His Pretend Girl
Authors: Sofia Grey
His Pretend Girl
An Emerald City Novella
Sofia Grey
This book is a work of fiction.
While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Sofia Grey
All Rights Reserved
Editor: Sotia Lazu
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Acelette Press
A relationship gone bad sent Dorothy running halfway around the world, so the last thing she’s interested in is another boyfriend. But if she were, it would be her colleague, Matthew Bradley. The problem is getting him to notice her.
Her good friend and fellow programmer, Ben, offers to help her grab Matthew’s attention, and she jumps at the chance. When she discovers Ben is keeping secrets about his motivation, and her love life crumbles–again–will she run for home?
If I believed in angels, they’d look like Matthew Bradley. Tall and broad shouldered, eyes that looked like the sea on a stormy day, and the kind of rumpled hair and scruff that screamed I-Just-Had-Great-Sex. Oh yeah, and a killer smile.
He used that smile on me this morning, when he leaned on my desk. “Know that coffee you offered me the other day? Any chance…” He didn’t need to finish the question.
Like the foolish girl I was, I’d already reached for my wallet. “I was just about to go anyway. Tall Americano? Any sugar today?”
“Dotty, you’re a lifesaver. Extra shot, please, and two sugars.” He rubbed his temple with his fingertips.
“Heavy night?” I didn’t point out my name wasn’t Dotty
or
Dolly. Those were the nicknames I let him get away with. With everyone else, I was Dorothy.
“Yeah.” His eyes lit up. “The Accounts Team Christmas Party. 2051 has been a good year.”
I had to ask, even though the answer would shred another little bit of my heart. After all, I was practically one of the boys. “You got lucky? Go on. Who was dumb enough to go home with you this time?”
“Dolly, until you’ve sampled the goods, you cannot comment on the quality.” His grin was wicked. “And it was Angela.” He winked when I gaped at him. “Yep, the new girl.”
“She’s married. Still practically on her honeymoon.”
And I thought she was blissfully happy, but what do I know?
He shrugged. “She was crying in the atrium. I offered her a tissue or three, and it carried on from there.” He made an elaborate show of looking at his watch. “Shit. I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”
It was my cue to leave, and I hastened to the coffee cart outside our office block. I couldn’t get my head around Christmas’s being in the middle of summer. I’d spent all my life in Emerald City, formerly known as Seattle, way up in the Northern Hemisphere, and this brilliant heat seemed weird for the festive season. I queued for the drinks and idly stared at the inflatable Father Christmas tethered to the roof of the cart. Santa on a surfboard, wearing flowered board shorts and wraparound shades. Nope, it was just wrong.
Back home, I’d be admiring the Christmas lights strung along The Sound, so bright you could see them for the length of the railway, the Mag-Line that ran through the city. I normally went to the week-long event, the Stringing Festival, but I’d missed it this year. When I went home for the holiday, it would be finished.
I’d been working on Matthew’s floor since my requested transfer to the New Zealand office of Carver & Hanson, the third largest insurance company in the world. It had been a year of watching him flirt with every woman in the freakin’ building, myself included. An entire year of my providing coffee and bars of dark almond chocolate, and waiting for him to notice me. He worked in Sales, so he had lots of contact with the outside world, while I lurked with the other geeks on the database team.
The only reason our paths had crossed, was that he’d been assigned as one of the guinea pigs to test the software changes we’d been developing for the newest generation of browsing glasses. All the information the wearer needed would be projected on the inside of the lenses, while sensors tracked the eye movements for browsing, and all other input would be done with voice commands. The new tech, though, didn’t interface properly with our back-end systems and we had to bring the code up to speed in a hurry.
I’d spent two weeks sitting by Matthew’s side, with him pointing out things that didn’t work, and me doing my best to fix them. After that, he gravitated toward my desk on an almost daily basis.
I picked up a freshly baked blueberry muffin for him too, and hastened back to the office, slowing down as I came out of the elevator. I didn’t want to look out of breath when I walked up to his desk. Not that he’d have noticed, anyway. He sat back in his chair, phone clamped to his ear, and flashed me the briefest of grins when I put the coffee and muffin on his desk. He gave me a thumbs-up sign, and then returned his full attention to the call. I knew better than to wait for him to finish, so I walked back to my desk, my own coffee in hand.
He was such a flirt, but the sad fact was the days were always brighter when Matthew was around. One of his sexy smiles would put me in a good mood for hours, and bantering with him over the water cooler was frequently the highlight of my week.
I’d become proficient at quieting the nagging little voice inside me, the one that muttered I should be finding a boyfriend. I didn’t want another relationship. Not after the disaster with Scott. I’d moved half way around the world to leave that behind, thank you, and I really didn’t want that level of commitment again. Nope. Occasional flirting suited me just fine. I reminded myself of this, as I slunk back to my own desk and pulled up my daily schedule.
There was an hour before my first meeting, and plenty of time to work through my emails. It took a few minutes, before I realized the guys in my pod were talking about the Accounts Party, and I swiveled round to face them: Ben, Clint, and Jacques.
I could tell Clint was in the middle of describing some girl, from the way he drew her curves in the air with his hands.
I figured I’d join in. “Are you trying to say she was stacked, Clint?”
“Stacked doesn’t even come close. There had to be silicon involved.” The other guys laughed, and I grinned. I’m sure they forgot I was a girl too.
“Don’t tell me you all went to the Accounts Party?” They were rumored to be exclusive.
“Matthew Bradley was giving out invites. Didn’t he…?” Clint sounded unsure of himself.
“Dude.” Ben slapped his arm. “You
asked
him for an invitation. It’s not like he was wandering around giving them out.” He smiled, but it looked forced. “You didn’t miss much, by the sound of it.”
“I was busy last night, anyway.” I lied. I didn’t want to listen to any more gossip about the party, but the chatter hadn’t finished yet. Jacques told Ben and Clint, in glorious detail, about catching Matthew snogging Annalise, even though it was common knowledge they weren’t sleeping together any longer. Who the fuck was Annalise? I didn’t know they’d been an item, let alone had split up. I turned back to my computer, pulled a face at the antiquated flat screen, and sifted through some unread emails, while I pretended I wasn’t listening. I was very good at pretending.
I headed for my meeting early, hoping for a few minutes to myself, but Ben loped after me.
“Shit,” he muttered, a few steps behind.
I turned to see him crouch and pick up loose papers and a rainbow of tiny memory sticks that had spilled from his file.
“You need a better system, Ben. Why don’t you use a tablet like everyone else?” I helped to drag the loose pages together, but my mind was still miles away. Matthew was due in the meeting, and I wanted to look efficient.
“I like the old fashioned ways.” Ben was the most disorganized person I’d ever met. He was also a brilliant developer, who could seek out the most obscure glitches in a page of code. I admired his coding skills every bit as much as I despaired at the state of his desk, and for him to lose all his badly scrawled notes on the floor was normal. He grabbed for the last page at the same time as me, and somehow ended up with his hand closed over mine.
It broke me out of my Matthew-inspired-stupor, and I giggled, right before a smart pair of shoes stepped into view.
“Aww, how sweet.” Of course it was Matthew, grinning down at us. “You look as though you’re going to propose. I didn’t know you two were a couple?”
My cheeks heated, and I snatched my hand free, before scrambling to my feet.
“Dickwad,” muttered Ben, as Matthew walked away. I glanced at Ben. “You really like him, huh?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say. I could feel the blush in my cheeks spreading down my face, and I looked away.
“He’s…uh…fun.” Yeah, that summed him up nicely. I’d crawl through the outer circles of hell before I admitted the truth. I gave Ben my most confident smile, daring him to challenge me.
“Fun.” His eyebrows lifted, disbelief clearly written on his face. “Yeah, whatever.”
I gestured toward the meeting room, further up the corridor, and he nodded. The weird little moment was gone.
****
After an hour of trying to stare at Matthew without either him or Ben noticing, I finally escaped and headed straight for the coffee cart. Ben’s words rang in my head on a continuous loop. Ben had noticed I liked Matthew, and if
he’d
spotted my crush, it had to be blindingly obvious. So why hadn’t Matthew? Maybe he thought of me as one of the boys, like my own team did. For once, it would be nice to be noticed.
My thoughts swirled and darted in random directions. The big Christmas party, the one for all the Wellington employees, was next week. If I wanted to make a real impression on Matthew,
that
would be the place to do it. I was flying back to Emerald City for the holidays, but that wasn’t until a couple days later.
How about if I dressed up? Wore a slinky evening gown instead of my usual black slacks and shirt, put on fuck-me heels instead of flip flops, and got my hair and makeup done beforehand? My heart beat a little faster. Could I do it? The women he dated were always well groomed and elegant. That was why I thought he liked me—I was different from his normal floozies—but maybe
that
was where I was going wrong. I had no idea. I needed a guy’s perspective, but who could I ask?
“Hey.” The familiar voice came from behind me. “You look miles away. You okay?”
Ben
. Standing beside me at the cart. How long had he been there? I watched, dazed, as he dug into a pocket, before holding out his phone to pay for his drink. Unlike most of the programmers I worked with, he had nice hands, with long slender fingers and neat, clean nails. I pulled myself together.
“Yeah, just thinking.” Ben was the closest I had to a male friend. Could I trust him?
He flashed me a smile, and then frowned. “What? Have I got something on my face?”
“No.” Still I stared, uncertain. He already knew I crushed on Matthew. What did I have to lose?
I took a deep breath, tried to calm the butterflies that danced in my stomach, and cast around for the words I needed. “Can I ask you something?” It came out in a jumbled rush, and I forced myself to slow down. “If you have a few minutes.”
“Sure.” He pocketed his phone. “What’s on your mind?”
Come on, Dorothy. If you can’t even ask Ben for help, there’s no way on earth you’ll ever attract Matthew
. “Ben, if a girl was interested in you, how would you know?” I steeled myself for his laughter. It didn’t come.
“In me?” His lips tugged up at the corners. “Someone like who?”
Jesus. Why had I even started this conversation? “Not you, per se, I mean in a general way. Hypothetical.” Damn. I was blushing already. My stupid pale complexion meant I went pink at the slightest thing.
Ben took his coffee, picked up the ignored cup in front of me, and nodded toward a wooden bench. “Should we sit down?”
I followed him and sank onto the seat, taking my drink. I loved that Wellington was still uncrowded, and had space for random parks and benches. Sitting together in the sunshine made the conversation easier.
“In a hypothetical way,” said Ben, “you mean how does a guy know when a chick likes him?”
If I blushed any more, you’d be able to fry eggs on my cheeks. I nodded.
He shrugged. “I like it when a girl talks to me. When we have things in common. If she flirts with me.”
I already talked to Matthew. We both liked going to the movies and eating dark almond chocolate. Maybe it was just my flirtation skills that needed brushing up?
Ben had gone quiet, and I snapped my attention back to him. He slipped off his specs and rubbed his eyes, all the while looking at me. “I don’t think you’re talking about me though.” His voice was strangely flat. “You mean Matthew.”
“I like him, but he doesn’t see me
that
way.” If I was going to humiliate myself, I might as well go the whole hog. “What do I have to do, Ben? How do I make him notice me?”
There was a long moment, during which I wished I’d kept my mouth shut, and Ben just looked at me. Then he leaned back and stretched out his legs. He looked calm and unruffled, and as if I hadn’t just spilled my guts all over the pavement.
“Well…” He paused, took a thoughtful sip of coffee, and gazed into the distance. “There is one thing you could do, but I don’t think you’d like it.”
“Try me.”
His eyes met mine, and I noticed for the first time how blue they were. They’d always been obscured by his specs before. It was a quaint and old-fashioned choice of his, but not everyone liked corrective surgery.
“It’s the Wellington party next week.”
I nodded.
“Are you going?”
I nodded again. I’d turn into a bobble-head at this rate.
“Well, the thing I’ve noticed about Matthew Bradley is that he likes a challenge.”
Huh
?
“He usually goes for chicks that are already taken. Angela, just married. Annalise, gone back to her ex. Siri, engaged. I’ve never seen him go after a
single
chick.”
I blew out a breath as I processed his words. He had to be wrong. That made Matthew sound like a creep. “So in order to get his attention, I need to have a boyfriend first?” My voice rose. Ben
had
to be mistaken. It sounded even more stupid, when I said it out loud. “Like how? Rent-a-date? And if I even
had
a date for the party, how would I tell him that I wasn’t interested? That I was just using him?”
“You use me.”
“
You
?”
He flinched. “Ouch.”
I put my coffee cup on the ground, and bent forward to bury my face in my hands. “
Gah
. I didn’t mean it like that, Ben. I just meant…” You’re too nice to use like that. “I thought you’d already have a date.” I improvised.
“Well, I don’t. The girl I wanted to take is going with someone else. So if I’m free, and you’re free, why don’t we make Matthew Bradley so freakin’ jealous, he can’t resist you?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. Was it possible? I risked peeking at Ben through my fingers. He sprawled there in the sunshine, sipping his drink, gaze on me. “What do you get out of it?” I asked.
“At least three dances on the night, and dinner the night after. To debrief.” He took another sip. “If you’re busy chez Bradley, then dinner on the first night you’re free.”
It sounded too easy. No, it sounded terrifyingly risky. “No strings? You won’t, uh…” I couldn’t find the right words.
“I promise not to expect anything. Apart from three dances and one dinner.” He gave me a faint smile. “I won’t do anything inappropriate.”
Three dances and one dinner. “Deal.”