Page 16 of Merry Fake Bride

“Sir?” Our eyes meet in the rearview. “It doesn’t look safe.”

“Why, because it’s quiet?”

Martin nods. “Let me park around the corner.”

“Fine.” Pressing back into my seat, I massage my thigh and gaze out the window.

Since my father’s passing, my mother has been overbearing with security, and it took all my powers of persuasion to stop her from putting a high security team with me everywhere I go.

I suspect Martin is more than just my driver, given the muscles he hides under that suit and the casual yet firm way he directs my movements.

Anything to keep Mother happy.

Once parked, I climb out and immediately hold up a hand to Martin. “I don’t need an escort.”

Martin fixes me with an easy smile. “I’ll be right here.”

Something about his tone makes me feel like he’s not telling me the truth, but he doesn’t follow me as I leave the parking lot and turn down the empty street leading to the balcony.

This is what I wanted the other board members to see.

From the top floor of our office building, this street is nothing more than a line on a map, a name at the bottom of a blueprint for luxury apartments.

They don’t see the empty, sold buildings or feel the coldness that radiates from every soulless doorway.

This is the world my father built.

This is the legacy he leaves behind.

And I’m just as guilty.

Once this is over, I’ll spend the rest of my life directing Silver Canopy into much more fruitful endeavors to try and offset all the damage he’s done.

I glance both ways while crossing the street but as I walk, someone comes around the corner of the street on the opposite side with several boxes piled in her arms.

She stumbles slightly but quickly regains her balance and clutches tighter at the white cardboard in her arms, then she adjusts them to one side and my heart stops.

It’s her.

The woman from the bar.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since that night over two weeks ago.

She was such a beautiful presence that I started to think I’d made her up and all that had happened was a drunken wank in a toilet stall.

She’s been in every dream since that night and warmed my thoughts each time pleasure has coiled in my gut.

Adeline.

She’s as beautiful now as she was then, maybe even more so.

Her dark hair is scooped back into a thick ponytail that swings from side to side as she walks.

A checkered shirt hugs her voluminous curves, and her gorgeous, thick ass is wrapped in light blue denim jeans. And her lips.

Thick and full and bitten by her upper teeth as she walks down the street completely oblivious to me.

I reach the sidewalk and turn to face her as she walks toward me, searching for the right thing to say.