Don't Walk Away: A Second Chance Fake Fiance Romance

by Eva Luxe

  Even though I’d achieved my goal of getting an associate offer at the best firm in Albuquerque, now I’m wondering if I’d only won some kind of booby prize. The lack of respect sure seems to take a nose dive for those moving from the summer clerk level to the new associate level.

  Someone walks by and dumps a bunch of files on my desk and then says, “Oh, you’re not the new assistant?”

  I look up to see an older woman in horn-rimmed glasses with her hair pulled up into a bun. I blink and realize I recognize her from my interview. It’s Gloria O’Malley, one of the equity partners.

  I stand up, flattered that she’s talking to me.

  “Ms. O’Malley, I’m the new associate lawyer—“

  “Oh, I was looking for the new assistant,” she says, barely looking down her nose at me. “I think her name is Melinda, which caused some confusion. When she gets here, ask her to start sorting these files alphabetically, will you?”

  She walks off in the same direction that Sandy had, leaving me to stare in disbelief at the mountain of files discarded on my desk.

  Wow.

  So this is how it works now.

  I guess this is my introduction to life as a law firm associate. And apparently I have a lot to learn— even if it’s how to be ignored and do nothing all morning.

  Chapter 2 – Madilyn

  For the past hour I’ve been in my new cubicle, trying to learn about the law firm’s client file server and “brief bank.”

  Mike, the IT guy, had set me up with a new computer after I’d discovered the one I had been given didn’t work. Then he showed me the brief bank file and told me it’s a repository for templates other partners and associates had worked on, and that I’m expected to use it to write motions and other pleadings. I was happy to learn something of value.

  Then Mike ran off to solve the latest technological crisis that a much more experienced partner was undergoing. There’s definitely a pecking order around here.

  Suddenly, my cell phone rings.

  Damn you, Jimmy.

  My very recent ex-boyfriend knows better than to call me on my first day of work. And my desire to avoid relationship drama was the main reason I’d broken up with him before the start of my new job.

  I’m reminded again that nothing is going right today. But then again, I wonder, what else should I expect?

  It’s only my first day on the job, or I could say it’s only my first day at my new career. Or if I really want to rub it in, I could say it’s only the first day of the rest of my life for which I’d been carefully planning since I was about twelve years old.

  I rush to hit “ignore” on my phone, but not before someone walks by and says “Ahem.”

  I look up to see the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on frowning down at me. He has sandy brown hair that hangs over his ears. Hazel eyes that are still sexy even though they are shooting me a very disapproving look. And tall, broad shoulders and a matching chest that make me want to lay my head down on it and ask him to make this crazy day stop.

  He’s quite a bit older than my normal tastes would gravitate towards— he looks old enough to be my father. But that, like everything else about him, suddenly seems surprisingly sexy.

  I remind myself that I’ve thrown my old tastes out the window. My old tastes landed me wasted years stuck in Inertia Hell with Jimmy (which is even worse than being in Cubicle Hell by myself). My new tastes land me in Fantasy Heaven with this Mystery Man, whoever he is.

  “I’m sorry,” I quickly tell him.

  “Cell phones are not allowed in this area,” he says, with a stern voice that makes me immediately want to say yes sir.

  So I do.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  I have no idea why I say it other than as a natural reaction to his authoritative tone, because from the looks of things I don’t even think he’s a lawyer. He’s wearing khakis and an Oxford button-down shirt but it’s slightly open and I wish I could unbutton the rest of it.

  He looks both rugged and serene, like he just got done going for an easy jog around the block or perhaps flying a kite on a far-away beach. He looks out of place, yet confident in looking out of place. And he makes me want to be in that same place with him.

  “No need to be sorry, just don’t let it happen again,” he says. “You are free to step out to make calls at your leisure but this area is not for chit chatting on cell phones.”

  “Yes Sir,” I say again.

  He raises his eyebrows at me, as if pleased to hear my answer.

  “Sir, I’m—” I start to stand up and introduce myself properly, but just like everyone else who has been in here today, he is already walking away.

  Except he didn’t even tell me his name.

  I know that my two goals of having sex for the first time and doing well at my new career mean that I can’t sleep with anyone from work. Like everyone else in the world, I must maintain a professional boundary that forbids me from jumping into bed with co-workers. But as I stare at Mystery Man’s well-toned ass as he walks away from me, I can’t help wishing I could find some loophole to that universal rule.

  Chapter 3 – Madilyn

  Just as soon as the handsome, mysterious, authoritative stranger walks away, my phone starts ringing again.

  Shit.

  I can’t believe this is happening, right after Mystery Man had just told me that no personal calls are allowed here in Cubicle Hell. Luckily, I had managed to switch my phone’s volume setting to vibrate but it still sounds very loud.

  I quickly hit “ignore” again, hoping to see if Mystery Man has come back— even if it’s just to look disappointed in me again— but I see that he hasn’t. I don’t know whether to be sad about that or happy that he left so quickly that he couldn’t find out I’m already getting another call so soon after he reprimanded me.

  Mostly, I’m relieved he’s gone before the relationship drama I thought I had dealt with at home followed me to work. I had made it my goal to break up with Jimmy before I started working here and I’d done my best to accomplish that goal.

  I’d tried to break things to him nicely.

  Yesterday I’d told him, “Look, it’s just not working.”

  It was an understatement, to say the least. Some of my friends have wondered out loud how I made it to the age of twenty- three as a virgin while dating someone in an on again, off again relationship for three years. To make the situation even crazier, Jimmy and I had even started living together without sleeping together. And of course everyone always wants to know how we pulled that one off.

  I always tell them that it just didn’t feel right to me, implying that the timing was off or that we were waiting for marriage. But that's because the real reason is so much more embarrassing: Jimmy just never seemed that into the idea of having sex with me. We would fool around and I would push for more or suggest it and he would say he had a headache or was stressed from his job as associate store manager. Meanwhile I was working my ass off in law school and as a law clerk and I began to crave sexual release that he never seemed to want to give me.

  I thought that if I invited him to live with me in the townhouse I was renting that the proximity of being near each other and the seriousness of the relationship would make it more natural for us to start having sex. But instead the opposite happened: I think I made him feel claustrophobic, as if I was putting too much pressure on him.

  I began to feel stupid practically begging him to have sex with me when he always resisted my advances. I wondered if he was gay or asexual but he watched porn featuring women and straight couples. So I began to feel that the problem was that he just wasn’t that into me or for some reason he lacked the ability to have sexual intimacy with a real life partner.

  We had even gone to couples’ counseling. Who does that when they’re not married, engaged, or even having sex? Mary, our round faced, curly haired counselor who reminded me of a Cabbage Patch Doll had told us we were living more like brother and sister than like a c
ouple and she urged us to consider progressing into a “satisfying sexual relationship.”

  She assigned us homework from a book called Hot Monogamy for Dummies that instructed us to write out our perfect sexual fantasy with our partner.

  I’d spent over an hour describing mine. The essence of it was this:

  I’ll come home from work and he’ll rip off my clothes and fuck me hard and fast on top of the kitchen table, as if he can’t even stand to waste another minute without being inside me.

  I’ll say, “Don’t be so rough,” and then I’ll say, “Just kidding, keep being as rough as you want.”

  He’ll turn me over and tie my hands to the kitchen chair so he can spread my legs, grab my ass, and fuck me from behind.

  We’ll come together, his warm, juicy liquid filling me up and dripping out of my wet pussy onto the table after he takes his cock out of me…

  Imagine my surprise when we arrived at our next session and I saw Jimmy’s description of his perfect sexual fantasy with me:

  It’s late and we get into bed to cuddle. The lights are off and there’s slow music playing. I kiss her and then insert a finger into her and then we have sex. Then we fall asleep.

  That was it. That was the entirety of the best vision of our sex life that Jimmy could dream up and write down.

  And that’s when it dawned on me that things were never going to change. We’ve been together off and on for three years but we’d never even had sex, and our fantasies of sex we wanted to have with each other hadn’t even matched up.

  I had told my sister about couples’ counseling and about how shocked Jimmy had looked about my sexual fantasy.

  “At first we both wanted to save ourselves for marriage but now it’s like, how can I marry someone when I don’t even know if the sex will be any good?”

  “I think he has some weird sort of virgin/ whore mentality going on,” my sister had replied, diagnosing not only Jimmy but also the state of our relationship more honestly and accurately one minute after hearing about that session than Mary had been able to do after months of couples’ counseling. “I just think he isn’t able to see you as anything other than his white dress- wearing future bride.”

  “He’s never going to be able to defile me the way that I’ve come to realize I need to be defiled,” I’d admitted to her.

  “You should just jump his bones,” she’d said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t protest.”

  “He might,” I’d told her. “Just like the look on his face showed me he was protesting against my perfect sex fantasy.”

  To be honest, I didn’t even want to have sex with him anymore. That’s when I’d decided to break up with him for good and lose my virginity to someone else. Someone whose fantasies and real-life tastes might be more in tune with my own.

  And that’s when I’d gone on this mission to lose my virginity to the right person. Or at least a person who will know how to take it from me the right way.

  I have a feeling that Mystery Man could be that person. Except that we shouldn’t—we can’t— because we work together. Damn it. Just my bad luck.

  Chapter 4 – Madilyn

  All this time spent living in an unsatisfactory sexual relationship has taken its toll. I’ve wanted to call it off for a long time, and last night was my chance. It was yet another sexless, boring day, when Jimmy had told me after dinner that he was going to “hit the sack” early. (That was his phrase— not mine. Sometimes he talks like an old man. And he even insisted on sleeping in the guest bedroom because he didn’t want to “soil” our future marriage bed.)

  Realizing that I should have said something a long time ago, I decided to speak up last night. I’d been trying to work up the courage to do it for a while, and I was frustrated enough that it seemed like the perfect time. In fact, I began to realize that the first time he had ever gone to bed without having sex with me should have been the last time.

  “Jimmy. I can’t do this anymore.”

  I’d never been so relieved to finally be able to utter those words, but he looked crushed.

  “Let’s sleep on it,” he’d said, in his usual non- confrontational style. “You might feel differently in the morning.”

  This morning, I did not feel differently. I strapped a leash on my dog Lucia, as I do most mornings, and took her for a jog.

  Thinking that maybe Jimmy wasn’t as sexually into me as he used to be because I’d gained a few pounds, I’d taken up jogging a while ago. It didn’t make Jimmy become any more interested in me sexually, and it didn’t help me lose weight— I like New Mexican food a bit too much to make sure my diet matches my strict exercise regimen— but the jogging routine helped me clear my head and have time to myself.

  This morning, I’d thought about how long and hard I’d worked to get to this place in my career. I’d gone straight from kindergarten through law school. I’d made Law Review— an elite panel of law students chosen to write and edit legal articles for the school’s legal journal— and I’d gotten good grades.

  I’d gotten a pretty good summer clerkship and this very good permanent associate job offer. All that mattered now was doing a good job at my new job, climbing the associate ladder to partnership and being a successful lawyer.I didn’t want to let my old relationship problems get in the way of my new career.

  When I got back home, I dressed in my most expensive and best- looking suit— the same one I’d worn when I’d interviewed and gotten this job— and told myself in the mirror that I could do it. Today was my day.

  Jimmy was awake and he looked at me hopefully. I know him too well to hope that he would be the one to bring up last night’s break- up, even though I also knew it was on his mind.

  It was clear that it would be up to me to keep doing the dirty work.

  “Jimmy,” I said, trying to sound kind but business- like. “Do you have somewhere to go stay tonight? Your brother’s?”

  “I— I thought—”

  He’d looked down at the carpet but he didn’t say anything further.

  “I’ll probably stay late at work today, since it’s my first day and all,” I told him.

  I wanted to say that while I knew he had to work today, I thought it would be best if he could get his essential things together after work while I was still gone, and stay with his brother overnight.

  But I didn’t want to be cruel. I was hoping he would read in between the lines.

  “I have to go now,” I told him, rather than discussing it any further.

  “Have a good first day,” he’d told me, his eyes still downcast.

  And now he’s calling me, twice in a row, when I’m not supposed to be taking calls here in Cubicle Hell, even though there’s not much else for me to be doing.

  I finally accept the writing on the wall: Jimmy is not going to leave me alone until I talk to him more bluntly about what I want, or more accurately what I don’t want.

  I know I had to get it over with. And then I’ll be free to fantasize guilt-free about Mr. Mystery Man.

  I’ll just insert him into the fantasy I wrote for Mary. From the way that he had raised his eyebrows at me in pleasant surprise when I had told him, “Yes, Sir,” I think Mystery Man would appreciate my fantasy a lot better than Jimmy did. And he’d probably be able to help me out with it in real life, too, if it weren’t for the fact that we’re co-workers.

  But a girl can still dream, right? That’s what fantasy is for. And I sure do have a lot fantasizing to do about Mystery Man.

  Chapter 5 – Madilyn

  I excuse myself from Cubicle Hell— although the paralegals rushing around are too busy to notice or care that I’m leaving— and head down the fifteenth floor hallway so I can try to find somewhere private to talk.

  The only place I can find is the bathroom, so I lock myself into the furthest stall and call Jimmy.

  He answers on the first ring.

  “Madilyn,” he says, his voice sounding as if he hadn’t slept all night.

  Since we do
n’t even actually sleep in the same room, it’s very possible that he hadn’t slept a lot and I hadn’t known about it. But I know I can’t give in to feeling guilty and stopping myself from doing what I need to do.

  “Thank you for calling me back,” he says. “I just had to talk to you—”

  “Jimmy,” I hiss, in a hoarse whisper.

  No one else is in the bathroom, but I don’t know when anyone might come in. “I’m at work. Aren’t you at work, too?”

  “I can’t go to work. I’m too upset,” he says. “My stomach hurts. Just tell me it’ll be okay. Please don’t break up with me.”

  “Jimmy,” I tell him. “It’s really for the best. You can find someone you’re more… into. Compatible with. Attracted to.”

  “I’m into you,” he insists. “I know I haven’t always shown it…”

  That’s for sure, I think, but I don’t say anything.

  “But I’ll try harder,” he continues. “Mary can help us.”

  I can’t count the number of times he’s promised that. And our sessions with Mary only seem to be making our problems— and their lack of a realistic solution— even more obvious to me.

  “Jimmy, I have to go,” I whisper into the phone. “Please don’t call me at work anymore today.”

  “But promise me you’ll talk to me later,” he pleads.

  “Fine,” I tell him, just to get him off the phone.

  I lean back onto the wall behind me and breathe a sigh of relief. At least I’ve gotten him off my back for now. I won’t get in trouble from Mystery Man any more.

  Although, I have to admit I’d like to get into trouble if it involves any form of punishment from that rugged, handsome stranger. Maybe he’ll spank me.

  I smile as I surprise myself with the thought. I’d vowed to be more sexually open to different things, and I suppose that means letting my fantasies run wild.