The Fake Engagement

“Just pretend like you still have a crush on him,” Juliet said.

“I never had a crush on Preston Boone,” she said.

There was silence over the line.

“Of course, you didn’t. Why would you have a crush on your boss in the early days before you got to work for him?” Mackenzie asked. “You just talked about him a lot.”

“No, no, no, no, hell, no, I did not have a crush on my boss. Is that what you think it was?”

“Oh, our pizza just arrived. We’ve got to go.”

“No. No, you do not get to hang up on me.”

But they already had.

She put her cell phone on the counter and lifted her head to stare at her reflection. “I did not have a crush. Not now. Not ever. He’s my boss. There was no crush.” She wasn’t even going to waste the time thinking about their thoughts. It was pointless.

She’d already taken a shower, and now she ran fingers through her long blonde hair, allowing her hair to dry naturally.

She was so tired, but Preston was in the other room.

“I can do this. I can totally do this.” Nodding at her reflection, she stepped out into the room. Preston had pulled off his shirt and wore only his sweatpants.

Eliza’s hands clenched into fists as she realized she wore her silk negligee and hadn’t taken a robe into the bedroom.

She chose not to cover her chest and instead, to ignore him, and moved toward the bed. Staring down at the large piece of furniture, she wrinkled her nose.

“Have you … does this have … er…” This was so mortifying.

“I haven’t slept with another woman in this bedroom.”

“Right, okay, good, right, yes, of course. Do you, er, have a preference for where you sleep?” she asked.

“Nope. Find a spot and enjoy.” He left the bedroom, and she pulled back the covers. It was warm, but not unbearable.

Sliding into bed, she noticed the mattress was so comfortable. At first, she lay on her side, which gave her the perfect angle of the door so she’d see if he came in or out.

She hated that, so she quickly rolled over and looked off toward the far wall. His bedroom didn’t have any pictures, which was odd.

The whole house had so many pictures. It didn’t look cluttered, but this was a close family with a lot of memories. Marsha had taken her toward the family of wedding photos. All but Trudy and Preston had a picture on there.

“I’m hoping for you all to be on there someday,” Marsha said.

That was when the worry had set in.

Pretending to people she had never met, super easy. When she finally put faces to names, well, that made her job even harder. She hated it.

This wasn’t going to go well.

The door opened, and she tensed up as Preston entered the bedroom.

They were sharing a bed. This wasn’t appropriate in any way, but she made sure to stay perfectly still, to not move a muscle.

“I know you’re still awake,” he said.

“I’m not trying to hide it.”

He wore a pair of boxers and nothing else. His body was a work of art. For a man who sat behind a desk all day, he shouldn’t look good at all, and yet, he did. It wasn’t fair.

Eliza pulled back, but she didn’t realize she was so close to the edge of the bed already, that pushing away put her precariously on the edge, and she let out a scream as she toppled out of the bed, hitting her ass on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Preston asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just my dignity.” She groaned.

Her negligee had ridden up, exposing more of her thighs. She wasn’t going to do the comparison between their bodies. Her boss was a machine. She was starting to wonder if he was government issue, while she was everything natural.

Moving to her knees, she placed her arms on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. He’d leaned over the bed to look at her, and she forced a smile to her lips.

“You’re in my spot,” she said.

“Oh, right, your spot.”

“You told me to pick one. This is what I picked.” She was rambling. She didn’t care what spot on the bed she had, just so long as she could actually sleep.

Preston moved back, giving her the space she needed to slide into bed with as much dignity as one could muster.

Her ass was sore, and she tried to discreetly rub her ass.

“Do you want me to rub it better?” Preston asked.

She jerked her head up to look at him. He was kidding, right?

“You want to rub my ass better?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. It might stop you from being so tense.”

“You’re finding this funny, aren’t you?”

“Eliza, babe, we’ve got a whole month of this, and if you can’t handle one night, then I don’t know how we’re going to handle a full day, let alone a month. My family is going to see through this.”