Possessive Fake Husband

“But we’d be bringing the Lofthouse family into this.” I step toward her, my hands balling into fists. “I can’t ask that of you. If we try and fail again… I can’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking anything,” she says. “I’m doing it. You’re not involved.”

“Maggie.”

She steps close to me, her eyes hard and wild. “This isn’t the end,” she says. “We’ve come too far. We’ve done too much. We washed cars together. I’m not letting this end.”

I stare back at her and reach out. She moves closer and I wrap my fingers through her hair, pulling her against me. I kiss her deep and slow, tasting her tongue, letting myself fall into that kiss. As we break apart, I linger there, close to her lips.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “If we keep going, it might only get worse.”

“I’m not stopping.”

I take a sharp breath and nod once. “Good. Okay. Let’s do this.” I hesitate. “Where do your cousins live?”

“We’ll go to Shaun.” She kisses my lips gently. “He lives in California. He’ll help.”

“All right then. Let’s go to California.”

I hug her tight against me and hold her for a long moment.

I don’t know what I would’ve done here without her. I think I would have lost it completely. The idea of losing like that, of getting outmaneuvered by Seb might drive me absolutely insane with rage.

But touching Maggie, talking to her, kissing her, hearing her plan, it centers me again. It brings me back from the brink and I feel like I can make this work still, even with this tiny chance. We have to make sure everyone still votes the way they just voted, that nothing changes, and that we can purchase enough of a stake in the company to get Maggie on the board. But that’s all possible, all very possible, and we can do it fast. We can do it so fast Seb doesn’t have time to plan against us.

We can make this happen. I hug her tight. We can make this happen.23MaggieWe get on the first plane out to LA. It’s a long flight and I manage to catch up on some sleep. Josh is restless the whole way out, and he spends hours on his laptop setting up a presentation for my cousin Shaun.

When we land, I wake with a start. Josh is asleep, and I let him stay asleep until the plane taxis to the terminal and it’s time to get off. It’s five in the morning, and I gently shake him awake. He blinks at me then smiles.

“Are we on the other side of the world?” he asks.

“We are,” I confirm.

“Perfect.” He stands up and stretches. “Let’s go make a deal.”

We get off the plane and Josh leads us through the terminal. He hails a taxi and it takes us to the hotel we’re staying at. We check in, drops our things off in the room, get showered, get changed, and then head out for breakfast. We find a little diner in a strip mall and Josh heads in to grab us a table while I linger outside and call my cousin.

He answers on the third ring. “Maggie,” he says. “Are you in LA?”

“I sure am,” I say.

He laughs. “I got your email and thought you’d gone insane.”

“Nope, not insane. Well, maybe a little.”

“Listen, you want to meet today, right?”

“If you have time. You don’t have to go out of your way. We can kill a few days if you need us to.”

“No, absolutely not. I’ll text you my address, swing by in a couple hours, okay? We’ll sit down and talk.”

“Just so you know, I don’t expect anything,” I say. “Even if you can point us somewhere else, or even if you just tell us it’s impossible, whatever.”

He’s quiet for a second. “When I saw your email, I thought you were crazy,” he says. “But then I did some research. You know how the production company here really took off, right? Well, I took a chunk of those funds and opened an investment firm out here. We mostly do local stuff, but what you sent looks interesting. No promises, but come in, and we’ll talk.”

I feel a spark of hope light up my body. “Okay,” I say. “Yeah, okay, sure. I’ll see you in two hours.”

“See ya.” He hangs up and I head into the diner. The floor is Formica and the counters look like they’ve seen years of hard use and cigarette smoke, but the waitress gives me a smile and Josh waves at me from a booth in the corner. The table’s clean and the seats are nice and bouncy, covered in a red fake leather. I sit down and lean my elbows on the table as I look at him.

“What?” he asks, tilting his head.

“That was Shaun. We have a meeting at his place in two hours.” My phone buzzes, and it’s the address. I hold it up for Josh. “See?”