Page 4 of Faking It with my Bestie's Billionaire Brother

I looked at her disbelievingly. "I thought I'd come here for reassurance from somebody who accepts me as I am."

She sighed. "I do accept you as you are, Spencer, and I love you for it. That's why I want you to find happiness with somebody. You work all the time, you don't bother to date, and I know you're not happy. That job can't give you everything you need," she reminded me.

"I could tell you the same thing," I said snippily.

She grimaced and then smiled at me. "Touché. The difference is, though, that I'm not in my forties, and I haven't spent over half my life toiling away for some company that I mostly disdain. I love my job, and thanks to you, I get to keep doing it. I will always be grateful for how you helped me with this place, and I will always be grateful for how you were there when I was growing up," she said sincerely. "And I will also be very grateful when I know that you have somebody who makes you happy. A companion wouldn't be such a bad idea. Hell, get a dog."

I laughed again. "Are you comparing a dog to a romantic partner?"

She shook her head. "I'm just saying that people find companionship in all sorts of ways. Look, I'm not saying that you should do exactly what Ralph says, but you might consider coming out of that cave of an office once in a while and look around you. There's a lot of interesting people to see." For some inexplicable reason, her words caused an image of Miss Moretti looking up at me with her curious eyes to flash through my mind.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Yeah, well…I'll think about it," I said glumly, even though we both knew I wouldn't be doing any such thing. "I should let you get back to work. You don't need to hear me bitching about this shit. Besides, we have it all handled." I stood up from the chair and headed towards the door. "Dinner at the usual time?" I asked her, referring to our weekly dinner date.

"I'll be there with bells on," she promised with a smile.

"All right, see you then, kiddo." With that, I exited the door and walked away, not feeling nearly as relieved as I thought I would be when I first came here. Instead, there was something brewing inside me that I couldn't quite identify, and it bothered the shit out of me. There wasn't typically a time when I couldn't identify all elements of what was going on with me, but ever since my conversation with Ralph earlier that morning, everything had been muddled. I hated it.

I need to step back, take a breath, and then come at this problem from a different angle, that’s all, I swore to myself as I walked past the hallway where I had caught a flailing Miss Moretti in front of her students.

Ava.

I didn't know why even thinking about her first name seemed too intimate, but somehow, the thought of those two little syllables sent a little thrill down my spine.

As I walked down the hallway, there were a few stray kids lingering about, pointing at me and whispering behind their hands. I still didn't understand how Penny could tolerate being around all these hormones and teenagers all the time. It was enough to drive me nuts just after being there for a few minutes.

Most kids weren't like Penny had been when she was a teenager. I never had to deal with that rebellion from her, like other parents had with their children, and I thanked my lucky stars for that. Penny had understood that things were…different for us and that we needed to be on the same page instead of constantly fighting against each other.

But as I headed towards my car and slid into the back seat with its sumptuous leather, I couldn't help but be slightly troubled that it appeared that Penny and I weren't on the same page for once. She didn't even balk at the scheme that Ralph had proposed. Instead, she had doubled down on the idea of me finding someone.

What she didn’t seem to understand was that she was still young and could still hope for a fairytale. I'd had too much taken away from me and too much responsibility put upon my shoulders to think that a fairytale was waiting for me. That notion was for young people and doe-eyed vixens like Miss Moretti.

Chapter three

Ava

Once I got home after the "incident," I threw down my bag and went instantly to my projects, uncovering the clay. All that I'd done with the sculptures so far had been…decent. But I found myself smashing it all together and starting over.

My creative juices were flowing, and I worked that clay until my knuckles ached, but the pain wasn't going to stop me.

I grabbed my tools, furiously working at the sculpture’s features, trying to capture the face that I got to see up close and in person today. If I could somehow capture the dangerous beauty in those eyes, then I would be pleased with the finished piece.

But as I worked around the eyes, I struggled. It was hard to translate such nuances of human emotion into clay. Normally, I welcomed the challenge and even loved it, but at that particular moment, I got increasingly frustrated.

Finally, I stopped, shutting my eyes and replaying the moment over and over in my head. For artistic purposes, of course. Then, I got completely distracted.

I wasn’t sure how in the minute that I'd been in Spencer’s arms, I managed to catalog as many details of his beautiful face as I had, and it really was such a damn shame that he was so beautiful when he was also such an ass. There was just something in those eyes that tugged at me that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Frustrated, I finally cleaned up my tools and put the plastic cover over my unfinished project for the night. It wouldn't help to push through it right now because that often just made the situation worse. So, I decided to clean up and get in the shower.

As I showered, I tried to focus on the memory of his eyes without even realizing that my hands had started lingering over my breasts, molding the soft tissue like I was trying to sculpt them, plucking my nipples, enjoying the sharp sensation of pleasure that flooded my crotch. The inspiration of Spencer’s attractiveness may not have translated to my sculpting hands the way I wanted it to, but it sure did help with firing up my neglected body.

My hands stilled. I was not going to do what I wanted to do to the thought of Spencer Ashbury, of all people. No, that wouldn't be right, but...

But my defenses were weak.

I let my eyes flutter shut, and my hands wandered down my body in the warm shower, water trickling down my skin softly. I could almost feel him standing behind me in that steady stream, his body large and demanding, and despite the warmth of the water, I shivered.

My fingers found the swollen nub at the crux of my thighs and began rubbing gently at first, as I pictured Spencer hovering over me in a very different way than he had been that afternoon in the hall.

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