on the car ahead of us.

“I’d like to get where we’re going in one piece, thank you very much.

” I fixed my hair, pulling it to one side and clearing my throat. You’d think I was asking for a lot.

He raked a hand through his hair and leaned his palm against the steering wheel in a I’m-a-chill-guy way. “Relax. You know I can’t stand city traffic.”

“And I can’t stand your erratic driving.

” I licked my lips. “Can we get back to me, please? I’m utterly screwed.

” While I was all here for discussing Jake’s need to have his driver’s license revoked, I had bigger fish to fry.

Like the one that came in a tall, dark, and handsome package.

His blue eyes and the way they stared into mine were going to be my undoing, by the way.

“Not as screwed as I’m sure you wish you were,” he replied in a rather wry manner. He turned his head and stared at me.

I waved a hand between us and clacked my tongue on the roof of my mouth. “That fucker screwed me, all right. Now I’m out on my pretty little ass again with no job. I hate searching for a job. It took me forever to find his stupid listing.”

He blew outward as we waited on bated breath for something to break up this traffic jam that came straight from hell. “You should’ve taken his money. That would’ve solved that. Then when this whole crap of you two being engaged was over, you could’ve gone back to being his assistant.”

I swayed my head back and forth. “Love is costly.”

“Exactly,” he agreed.

A taxi driver popped his head out of the window of his car and cursed. “Learn how to drive, asshole,” he shouted.

Jake leaned his arm out the window and shook his head again. “Have I mentioned how much I love this city?”

I laughed. “You hate the city. You love the people in it.”

“Same difference.” He leaned over and nudged my knees out of the way. “Move. I have to get something out of the glove compartment.”

I took my feet out of my ballerina flats and brought my legs up on the seat, hugging my knees to my throat as I watched him search for something. “What are you looking for?” I asked, swatting his arm. “I can probably find it faster.”

His fingers came into contact with a bubblegum wrapper, and he flicked it at me. “Put your crap in the door and then throw it out when you leave the car. How hard is it to remember that?”

“I think we both know it’s not my memory that’s the problem. And you love me regardless of my poor listening skills.”

He stopped, his hand resting firmly on top of a navy-blue ball cap, and shot me a are-you-shitting-me look.

To which I tossed him a no-I’m-not-and-you-know-you-love-me look.

When you were childhood friends—which was basically a lifetime of friendship—you didn’t need words to communicate. Looks were enough.

Turning away, he plucked the cap out, closed the glove compartment, and added the cap to his ensemble.

In case you were curious, he was wearing black sneakers with his black socks pulled up over his calves, navy-blue basketball shorts, and an orange football jersey.

He watched football, but the team he was wearing was not a team I’d ever seen him support, so I had no earthly clue as to why he owned it.

Not that I hadn’t seen it nine hundred and ninety-nine times before—because I had.

Everything about Jake screamed chill, approachable, laid-back. To way too many women to count, it screamed I want to get laid by you .

He tapped my knees. “You can put your feet down again.”

I finally planted my feet firmly back on the ground and into my shoes—if you could even call them that since the soles were practically nonexistent, not that I expected much more from a clearance sale item.

Ugh, I was so not the girl to be fake engaged to a man like Red.

I’d never fit into his world, which was slightly how I felt when it came to meeting my late birth mother’s family—the Morellis.

The Lyons and Morellis had a lot in common, to be honest. They were both wealthy.

Money wasn’t an issue for people like them, which was so far from the case for people like me.

I had a coupon drawer in my two-by-two kitchen, for crying out loud. How in the world did anyone—particularly Red—see this working? I had no business being with a Lyons man again, especially not Red. Pretending like I did would only result in disaster.

Honestly, it would’ve been history repeating itself since this was the exact road I’d gone down years ago.

Only the road hit a dead end, and then a semi wasn’t paying attention and ran right over me.

At least, that was how it’d felt when Nate—apologies, the precocious asshat’s birth name was actually Nathaniel—broke up with me out of the clear blue sky.

I still remember—unfortunately for me—the words Nate had said when he was ending things with me.

Here, let me get them right so you could really understand where I was coming from when I said this charade with Red was a very bad idea.

Okay, I got them, so here goes nothing. Jade, you have to see how this will never be more than what it is.

I thought it could be at one point, but I’ve come to see the error of my ways.

I’ve been fooling myself. We’ve been fooling ourselves.

You don’t belong here. You don’t belong with me.

You can see that, too, can’t you? Asking a woman like you to be with a man like me isn’t right.

It’s selfish of me, actually. We don’t fit, okay? It’s best we go our separate ways now.

It had been a minute, of course, so I may have gotten a few words wrong here and there, but the gist was the same.

Did I become a blubbering mess in front of him?

No. That would have given him too much satisfaction the tool didn’t deserve.

Instead, I’d grown furious and slapped him across his face.

Served him right, if you asked me. To be transparent, I was disappointed in myself for not seeing through his dick behavior long before and slapping him earlier, then kicking his ass to the curb (metaphorically speaking on that one, of course).

I wasn’t a drown-my-sorrows-in-ice-cream type of girl, so I’d gone home and moved the hell on with my life. Taking one more second to even think about him would’ve been too much, so I didn’t.

Had I researched what he’d been up to every now and again when I was bored and.

. . we’d say curious? Absolutely not. I’d come close a few times, but then I realized I didn’t give a flying fuck what he was up to or if he was dating some rich woman who he thought would fit better into his life.

I wished them both the best. For all I cared, they could spend the rest of their days together counting their money.

But now you could see why I wished I’d never agreed to this arrangement with Red—being his fiancée, fake or otherwise. What was the matter with me?

I groaned loudly. Honestly, if I could have screamed into the ether I would have, but groaning would have to do for now. The ether would be a later task.

“Frustrated by the traffic?” he asked of my groan. “Because there’s almost no way we’re getting to that coffee shop before sunset.” He crossed his arms and leaned against his door, seemingly getting comfortable.

“No. Although, sitting here is making me wish we never set out to drive to the coffee shop. What were we thinking?” Speaking of thinking, my brain was borderline melting faster than the foundation on my face from sitting here.

He furrowed his brows as I played with my cuticles. I hated cuticles. They were high maintenance. I pushed them back, only to have to do it again in another few days.

“You might as well talk about this situation with your boss slash ex’s brother, or you’re never going to get your mind off him. So, let’s hear it,” he said, nudging his chin toward me.

I pushed my hand into his arm and rolled my eyes. “How’d you know?”

He cocked a brow. All right, enough said.

“Red is an ass.” I paused and looked off to the side. “I mean, a very attractive ass, but an ass all the same, and I was enjoying my job. It paid well. I was happy.”

“Most importantly, employed.”

I snapped my fingers. “Exactly.” I sighed, and my eyes darted toward the moving traffic. “Hey, people are learning how to drive again.”

He situated himself and took his foot off the brake. “You agreed to be his fake fiancée, right?”

I nodded, and then voiced, “Yes,” since I knew he was driving and couldn’t see my face.

“So now you need to find another job.”

“It isn’t easy. You know that. Plus, I don’t have enough saved to last long without a job. I would have if I didn’t have so much credit card debt to pay off, but alas, here we are.” I waved a hand between us, so he could catch it in his peripheral vision. “Hi, I’m paycheck-to-paycheck girl.”

He laughed. “Just call your sister.” Half sister, but I wouldn’t correct him. “She offered you a job not long ago, right?” He shrugged. “See if she’s still looking for someone to be her—”

“Fashion editor,” I supplied. Shaking my head profusely, I swallowed.

“I couldn’t. I’m not cut out to do anything remotely related to fashion.

Certainly not an editor of my late mother’s magazine.

Regina Morelli had a dream, and it was a fashion magazine, but that is not my idea of the right job for me. ”

We finally made it to the coffee shop, and he put the car in park.

“Call your sister.” Again, half sister, who I’d only recently came to learn about when she and the rest of my half sisters had come knocking on my door one day when they’d found out about me.

Secrets, that was all I’d say on that topic.

“Maria offered me that job eons ago.”

He looked me dead in the eyes. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

“We’re finally in a good place. You know, Maria didn’t exactly like me in the beginning. Frankly, she was a tough nut to crack.” Unlike our other sisters who I’d gelled with fairly quickly.

“Sounds like someone I know. You’re not exactly the easiest person to get along with.”

“What?” I placed a hand on my chest and feigned horror. “I gave you my chocolate pudding cup in the first grade. We’ve been friends ever since.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m getting out of this car and going to get a cup of coffee.

Lord knows I deserve it after that shit show on the road.

” Then he pointed a finger at me. “And you’re going to swallow your pride, or whatever the hell is going on here, and work for that magazine.

It’s yours as much as it is any of theirs. ”

“ Bellissima ,” I told him.

“Great. You already know more than the average person.”

I cocked my head. “What’s that?”

“The name of the company you’ll be working at next.”