Page 42 of Boss's Fake Fiancé

“So, she’s okay now?” His tone is frosty. In the dim light of the room, his shadowed face looks angry, haggard.

“Yes, mostly. She’s on dialysis. But she can manage on her own.”

He snorts. “You can’t be that worried about her, Mel, if you moved a few hundred miles away, can you?”

My brows knit and I stare up at him in defiance, sniffing the fear and memories away. “I had to. There are so many bills to pay off, you wouldn’t believe…”

“So that’s it, then? That’s why you agreed to be with me?” He sneers when he says it and my mind goes blank.

“I…I came to Boston for the job. Obviously, I didn’t know that you were the CEO of Dupont Analytics. Or that you’d hire me to be your fake fiancé.”

“But you’re in it for the money. And that’s it.”

The silence is heavy between us, the space from me to him suddenly insurmountable.

“Yes.”

It’s a lie. Just like all the lies I’ve been telling—to him, to myself—for years. That I was over it, that it was just young love, a crush, nothing more.

You were in love with him. You always have been.

How do you get over something like that, something that was buried in your bones? With everything that happened after graduation, I didn’t have time to grieve losing Jenson. So for years—more than a decade—I’ve been walking around loving him a little bit every day. But tucking it away, like a secret.

A secret I plan to keep.

Everything else is coming out, but I can’t let him know those old feelings are resurfacing.

He turns away and scoffs again, fists clenching and unclenching. When I speak, the words come out even and cool.

“Don’t act as if you’re any better than I am, Jenson. Because you’re only in this for the company.”

He glares at me over his shoulder, but I have him there.

We’re both in this for therightreasons, and that’s what makes it so hard. For me, it’s Jodie. For Jenson, it’s the staff at Dupont Analytics. It’s the legacy.

That very fact is what’s making me fall for him all over again and it’s why I can’t let him know.

Ever.

Chapter16

Jenson

I spend an hour cooling off. Maybe more. I don’t know.

Time slips around me like a river. All over again, I’m eighteen, heartbroken and alone in Harwinton. Wondering why I wasn’t good enough for Mel, why she didn’t stay.

But now, after all these years, I know. And it’s breaking my heart all over again.

Mel probably thinks I’m upset. I am on some level. But I’m not angry at her. Admittedly, I’m hurt that she’s only in this for the money. But mostly, I’m angry at the universe for forcing her to make an impossible choice. I’m angry that I lost her, and that I almost lost Jodie without knowing it, and that now it feels like there’s an insurmountable canyon between us.

I need to make this right.

I can’t lose her again. Not now that she’s back in my life.

Out on the balcony, I take a deep breath and look up at the stars gracing the sky over Jade Lodge. I’ve never seen them so clearly. Even back in Harwinton, a bit of a Podunk town, they were never this bright.

It’s the last night of the retreat and maybe the last time we’ll get an ounce of privacy now that our very scandalous, high-profile relationship is out in the open. When we get back to the office everyone will have an ear and eye out for us.

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