Fake Marriage Box Set

It wasn't as though I was in love with Renée. I knew I should be. She was beautiful and intelligent, although she tried to hide it, and driven to succeed. I liked all those things in a woman. Our sex was great as well. And she loved me. I knew that had to count for something.

But the longer I stayed with her, the more I realized that something was missing. She didn't excite me in the ways that I needed her to. If she were in Lexi's position, if we'd had a one-night stand and then gone three years without seeing one another, I doubted I would have remembered her name or what the sex was like.

That said, my relationship with Renée was the longest relationship that I'd ever managed to have. I had to figure that if I was going to fall in love with anyone, it was going to be Renée. I was just still waiting for that to happen.

My thoughts strayed again to my dad. They'd been doing that a lot lately, ever since Emma had come into my life. I wondered if my dad had ever loved my mother. Had he ever loved me or Katherine? Did he love the bimbo that he'd run away to the Bahamas with?

Maybe I was just as cold and emotionless as he was. Maybe I was never going to be able to feel love for someone, not Lexi, not Renée, not Emma.

It wouldn't be so surprising.

I swallowed hard as we pulled up in front of my house, already steeling myself for what was waiting inside. But the one bright patch in this whole thing was the thought of Emma's face when she saw the stuffed animal sloth that I had brought back for her. I couldn't help but smile, thinking of that.

I got out of the car, grabbing my bag and heading up towards the front door.

Chapter Fifteen

Lexi

Janice decided to take Emma to the park for the morning, so I unexpectedly had some time to myself. I had thought about going with them to the park, but Janice had practically shooed me off, telling me to go enjoy myself for a couple hours and stop worrying so much.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a few hours to myself. It had been a long time since I'd been able to afford a babysitter, and even when we'd been staying with Misty, it had mostly been Misty, Emma, and I doing things together, or else it had been Misty watching Emma while I did specific tasks like job interviews.

Trying to figure out what to do with myself that morning was difficult. I started out like I always did, checking my email to see if there was anything promising on the job front. Andrew had been out of town all week, but I had still been trying hard to get a job. I applied to positions high and low, just hoping to hear something back from one of them.

Andrew wasn't around to check up

on me and make sure that—how did he put it?—his investment was following what had been set out in the original contract? But despite Misty's insistence that Andrew wouldn't kick me out as soon as possible, I still wanted to have a head start and hopefully be back on my feet again by the time he did decide to get rid of us.

Unfortunately, I had yet to find anyone who was even interested in interviewing me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Maybe it was something with my résumé, other than the fact that there was a giant gap from about three and a half years ago up to now.

Or maybe something was wrong with the job market itself. It seemed like no matter what I tried to do, I was passed over. Retail jobs seemed to think I was overqualified. Office jobs seemed to think I was under-qualified. I couldn't win.

I trashed rejection email after generic rejection email, wondering when the string of them would end.

I'd been comfortable since moving into Andrew's place. I still wanted to find a job, but I could feel myself being lured into complacency at the same time. It would be so easy to get used to this. I refused to let myself relax, though. This was a temporary situation, and I had to take advantage of it while I could. Like it or not, I’d be moving soon.

It was difficult to keep applying for jobs when I didn't know where I was going to be living come next week. Now that Andrew was back from his business trip, I could only assume he would make good on his promise to move Emma and me out of there, posthaste.

Maybe I shouldn't apply to anything else before Andrew and I had a long talk about what the future was going to hold for Emma and me. The last thing I wanted was to get my hopes up over a job that I'd been selected to interview for, only to find out that I was still going to be staying out here with Andrew, and thus, would have no way to commute to the job that I was hired to do.

Speaking of Andrew, he had returned home from his trip the night before, but he'd done a good job of avoiding me since. He hadn’t even said hello to me, although he'd evidently said hello to Emma. She had proudly come to show me the new stuffed animal that Mr. Goldwright had brought all the way from England for her.

I wanted to be angry with him, but I couldn't help smiling as I saw Emma's excitement and the way she clung to her new toy. I just wondered why it had to be a sloth, of all things. I was sure there was some sort of story behind it, but if there was, he hadn't told Emma. The thing was cute, anyway.

I only wished things were a little less awkward between Andrew and me. He had avoided me the previous night, and he had gotten up early that morning to go to work, so he didn’t see me, presumably. I was afraid things were going to continue to be awkward between us for as long as Emma and I lived in his house. Maybe for as long as we lived.

I hated the thought of that. I wanted to get along with him, for Emma's sake. Or at least to be civil with one another, like two adults who could be in the same room together.

I frowned, trying to think what my options were. Andrew and I were going to need to have a talk about the future soon, and I wanted to go into it knowing what I was asking for.

Maybe if I just asked him for a small amount of child support money, just enough to scrape by and make sure that Emma had a roof overhead, then it would resolve things quickly and painlessly. Surely with the amount of money Andrew had in the bank, he could spare a few hundred dollars a month. It wouldn't be the best situation for either of us, and I'd definitely still need to find a job, but at least it would give us something for the months when I couldn't find any work.

If nothing else, I could afford to buy food and new clothes for Emma, even if it meant we were still crashing in Misty's spare room.

The doorbell rang. I considered leaving it since it wasn't my house and Janice wasn't there. But then again, it was probably just a package. If it just needed a signature, I would feel bad not answering it, knowing that if it weren't for me and Emma, Janice would be there, and she would be able to sign for the package.

I pulled open the door and stared at the woman standing on the front porch. She definitely wasn't a delivery man.