Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club #1)(55)

“Fine. Congratulations.”

We said goodbye and I tossed my phone on my desk. This was turning into a shit show.

I took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of my nose again. When had my mom gotten so bitter? She’d never been warm and nurturing—not even when Ethan and I were kids—but she’d seemed to reject her life as a wife and mother more vehemently as the years went by.

And I was so much like her.

Ethan had gotten our father’s warmth. I’d been born of ice. The stoic coldness that had made me so successful had come from her. I wanted to think it had been tempered by my dad’s compassion. That perhaps I’d learned to be less of a cold-hearted bastard because of his influence.

Not that I had the track record to prove it. I was well aware of my reputation in my company. Cold. Ruthless. I had colleagues and contacts rather than friends. I wasn’t close to my family—or I hadn’t been, before Dad had moved in. I’d seen him—and Ethan—more lately than I had in years.

My past with women painted the same picture. Short, shallow relationships. I’d thought it was bad luck. But deep down, I knew the truth. I’d gone after the same type of woman, over and over. Women who were more interested in my money than me. Women I’d never connect with.

Because I didn’t know how to connect. I was too much like my mother.

Leaving my phone where it sat—I needed to check out for a while—I went downstairs to my other condo. I sat on the couch with my Gibson Les Paul and played. Felt the pressure of the strings against my fingertips. Focused on the quiet melody in my headphones.

I didn’t know what I was going to do about this party. Or about Everly. Maybe I shouldn’t have slept with her. Or invited her to see me play.

But despite the knot of confusion sitting in the pit of my stomach, I still didn’t regret it.





23





Everly





Crawling into bed, my skin warm from a very long bath, I pulled the sheets up. I didn’t know where Shepherd was—if he was in his office, or downstairs with his guitar collection. Or maybe at the bar again.

It didn’t matter. I wasn’t his fiancée, or even his girlfriend, as he’d so helpfully reminded me. He could do what he wanted.

But man, that comment had stung.

What had I expected? That Shepherd inviting me to see him play at a dive bar, giving me an orgasm in the back of his car, then fucking me senseless in his secret guitar lair meant this wasn’t fake anymore? That something was actually happening between us?

Okay, yes, that’s kind of what I’d thought.

Shifting, I tried to get comfortable. Soaking in the bath hadn’t done much to help me relax. I’d tried to read, but mostly I’d sat in the water replaying our conversation. I was hurt and frustrated, making it very difficult to enjoy Shepherd’s fantastic bathtub.

The door whispered open and my back stiffened. I barely heard his footsteps as he went into the bathroom and quietly shut the door. Was he trying to keep from waking me to be polite, or because he didn’t want to face me right now?

A few minutes later, he came out, still moving almost silently through the room. My skin prickled as he slipped into bed next to me. I felt every shift in the mattress, every tiny movement of the sheets.

Great. Now that he was here, I really wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. His breathing was even and he hardly moved. He must have gone to sleep already.

How could he just fall sleep like nothing was wrong? Didn’t it bother him that we were basically fighting? What was I supposed to do tomorrow? Pretend like nothing had happened?

“Everly.”

His soft voice startled me from my thoughts. “Yeah?”

“You’re mad at me.”

Oh, you think? “I’m fine.”

He sighed. “That’s a lie.”

“Like our relationship?”

He made a growly noise in his throat and I clenched my teeth, trying to deny the way my body reacted to that sound. I did not need heat rushing to my core right now.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.

“You don’t have to explain yourself. You’re right. We’re pretending. That was the deal.”

He moved. I couldn’t see him, but it felt like he’d turned on his side to face me. “I wasn’t pretending when I kissed you at the hospital.”

“You’d just been through a really stressful experience.”

“Or at the bar.”

“That was intense. No one you know has ever seen you play before.”

“Did it seem like I was pretending in the car?” he asked, his voice low.

I hesitated, the insistent tingling between my legs getting harder to ignore. “We were… it was just… any man would respond to a woman straddling him in the back seat of his car.”

“Everly—”

“Fine, I’m sure your hard-ons last night were very real. But an erection doesn’t mean anything. Guys can get erections for all kinds of reasons. They don’t even have to like a woman to have a physical response to her.”

“That’s not my point.”

I flipped over to face him. In the darkness, I could just make out his features. “Then what is your point?”