Pretend You're Mine

by Francisco, Fabiola

  Table of Contents

  title page

  copyright © 2019 by fabiola francisco

  books by fabiola francisco

  social media

  dedication

  reader note

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  chapter 17

  chapter 18

  chapter 19

  chapter 20

  chapter 21

  chapter 22

  chapter 23

  chapter 24

  chapter 25

  chapter 26

  chapter 27

  chapter 28

  chapter 29

  sneak peek — make you mine

  sneak peek — roping your heart

  acknowledgments

  about the author

  Copyright © 2019 by Fabiola Francisco

  Publication Date: January 22, 2020

  Pretend You’re Mine (Love in Everton, Book 3)

  All rights reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and contains material protected under the International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Amy Queau, Q Designs

  Editing by Rebecca Kettner, Editing Ninja

  Cover photo by DepositPhoto

  Interior Design by Cary Hart

  Standalones

  Perfectly Imperfect

  Red Lights, Black Hearts

  Twisted in You

  Memories of Us

  All My Truths & One Lie

  Promise You

  Love in Everton Series

  Write You a Love Song

  Roping Your Heart

  Pretend You’re Mine

  Make You Mine

  You Make It Easy

  Then I Met You

  My Way to You

  Rebel Desire Series

  Lovin’ on You

  Love You Through It

  All of You

  Restoring Series

  Restoring Us (Complete Series)

  Resisting You (Aiden and Stacy Novella)

  Sweet on You Series

  Sweet on Wilde

  Whiskey Nights

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  Newsletter

  For all the guys who stood in as boyfriends to keep the creeps away. You’re the real MVP.

  Poppy

  “Sorry, Patrick, but I can’t. Um…” I look around the grocery store. “I’m already… I’m,” I stutter while I search for anything that I can hold on to that will give me some credibility. “I’m already taken,” I shrug and give an unapologetic smile.

  His eyes narrow the faintest bit as if he’s reading me like a book written in old English, trying to decipher the actual meaning behind my words. “Your dad told me you weren’t seein’ anyone at the moment.” The valley between his brows deepens as his eyes scrutinize me, not buying my excuse.

  “He doesn’t know yet.” I shrug as if I were telling him about the weather.

  “Oh?” he prompts, straightening his slim tie.

  “Yeah, it’s still new, and I like to give my relationships a bit to develop before bringing in the parents.”

  “Is that so?” He tilts his head, showing more of his disbelief.

  “Yup.” I offer a small smile, my eyes landing on the perfect touch to finish off my plan. “He’s right over there.” I point to the man looking at the beef jerky with the careful attention a surgeon would give the patient he’s cutting open.

  “Him?” Patrick hooks a finger over his shoulder, looking between the man and me, his head tilted and his lips screwed.

  “Yeah.” I cross my arms defensively. Does he think I couldn’t catch a man like that?

  “Introduce me to him,” he challenges.

  “Okay.” I keep my poker face and bite the inside of my lower lip. I walk to the man slowly, like a turtle would beat me at this pace, Patrick behind me with an amused, know-it-all grin. I’d love to slap that smirk off his obnoxious face.

  “Hey.” I move next to the man and smile up at him. “Are you ready?”

  He looks at me with confused eyes, and then his eyes move up and around in case I was talking to someone else. Shifting so Patrick can’t see my face, I plead with my eyes, hoping he’s smart enough to read minds, mine specifically. He looks over my head and catches Patrick’s curious gaze then back at me, a big, pearly white smile landing on his face as his arm hooks around my shoulder.

  “Yeah, just choosing which jerky I want. You know how much I love this stuff.” He winks, and I take a good look at him. Short blond hair, bright blue eyes, and the perfect amount of scruff on his chiseled jaw that would scratch some parts just enough to add to building pleasure.

  Whoa.

  I shake my head of those thoughts and turn to Patrick. “I wanted to introduce you to a friend,” I smile, ever so grateful to this stranger, who seems to know the exact game I need him to play along with.

  “Hey, man, nice to meet you. I’m Harris.” The stranger, who I now know is named Harris, reaches his hand out for Patrick to shake. He eyes us with distrust and finally shakes Harris’s hand.

  “I’m Patrick.” He gives a firm nod, and I roll my eyes.

  “Okay, well, as you can see, Harris and I are busy, so we’ll get going.” I make to move, my words stammering, but Patrick’s icy smile pauses me.

  “I’ll see you at the Mayor’s Ball then,” he states because it would be damn obvious to everyone that if I were dating someone, he’d come with me to my daddy’s big night.

  “Uh,” I look up at Harris with wide eyes, my lips pushed together in an apologetic grimace.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” he doesn’t miss a beat—calm, cool, and collected. Unlike me. My heart is racing, my lips are tucked between my teeth, and my gaze is erratic. I look everywhere but at Patrick, fearing that at any moment he’ll burst out laughing while clapping at my terrible performance, and call me out on my lie.

  Instead, Patrick gives a terse nod and says goodbye before walking out of the grocery store empty-handed, except for the stick he carries up his butt. My assumption was right, and he only came in here with the intention of cornering me.

  “Oh,
my goodness.” My head drops down as my chin hits my chest, and I blow out a deep breath from my mouth. I look up and find Harris’s amused eyes waiting for me. “Thank you so much. I’m not the best when thinking on my feet, and I needed a really good excuse to get him to take the hint that I wasn’t interested, and you were just standing there a few feet away staring at jerky, and I moved without thinking it through.” I swallow a deep gasp of air as I finish, rubbing my thighs with my sweaty palms.

  “It’s okay.” He lifts his eyebrows, but the hint of a smile ghosts on his lips

  “So,” I pause and look into his pretty eyes. “Hey, I’m Poppy. Want to be my fake boyfriend for a night?” I bite down on my bottom lip, fighting the urge to let my blush make an appearance. Gosh, I can’t get myself into normal messes, like normal people. Instead, I somehow wrangle myself into this weird situation.

  Harris scratches his scruffy jaw and says, “I’ve been asked a lot of things in my life, but this is a first. That guy looks like a douche, so I can help you out.”

  I deflate, letting the tension go like a limp balloon, and my shoulders sag. “You’re the world’s best lifesaver. Where were you when the Titanic hit that iceberg?” I cringe at my terrible joke, but Harris chuckles.

  “Guess I was a few decades too late.”

  I’m instantly at ease and smile. “Let me get that for you, it’s the least I can do.” I stand taller, reaching for the packs of beef jerky in his hand.

  “Nah, you don’t have to.”

  “I insist.” I keep my hand out and give him my best arched brow and stern expression. The one I give my students.

  “And I insist, you don’t have to.”

  I drop my arm and sigh. I guess my intimidation level stops at age eight. “But I totally cornered you, forced you to pretend to be my boyfriend, and now you’re going to have to endure a boring as heck ball in honor of my father with the stuck-up crowd in this town and the ones neighboring us.”

  “A free meal? There you go. With a beautiful woman? Don’t think I’m losing anything. Besides, I wasn’t forced. I could’ve easily dismissed you. It was clear that the guy wasn’t leaving you alone, and you were uncomfortable. I doubt you’d do something like this if that weren’t the case.”

  “If you only knew,” I mumble, because I’ve done some stupid stuff in my life. But he’s right, there’s no way I’d grab a stranger and pretend to be his girlfriend unless I was desperate with a capital D. Actually, I was DESPERATE in all caps.

  “Thanks,” I offer a tight smile. “Anyway, um, I guess I should tell you a little about this ball on Saturday.”

  “Sure. Why don’t I pay for this and you can tell me over some coffee? I love Cup-O-Joe and was gonna run in once I finished here anyway.”

  “Okay.” I nod and wait for him, twisting my fingers and avoiding Mrs. Douglas’s intrigued eyes, because the pickle I’ve gotten myself into is bigger than any I’ve ever been in before.

  …

  Once we have our drinks—latte for me and some kind of sweet frap for Harris, one that surprised me when we ordered—we sit at a corner table. Once again, Harris refused to let me pay.

  An awkward silence falls between us, and I blow on my latte to cool it and avoid making a bigger fool of myself. I still can’t believe I grabbed a stranger and pretended he was my boyfriend without thinking about how this could backfire. My impulsive nature has always been a fiend.

  I look at Harris over the top of my cup, taking in the brightness in his eyes. They’re crystalline pools of blue sky, and his light hair is mussed as if he only combed it with his fingers. This is a stark contrast to the people my father surrounds himself with, which in turn, means I’m surrounded by. Although Everton is a rural town, when you’re part of a political family, you’re supposed to have standards. But me? I live for breaking those rules, which is why I’m in ripped jeans, a wrinkled tee, and a messy braid.

  “So…” Harris lifts his eyebrows, and I shake my observations off, leaning back into my chair and placing my cup on the table.

  “So…” I echo because I’m not sure where to start. “You’re new to town, right? Knox’s friend?”

  “Yup, that’s me. Newest Everton resident, although it seems as we’ve been bringing a bandwagon of people around here lately.” Harris’s lips tilt on one side in a relaxed, boyish grin, as if having coffee with a stranger was a normal occurrence for him. Maybe it is.

  “Are you from Los Angeles?”

  “Nah, I’m from Tennessee, but I lived in LA before moving here. Workin’ with Knox and all, LA was the obvious choice since he had a house, and the label had an office there.” He shrugs and sips the frap, air catching in the straw and making a slurping sound.

  “Sorry,” he gives me a sheepish shrug.

  “You already know I’m Poppy. My dad’s the mayor of the town. I already said that earlier, right? Yeah, I did,” I say this to myself, nodding my head as I go through a mental list of what our conversation in the grocery store already consisted of.

  Harris’s low chuckle pulls me away from make-believe checklists, and my eyes land on his. “What’s your last name?” he starts asking questions.

  “Powell.”

  “Powell,” he repeats, pensive. “Poppy Powell. PP.”

  “Ugh,” I groan and squeeze my eyes shut. “Please don’t. I got teased for many years because of those initials growing up.” My eyebrows dip in the center as I remember all of the times classmates and supposed friends called out PP and laughed.

  “Kids are assholes.”

  “Yup,” I pop the P and nod once.

  “Anyway, Poppy Powell, is Poppy short for something?”

  “It’s my real name. On my birth certificate and all. What’s your last name?”

  “Miller. Tell me about this ball.”

  “Well, my daddy’s the longest-ruling mayor. Longest-ruling, that sounds weird. Whatever,” I shake my head. I’m starting to think that’s a nervous tick I have with the number of times I’ve done that in the last twenty minutes.

  “The town decided as a whole a few years ago that they don’t want anyone else to govern our town but my dad, so no one ever campaigns against him. He just automatically rolls over as our mayor every two years.”

  “Wow.” His eyes open wide, giving me a deeper glimpse into the blue, summer sky.

  “Yeah,” I nod. “It’s weird. Anyway, he’s been mayor for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been the mayor’s daughter my whole life.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about that.” He narrows his eyes in curiosity, his gaze making my neck itchy. I shrug and look away.

  “It sucks at times. I’m a people pleaser, my parents being the first ones. I even got my degree according to what they’d like.” I shrug. “It is what it is, though,” I brush it off as I would a lint on my cashmere sweater.

  “Nah.” Harris shakes his head, but I switch topics before he can continue.

  “So, the ball is black tie. I can buy a tux for you. Ugh, I feel terrible about this. If you want, we can pretend you’re sick and couldn’t make it. Food poisoning always does the trick.”

  He arches a brow and tilts his head. I shake my head. “Don’t ask.” I wave off his curiosity. More than once, I have used that excuse to get out of events or dates I later regretted agreeing to.

  “Why did you move here?” His eyes ping pong between mine, and I think I’m giving him whiplash with my abrupt subject changes.

  “Well, I work here, and coming back and forth was getting old. Besides, I never really cared for LA, and I love the jerky here.”

  “The jerky? You moved here for work and jerky?” My eyebrows lift on my forehead.

  “Have you tried this jerky?” He points to his bag.

  “Yeah,” I say slowly.

  “It’s the best. Knox would always bring some back to me when he’d visit home.”

  I give him a firm nod and say, “Okay, so this could work. We can just pretend for a night that you’re my bo
yfriend, and that’s it. Easy peasy.” I drink my latte, imagining this could be a solid plan. After all, I would be the girl whose boyfriend lives in a place for the jerky.

  “What do you do?” Harris asks. “I’m assuming this is information I should know about you if someone asks or mentions it. Don’t want to be caught off guard.”

  “Yeah, we should probably go over the basics. Patrick will be there, and I’m not too sure he believed me, so he’ll definitely be looking for a loophole in our story. Typical asshole lawyer.” I say the last part under my breath, but Harris hears and chuckles.

  “You really don’t like the guy, huh?”

  I shake my head. Patrick Davis is one man I’d never give my attention to. I can’t stand the guy, but he’s set on winning me over for the sole reason that I won’t play his game.

  “Why?” Right before I can answer, his phone rings. “Sorry.” He gives me an apologetic smile and then answers the phone. I hear his side of the conversation.

  “Oh shit, sorry,” Harris looks at the time on his wristwatch. “Lost track of time. I’ll be there in a few.” He hangs up and looks at me. “That was Knox. I forgot we have a meeting.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course.” I shuffle in my seat and stand awkwardly. I’m still not over this mess. On top of that, I choose a very good-looking man, and it makes it difficult to focus.

  Harris smiles and grabs his bag and his empty cup. “We should probably get our story straight before Saturday. If you’re free tomorrow afternoon, we could meet here at four.”

  “Yeah, that works. Thanks again.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he shrugs as if this were a normal occurrence and smirks before walking me out the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Poppy.”

  With that, Harris walks to the left and I head right, back to the grocery store to buy what I needed before Patrick’s interruption that lead to me pouncing on a handsome stranger. Okay, I didn’t pounce. I don’t have the ovaries to pounce unless I’m being pounced. Okay, stop using the word pounce, Poppy. I sigh and shake my head. It’s going to be a very long week.