Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club, #1)(29)

Regardless of what was going on, I needed her out of my office as quickly as possible.

“So… okay,” she said as I hung my coat. “I guess… your schedule. Sorry. It’s… this is… should we talk about things, or…”

No, I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to have my coffee and focus on contract negotiations and cash flow reports. Anything to get my head back in the game where it needed to be.

I moved past her and sat at my desk. “Just my schedule.”

Her face fell and I instantly regretted what I’d said.

“Of course.” She swallowed, the emotion disappearing from her expression, and brought out her phone. “You have a ten o’clock with—”

“Everly.”

She stopped, pressing her lips together.

“Close the door.”

Without looking at me, she walked over and closed the door, then took a seat on the other side of my desk.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

“I’m just not sure how to act when we’re here. Are we pretending? Are we pretending we’re trying to hide it? Are we pretending that we’re not pretending?”

She did have a point. We needed our stories to be consistent. I didn’t want this to become more of a distraction at work than it already was. “When we’re here, we’re all business. Keeping it strictly professional.”

“What if word gets out that I’m living with you? Am I supposed to deny we’re together?”

“Your personal life is personal. You don’t have to deny anything, but you’re not obligated to share details, either.”

“Okay. That seems reasonable. So, we can act normal when we’re here. The pretending is mostly for your dad and the harpy anyway.”

“Precisely.”

She nodded, appearing to relax, and that smile she always wore returned. “Okay, then.”

I tried to focus as she launched into a rundown of my schedule. She had things well in hand, as she always did. Her calm voice was soothing, and by the time she finished debriefing, my mind was clear. I was still tired, but the coffee would help. And I was back to seeing Everly as my practical and efficient assistant.

Mostly.

She went out to her desk and I forced my eyes to my laptop screen. I had work to do. But her questions about our ruse had me thinking.

It wasn’t going to be enough for Everly to simply sleep in my bedroom at night. If that was the extent of our fabricated relationship, it was going to become apparent rather quickly that something was missing. My dad would notice—and start asking questions.

That was something I wanted to avoid. I couldn’t have my father doubting the veracity of this relationship. And the answer was quite simple.

I needed to date her.

Taking Everly out regularly would make it clear that we were indeed a couple. Dad wouldn’t have reason to question things, regardless of anything Svetlana might put into his ear. Taking her out on evenings or weekends would keep office gossip to a minimum. And we’d be home less, therefore less likely to be around Svetlana if she was visiting my father.

Besides, dinners with Everly wouldn’t be a bad way to spend some evenings. She was pleasant company.

I was about to message her, asking her to make a reservation, when I stopped. She always made my dinner reservations when I had a date. That was part of her job. But asking her, as my assistant, to make a dinner reservation for the two of us felt… odd, and somehow wrong.

Instead, I looked up the number to El Gaucho and called them myself. Made a reservation for Friday evening for two.





13





Everly





A message from Shepherd popped up on the bottom of my screen. My eyes darted around, as if I needed to be careful of who was watching. Which was ridiculous. No one was paying attention to my computer screen. And he sent me messages all the time. I was his assistant. That was how this worked.

But for some reason, that little notification, less than five minutes before I was scheduled to leave for the day, felt ominous. And not in the sense that I was afraid he was about to dump a bunch of work on me and I’d have to stay late, or work on Saturday. In the sense that I had a feeling it wasn’t about work.

It was Friday, and we’d managed to navigate our first week as boss and assistant by day, fake boyfriend and girlfriend by night. Things at work had been more or less normal. Of course, there was the part where he said good morning when he walked by my desk, and thanked me for things sometimes. But other than that, normal.

With the exception of the sleeping in the same bed thing—which was getting easier every night—faking the relationship was a breeze. Shepherd worked late a lot, and when he was home, he spent time in his office. I’d decided the best thing to do to ensure that his dad—and Svetlana—believed our little game was to make myself at home. So I helped myself to his beautiful gourmet kitchen and cooked a few meals. I laid in my bean bag chair to read. Did yoga in the living room. I added my collection of coffee mugs to the cupboard, and even sat out on the balcony with a glass of wine after dinner last night.

Richard was nice, and seemed to be trying his best to be unobtrusive. He was friendly, but he tended to keep to himself when Shepherd was home. Svetlana was not nice—she glared daggers at me whenever she saw me—but she hadn’t been around enough to make things terribly uncomfortable. Yet.