62

LIAM

“Anna, what the actual hell!”

“Zip it, Carter. Why the hell is Emily claiming to be your girlfriend?” she snapped, looking angrier than I'd seen her in years.

Confused, I stared at her blankly, hoping for some sort of elaboration. She raised a brow when I said nothing.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Emily, my girlfriend? I scoffed. Anna knew me better than to suggest I even go back to her. But did she really? If she could barge into my office demanding to know why I asked Emily out, then she didn't know me as much as I thought she did.

“Bullshit,”

I abandoned my paperwork, twisting the urge to roll my eyes. “I don't know what you heard, but there's no way in hell I'm with Emily,” not after what she did.

“Well, that's what I thought. Until she comes up here asking to see you without an appointment because she's your girlfriend,”

For some reason, the words ‘Emily’ and ‘your girlfriend’ unpleasantly twisted my stomach. Hers wasn't the name I wanted to be attached to that title. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. Even more upsetting than calling Nora Mark’s girlfriend.

But then Anna’s words finally hit, and I understood why she was so mad. “Wait, what?”

What did she mean Emily was there? No no no. If she was outside my office, it meant she was talking to Nora. She'd seen me wait so eagerly for Nora’s text. She had seen how my eyes lit up when I read the content of the message. Shit.

I shot up from my chair like it had electrocuted me and bolted right out of the door, panic written all over me.

Emily was perched on the edge of a pale-looking Nora’s desk, twirling her blonde strands between her fingers as they spoke.

Looks couldn't kill, but the look Nora gave me when I burst out of the office wrenched my heart so badly I thought I might throw up.

I'd deal with that later. For now, I was too concerned about what the hell Emily was doing here when I made it clear I wanted nothing more from her.

She turned her attention to me when I asked what she was doing there. Her smile was wide, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. It freaked me out how easily detached she could get. It was something I hadn't noticed in the past, but now that I did, it made me nervous.

“Hey you,” she said, jumping off Nora’s desk.

I heard Anna’s quiet cursing at the soft drawl of Emily’s voice.

“What're you doing here?” my initial panic had melted into annoyance, and I was too overwhelmed to school my features.

She pouted and strolled over for a hug, but I stopped her.

My eyes flitted towards Nora. She'd busied herself with something, looking everywhere but at me. I couldn't tell if she was jealous or annoyed by Emily’s attitude, but a part of me was thrilled she might've been jealous.

That's right, Nora. Feel the same way I did when I saw Mark giving you flowers.

“Just thought I'd drop in to say hello,” Emily said, wrapping herself around my biceps.

Anna scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I can't deal with whatever this is. I'm out of here,” she threw her hands up and stomped away.

Emily’s soft laugh was taunting, but her eyes were trained on Nora. She fumbled with a pen she was trying to grab and when it fell to the floor, I made to grab it, but Emily’s grip on my biceps held me back. I glared at her, uncaring that I was practically exposing my feelings for Nora.

She raised a brow in response. “Let's talk inside, Liam. We've got business to go over.”

Just then, Nora’s phone rang, puncturing the tension with the familiar sound of her ringtone. But the nostalgic memory was soon squashed when I saw who the caller was. Mark.

My body tensed, but Mark’s phone call was all I needed to tear my eyes off Nora and let myself be steered back to my office.

When we were inside, I sunk into the chair behind my desk, blowing out a tense breath to steady my raging heart.

This was worse than a nightmare. Feeling this strongly for someone was a pill I didn't wish to swallow. The fact that I couldn't have Nora made it all the worse. In another life, it should have prompted me to work on myself, to be better for her but it was clear as day that no matter what changed between us, Nora would never look at me the way she did Mark.

To her, I was just the man she slept with at a resort. Mark was the one she wanted forever with.

“I don't think I need any more convincing,” Emily cut through my thoughts. She slid into one of the seats opposite mine and swung one leg over the other.

What did it say about me that my eyes didn't even linger on the action?

When my eyes met Emily’s there was a conniving smirk on her face. Where was the vulnerable Emily who had told me about her father's terrible actions?

“What do you want, Em?”

“It's pretty obvious that's the woman you're pining over,” she scoffed. “Couldn't do any better?”

“Watch it, Em.”

She chuckled, lifting her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I deserved that. But what if I told you I could help out?”

I wasn't in the mood for Emily’s theatrics. The cat was pretty much out of the bag, so I couldn't keep it away from Emily, but I didn't need her to help me ‘solve’ my relationship—or lack, thereof—problems.

I ran a frustrated hand over my face. “Not in the mood, Em,”

“Trust me, you're going to want to hear me out,”

I raised a brow, not at all eager, but hoping she’d leave if I gave her a listening ear. Emily leaned forward, both elbows on my desk. The cut of her shirt was low, so it exposed her cleavage. I looked away and her smirk deepened.

“Say what you want, but I still think you're attracted to me.”

Bullshit.

“Anyway, it ties into my proposition. I need a pick me up,”

“I'll drive you to the bar.”

“No, not that kind,” she exhaled, looking more bothered than I'd seen her in a while. “You never even asked why I showed up at your house?”

“I believe I did. You evaded the question like the plague.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s because I wasn't sure how to put it to you. But now that your feelings for Nora are clear as day, I've concocted the perfect plan.”

That got my attention. What did my feelings towards Nora have to do with anything? “Spill it,”

“My business is failing. I need investors and I need them as fast as I can.”

Emily ran an architecture business. She owned the company that had been in charge of erecting this building. At some point, we were partners, but she broke up with me and split. Since then, I have never heard from her again. If she was swallowing her pride to ask me for help, things with her were bad.

“How bad is it?” I asked, concerned. I might not feel for the woman like before, but she cared about her business and it was a terrible thing, to watch what you'd spent years building crumble to the ground.

“Lost all my investors. No one is assessing the buildings and I might soon have to file for bankruptcy,”

“Thats fucked up, Em,”

“You don't think I know that?” not even her usual cockiness could hide the stress written all over her face. She glanced down at her hands, sheepish. “I had planned to come in here, seduce and convince you to invest, but that didn't work,”

“That's why you were at mine?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Sherlock,”

“Wow, you're a master conniver,” I leaned back into my seat, amazed by Emily’s thinking skills. “So what's in it for me?”

“I also need to shine on a man’s arm, and who better than the leading man in the finance world?”

My brows scrunched up. “I don't understand,”

“I want us to start a fake relationship.”