Bound to her Fake Fiancé Boss: A Fun Sexy Feel Good Billionaire Office Romance

by Hayson Manning

  I try to smile, but my lips are frozen lumps on my face. I look at this tortured man, and my heart breaks again. “I’m not confusing anything. I love you, Jason Johnson. This started out as the two of us being thrown together under unusual circumstances, but I do love you.”

  I hold my ground when he stalks to me. “How do you know?” It looks like he wants to shake me.

  Go ahead. Maybe the love will sprinkle out of me and fall into him, warm him, fill him up.

  “I go to sleep every night smiling, because I’m going to see your gorgeous face in the morning. I wake with the same smile knowing I’m going to see you. I can’t breathe when you’re too close, and I can’t breathe when you’re away. I think of you being hurt and in pain, and I want to crush the person who hurt you, then hug you. The thought of you not being in my life makes me want to follow you to the afterlife. I’ve named our babies. I’m so utterly and totally in love with you, it fills my soul with love and dread.”

  He pales while I speak. “Why dread?” he grates out.

  I hold onto my battered soul. “Dread because I know you don’t want or feel any of these things, and I’m powerless to stop loving you.”

  He sucks in a breath, looking more tormented than I’ve ever seen him.

  I stare into his haunted eyes.

  See me, Jason. All of me.

  “I love you. Let me in,” I whisper. “Let me take your pain, settle your scores. I’m your knight. Lean on me.”

  Silence, thick and suffocating, builds between us.

  My heart thumps.

  Thump. Fight for us.

  Thump. Let me in.

  Thump. I love you.

  And the last painful thump burns my chest, my soul, my everywhere as he steps back and lets us go.

  I pull in a shallow breath. “I hope you find the woman you’ll trust with your heart.” Before I fall apart completely, I grab my bag, Blossom in her carry case, and stumble outside to find Gabriel holding the car door open, a worried look on his face.

  I knew this day was coming, but here I am trying to pull my big girl pants on when they keep slapping my ankles.

  “He feels for you deeply. I’ve known him since he was a kid.” Gabriel takes my bag and opens the trunk, then places a quiet Blossom on the backseat. “My Ma calls him ‘still waters that run deep’. He doesn’t let many people into his life, and you are in there.” Serious blue eyes hold mine. “Give him time.” He squeezes my shoulder. For the hundredth time, I ask myself why I couldn’t fall for Gabriel. He’s reliable, looks like Thor, and is more like me in temperament.

  I’ve given him everything, time, my heart, my love, but there’s no going back.

  But the stupid heart knows what the stupid heart knows.

  And this stupid heart fell for a man incapable of loving me back.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jason

  This is why I don’t do relationships. This stupid, never-ending pain in my chest like Hercules and all his biggest mates are sitting there weighing five hundred pounds while poking me with a white-hot poker in the heart, gut, everywhere.

  Food has no appeal. I’m moody, and to make matters worse Asia has informed HR she’s taking some vacation time and won’t be back for a while. She isn’t taking my calls or answering any texts.

  I even drove to her apartment block to talk to her, but I have no clue what the gate code is.

  She’s shut me down, shut me out, and I don’t know what to do about it. Gabriel has informed me my staff are actively avoiding me, as I’m baring my teeth at them. Someone in accounting surrounded their desk in garlic and a wooden stake.

  Ha-fucking-ha.

  Asia is taking up way too much space in my mind. Everywhere I turn, I can hear her laughter, feel her hand soothing me when I wake from another nightmare, bask in her sunshine smile. I sent her flowers, asking her to come back to work. When that didn’t work, I sent her a copy of our contract with a legal threat that she hadn’t found me a replacement assistant, so she had to get her ass back in the office.

  Cue chirping crickets.

  Week one rolls into week two into week three and I still feel like shit. After opening a courier packet addressed in her precise handwriting, my heart trips in my chest, but then crashes and burns when I read through divorce papers hacked from the internet.

  I couldn’t believe my world could get any darker, but here it is, just me and Satan hanging out in hell with religious vegans.

  “What the fuck is going on with you, man?” Zan Gillard says later that night. His face is red, and not from exertion. I mumble an apology. I didn’t mean to throw the ball that hard in his direction, nowhere near the hoop.

  Most of the Stamford Brook boys are in town except for Harlan who is out of the country on a job. These are the only people I’ll willingly be with at the moment, and it’s rare that this many of us are in the same place at the same time, so I dragged my sorry ass here.

  “He’s in love and doesn’t know what to do with it,” Gabriel says with an infuriating grin that I itch to smack off his face. With a truck.

  “Has hot, gorgeous, Asia Brown scrambled your brain?” Holden Kelly shoots me a grin. I shoot Gabriel an even darker look. He laughs and raises a shoulder.

  “Gossiping? Really? And no, she hasn’t. Can we just play ball and not act like we’re twelve and worried about our period?”

  Gabriel throws a ball that misses my head by an inch. I glare at him and he glares back, then throws me a shit-eating grin. He’s fucking enjoying my misery, the sick bastard.

  For the first time in a long time, I don’t win.

  It occurs to me I have won nothing since Asia walked out of my life. I don’t care about work anymore. I have enough money to live seventeen lives.

  I’m miserable.

  A Labrador puppy backed away from me, whimpering. HR told me I look homicidal. Not far from the truth. I can’t sleep without Asia in my arms after having the best sex I’ve ever had. I spend way too long staring at the Kinder Egg toys. A dragon and a knight. The irony is not lost on me. This woman slays me and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  The moon sits proudly in the sky, where I sit on the balcony of my apartment while I figure out what to do. Asia nailed something on the head when she said I’ve been living James’s life. I have, but only in a way that would commemorate him, make him proud.

  All I’ve ever wanted was to make him proud. And I know deep in my heart James would be. He wouldn’t care if I were a gardener, bagged groceries, or built engines. He’d have loved me.

  A text ping associated with Asia’s number and her plethora of ringtones she sometimes changed daily has me reaching into my pocket. I ignore the million other texts and missed calls—I called my grandmother earlier, who thought I sounded ill.

  If she only knew.

  ‘Could You Be Loved’ plays on my phone. I read the text, each word a bomb detonating in my heart.

  ASIA: Jason. If you could send me a letter of reference, I’d appreciate it as a boss to his assistant. On a personal note, you have received the signed divorce papers so we can get this marriage dissolved. I don’t want your money. I hope you find what you’re looking for. James would have been proud of you. Be proud of yourself.

  All the best, Asia.

  I read it for the fifth time, noting the lack of love hearts and baby goat emojis that accompany her texts, which made me smile.

  I got what I wanted, so why aren’t angels with harps playing in my head instead of Megadeth? Why aren’t unicorns prancing instead of Dementors? Why do I feel like I’ve lost James all over again?

  Because I lost something I love.

  No, I lost someone I love.

  Asia’s words land in my head on a comet.

  I go to sleep every night smiling, because I’m going to see your gorgeous face in the morning. I wake with the same smile knowing I’m going to see you. I can’t breathe when you’re too close, and I can’t breathe when you’re away. I think of you
being hurt and in pain, and I want to crush the person who hurt you, then hug you. The thought of you not being in my life makes me want to follow you to the afterlife. I’ve named our babies. I’m so utterly and totally in love with you, it fills my soul with love and dread.

  Jesus.

  That’s exactly how I feel.

  I rush to get to work to see her lovely face. Her smile is my oxygen. Just thinking of her engulfs me with warmth. She makes me a better person. Asia makes me want to be a better man. I want to be the man Asia wakes up with every morning and the last face she’ll see every night until we’re one hundred and eleven. The thought of her being with another man makes me want to boil him. If someone deliberately hurt her, I’d be wearing an orange jumpsuit after burying their body. There’s not a moment she isn’t tangled in my head. She is my summer, winter, fall, and spring.

  Asia is the one I want to protect for the rest of my life.

  Jesus. That blindsides me. Do I love her? Am I capable of love? I know in my head the answer to both of those questions is no, but in my heart, I love her. I want to protect little girls that look like her, and boys that look like me.

  One of Asia’s shit songs comes into my head. ‘Gamble Everything For Love’, which makes me smile, which in all probability is more like a sneer.

  Gamble everything for love, indeed.

  This is the part in the book where the hero rides in, apologizes, buries his girl in flowers, and pops the question. She immediately says yes, and they ride off into the sunset.

  Except I’ve been blocked and blanked.

  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried her apartment and been ignored. I got Asia’s bank details from payroll and wired her a shit ton of money for her to use as a deposit on the building for her dresses, letting her know I’m her first investor. But the money was returned in the form of a check the next day.

  I’m lost. I’m so fucking lost, I do the only thing I can think of doing. Calling and begging for help. Something I have never done before in my life, but I will cut off a limb for Asia. I will do anything for the woman I love.

  “I wondered when you’d call,” a smiling voice says.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Asia

  “Are you sure I left something here, and are you sure Jason isn’t here?” I ask Gabriel as I step into the building where I used to work. Where my heart still lays trapped on the thirty-seventh floor, trying to move on but unsure how. Every breath still hurts. Who knew the body could produce a river of tears, or stomachs got in on the heartache and refused to admit food?

  “Yep.” It’s Saturday, and the building is deserted. The elevator arrives, Gabriel is on his phone. “See you in a few. I’m going to find Mostly Harmless Pete and buy him lunch.”

  Now I feel bad. Between looking for a new job and stress sewing, I have barely had the time to make it in to see Pete. It’s been a month since I last saw Jason, but I really have to put myself first and not worry about running into him.

  Easier said than done.

  He’s bombarded me with flowers until every apartment in our block has bunches of blooms spilling from every room. Same with chocolate. I blushed at the lingerie but sent it back, much to Darlene’s horror. She thought it would come in handy when I’m out dating again.

  I’ve cut all contact with Jason. It’s the only way, even though the infuriating man haunts my dreams, day and otherwise.

  I walk out of the elevator and frown when I find four post-it notes on my old desk and three boxes. The haunting lyrics of ‘Someone You Loved’ by Lewis Capaldi nearly brings me to my knees. It’s raw and full of loss and strangely playing from a portable speaker on my desk.

  My eyes drift to the elevator, and Jason pushes off from the doorframe and comes toward me, stopping when I take a step back.

  Startled, I didn’t see Jason in his doorway, shoulders squared, a hard look on his face, dressed in jeans, boots, and a blue T-shirt. “This song could have been written for me, dumb fuck that I am.”

  I stare at the dark circles under his eyes, noting the new lines and ashen skin.

  “Please.” His eyes are pools of anguish. “Start with this one.” He tilts his head toward a box. I open the box to find a cake with lumpy frosting and my name spelled in shaky letters.

  “It took fucking forever.”

  I dip my finger into the frosting, lick said finger, and a wobbly smile forms on my lips.

  He’s watching me intently.

  “Turn the note over.”

  I nod and pick up the note, and my heart wobbles. You slay me. Written in his trademark angry scrawl. The note is beside the Kinder Egg knight and dragon.

  My heart is doing weird things in my chest, and my throat is tight and scratchy.

  I open box two. It’s the compass. I trace my finger across the jagged plastic J initial.

  “I only want to find my way back to you.” He pushes his hands into his pockets, his eyes imploring. “You’re my home, my soul, my compass.”

  Tears mist my vision. My heart does the twisty thing it does when he’s near. I reach for the third box. My head is a jumble of chaotic thoughts and scattered emotions.

  “Actually, I want to open that one.” He opens the lid, and I gasp. It’s the ring. My perfect wedding ring with small colored stones that weave in and out of each other and lace into A and J initials.

  “Marry me again, Asia. Make me the happiest man on the planet. Take my name, have our babies.” He pulls me into a hug so tight I can barely breathe. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ll still love you when you’re seventy-eight, and I’ve gone out and bought you Preparation H for your hemorrhoids. Fuck, I’ll probably even smear it on. I’m miserable without you. I want you, the dog, the kids, I want us.” He looks so nervous, my heart seizes.

  I look into his eyes and droop a little at the love spilling from them. He dazzles me with a smile, and my world is drenched in this man.

  “I love you.” My soul is entwined with his complicated soul.

  “Thank God. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d said no.” He slips the ring on my finger. “I’ve resigned from the board. Gran was the first to congratulate me.” He rests his forehead on mine. “What are the kids’ names?”

  “Jim Bob, Jimbo, Jamie Sue, Jim Humpty, Jiminy Cricket, Slim Jim, JayMay.”

  He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are glossy. “That’s seven variations of James.”

  I look into his tender eyes. “It is.” I twirl a piece of his thick hair. “But what will you do? You love this?”

  “Thought I did until a smart-mouthed woman who didn’t take my crap walked into my office and turned my life around.”

  I smile up at him through tears of joy. “Are you really going to leave all of this behind?”

  “Yep. A friend of mine back in Montana, Walker Hammond, makes vintage spare parts which tie in with me opening a garage. I’ll find old cars destined for the scrapyard and rebuild them.” He kisses my forehead. “Will you make me sack lunches?”

  I huff out a laugh. “Tongue, gizzards, and slugs.” I stare into eyes brimming with love. “So, we’ll be leaving LA?” I hold my breath. We have a lot of things to cover, including where we’ll live.

  “Not if you’re not.” He pulls me close. “You’re my home.”

  Another bit of my heart melts.

  “I’d like to stay here part of the year, get my boutique up and going, especially the online portion.”

  “About that,” he says looking pleased and nervous at the same time. “I know you want to do this on your own, but Darlene and I tracked down the owner of the building where you want to open your shop.” He tugs his hand through his hair. “Long story short, you now own the building.”

  He holds up his phone and my hand goes to my mouth when I see Darlene outside a shop with Couture by Asia Brown in a gorgeous italic font. He swipes his finger across the screen and I bite back tears as picture after picture shows my apartment family
sawing, painting, adding antique mannequins, a crystal chandelier, and gilt mirrors.

  “How did you know?” I whisper, emotions clogging my throat.

  “I studied your design book.” Another pull of the hand through his hair. “I now know more than I need to about fabric, antique mannequins and fancy French chairs.”

  “It’s perfect. It’s everything. I don’t know what to say.” I swat at him and brush tears from my face. “You purchased the building?” I don’t know if I should kiss him or kill him.

  “It is entirely in your name. This is your business to run.” I hold up a hand, but he cuts me off. “If you object to me buying the building, then you can pay me back.”

  He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “There’s apartments on top. Enough for everyone to shift into secure premises with a functioning elevator.” He reaches out and cups my face. “They’re my family too, Asia, and I want them to be safe.”

  I can only nod because this morning my world was small, dark, and adrift, but now it is big, a rainbow of color and anchored.

  Serious dark eyes pin me. “Would you consider moving to Montana for part of the year where I’ll set up my workshop and keep an eye on my grandmother?”

  I smile, love dripping out of me. “Did we just compromise?”

  “Fuck, we did.” He laughs, pulls his phone from his jeans, and ‘Love on the Brain’ is coming from the speaker.

  I laugh at the song, and Jason shrugs. “Truth,” he says.

  “You never did bang me on the boardroom table.” I trace my fingers over the lines which hug his eyes.

  He drags me down the hall. He looks at me with love and desire dripping from his eyes. He opens the boardroom door. “Come, we have one last urgent board matter to discuss before neither of us steps foot in here again.”

  Epilogue