Page 4 of Pretend Wife (Angels of the Secret Order #4)

FOUR

Danielle

Two Years Later

“You are the worst best friend in the world, you know that?” I said into the phone as I started the walk from the hospital to the train station.

“I am not,” Miles protested. “I am literally inviting you to a party. How does that make me a bad friend?”

“Because we both know you’re going to ditch me as soon as we get there to go do I don’t want to know what with Jessica.”

“You still owe me for all the times you ditched me for my brother.”

There was an awkward beat of silence as his words hung between us.

“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s fine. I’m over it.”

“Don’t lie to me, Dani. It’s insulting to my intelligence. ”

Miles was right. It had been eight months since things had ended between Hayden and me.

I should be over it, but I wasn’t. I’d spent all that time trying to figure out where things had gone wrong.

It wasn’t just that I’d lost him after believing I might love him.

It was that I truly didn’t understand what had happened.

We were happy—as least, I thought we had been—and then all of a sudden, he didn’t want me anymore.

He went out with someone else the next day. I’d figured she was the reason we broke up, but then there was a different woman the next week and someone else the next. I saw the pictures on the gossip sites that loved to talk about the Blake family. And it hurt every time.

“He’s your brother, Miles. You’re allowed to talk about him in front of me.”

“He might be my brother, but he’s also an idiot.”

“Don’t.”

“Fine. Forget Hayden. Back to the party. Please come with me?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my best friend and I want you there.”

“You won’t even notice if I’m there or not.

” The Blakes were hosting a party in their Boston hotel to celebrate the new expansion and partnership with some prestigious winery.

The event actually sounded amazing, but going with Miles would mean being his third wheel.

And there was the risk of running into Hayden.

I already had to see him way more than I wanted since he was so connected to my family. He’d grown up in the same circles as my sister-in-law Piper. And he was still Sierra’s boss. Avoiding him completely was impossible. Avoiding him as much as was possible had become my new mission in life.

“What can I do to change your mind?” Miles asked.

“Nothing.”

“What if I invite Kylie too? Or you can bring your family.”

“That would be a no.” My family included four young kids, two of whom weren’t even human. Parties like this weren’t their scene at this point in their lives.

“Just Kylie?”

“Still no.”

I loved Kylie, but she also loved drama and would do everything in her power to find a way to make Hayden jealous if she was at a party with both of us.

“Okay, fine. I’ll come over after the party and bring leftover wine.”

I smiled to myself. “You are the very best friend in the world.”

Miles’s laugh echoed in my ear. “You just told me I was the worst best friend five minutes ago.”

“I’m taking it back. You have redeemed yourself.”

“It was the promise of wine, wasn’t it?”

“No, it was the promise of your company. The wine was just a bonus.”

“At the risk of losing my newly reinstated best friend status, how does me coming over to drink with you alone in your apartment fit into your ‘live life to the fullest and experience everything the world has to offer’ plan?”

“It doesn’t.” I sighed. I’d been living on Earth for over four years, and I still felt like I wasn’t really experiencing life, like I was still on the outside looking in on other people living.

“Shit,” Miles muttered. “I have to go, but we’re continuing this conversation later.”

“Okay, bye.”

“I love you. Bye.”

There was a click as the call ended, and I shoved my phone into the pocket of my tote bag.

Without Miles to talk to, I was hyperaware of how alone I was.

The train was full of people, but they were all busy with their own thing, having their own conversations.

I’d originally thought that living in the city would make it easy to meet people—there were a lot of them, after all—but in all the years I’d lived here, Miles was the only friend I’d made who wasn’t connected to Sam or his in-laws.

I supposed feeling alone was part of the human experience, maybe the most human thing about my current life.

The train stopped, and I made the short walk from the station to Youngblood.

Sam had started the club about ten years ago.

The club and restaurant were both popular with Boston’s wealthy and influential, but the rest of the building was dedicated to recruiting and training an army of demon hunters.

Sam had spent years pulling at-risk kids and teens out of bad situations and giving them purpose.

He wasn’t as involved as he used to be since he’d moved to the country to raise his family, but it would always belong to him.

The lobby of Youngblood looked like something out of a vampire’s mansion, or at least that was how it had always looked to me.

The chandelier that hung in the middle of the room and the sconces along the walls couldn’t compete with the dark red wallpaper and dark wood wainscoting or the polished black floor.

It was perfect for Sam. Actually, everyone in the secret order and their wives had always looked at home here. Everyone except for me. This really wasn’t my vibe.

The gym on the third floor of Sam’s building could almost rival the training rooms in the secret order’s manor house in Heaven. There was a second gym with more normal exercise equipment for strength and endurance training, but this room had been designed with the sole purpose of practicing combat.

I bypassed the weapons and scarred dummies that lined the walls and headed for the locker room tucked into one corner, where I changed out of my scrubs and into a dress.

It was one of my favorites with cap sleeves, buttons that ran down the front, a flowing skirt, and a bodice that was fitted around my rib cage.

My brothers liked to make fun of me for training in dresses, but they were what I wore on a normal basis, so they were probably what I’d be wearing if I ever needed to use my fighting skills.

When I was dressed, I walked straight to the locked room in the back of the gym, right beside the medical room I’d frequented quite a bit since moving to Earth. Micah and Sam had built this room with the same technology as the training room in Heaven.

After setting up an exercise of demon simulations, I walked into the middle of the room, surrounded by empty white walls and plain wooden floors.

Unlike Sam or Nate, I couldn’t feel the demonic power that radiated off the demon simulations. I only knew they were demons due to their dark pink skin and curved horns and the lack of colorful emotions around them that told me they weren’t human.

I reached for the collapsed bow I kept strapped to my leg and felt it extend in my hands. I still remembered the first time Sam had shown me how to collapse the weapon, the action appearing as impossible as retracting and extending our wings.

Four years in the secret order, and I still couldn’t use a sword to save my life. Literally. But from the second my fingers had first curled around a bow, it had felt like the weapon belonged in my hand.

I pulled back the string, aiming an arrow made of pure heavenly fire at the first demon simulation, and let it fly straight into the heart. The demon disappeared in a shower of sparks.

More demons came, and I kept shooting, getting lost in the action. There was something oddly therapeutic about target practice. It quieted my thoughts and made me feel safe.

“Danielle.” The voice cut through the room like a knife, making me jump. All the simulations in the room vanished, and I spun around to find Micah leaning against the doorframe, watching me.

Micah was everything you’d expect from an archangel—tall, dark, intimidating, gorgeous in a way that was almost too perfect. He was dressed in fighting leathers that hugged his muscular body like a second skin, pure black wings extending proudly from his back, sword strapped to his hip .

“What are you doing here?” Micah rarely left Heaven. He’d been leading the secret order for thousands of years before I was even born and pretty much only came to Earth for holidays or if something was wrong.

His gaze swept over my body in a cursory assessment, and his brows rose up his forehead. I couldn’t tell if he was amused or exasperated.

“What?”

“You’re wearing a dress.” His indigo eyes lowered to my skirt again.

I couldn’t hold back a grin. “Very observant.”

“Is there a particular reason you’re training in a dress instead of fighting leathers?”

I glanced down at my dress. There was nothing about it that restricted my movements, and it was much more comfortable than the tight leather outfits my brothers fought in.

Plus it was pretty. The white fabric contrasted beautifully with my bronze skin, and vines of little pink flowers gave it a cute vintage look.

Lifting my eyes back to Micah’s, I shrugged. “I like it. Did you come all the way here to comment on my clothing?”

“No.” He ran a hand through his inky-black hair. “I’m meeting Sam here.”

“Oh.” I tried to ignore the way my heart dropped in disappointment. Of course Micah wasn’t here for me. This was Sam’s building, not mine. And Micah never needed me for anything. The last job he’d given me was regrowing Nate’s wings when I first joined the secret order.

Occasionally, Sam or Nate called me when they needed a healer for their wives, and all the demon hunters at Youngblood had my number on speed dial. But I wasn’t given real jobs. I was a healer for a group of angels who all healed almost instantly. Which meant I was practically useless.

“I didn’t know Sam was in the city,” I added.

“I asked him to meet me here. We need the room.”