Page 1 of The Fake Out

“Seven months,” I whispered. Swallowing hard, I choked back the wave of nausea that rushed through me as I processed his words. How was it possible that I’d been totally in the dark for so long?

With a loud sigh, he sat back and crossed his arms over his broad chest, making his polo shirt pull tight along his shoulders. Jake was the type of guy who got away with things because he was pretty. Not rugged, not sexy, not suave, but pretty. And it worked for him. Blond hair with just enough wave to make it look like he’d spent time crafting the perfect style. High cheekbones, straight nose, white teeth. But even pretty couldn’t fix this.

“Tell me you’re joking,” I finally snapped, causing a few heads around us to turn our way.

Jake shifted in his seat and angled toward me. “Here we go with the bitch face,” he huffed under his breath.

I heard it a lot. Resting bitch face. As if I had no control over it, when the truth was that the expression was purposeful. Sad was pathetic. Angry was powerful. Plus, if anyone deserved to be bitched out, it was Jake Caderson.

With long, thin fingers, he tapped the white tablecloth so hard that the ice in his water glass rattled. “Don’t make this a bigger deal than it has to be.”

A scoff escaped me at those words. He had to be joking. He acted as if I were overreacting. As if we hadn’t been planning to move in together this weekend.

My gritted out “Are you fucking kidding me?” didn’t feel like an overreaction.

I opened my mouth, ready to lay into him, but my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend held up a hand, cutting me off.

“I brought you here to tell you about Libby in hopes that you’d be reasonable about it. The last thing I want is for you to embarrass us both.” He lifted his chin, gesturing around my favorite restaurant.

I’d been coming here for birthdays and celebratory dinners most of my life. The little family-owned Italian restaurant with the best manicotti in all of New York. The same manicotti that was trying to work its way back up my throat.

I pushed my plate toward the center of the table, hoping that would end my desire to throw up. But it did no good. The marinara wasn’t causing the nausea. It was the realization that Jake had spent last night in my bed, knowing what he was planning to do.

What an asshole.

And who in their right mind chose a person’s favorite place to do something like this?

Saturday and Sunday, as in three days from now, we had plans to move into our new apartment. Since my dad was selling his house and Jake’s lease was up, we had spent weeks this spring looking for a new place. A little over a month ago, I’d found the perfect spot.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and breathed past the hurt clinging to the mad growing inside me. My hands shook, so I fisted them in my lap. There was not a world where I would look anything but pissed off.

“I have no intention of embarrassing myself.” Teeth gritted, I looked across the restaurant, unable to even stand the sight of him. A huge part of me wanted to toss my cosmo in his face and storm out. But more words had to be said. One sentence could end an eighteen-month relationship, but it didn’t untangle it.

“Glad we agree.” He nodded. “I didn’t plan to get Libby pregnant—it was supposed to be a quick fling you never found out about.”

My hands twitched toward my drink again, because what the fuck?

“But now that she’s hit the third trimester, she’s making more demands. I’m sure you can be sympathetic to that.”

Sympathetic? To whom exactly? Jake? My attention was drawn to the knife on the table. What was the minimum sentence for assault in New York? Maybe a jury would be sympathetic to me for castrating him.

“The last few months have been rough for her.”

Oh, he meant sympathetic to Libby. Not happening. Though the bulk of my anger was directed toward him, the woman he was cheating on me with knew we were together. So I had zero sympathy for either of them. Jake and I worked for Doucette Designs in New York City. He was a vice president of design, while I was an artist on staff. Libby worked in legal in the corporate office in Pittsburg. She came out to New York fairly often for new client contracts, although I hadn’t seen her in a couple months. Probably because she was showing and knew she’d better steer clear of me.

“So,” Jake hedged with a long breath out, “for obvious reasons, I had Stan take your name off the lease.”

My attention snapped to his face as my stomach sank. He was rigid in his seat, his muddy brown eyes darting around like he was planning a quick escape. My heart pounded like an angry bass drum, the deafening sound starting in my chest and moving to my ears.

He did not just say he stole my apartment. Right?

“Stan did what?” Stan was the realtor that Jake insisted we use when I found the perfect place. The top two floors of a brownstone that had been converted into an apartment with two bedrooms and an open kitchen and living area with an actual working fireplace. It was over the budget we’d set, but I’d had money saved and used it to pay first and last month’s rent and the realtor fees. From there, we could split the rent and make it work. I had been nervous about it, but Jake had talked me into trusting our relationship, trusting in the two of us enough to make the two-year lease commitment. With my money…

My stomach roiled, and the manicotti threatened once again to make an appearance.

What was I thinking?

He finally looked at me, his jaw locked tight. “I’m the reason we passed the credit check. I’m the tenant they wanted. And since Libby is transferring to the New York office—you know, because of the baby—she’s moving in with me.” His eyes narrowed. “And you can’t afford the rent on the place on your own.”

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