SWNOVELS Faking Ms. Right: Chapter 30
After a rough start to the day, I was feeling a lot better. I guess Shepherd had been right, I did need to stay home. I’d spent most of the morning in bed, and Richard had brought me some chicken soup for lunch. I didn’t want to get him sick, so I’d shooed him out of the room right away. I’d taken a long nap this afternoon and woke up feeling refreshed.
I didn’t want to spread my germs around the house, so I stayed in the bedroom. Now that I had some energy again, I was restless. I sat in bed, idly searching Netflix for something to watch, wondering when Shepherd was going to get home.
I settled in with a cooking show. It sounded like someone was home, but I couldn’t tell if it was Shepherd or his dad. I hoped it was Shepherd. He’d texted me throughout the day to check up on me—which was so sweet; I knew how busy he was—but I hadn’t talked to him since this morning. I missed him.
He peeked in the door and I smiled, reaching for the remote to turn off the TV.
“Hey. I’m glad you’re home.”
“How are you feeling?”
“So much better. I’m still coughing but not as much as this morning.”
“Good.” He came in and set down a stack of paperwork. There was something about his body language that bothered me. Why wasn’t he looking me in the eyes?
“How was work?” I asked.
“Busy.”
“Is everything okay?”
Without a word, he went to the stack of paperwork he’d set down and pulled out a folder. He tossed it on the bed. “No.”
The coldness in his voice made my shoulders tense and a knot of worry uncurled in my stomach. I reached for the folder and before my fingers touched it, I realized what it was.
Oh no.
“I was looking in your desk to see if you had hard copies of the sales reports. I found that.”
I flipped it open, then closed again. The donor contract. “I wasn’t going to give this to you.”
“Then why do you have it?”
I took a deep breath. “Annie and Miranda want to have a baby, and they hoped I could get you to be their sperm donor. I told them I’d ask but it’s not like I promised them anything.”
“Well, thank fuck for that,” he snapped. “Although they seemed confident enough to have this contract drafted.”
“They just wanted to be prepared. And I told you, I wasn’t going to give it to you.”
“Then I’ll ask again. Why do you have it?”
“Well, originally I was going to, but I decided I couldn’t. I don’t want them to ask you at all. I felt wrong about it, and I told them so last night.”
He looked away. “So up until last night, you were still planning to go through with it.”
“No, not up until last night. I decided a while ago that I couldn’t. Actually, I had mixed feelings about it from the start, but then you asked me to move in and I thought—”
“You thought you’d do me a favor and get a favor in return.”
I stared at him for a beat. “Shepherd, this was your idea. You asked me to pose as your girlfriend and move in with you. It’s not like I wormed my way into your house.”
“But you had an ulterior motive that you kept from me.”
“That isn’t something you can just ask your boss. Hey, Mr. Calloway, it’s been great working for you, and sure I’ll upend my entire life to help you get rid of your gold-digging harpy of an ex-girlfriend. Oh, and by the way, can you be the sperm donor for my sister’s genetically perfect baby? Thanks, I’ll see you at work in the morning.”
“Right, because I’m just your boss.”
“At first you were. Come on, Shepherd, neither of us knew what was going to happen. I’d worked with you for three years, but I barely knew you. So yes, at first, I thought if I moved in with you, I’d have a good reason for asking you to do this for my sister. But I was never going to lord it over you or try to guilt you into it. And like I said, I decided not to. I told them they have to find a new donor, and they agreed.”
“My dad ended things with Svetlana last night.”
My mouth popped open but the tickle in my throat came back. I turned to the side to cough a few times. “He did?”
“And I told him everything.”
“Is he okay? How did he take it?”
Shepherd still wasn’t looking at me. “He’s fine.”
“Are you sure? That must be a lot to process.”
“I said he’s fine. And now our reason for this,” he said, gesturing between the two of us, “is over.”
I flinched away, like I’d just been slapped. “That’s it? You want me to leave?”
His voice was cold. “Every woman I’ve ever dated has wanted something from me. Every single one. Usually it’s just money.”
“Shepherd, no—”
“You can stay until you’re better, but I won’t be here.”
“Wait. Don’t walk away. Please.”
But he was already out the door. A few seconds later, the front door closed, hard enough that I could hear it all the way back here.
Shock left me motionless for a long moment. What had just happened?
I gathered up the contract. I wanted to burn this stupid thing. I never should have agreed to ask him in the first place. And now he thought…
He thought I’d been using him. He thought I was no better than Svetlana, or any of the other gold-diggers he’d dated.
My shock and hurt were quickly replaced with a hot streak of anger. Is that what he thought of me? That everything I’d done had been to butter him up to get him to agree to donate his sperm? That I would go so far as to sleep with him to get what I wanted?
I pushed the covers aside. There was no way I was staying here. I’d go back to my stuffy, dusty apartment.
The ring on my finger caught my eye, feeling suddenly heavy. I hated this ring. It was too big and flashy and it didn’t mean anything. A stupid, expensive reminder of why I was here.
I pulled it off and tossed it onto the bed.
Sniffing and coughing a few times, I shoved some things in a bag. I’d have to come back for the rest of my stuff. Anger fueled me, but I could feel the crash coming. The tidal wave of emotion that was soon to overtake me.
For now, I clung to anger like a lifeline. Stuffed my clothes in a bag. Hauled dresses out of the closet. Tears stung my eyes as I took a load down to my car, but I swallowed them back. Refused to let them fall.
I packed what I could and before I left, I wrote Richard a note. I wanted him to know I was sorry for lying to him and that I hoped he could forgive me. He was a good man. I hated to think that what I’d done had hurt him.
I put the note on the desk in Richard’s room. And then I left.
By the time I got to my apartment building, I was struggling to hold back the tears. What had I done? My entire life had just blown up in my face.
Nora and Hazel had called it. They knew me too well—knew I’d fall for my boss. And I hadn’t just fallen. I’d tumbled over the side of a cliff. But now I realized there wasn’t anyone at the bottom to catch me.
I’d had some shitty experiences with men. Awful first dates. A couple of relationships that had ended badly. But I’d never been this devastated. Not once.
Because I’d never loved someone like I loved Shepherd.
I shuffled into my apartment and tossed my stuff on the couch. There was more in my car, but I’d get it later. My throat hurt from coughing, but worse was the pain in my chest. It had nothing to do with my lungs, and everything to do with my heart.
It was completely broken, shattered into a million pieces on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.