Fake-dating my ex's boss

***** LILY *****

Four year ago, I made a mistake that cost me my mother. I couldn't face my sister knowing what i had done. Knowing just how good I was at hurting the people who cared for me, so I did the only thing I knew how to. I ran... and hid.

I met Taser in a bar, a week after I had left Myra to deal with the consequences of my actions. He had been so kind, and I was drunk so I spilled on everything; The letter that led to mum's accident, and further back. A secret I couldn't even tell Myra for fear that she would hate me forever.

He listened to me the whole night and stuck by me eversince.

Then a year later, Evie showed up. The beautiful darkhaired, tall and sarcastic marvel. After she talked to me at our first class together, I knew she would be my best friend forever and introduced her to Taser.

She loved everything I loved, except him, who she hated being around.

I guess that changed... or better, it was never true.

Taser and Evie were in a shouting match and I had somehow found my way into a seat by the dressing table.

"You pretended you didn't know each other?" I could still remember their first meeting. My excitement at having my two favorite people come together. Taser's harmless flirting and Evie's disinterest. But they knew each other. And I stood there grinning like a fool.

"Ding ding Lilybud. Do you want a prize for using your brain?" Evie jested, a taunting smirk on her face, even though tears coated her cheeks. "That day after we 'met' I gave Taser a nice little blowjob in your car while we waited for you to get us lunch."

"Evelyn!-"

"Taser has NEVER been yours!" She screeched. "He has always been mine, till you waltzed into our lives with your rich girl tantrum. And stole him from me. And I had to watch you kiss, and touch, and go on and on about him like he was yours!"

"That's enough!" Taser bellowed and grabbed her arm. He whispered sharply to her ear, and whatever he must've said mellowed her out because she turned on her heel and stormed out, face still tear stained.

"This has to be a joke." Some sick prank that they were playing on me. In a minute she would come back through those doors, laughing as she told me that they got me good. All in time for us to retouch our makeup, head down and join the fun. "The party. Fuck." I breathed, resting my head in my hands. My sister was downstairs waiting for us. Waiting to meet my boyfriend.

"We're going to be late. We should head down." Taser groaned behind me. For a split second, I believed I had imagined his words. It was either that or everything else that happened before was a less bloodied version of a final destination vision.

No, that pink nipple was real. The light layer of my best friend's juices on his lips was very real. He was really expecting us to go on like nothing happened.

"Are you crazy?"

"Yes Lily, I am! I'm crazy about you." He knelt in front of my chair, staring up at me with his beautiful blue eyes. His hair had fallen over his eyes like it was prone to do. On an ordinary day, I would run my fingers through it and push it back. All I wanted to do now was pull.

"You know how much I love you, Lily. This thing with Evie, I wanted to stop it, but I felt bad for her, she was so clingy and threatened to kill herself-you know this is what she wants right? She wants to pull us apart. Tonight is everything you've wanted and she's trying to ruin it. Don't let her do that to us. We're stronger than that. " He squeezed my hand supportively and my insides twisted in hurt and disgust.

All these years I let myself be blinded by that night in the bar. Thinking that if he could hear all the deepest darkest parts of me and still want me, then he had to be perfect for me. It never mattered how much of me I had to change to be with him, he had accepted me that night and it was all that mattered to me.

So I let him nag, and throw shaded insults in my way. I let him- I didn't even recognize myself in a mirror. Dark hair, low heels, simple clothes so I wouldn't stand out...

"I lost weight to fit into this." I said to myself in disbelief as I rose. And that would be fine if I did it for myself, but I did it for him!  For him to sit there and try to pin two years of cheating on Evie. Fallen earrings my ass.

"Told you it would be a perfect fit if you lost a couple pounds. Now look at you. You should thank me for buying a smaller size."  And he did it with my money as well. What the hell happened to me? It felt like I was waking up from a fever dream. My dress felt tighter, the fabric rubbing me in all the wrong ways. Suffocating.

I got up as if in a daze, opened the door and stepped into the empty hallway. Everyone was at the party. Probably giving bracelets to their loyal boyfriends who didn't spend four years lying to them.

"I'm sure we'll still be in time for the ceremony." Taser assured, keeping stride with me.  "We'll talk about everything after, I promise. We're in this together."

My anger boiled.

He thought he had me so wrapped around him that I would forgive two fucking years of lies! Of being a complete fool.

Of course he would think that, look at me.

I raised my hand to hair and removed the pins holding it in place, tossing them as I continued to the hall.

Taser played me. Evie played me. His cousin must've been in on this scam too. She tried to stop me from getting to his room.

And he thought I would still be the stupid twat for him. I could play his game. Fool him like he fooled me. Even if it meant being attached to him.

I enter the hall, my eyes immediately falling on the row of girls in the centre of the room, offering or fixing bracelets on the wrists of the guys with them, all wearing silly smiles.  I was supposed to be one of them.

"Lily!" I hear a familiar voice call and turn to find my sister weaving through the crowd to get to me. I see the man next to her and stop, stunned.

The invitation I extended was to my sister and her husband, Pierce. But instead of him, she was with Jace.

Jace the last person I would expect to see here, Jace the asshole douchebag from hell.

"That's Jace Whitmore!" I hear Taser hiss excitedly beside me. I can hear the buzz around me already as they get closer.

Then it hits me. Maybe I don't need to stay with Taser to get my pay back.

What I need is his new boss.

Jace.