Page 32 of Fake It For Him

That was what I wanted for my future. Brightness, and hope, and simplicity. It just didn’t feel like I could have that here, not without constantly having to look over my shoulder in the hopes that there was no one there who knew what I had done.

So I had to leave. I had to go back to a place where I’d found a sense of belonging that I just didn’t have anymore, and in order to make a good life for myself over there, I needed Calan. More accurately, I needed his money, but that meant I had to get through the next two months with him.

Having now come full circle with my miserable thoughts, I dropped my head back under the spray and closed my eyes. All I had to do was keep on keeping on. If I could just do that, I could have everything I had ever wanted and more.

Now I just had to hope that I had it in me to get there.

17

CALAN

I shut down the pulsating spray in the shower at the gym and climbed out, reaching for my towel on the heated rail and quickly drying off before wrapping it around my waist. The showers here were not like those usually found in gyms and locker rooms across the country.

We didn’t have just one big, tiled room with a few showerheads dangling from the walls and rows upon rows of generic lockers. Our showers were in full-sized, private bathrooms that required a key to get in.

Each bathroom was shared between a few members, each of whom had a key as well as a small closet and a lockable drawer in the vanity. The closets themselves could only be accessed by our own fingerprints and our keys wouldn’t work on the other bathrooms.

The gym was prestigious, exclusive, and pricey, and I’d often wondered what lurked inside those other closets in my bathroom. Mine held the usual—spare sets of clothes, underwear, and a couple of extra towels—but the others? Maybe the mystery-loving part of my brain was just conjuring up fantastical puzzles, but as I shaved and then got dressed, I tried to come up with stories about what might be hidden inside.

Gold. Secret bank account info. Evidence of some sort?

With my post-workout endorphins at an all-time high, I was buzzing and my mind raced with possibilities. I was still in a great mood when I stepped out of my bathroom with my bag hiked over my shoulder, nodding at a few guys who nodded to me as I left.

I knew most of them from being their spotter or giving them tips to build strength, not muscle. Yeah, I look good, but my power is purposeful, not just aesthetic.

We had world-class personal trainers here, but that didn’t stop people from coming to me for help and tips. It felt good, and after the killer workout I’d had, nothing was going to bring me down.

Or so I thought until I crossed the parking lot and found Freya waiting for me at my car. Shit!

She had a big, cheesy grin on her face and she opened her arms, bending slightly at the knees when she saw me approaching. “Surprise!”

A strange mix of suspicion and joy infused my veins and I slowed when I reached her. I chose to indulge the suspicion first. “Sis? What’s the ambush about?”

She giggled, reached up to bring that long brown hair over her shoulder, and combed it with her fingers. “If I called you to make plans, I know you would’ve said that you were busy. Especially after dinner Sunday night. I thought maybe we could grab coffee.”

“You’re fidgeting with your hair,” I said. “That means you’re nervous. What’s going on?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Of course, I’m nervous. I’ve never had to ambush my own brother before to get him to have coffee with me. There’s a coffee shop right across the street. It’s my treat.”

My eyes narrowed as I stared at her. I knew there was more to this than just her wanting to grab coffee with her brother, but the fastest way to find out what it was really about was to have the damn coffee.

“Fine,” I grumbled, suspicion definitely overpowering the joy at this point.

Objectively, it was pretty darn sad that my own sister unexpectedly appearing evoked an emotion like suspicion in me, but subjectively, it seemed the lack of trust my family had in me went both ways now. I hadn’t even realized it before, but right now, I didn’t even fully trust my baby sister.

“How’d you know where I was?” I asked as we walked across the street together.

She shrugged. “You’re not the only one who inherited the family charm.”

“It was my assistant, wasn’t it?”

Her eyes flared wide open, even as she mimed zipping her lips. “I’m taking the Fifth.”

“Doesn’t matter. I already know it was him.” And if he’s handing out my current location to random people who are calling and claiming to be my family without checking with me that I even know who they are, then he’s as good as gone.

Freya glanced at me as if she’d heard the thought. “Please don’t fire him. He asked me a ton of questions before he told me. He made absolutely sure that I was who I said I was.”

I grunted but didn’t make any promises. She didn’t say anything else as we walked into the coffee shop, only breaking her silence to place her order at the counter.