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I stumbled to my feet as the tall man ahead of me in dark blue jeans and a pressed button-up looked in my direction.
I heard Rick’s voice from close behind me. “That concludes our matching round. Tune in next week for the move-in portion of our show and watch our chosen couples navigate the new difficulties of their faux-lives together…”
The man in the pressed shirt stepped in front of me. I froze and rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans.
“Aren’t you going to introduce—” he stopped, looking at me with quizzical blue eyes and I recognized him just as he realized who I was. “Hot chocolate girl?”
I recalled with annoyance his terrible attitude at the signup table the day before and I cursed my terrible luck. This was who I was stuck with for five whole months?
“What the hell guy, yeah I remember you,” I sighed, reaching out a hand reluctantly for him to shake. “I’m Sadie.”
“Ah,” Connor said, looking a little sheepish. “Yeah, sorry about that. Rough day, my dad was on my case again. I’m Connor—”
“Wait,” I froze, wracking my brain for where I knew his last name from. Then, it came to me. “Connor Lennox? As in Elias Lennox?”
“He’s my dad, yeah,” Connor nodded, shrugging casually as if it didn’t matter at all. “You’ve heard of him, I guess?”
“Yeah, I just met him earlier, he’s—” I stopped abruptly, struggling for any sort of word to describe him that wasn’t condescending or insulting, and coming up blank.
“A real piece of work, I’m guessing. That’s what everyone usually says about him to me,” Connor nodded while looking away, shoving his hands in his pockets for warmth. “Where did you meet him anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shrugged, trying not to think about the rude encounter with Elias Lennox. I looked at the couples around us, mingling happily on the metal chairs and tables. I felt painfully awkward beside them. I looked at Connor in question. “I guess we should get to know each other now?”
Connor Lennox was handsome and bright, though I was entirely unsure about living with him for five months, just the two of us. If he was anything like his father, I would be out of there in one day. I remembered thinking that I never wanted to have to be stuck with anyone like Elias earlier, and now here I was, effectively chained to his only son. It was the oddest circumstance I had ever been in. I had never really dated anyone and even fake-dating seemed like a large hurdle now that I had the situation right in front of me. I had no idea how I was going to convince my whole family that this rich, affluent man was my boyfriend. Where the hell would we even say that we met? How long have we been dating? What was his middle name even? I supposed that last one didn’t really matter but it seemed like something a girlfriend should know about her boyfriend.
For most of my life, I had been focused on my own goals and aspirations without room for anyone or anything else. No one had really caught my eye enough to turn me away from what I wanted. I was so close to being able to go home—to being done with busy New York and back in my quiet hometown mentoring with the vet there, and then off to school in a closer state, hopefully. I would just have to get through these few months with him and then I would be home free and ready to live my life the way I wanted to. I shifted back and forth on my feet in apprehension and Connor snorted.
“You’re not good with people, huh?” Connor asked in an annoying tone, smirking insufferably.
“I’m the one that’s not good with people?” I nearly shouted. “You must be joking. The first time we met you cussed at me in public and then just completely brushed off my entire apology.”
Connor raised his eyebrows, looking at me casually as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “So where do you live?”
“What?” I asked him, dumbfounded. It was amazing how he could just brush off my entire retort with seemingly no effort at all.
“Where do you live?” Connor asked me slowly and carefully as if I were didn’t speak English.
The amount of anger I was feeling was unfamiliar and it nearly burned me up. I had never been one to get mad or frustrated on a whim and I had never really had a bad temper. Or so I thought. This man made me want to rage and yell and throw things like a child in a tantrum. We had barely met and I already wanted to be done with him and his entire existence. His presence was the same as his father’s, predictably so, and I seriously doubted if I could deal with it for the next five months. If it was this hard being around him for just a few minutes, I didn’t know how I could survive months with my sanity. He came off as a complete jerk. He probably only wanted to see my apartment so he could mock me for my poor living space.
