Seven Day Wife (Fake Marriage Office Romance)

by Mia Faye

  “Did you make this?” I asked Emma, and she nodded with a broad grin. “I guess we just discovered another of your many talents. This is wonderful.”

  “Vee helped me,” Emma said. “She showed me how, and I followed what she was doing exactly, and she even let me work the oven.”

  “This is all wonderful, sweetie. But we need to talk about what happened today, okay?”

  And now I was going to have to be the bad cop. I hated having to. The beauty of co-parenting with someone like Vicki was that she always ended up being the bad cop, and all I had to do when I got time alone with Emma was be a little bit nicer, a little more attentive, and a lot more indulgent.

  I had rarely had cause to scoldEmma. It was something I tried very hard not to do. But here we were. Reluctance aside, I needed her to understand that she had done something wrong. I didn’t even want to think about what Vicki was going to say. It was frankly shocking that she hadn’t called me yet. But I had no doubt she was going to. All because of Yvette.

  “Actually, Cam,” Yvette said, and she gave me a significant look. “Can I speak to you real quick in the bedroom before you do that?”She didn’t give me a chance to respond; she turned and walked away, expecting me to follow her. I shook my head in disbelief.

  “You sit here and eat your pie, okay?” I said to Emma. “It’s way past your bedtime, and tomorrow is a school day. Eat, and we’ll talk when I get back.”I leaned down and gave her a light peck on the forehead. She was pouting, clearly a bit disappointed that the lecture had been postponed, not canceled.

  Yvette was seated on the bed when I walked into the bedroom. It was almost sexy, and it came pretty close to stirring up a different emotion in me than the one I was going for.“What the hell, Yvette?” I asked her.

  She held her hands up as if begging me to be calm.“Hear me out, Cam. Please.”

  I pursed my lips and crossed my hands, leaning against the wall farthest from her.

  “First of all, that girl is adorable as hell. You know this.”

  True. I couldn’t argue that.

  “She got me with the eyes. I swear. I was just about to tell her I was taking her home, and then she hit me with those gorgeous orbs, and I found myself nodding and changing the subject. It’s very sneaky, actually.”

  I couldn’t argue with that either. I had been on the receiving end of Emma’s charm far too often not to know how potent it was.

  “But. I know it’s not my place, and I’m really not trying to meddle in your personal affairs. But she was miserable. She clearly didn’t want to go back. I felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me, something that had happened to make her run away, and I didn’t want to just send her off without finding out what it was. So, I thought, you know, that you would have a better chance of getting it out of her than me. And that it would be better for everyone involved if we waited for you, and then, once we got to the bottom of things, you could take her home yourself.”

  She stopped just short of saying it, but I heard it in her voice. She didn’t want to deal with Vicki again. Considering what had happened the last time they were in the same room, it really wasn’t surprising. And I should have thought of that before asking her to drop Emma home.

  Her argument wasn’t unreasonable, either. There was just one slight problem.“Vicki,” I said. “She’s going to freak out.”I pulled my phone out, still surprised that she hadn’t called me.

  “Speaking of which,” Yvette said, and now her tone was almost conspiratorial. “I had a thought. I probably shouldn’t be thinking about this kind of thing, but doesn’t this help your case against Vicki? The fact that Emma ran away? It can’t look good for her.”

  I stared at her for a long time. It hadn’t even occurred to me. I had been too busy, too worried about Emma. She wasn’t wrong. Damn it; she hadn’t been wrong yet. Vicki was always ragging on me about forgetting to pick Emma up that one time. This would even things up quite nicely.

  “So, as you can see, my decision to let Emma stay wasn’t just a whim.”

  I nodded slowly. “And you decided to destroy my kitchen to validate your decision?”

  “Oh, that’s your daughter’s work. We had a little food fight, and she was a bit too fast for me. Kept making me miss. She’s quite something, Emma. I have to admit.”

  That brought a smile to my face. Reluctantly. “You two got along pretty well it seems,” I said.

  “We’re best friends for life.”

  “Thanks for looking after her,” I said after a while. “Really. I know she can be a handful…”

  “Nonsense. Emma is nothing short of delightful.”

  I smiled again, and the anger seemed to have all dissipated. “And I get why you let her stay. You’re right. Maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye. I’ll go talk to her, see if she’ll confide in me.”

  “Okay.”

  I got to the door and turned back.“I feel like she would want her best friend there. You know, for moral support.”

  “Right,” Yvette said. And she sprang up and walked out of the room with me.

  Vicki called some time later as expected. What I didn’t expect was how calm she sounded. There was none of the swearing or insult-throwing I had been bracing for. She simply wanted to know if Emma was okay, and when I told her she would be spending the night and going straight to school in the morning, she didn’t even put up a fight. It was as uncharacteristic as it was unexpected. Vicki told me she would bring a change of clothes for Emma in the morning, and then she hung up.

  It was her attitude, more than anything else she said, that set the alarm bells off in my head. For as long as I had known Vicki, I had never seen her let anything go just like that. If she was letting me have Emma without so much as a word of protest, then it meant something was up.

  It took some coaxing, but I eventually managed to get it out of Emma.

  She wasn’t very sure about it, and she was clearly reluctant to be ‘snitching.’ But according to Emma, Mike and Vicki had had a huge fight the previous day. Huge as in epic, and loud enough that they woke Emma, who had been asleep. She couldn’t make out the words, of course. But she heard the anger in their voices and the biting tones. And, when her mom dropped her off to school in the morning, Emma thought her eyes were slightly bloodshot.

  She had dreaded going back home all day. She didn’t know what was happening, what would happen. She didn’t want to listen to the low rumble of them arguing through the walls. And a tiny part of her was scared for her mom. So, as soon as she was done with school, she instructed her mom’s driver to take her to my place instead of the music teacher’s. And she told him to deliver a message to Vicki that she had gone to her dad’s and that she was fine.

  It broke my heart because it brought home the fact that despite my intentions, and Vicki’s best efforts, Emma was still experiencing the effects of a broken home. The only thing that made our arrangement worth it was the knowledge that Emma was better off growing up away from toxic parents, which Vicki and I would undoubtedly be together. It was a shame that she was dealing with that anyway.

  I imagined Emma had idealized Mike as a bit of a father figure. Clearly, they had been pretty close, and that fight had brought home to her the possibility that he would be leaving and had probably been too much for her.

  I understood how she was feeling, even if she didn’t know it herself. And I was deeply grateful to Yvette for letting Emma stay until we figured things out.

  Emma fell asleep while we were talking. She must have been very tired, and she had gone well past her bedtime. I lifted her from the couch slowly and carried her to the guest bedroom, which Yvette and I had thankfully cleaned when we were preparing to live as husband and wife. I lay her down and tucked her in. This was it, I thought. This was the moment I was missing every night; this and many more. And just like that, my resolve to get her back strengthened. No matter what it took, I was going to get my daughter back.

  Yvette was on the bed once
more. But this time, she was in her nightgown, and when she held out her hands, it was an invitation. I grinned at the contrast. I stepped out of my pants and pulled my shirt off, then I walked over to her and fell into her arms.

  Her body felt warm and soft. Her arms felt so natural around me, and her torso lined up perfectly against mine. I could get used to this, I thought.

  “That was… interesting,” she whispered, her lips inches from my ear.

  “I thought so too,” I said. “You parented the shit out of her if I say so myself.”

  “You weren’t too bad yourself,” Yvette said. I felt her smile, heard it in her voice. I was too comfortable to even lift my head.

  “This has been quite the day,” I commented.

  “It really has,” she agreed. “It was only a few hours ago I was sure I was getting fired.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “Why?”

  “Um, I was only caught sleeping with my boss. By his boss. Or did you forget?”

  “Meredith wouldn’t have fired you for that. Sending out a manuscript with grammatical errors? Instant dismissal. But she wouldn’t bat her eyes over a little office romance.”

  “That must be why you were so calm when she walked in.”

  “I was caught off-guard; I won’t lie. But I didn’t think you were in trouble, or at least not your job.”

  “Funny story. She actually offered me a promotion.”

  “No way, really?”I lifted my head from the halo of her hair so I could look at her face.

  “Yeah. She offered me your job.”

  I laughed. “Very slick, woman. Charming your way into my pants and then stealing my job.”

  “I did no such thing. It’s not my fault you can’t keep your hands off me.”

  “I could say the same thing about you,” I said.

  We stared at each other, then burst out laughing at the same time.

  “Congratulations, though,” I told her. “I knew Meredith would be looking for someone to fill my position once I moved up, but I didn’t think she’d be so bold.”

  Yvette started to protest, but I silenced her with a finger to the lips. I felt a gentle stirring in my pants.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I continued. “I’m not saying you’re not qualified for the job. Or that you don’t deserve it. I think you’d kill it, just like you’ve been doing. I meant that there are a lot of old vultures who would have expected the job to drop into their laps, and I’m glad Meredith skipped right past all of them.”

  “I don’t even know if I want the job, to be honest,” Yvette said. “I’m supposed to be sleeping on it.”

  “I can help you decide,” I commented. I freed my hand from beneath her and reached for the hem of her nightgown, slipping past the soft fabric and caressing the impossibly soft flesh of her thighs. Yvette closed her eyes and moaned lightly.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I’m listening…”

  Chapter 23

  Cameron

  My old man once told me that you never really know you’re married until you can read each other’s minds; when the two of you are so in sync that you don’t need to speak to each other. It made no sense then because I knew my mom well enough to know she couldn’t go more than a few minutes without speaking.

  This morning, though, his words came ringing back in my ears, and it was quite jarring.

  I don’t remember falling asleep the night before. I woke up to a sharp sensation in my left arm, and when I blinked my eyes open, I realized I had fallen asleep holding Yvette, and she had slept on my arm the whole night. The pins and needles sensation crawled all over my left arm when I finally extricated it from beneath her, and it wouldn’t function properly for at least an hour after.

  It took me a minute to get my bearings, and then I remembered we had to get Emma ready for school, and I swung into action. I shook Yvette awake, and we staggered into the shower. I was still groggy, and I ended up turning the wrong shower knob so that instead of hot water, the jets that hit us were ice cold.

  It was the perfect wake-up call. And, it turned out, the most effective way to keep our shower short. We got dressed fast and rushed to the kitchen. Yvette made pancakes while I prepared the coffee and set the table. Just as I was preparing to go wake Emma up, the doorbell rang, and I knew it was Vicki.

  Her eyes did look redder than usual, and her whole demeanor was different, albeit in a subtle way. Her posture wasn’t as rigid and upright, and her voice was ever-so-slightly shaky.

  I moved to step aside and let her in, but she shook her head. She held out a small bag, and I took it. I watched her eyes travel past me, over my shoulder, and rest on Yvette, who was scurrying around looking for something. Her lip curled, and for a second, she looked like her old self.

  I was so tempted to ask about her and Mike, but I held my tongue. No need to get Emma in trouble.

  “We just made breakfast,” I said. It was a half invitation, an act. I wasn’t really asking, and I knew she would never say yes anyway. Indeed, she shook her head and turned to leave.

  “Emma needs to be in school in the next hour,” she said as she walked away.

  Yvette and I worked perfectly together, like a team of synchronized swimmers. Or seasoned parents. Shower, breakfast, dressing; we did it all without saying a word to each other. Emma was still groggy, so she wasn’t as conversational as usual. Yvette and I kept looking at each other over the table, and then at Emma.

  I knew exactly what she was thinking because I was thinking about it too. We were crushing this parenting thing. We were excellent together; we always had been. And then I remembered my dad’s words, and I shook my head to dislodge the fantasy.

  Surely, there wasn’t a reason for this charade anymore? The breakup with Mike meant that Vicki would be too busy to deal with us. And even if she wanted to keep up the investigation, I now had a rock I could throw at her glasshouse: Emma running away. I would have to ask Gabriel, but I was fairly sure we were in the clear.

  Which only left one thing: Yvette. My fake wife, Yvette.

  She had performed admirably in the job. She had actually done more than I expected of her, more than I would have asked. Granted, it was ultimately a business transaction. But I had pulled her completely from her life, asked her to go along with a plan that was objectively mad and, I admit, legally questionable, and she hadn’t so much as groaned in protest. I had no idea how to even begin to thank her.No doubt she would be happy to learn she could go back to her own place, and that we wouldn’t have to keep playing husband and wife.

  I had no problem admitting that it had been a lot of fun. Somewhere along the line, I had gotten lost in the performance, and things had started to feel a bit too real. Like walking into the house to the smell of pie and the sight of my daughter running up to me. Or waking up tangled in her legs, wrapped completely in her scent, the faint memory of our lovemaking playing in my mind.

  It had been better than I could have hoped. But I knew I needed to pull the plug soon.

  We dropped Emma off and promised her she could come over whenever she wanted, but she would have to speak to her mum first. Then, with the panicked realization that we were running late ourselves, we got back in the car and headed to work.

  “Do you think this will look weird?” Yvette asked me after some time.

  “What’s that?”

  “This. Us. Driving in together.”I could tell she had been thinking the same thing I was. And she clearly wanted us to start severing the ties we had created to each other.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I could drop you off a few blocks away, and you can walk in on your own.”

  “Where do you usually park?”

  “Basement.”

  “There won’t be many people in the basement?”

  “Only one way to find out, I guess.”

  I wondered why she was suddenly so reluctant to be seen with me, something that had never happened before. Before, we had even been flirting openly. And then it hit me; she
was thinking about our little incident in my office from the day before. She was worried that word had gotten around, and knowing how quickly gossip traveled, she would be right in the middle of the banter. Possibly, she was worried about how it would look if she was seen walking in with me, and then a week later being promoted to my old job. Or maybe she just didn’t want people talking, as the sight of us together was bound to get them doing. There was so much to it, and I was suddenly sorry for how complicated I had made her life.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I pulled into the basement.

  “Huh?”

  “I realize now what you meant when you told me you didn’t want to complicate things at work. I disregarded it, and now everything is complicated. I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Yvette said. “Besides, I’m not an innocent victim. As you said, I’ve had some difficulty keeping my hands off you myself.”

  I grinned as I pulled the handbrake up and switched the engine off. I turned around in my seat so I was facing Yvette directly. We looked at each other, the heat and tension growing between us, and I wanted to kiss her so badly it was almost physically painful.

  “I think I should head up first,” she said, breaking the tension. “And then you can come in later.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  Married, I thought as I watched her swing her long shapely legs out of the car and walk away.

  My first thought when I walked into the office was that I was in the wrong place. It seemed deserted. Granted, it was only eight, and most people wouldn’t be arriving for the next half-hour or so. But even with that, the office was still strangely empty. I scanned the first few offices as I made my way to mine, rapping on doors and peeking inside. There was no one in the offices I checked.

  I started to get concerned when I got to the break room. There was always someone in the breakroom. Except for this morning, apparently.

  I dropped my things in my office and made my way to Yvette’s. I knocked, waited, then swung it open and stuck my head inside. Yvette wasn’t in her office either. I frowned and pulled out my phone. Whatever was going on, it was very unusual.