The Pretend Boyfriend (The Pretend Boyfriend #3)(5)
Author: Artemis Hunt

He blinks, trying to clear his head.

The waiter draws up a chair to a table for two in a corner. “Please have a seat, sir. Someone will be with you shortly.”

That’s when Brian sees her. Right across the room, dining with a silver-haired gentleman who has a stack of documents on the table beside his plate.

Red hair. Grey eyes. Flawless complexion.

He freezes.

She looks up and sees him too. The air in the room suddenly turns frigid.

Delilah Faulkner’s face contorts, and before Brian can involuntarily back out of his chair, she points to him, opens her mouth like a banshee, and screams.

He is hurtled backward by the force of her distress. It is as though the air between them has contracted and become a pummeling bag. She is screaming as though he is the Phantom of the Opera, the Antichrist made flesh in this suddenly stunned restaurant of diners.

The waiters rush to Delilah. Her chair is upturned and her dining companion is equally stunned. He looks towards Brian, and does a double take. The diners around their table fling themselves out of their chairs, leaving their half-eaten meals on their plates. It’s literally pandemonium in here.

Brian recovers enough of his senses to back out of the restaurant. His face is ashen and his pulse flutters at his throat like a tiny siren. As soon as he hits the exit, he pushes a twenty at the valet, grabs his car keys, and speeds off, his tires screeching.

If this is the way it’s going, in a month’s time, he will be so screwed.

He drives around for a while, not taking in where he is, and with his appetite completely gone. After a while, he pulls up at the side of a road. His hands are trembling so badly that he can hardly feel them on the wheel. His mind is an endless churn – of flotsam, of dregs from the past, of vignettes from his uncertain future.

Oh God, I’m going to prison.

The reality – a reality he has shelved in the backburner of his brain because it was too painful to think about – slams into him like a screaming train. All this – the vista of gaily decorated stores and people thronging the sidewalks, going about their mostly unriveting lives – is about to be taken away from him. Only a few months ago, he was at the pinnacle of his life. He had a stellar career, a family who cared for him (of sorts), and more women who were willing to throw themselves in his bed that he could count.

The fall is a long, long way down, and the pavement looks extremely painful.

Still shaking, he picks up his cellphone and dials a preprogrammed number. If he scrolls down his dialing list, he knows that it would be recorded that he had dialed this number several times, but never had the courage to see the call through. He had rung off several times when the voice on the other end said ‘Hello?’

It’s something he thought he would never be doing. Someone he thought he would never have to see again . . . after so many years.

This time, he lets it ring.

The line connects.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end says. “Dr. Robertson’s office.”

Brian’s voice comes out strangled. “H-hello? I’d like to make an appointment with Dr. Robertson, please. It’s urgent. I don’t think I’m in very good shape right now. Tell him it’s Brian Morton.” Pause. “Yes, he knows who I am.”

5

The movie was so-so, despite Emma Stone’s best efforts to save it. Sam had not heard about the incident at the chophouse, so she assumes all is well with Delilah.

As this is their first outing together, Sam is on her friendliest behavior – the one she usually puts on when she wants to impress a new client. She’s treading water very carefully. Too friendly, and you’d spook Delilah – the former Adele Jankovic. Too standoffish, and you run the risk of never having her see you again.

It’s almost like a first date, the way she’s going about it.

After the movie, they decide to go to an all-night diner for milkshakes. Only they are not really having milkshakes. Sam is on a diet. She has to watch her weight because she now runs a gym, and it wouldn’t do for a gym owner to resemble something out of a Pillsbury carton.

Delilah is . . . well, slim.

Sam tries to maintain the semblance of being relaxed, though inside – her pulse is going tappity-tap, tappity-tap, as it does every time she isn’t sure she’s going to land a client’s account. Or in this case, it’s only the rest of Brian’s life.

Yeah, try not to let the pressure leak through your smiling teeth.

“So, Samantha, what do you do?” Delilah says.

It’s a casual question. A get-to-know-you question, but to Sam, it feels like an opening salvo being torpedoed right into her chest.

“I’m an accounts exec at Sapphire.” Well, she used to be, before she was so unceremoniously retrenched. “What do you do?”

Funny she should notice it now, but Delilah’s facial skin is as tight as a drum. Definitely surgery.

“I work for Frontier. It’s a new company specializing in pharmaceuticals.”

Yes, I know, Sam thinks.

“Pharmaceuticals? You mean like aspirin and stuff?”

“No, we’re lot more advanced than that.” For a moment, Delilah seems almost eager, and then she reins herself back in. “Well, we do cardiovascular and diabetic drugs and there are some therapies we are trying out for Parkinson’s.”

“That’s so cool.” Sam is being truthful. “So, do you live alone or do you have a boyfriend?”

Yup, she’s definitely aiming for casual.

“I have no boyfriend,” Delilah says lightly. “Broke up with the last one three years ago, and haven’t been with anyone since.”

“No kidding. Someone who looks like you?” Delilah really does look great, even if a bit artificial. But what isn’t artificial anymore? Even artificial flowers look greater than real ones . . . sometimes. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m trying to flatter you, but you really do. I mean it.”

Even she can hear the sincerity in her voice.

Delilah leans forward. “I don’t really like men all that much.”

“Really?” Sam frowns. “You mean you’re a lesbian?”

She’s aware that she too may be giving off lesbianic vibes, the way she’s laying it thick about Delilah’s looks.

Delilah snorts. “No, I’m not a lesbian, even though I’ve experimented. Who hasn’t, right? After all, you never can tell which side of the fence you fall onto . . . or maybe even both.” Her eyes flash a wicked gleam that makes Sam a tad uncomfortable. “I just mean I’m through with men. Their lying, empty promises. I’ve been hurt too many times to let them make the cuts on my wrist anymore.”