Page 2 of Pretender

Lady Beauchamp stands up, finished with me. “Must dash, thank you for the drink.”

She pops on her massive sunglasses, getting ready for the end-of-June evening sun or the paparazzi lurking outside, and drags a slender hand through her short grey cut. Mirroring her move, I brush a hand over my long, blond waves, making sure they’re in place. My ears burn, and I’m grateful she can’t see the bright red beacons of shame as I stand up to bid her farewell.

“Thank you, Lady Beauchamp, for coming to meet me here. I do hope you’ll reconsider.”

She faces me again, eyes hidden behind dark shades. For a second I wonder if she’s going to leave the proverbial door open, or at least give me something I can cling onto, but all I get is a close-lipped smile before she turns and exits the lounge in three long strides.

My phone buzzes on the table and the name DECLINE THIS CALL shows up on the screen. I grab it, but quickly press the red button, and plop down on the velvet banquette.

The phone vibrates in my hands, and I glance at the lock screen, wishing I hadn’t.

I hope you will answer one day. I want to hear how you are after the news.

The news. He wants to hear my voice crack as I say I’m fine. As I grit out a ‘congratulations’. I bite down so hard my jaw hurts.

“Shut up, you absolute arse-garbage,” I tell my phone.

“Now I know never to sneak up on you if I have my mother with me.”

The deep voice needs no introduction, but I’m startled and instinctively lift my gaze to find its source.

Aiden Aurellan.

The owner of The Orion and Aurellan Group, and my design studio’s biggest client.

Correction: only client.

“Sorry,” I say, but I’m not sure about what. Sorry he caught me nearly screaming at my phone? I twist it in my hands under the table as those steel-blue eyes scan my face.

He’s the one paying my employees’ wages. He practically holds Olga’s work visa, Daniel’s nursery bills, and Inez’s rent in his hands.

These people need me to succeed.

I need me to succeed.

And I hate having to rely on another man. In particular this man, who swans around, laughing his way through life. Now he’s wearing that easy smile of his, the one that most women swoon over without a second thought.

For me, it helps that his man-whore history is so unsexy that even his unnaturally good looks—that Italian tan, his dented chin, the thick, salt-and-pepper, tousled hair—have zero effect on me. Zilch. Nada.

I turn back to my phone for no other reason than refusing to give him the satisfaction of having my attention. He gets enough of that from everyone else.

And not looking at him directly makes it easier not to remember the worst event of my life.

I’m actually pretty good at not thinking about it.

See, he’s standing right there with his big hands in his pockets, and here I am not reliving the suffocating sensation of pure humiliation.

“Lighten up, Linny.”

I just cracked a tooth.

“Sure,” I mutter.

I square my shoulders, tipping my head back to meet his eyes again. There he is, watching me, and I put on my just-right mask again instead of correcting my name as I do every time he calls me that.

“Aren’t you going to tell me it’s Linn-eh-ah?” he adds, as if he’s a mind reader. “I just wanted you to look back up.” His face bursts into that wide, uncontainable smile of his, and I bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t react. I just stare back at him, but I’d prefer not to have his eyes on me like that.

He seems to force his grin down, tucking it away. A tiny dimple appears on the side of his chin when he does that. He huffs through his nose and shakes his head while I keep my face calm, eyes still on him, but I don’t know how to react.