by Natalie Ann
Copyright 2019 Natalie Ann
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without a written consent.
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Road Series-See where it all started!!
Lucas and Brooke’s Story- Road to Recovery
Jack and Cori’s Story – Road to Redemption
Mac and Beth’s Story- Road to Reality
Ryan and Kaitlin’s Story- Road to Reason
The All Series
William and Isabel’s Story — All for Love
Ben and Presley’s Story – All or Nothing
Phil and Sophia’s Story – All of Me
Alec and Brynn’s Story – All the Way
Sean and Carly’s Story — All I Want
Drew and Jordyn’s Story— All My Love
Finn and Olivia’s Story—All About You
The Lake Placid Series
Nick Buchanan and Mallory Denning – Second Chance
Max Hamilton and Quinn Baker – Give Me A Chance
Caleb Ryder and Celeste McGuire – Our Chance
Cole McGuire and Rene Buchanan – Take A Chance
Zach Monroe and Amber Deacon- Deserve A Chance
Trevor Miles and Riley Hamilton – Last Chance
Matt Winters and Dena Hall- Another Chance
The Fierce Five Series
Gavin Fierce and Jolene O’Malley- How Gavin Stole Christmas
Brody Fierce and Aimee Reed - Brody
Aiden Fierce and Nic Moretti- Aiden
Mason Fierce and Jessica Corning- Mason
Cade Fierce and Alex Marshall - Cade
Ella Fierce and Travis McKinley- Ella
Fierce Family
Sam Fierce and Dani Rhodes- Sam
Love Collection
Vin Steele and Piper Fielding – Secret Love
Jared Hawk and Shelby McDonald – True Love
Erik McMann and Sheldon Case – Finding Love
Connor Landers and Melissa Mahoney- Beach Love
Ian Price and Cam Mason- Intense Love
Liam Sullivan and Ali Rogers - Autumn Love
Owen Taylor and Jill Duncan - Holiday Love
Chase Martin and Noelle Bennett - Christmas Love
Zeke Collins and Kendall Hendricks - Winter Love
Troy Walker and Meena Dawson – Chasing Love
Jace Stratton and Lauren Towne - First Love
Gabe Richards and Leah Morrison – Forever Love
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Can their pretend marriage lead to the forever love and family they both always wanted?
Leah Morrison used to believe in happily ever after. That is until her wedding planning business started planning more divorce parties than bridal showers. Now she’s jaded enough to focus on her business and growing it the way she knows it can, pretty much giving up on finding her forever love.
Gabe Richards is more focused on the fast track and proving to his parents that he can run the family manufacturing business. But their meddling ways are getting on his nerves with wanting him to settle down. He comes up with a plan...a temporary marriage to get them off his back for good so that he can dedicate everything he has to the company. But when he starts to develop feelings for his fake wife, he needs to figure out how to get her to stay after their one-year agreement rather than taking the money to expand her business and running.
Prologue
Hard Deposition
Lucky You
Deal With That
Squeaky Clean
Pretty Powerful
Temporary Arrangement
Start and End
Open About It
Too Late Now
Awkward Visit
Magic Touch
Meeting Their Requirements
Stand Out
Loving Wife
Growing Feelings
Building Memories
On His Own
Look Miserable
Keeping From Me
Epilogue
Prologue
“Yes, Ginger.” Leah sighed and glanced in her rearview mirror before she put her blinker on and moved into the left-hand lane. “I understand you’re stressed, but there is plenty of time.” She was a master at calming bride’s nerves.
The loud moan and screeching of, “But I want the right shade of pink for my flowers,” made Leah roll her eyes. There was no getting through to some brides...hence the name bridezilla.
“I’ll speak with the florist again. I promise,” she said as calmly as she could while watching the traffic around her.
“I want a new florist,” Ginger snapped back, her voice echoing on the Bluetooth in Leah’s car.
Leah held back the sigh this time. She was already on her third florist and was running out of options from her go-to vendor list. Smoothing over ruffled vendors was almost as bad as calming down nervous brides.
“Let me see what I can do. I’d like to give this last one another chance to match your girls’ dresses. The dye wasn’t off by much.”
“I want it perfect! My mother told me of someone a few cities away. I want you to contact them and see what they can do.”
Since Leah was running late and had a raging headache on top of it, she gave in and said, “I’m driving right now, can I call you back when I get to the office to get the information? Or better yet, can you just text me the name?”
“I’m paying you a lot of money,” Ginger said firmly, “and I want your undivided attention.”
Leah knew she shouldn’t have hit the button on her steering wheel to answer the call when she saw who it was. But as Ginger said, she charged a high premium for her wedding planning business. Her reputation in the Capital Region let her get away with it with all the high-profile clients under her belt. But it was the spoiled rich brats that got on her nerves. Not that she’d ever let anyone see that.
“Give me a second, Ginger,” Leah said, reaching for the pad on the seat next to her. She unhooked the pen that was attached to the top and clicked it. “What’s the name?” The minute Ginger started to speak, Leah realized the pen was out of ink. “I need a new pen. You’re going to have to text me when I hang up. I’m sorry, Ginger.”
“Leah,” Ginger screeched again. It was worse than being in a room full of two-year-olds that wanted milk when there was only water around.
She closed her eyes for one brief second praying she could shove the throbbing in her head back. The next thing she knew she was jerked back by her seatbelt and the airbag went off in her face.
She took a few minutes to orient herself, Ginger still yelling through the Bluetooth, wanting to know what happened. Leah shut her car off, hoping the call dropped at the same time.
The traffic wasn’t bad on Central Avenue. She’d been paying attention to cars all around her like she always did. All she’d seen was a BMW several car lengths ahead of her, but now it looked like she was kissing its back end.
There was knocking at her window, causing her to turn her head. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head, took inv
entory of her body and opened the door, glad the airbag was deflating.
“Yeah. What the heck happened? Did you stop in the middle of the road?” Leah asked. How the heck had she hit him when she was so far back?
The tall man was narrowing his eyes at her. “If you were paying attention you would have seen that asshole cut in front of me and if I didn’t slam on my brakes I was going to T-bone him.”
“So instead you took the risk I wouldn’t ram into you, which I did,” she said, feeling her anger rising when it rarely did before. This was going to end up being her fault, she knew it.
“You wouldn’t have hit me as hard if you’d had time to press on the brakes.”
“I was only going forty,” she said. “That’s the speed limit.”
He ran his hand through his thick wavy hair. Wow, he was good looking, not that now was the time to be thinking of that. “Doesn’t matter. You still rear-ended me.”
“I did. And I’m sorry,” she said, pulling out all of her diplomacy skills she had from dealing with annoying clients. She unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out. Thankfully she wasn’t more than just shaken up and hoped to hell she didn’t get two shiners from this.
“Yeah,” he said, “I get it. Sorry. I’m running late for a meeting and this is putting me behind even more. Really, are you okay?”
“Shit,” she said, looking at her watch. Her hand went to her mouth. She never swore. “I’ve got a client that will be in my office in ten minutes.”
“I guess you are okay if that is the first thought on your mind. Looks like we’re both going to be missing our meetings. I’m Gabe, by the way.”
“Leah,” she said. “I guess one of us should call the police and I’m probably going to need a tow truck. I thought BMWs were made tougher than this.”
She was looking at her white BMW’s front end all crumpled up against the rear end of Gabe’s black one.
“At least we’ve got great taste in cars,” he said, but he didn’t laugh and neither did she.
She took another deep breath in since she’d mastered the breathing technique to get through the day at times, then she walked around to the passenger door and grabbed all her information for when the police showed up.
She wasn’t in the mood to chat with him, instead calling Madeline, her client that she was going to have to cancel, and then checking her text and email while trying to kill time. She was swamped and needed a full time assistant in the worst way but wasn’t quite ready to afford one yet.
There were so many things she wanted to do to expand her business. So many ideas, but for the moment, her methods of drumming up clients and vendors were working, so she had to stick with it unless she wanted to cut other expenses. Since she was bare bones in most areas, it wasn’t an option.
An hour later, the pleasantries of the police and sexy Gabe were done, they’d exchanged business cards in case there were any insurance issues, and she climbed into the tow truck to be brought to the BMW dealership for a rental while Gabe drove away.
She ran smack dab into a sexy guy and rather than getting her number for a date, she hoped she didn’t get a lawsuit.
Just another day in her life it seemed.
Hard Disposition
Gabe took a deep breath and pushed back from the conference room table. The board just left the room and he was glad it was done. Well, sort of done. His father, Colt Richards, was still standing there staring at him as strong and steel hard as the gun he was named after.
“What?” he asked his father, trying to bite back the snarl but knowing he didn’t quite accomplish it. He and his father had the same personality, he’d been told multiple times. A fast trigger and easily riled.
“You need to relax,” his father said, crossing his arms and smirking. “That breathing doesn’t work that well and your face is red. How do you control it until everyone leaves?”
“Easy for you to say. You’re retired and not doing much more than sitting in on these quarterly meetings while I explain why we still don’t have a signed contract from two of the three airlines. And it’s called control. They’re gone, I can let go of it now.”
“You’re going to give yourself an ulcer to go with that high blood pressure that the doctors are on your case about.”
Gabe ran Richards Manufacturing. The company his grandfather had founded produced several parts for airplanes, both commercial and private. In the past twenty years, they’d taken on several government contracts just reinforcing their competitive edge.
“I’ve got it under control. I’m not taking meds at thirty-five years old,” he stated firmly. Good diet and exercise were helping.
“They’ll sign them. They’re just playing hardball like they always do. I’ve told you that before.”
Gabe snorted. He had over a thousand employees relying on him to get those contracts signed within the next four months or he was going to have to start explaining why layoffs might not be just a rumor after all.
“I’m sure they will. At least the government one is set for five years so I can breathe there,” he said.
That actually wasn’t as hard to get done as he’d thought it’d be. Matter of fact he was able to add to it, allowing bonuses to be put in the budget for next year. But not if he couldn’t get these other contracts done now. The board wanted to know why they weren’t signed early like when his father ran the company.
“You’re doing a good job on your own, Gabe, but the board is going to give you a hard time and you know it. I’m only here for moral support. I could have jumped in and answered questions multiple times and chose not to.”
“You just like to make me sweat,” Gabe said, reaching for his bottle of water. What he really wanted was a glass of the scotch his father had left in the CEO’s office that he now occupied. His father, on the other hand, was getting to enjoy his retirement these past six months, that hard disposition out the window with his suit and tie.
Gabe thought he’d be prepared to take over, but now he was beginning to have his doubts.
“It’s a good character builder,” his father said, laughing. “Let’s go up to your office. There is something else I need to talk to you about.”
At least his father didn’t say “my office.” Slowly the employees were learning to trust their new CEO…even if they weren’t so thrilled with it. Not that they had much of a choice with Gabe’s family owning sixty percent of the shares, and they’d never let it get any lower either. He’d heard the story enough that his grandfather hadn’t even wanted to give up that much control, but money was needed to expand and that had been the only way over the years.
Those investors had more than quadrupled their investment, resulting in people knocking on Richards’s doors ever since, wanting to invest or buy. The answer had always been no and as long as Gabe controlled the reins, it always would be. They held onto theirs with tight fists.
But now that the meeting was done, Gabe was dreading the private talk with his father. If it wasn’t about work, it could only be one other thing and right now he was just too worn out from being in the line of fire and jumping past bullets whizzing by his head.
His father shut the door to give them privacy and Gabe decided he was going for the scotch after all. “Pour one for me too,” his father said.
Yep, here we go. Thankfully the bottle was more than half full. “What event do I need to attend now?”
“Your mother is chairing up some annual gala. I don’t even know the name of this one.”
“It’s an annual one,” Gabe said, smiling. His father hated this shit as much as he did. “How hard is it to remember the name once a year?”
“I’d hold your tongue if I were you,” his father said, taking the glass and then a healthy sip. “She has plans for you on this one.”
Just what Gabe figured. And he wasn’t joking because his mother always seemed to be working on some annual something or another. Fundraisers, galas, ribbon cuttings—whatever it was, she’d dedicated her life
to it years ago when he and his sister Gretchen were finished with high school. Hell, even when they were in school his mother was always involved in something.
“Do I even want to know who she thinks she is going to set me up with this time?”
“If you’d just settle down it wouldn’t be an issue. Your mother feels if you had a woman in your life you wouldn’t be so uptight all the time. That having someone at home would take your mind off of work twenty-four seven.”
He laughed and drained his glass. “Having a woman in my life might make me more uptight. You’re a good example of how that proves her wrong.”
His father laughed. “Don’t you dare say that to her face, even if it is true.”
“Tell her I’m not interested. If I’m forced to go, then I’d rather not be set up by my mother.”
It was more than embarrassing when his mother did that, giving these unlucky ladies the idea that because they had his mother’s approval that they had a shot with him. Being named the most eligible bachelor of the Capital Region last year had only made matters worse.
It’s not like he was a celebrity. In some circles and events, he was easily recognized, but most times he could move through society without a glance in his direction.
But once a woman started to show interest in him, they could find out more about him. He’d seen it happen one too many times. Damn the internet for having so much information on him available with the push of a few keys.
It’d be nice to be wanted for just himself, not his name or his money, but he didn’t have the time or the energy to even try now.
“And you think telling your mother that is going to actually work?” his father said, walking over to fill his own scotch glass back up with a splash of the amber liquid. Gabe shook his head no to a refill. He still had several hours of work left to do tonight. His father was just waiting for his mother to swing back through and pick him up.