One Perfect Fake Boyfriend (The Billionaires of Torver Corporation Book 5) Read online

  Sometimes I could curse Johnathan for buying this fancy-ass Swiss coffee maker that took hours to figure out how to use. Was the coffee some of the best I’ve ever tasted, yes, but was it worth me and Logan standing around here with nothing to say? With all this tension? Well, I say tension, but maybe only I felt it. It was amazing how easy it was to dream up sexual tension around unusually hot people. But whatever. Like I said, I wasn’t ready to date yet...I don’t think. Even if Logan was very attractive and charming, I was his boss, and I couldn’t forget that.

  “Sabryna?” Logan said, interrupting my thoughts. “Is it this button?” My eyes widened as his hands hovered over the button that started the machine’s self-cleaning process—and then he and everyone else would be out of coffee for at least an hour.

  “No, no!” I yelled, and grabbed Logan’s hand, directing it to the correct button. “That’s the self-cleaning. You want this one.”

  We both suddenly froze, realizing that my hand was still perched on top of his. I quickly pulled it away, and I noticed Logan look down at his feet, blushing a little.

  “Um, Sabryna, you know, I—”

  Suddenly the door opened a crack, and it was Johnathan.

  “Sabryna, there’s someone here to see you.”

  I walked over, completely lost. “What? Who?”

  Johnathan shrugged. “Some guy named Adam.”

  Chapter Four

  I nearly dropped the box of coffee filters. Adam? My Adam?

  “Excuse me,” I told Logan, and rushed out of the room, my heart racing. Oh my god. There was no way. There couldn’t be.

  I walked out to the reception room, and sure enough, there he was. Adam. He had been a lot of things to me, once upon a time. My first love, my high school boyfriend, my college fiancée—and after all of these years, he was here.

  I hadn’t seen Adam since college—since I had left him for Nate after our differences got between us—we had wanted different things. He had wanted us to start a family right out of college, while I had wanted to go to London to study economics and build my career. I had no idea what he had been doing since then. I had googled him a few times, but he had always been a private person, and so it made sense that he wouldn’t be on social media. He looked the same, the same dark brown skin, the same charming smile and impeccably fitted suit, but a little bit older, more dignified, and more muscular. Standing there in the lobby, he looked good.

  And I would be lying if I said seeing him again didn’t feel like a massive emotional punch in the chest.

  “Sabryna,” Adam said, the sound of my name coming off his lips again nearly putting me into shock. “You look good. How have you been?”

  “Adam,” I said, almost in a whisper. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Good question,” Adam said, directing me to the couch in the corner. “Sit down. I had better explain. I assume this is a little weird for you. In fact, it’s a little weird for me.”

  “No kidding,” I said, letting the joke cover up the emotional wreck that this conversation was already starting to make me.

  “I’ve been going through kind of a tough time in my life...well, I was, but now I’m coming out of it, and I’m trying to do things right this time.” Adam rested his head in his hand, contemplating. “I got married while you were in London, in case you didn’t know.”

  I didn’t.

  “Her name was Emily. We settled down, had all these plans. I thought I had found my happily ever after. But she cheated on me...” Adam shook his head in disbelief. “What goes around comes around, I guess.”

  Well, what do you know. One of the main reasons Adam and I ended our relationship was because I had caught him making out with one of my college friends on her couch. My best friend, actually. I guess it made sense that he kept his original plans that we had made while we were together in high school...to settle down in the suburbs. He had tried it with someone else, and it hadn’t worked. It was all so surreal to hear about.

  “Anyway,” Adam said, taking a deep breath. “We got divorced, I got my own apartment here in downtown Seattle, and now I’m in charge of my company.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Nope. My boss decided to retire last year, and he handed me the reins, strangely enough. It’s been a wild ride.”

  “What company?”

  “Galaxy Goddess Fitness,” Adam said with a cocky smile.

  “No shit!” I said, eyes nearly popping out of my head. Galaxy Goddess was one of the hottest new sportswear companies for women, and they were blowing up. I saw their Instagram ads all the time, and occasionally a celebrity was caught in one of their famous pairs of leggings, the ones with their signature neon zigzag pattern going up and down the sides. If Adam was in charge there, he really was a big deal. And probably loaded too.

  “Anyway,” Adam said. “I’ve been looking for someone to direct our marketing campaigns, and frankly, the last few people who have held the job have turned out to be real stinkers. Creative, yes, but no business sense, no sense of organization, you know?”

  I nodded. I was almost too caught up in Adam to hear what he was saying. It wasn’t that I was still into him, per se, but just watching him sit there and talk was bringing me back to another time entirely, and it was an addicting kind of magic.

  “So of course,” Adam continued. “I’ve been looking all over trying to find someone with the economic sense, the management ability, and the creative talent to do the job. Obviously, the problem with resumes is that half the people applying are lying their ass off about at least one of those three requirements. So, I figured I needed to find someone that I knew personally who could do the job...who I could trust.”

  Suddenly it clicked together, and I felt myself freeze up.

  “Sabryna, come to Galaxy Goddess,” Adam pleaded.

  “Oh,” I said, still overcome with surprise and confusion. “I don’t know, I—“

  “Look,” Adam said, his game face on. “We might not be as swanky as the Torver Corporation quite yet, but here you’re just an assistant. You’re just filing papers and shit, you know? It’s not important. You would get to do so much more. It’ll be a chance to challenge yourself.”

  I grimaced. “My job is important Adam. You don’t know the kind of crazy shit I have to do back in that office. Being Johnathan Torver’s assistant is not a normal assistant job. It’s one of the most prestigious assistant jobs in the city, you know that, right?”

  “Yes, Sabryna, but—“

  “I’m very happy here, Adam. I like where I am.”

  “Just think about it, okay?” Adam said, and he was staring at me with those puppy dog eyes, the same ones he used to use on me all of the time in college. “I’ll email you some stuff about the position that might change your mind. Take some time to mull it over.”

  I shook my head. “You got some nerve Adam, showing up to my office here in the middle of the day to ask me to take a job at your company.”

  Adam just smiled. Suddenly, I noticed Logan walk in and quietly borrow a stapler off of the reception desk. Clearly spying. He looked concerned...and maybe a little bit jealous?

  “Anyway,” Adam said. “I’ll email you. I know you’re stubborn, and you love this job, but promise me you’ll really consider it?”

  “Fine,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

  “And Sabryna?” Adam said, getting ready to turn out the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “It was good to see you,” Adam said, and smiled at me warmly from the doorway, for just a little too long. That same smile...I melted a little. Some things never change.

  However, there were a lot of things about Adam that probably hadn’t changed. Things that could prove to be a problem.

  “SO...” LOGAN SAID, casually sauntering into my office with a pile of finished work, acting all innocent. “You want to tell me what that drama was out in the reception room? It sounded interesting.”

  I paused for a moment. Sho
uld I really tell Logan about my ex-fiancé? And more importantly, that he was trying to get me to leave Torver? Maybe not, but it’s not like I could date him. And I’m his boss, so he better as hell not go around sharing my secrets.

  And that crinkle around his eyes when he smiled made it really, really hard to say no to him.

  “Okay,” I said, motioning for him to sit down in the chair across from my desk. “But you have got to swear not to tell Johnathan what this was about, or anyone else for that matter.”

  “My lips are already sealed,” Logan said, leaning back in the chair and getting ready to enjoy the story. “So, who was he?”

  “My ex-fiancé,” I explained. “Adam. We were engaged in college but we broke it off—he didn’t want me to go study abroad, and then he cheated on me with one of my best friends. I haven’t really seen him since. And—”

  “Wait, ‘and?!?’ there’s more than that?” he exclaimed. Logan was enjoying this way too much.

  I sighed. “He also asked me to come work for him. At Galaxy Goddess. He’s in charge there now.”

  “What!?” Logan practically yelled. “You’re kidding!”

  “Shh!” I yelled. “I can’t let anyone know about this, especially Johnathan.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Logan said. He seemed halfway annoyed and halfway jealous...he was hard to read in that way overly charming people are sometimes. “So,” he said, with a bit of caution in his voice. “You think this about you working for his company, or about you two getting back together?”

  “I mean,” I said, fiddling with my bracelets. “It’s not like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. He might have other motives.”

  “Might?” Logan said. “He came all the way out here to talk to you. It’s weird, Sabryna.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking down at the floor.

  “Would you want to get back together with him?” Logan asked. “Or are you...” he stuttered a bit. “...involved with someone else?”

  Oh god. “No. And I don’t think so,” I said. “We really weren’t compatible. We wanted different things back then, and I’m pretty sure we still do. And then of course there’s all of the infidelity issues. I don’t think he’s changed that much. But...”

  “But what?” Logan asked, looking a little downtrodden.

  “You know how it is with people from the past. With first loves, especially. There’s always some force drawing you back, reeling you in. But sometimes you can’t tell if it’s the person, or the memories, or the innocent person you used to be. It’s all wrapped up in Adam, and I don’t know how to unravel it.”

  “If you were engaged and he cheated, that doesn’t sound good,” Logan said. “That sounds like trouble to me.”

  I spun around in my office chair, trying to process the morning. “I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “I need to be done with Adam. He’s from the past, and he hurt me, and I’m so...I’m so past that, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Logan said. “You deserve the best, Sabryna. I haven’t known you for that long, but I can already tell you work hard, and that you’re incredibly kind. You need a man who’ll treat you right.”

  “Thanks, Logan,” I said, smiling at him. Even though we hadn’t known each other for that long, and things had started off tense between us, I really could tell that he cared about my happiness, and that was a nice thing to have at work in the morning—someone who I knew would always have my back.

  “You’re right,” I said definitively, sitting up in my chair. “I need to avoid getting back into my old negative pattern with Adam at all costs, no matter how much he tries to tempt me.”

  Chapter Five

  The next day, I showed up to the office on two hours of sleep, completely exhausted. I had spent the entire night tossing and turning. It may have been because of Adam, it may not have been. Seeing him yesterday had definitely been a stressful and thought-provoking experience, and I was more than ready to put it behind me.

  I wore a cute dress to work today. A crimson red, low cut sweater dress. It was a bit of a screw-you dress, I had to admit. I needed the confidence boost today after the Adam encounter. I needed to feel good, and to feel like I was too good for his nonsense. And you know what, I was.

  I rushed into the break room, desperate to get some coffee. I only used the old coffeepot at my apartment for emergencies now, since I had gotten so used to how fancy the Torver Swiss coffee was, so of course I had waited to caffeinate myself until I had got to work.

  When I got to the break room, Kirk, our lawyer, was fiddling with the back of the machine. “Are you kidding me?” he was saying. The second I got in, he gave me a death glare. “This was YOU, Sabryna!” he yelled in a mocking tone. “Your new pretty boy screwed the machine up!”

  Damn it. Kirk was a sweetie, and it would only take something as ghastly as caffeine deprivation to get him to say such a harsh thing to me.

  “Don’t worry, I’m fixing it,” Kirk said, a screwdriver already in hand. “But you’re out of luck for coffee.”

  I groaned and lumbered into my office, a yawn escaping my throat. I’m pretty sure there was a good, old-fashioned coffee maker stored in my office cabinet somewhere. I could whip something up. And God knew today I needed it.

  I finally found the coffee maker and some pre-ground beans and got the machine set up and brewing. The machine looked ancient, probably from the eighties—which is ancient in terms in Torver office supplies. God forbid someone has a pen that’s over two years old in this office. I left the coffee maker groaning and made my way next door to Logan’s office to give him his assignments for the day.

  “Hey,” I said, giving a quick two knocks on the side of the door so Logan knew I was there. “Ready for today’s assignments?”

  “You got it,” Logan said, agreeable as usual. “What’s on the agenda for the day?”

  “It’s pretty standard stuff again. Not much. Some more notes, and an email to write for the investors,” I explained, handing the papers over.

  “There’s like, no one here this morning,” Logan said. “Is that normal for Fridays?”

  “Usually,” I said. “It tends to just be me, Johnathan, and maybe a few others. Today it’s Kirk and Samantha. Kirk is pissed that you screwed up the coffee machine, by the way.”

  “Yeah, but—wait...” Logan stood up out of his chair, looking panicked. “Do you smell something burning?”

  We looked at each other in a quick moment of terror, and went running out of Logan’s tiny office. My office next door already had smoke coming out of the door.

  “What the hell!?” I yelled. Logan kicked the door open and we both gasped at the old coffeemaker, which had suddenly burst into flames. The office sprinklers had gone off too, soaking everything in my office. In only five minutes, my office had descended into total chaos.

  “Oh my god,” I said, standing back as Logan rushed into the office without a moment’s hesitation. “Be careful!” I yelled.

  I watched as Logan quickly unplugged the coffeemaker and pushed the flaming machine onto the floor, where he quickly managed to stomp the flames out, ruining his nice pants in the process. We stood in the office and looked around, the sprinklers still soaking everything.

  “I can turn them off,” Logan said. “I know how, hold on.” I watched as he stood up on my desk and reached up, turning the four sprinklers off one by one. At this point he was completely soaked in his white dress shirt and blue tie, as if he had been thrown in a pool. I could see the outlines of his muscles from underneath the shirt, which was leaving little to the imagination.

  I had been trying to ignore the fact that my assistant was this hot, and all these winter clothes had been making it a lot easier, but damn was it hard to ignore when the entire outline of his toned chest was staring me in the face.

  “Got it,” Logan said, as he turned off the last sprinkler and jumped down from my desk. “But yikes. I mean really, yikes.”

  My office was a complete disaster. What t
en minutes before had looked like a desk from a fancy pen catalogue was now reduced to a pile of sopping papers, and an awful, burnt plastic smell hung in the air. Hopefully if I cleaned up most of the water now, the mahogany desk and the computer wouldn’t be damaged...and hopefully Johnathan wouldn’t be too pissed. But whatever. It was his fault for buying that ridiculous Swiss coffee machine in the first place.

  I was in the middle of inspecting the damage that had been done to my leather bag when I turned around to see that Logan had taken his shirt off and was wringing it out—oh my dear god—and I practically shoved my face back into my purse.

  “Hey Sabryna?” Logan asked, and I grimaced, knowing I would have to turn around and give my best poker face eventually.

  “Yeah?” I asked, turning around and trying very, very hard to make direct eye contact with Logan and not look down any lower. Problem was, his face was still pretty distracting too.

  “Do you maybe have something I could borrow? I don’t really want to work all day in wet clothes,” he said.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, burying myself as far as I could inside of my tiny office closet, grateful again for the relief from the awkward eye contact. “Let me see what I can find.”

  Luckily, I found a Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt buried in the back of the closet that I had been keeping in there for especially chilly days. It should do nicely.

  “Here,” I said, tossing it over to Logan. I couldn’t figure out if I was more relieved or disappointed when he slipped it on over his head. At least it seemed to fit him well.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Do you want me to help you clean up in here, or work on something else?”

  I laughed. “Something else, I think,” I said with a sigh, looking at my ruined office. “This is my screw-up, I should be fixing it. I’ll give you a list of calls to make.”

  Logan hurried back to his own office, smiling in my Seahawks sweatshirt...he looked pretty cute in it. He really was something. Not only was he gorgeous, but these past couple of weeks he had been so considerate, so kind, and to be frank, really awesome at doing his job. I was beginning to forget why I had ever had any doubts about hiring him in the first place.