Fake it for Real E-Book

Jessica F.

• Herausgeber: Jessica F.
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I needed a fake wife with no strings attached.
But I Knocked her up, and now we are having a baby!

I was born rich and loved to be a playboy.
I had the looks, the body, and soon all of my family's wealth.
Everything was going perfect until my father threw a stipulation into his testament.
Fall in love, get married, or I would be out of his will.
After weeks of searching, I remembered beautiful Cecile.
The only woman to ever reject me.
I reached out to her to help me out, and she agreed.
Everything was supposed to be fake until we spent a wild night together.

Now I genuinely want her as my wife, but I need to show her that I can commit to her, and that's going to be a problem.

Keywords: Guaranteed HEA, no cliffhangers, happily ever after. billionaire, bad boy, office romance, steamy romance, contemporary romance, love books, love stories, new adult, alpha male, romance, action, adventure, steamy romance, small-town secrets, hot, alpha hero. free book, free novels, romantic novels, and sexually romantic books.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

FAKE IT FOR REAL

Copyright

Blurb

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Cecile

Finn

Sneak Peek Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Other books in this series!

FAKE IT FOR REAL

A FRIENDS TO LOVERS SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE

ACCIDENTAL LOVE

Jessica F.

©Copyright 2023 by Jessica F. - All rights Reserved

In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format.

Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher.

All rights are reserved.

Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

Blurb

I needed a fake wife with no strings attached.

But I Knocked her up, and now we are having a baby!

I was born rich and loved to be a playboy.

I had the looks, the body, and soon all of my family's wealth.

Everything was going perfect until my father threw a stipulation into his testament. 

Fall in love, get married, or I would be out of his will.

After weeks of searching, I remembered beautiful Cecile.

The only woman to ever reject me.

I reached out to her to help me out, and she agreed.

Everything was supposed to be fake until we spent a wild night together.

Now I genuinely want her as my wife, but I need to show her that I can commit to her, and that's going to be a problem.

Finn

Through the haze of a fading hangover, I felt the presence of someone else in my bed. I knew I was in my bed because the smell of freshly cleaned linens filled my nostrils as I inhaled deeply. It was one of the things I always did upon waking. Smell the sheets, and then try to piece together the events of the night — once I had deciphered if I was home or in someone else’s bed.

Around three nights each week, I would find myself with the same predicament, wondering who slept soundly beside me and where I had ended up after a night of drinking way too much, losing all my inhibitions.

The person beside me stirred then draped one long arm over my side. I always went to sleep facing away from the person I had gone to bed with. It made slipping off the bed and getting the hell out of a stranger’s bedroom much easier. And many times, I’d had to do just that.

Of course, when I woke up in my own home, slipping away was not an option. But I always had my driver waiting for the woman to walk out the front door so that he could drive her home or to wherever she wanted to go.

Moving slowly out from under the slender arm that laid across my side, I got out of bed without making a sound and headed to the bathroom to clean myself up. The mirror was never my friend on mornings like these, so I avoided my reflection at all costs until I had showered, shaved, and done the rest of my business.

An hour later, I emerged from the bathroom looking like myself again — ready to face the world and the young lady who was now sitting up in my bed. I looked at her face and could not recall a thing about her — other than fleeting scenes of a night of sex that didn’t seem that memorable. “Morning. Did you sleep well?”

She ran a hand through her messy dark locks. “I think so. I drank a little too much last night. I don’t normally do things like this. Do you?”

“All the time.” I threw her my signature charming smile to ease my words. “So, let me walk you through the process of one-night stand etiquette. We wake up. We get dressed. We exchange pleasant goodbyes, and we don’t expect a thing from the other party.”

She looked a little taken aback. “Finn, are you sure you want me to just walk away from you after how much we connected last night?”

Rats, she remembers my name — and I’ve got no clue what hers is. Oh well.

“That man you met last night is not the real me. That guy only comes out at night and after a few drinks. I’m actually a total bore most of the time. Do yourself a favor and don’t think too hard about what happened. We had a good time, but now it’s over and might not ever happen again. Or it might happen again if we end up at the same place and we both want the same thing. But that’s highly unlikely — at least, in my case, it is.”

“Okay then.” She pulled the sheet around her and got up, moving about the room, retrieving her clothes that were scattered about, and then going to the bathroom to put them on.

I was glad she wasn’t the kind to try to argue that what we had was special. Mostly because it never was. Not to me, at least.

Waiting patiently, as I had nothing else to get to anyway, I sat down on the settee at the end of the bed and checked out my cell phone. There were some random pictures of us dancing and laughing, and then there were some more decadent pictures of our night in bed.

Holy crap, did I really let her do that to me?

Alcohol makes me do things I wouldn’t normally do if I were sober. But boredom leads me to the stuff more often than I should. I let alcohol take the lead, following along as an alternate personality comes out in small amounts until it takes me over completely — and then the hedonist in me comes out. I do whatever I want to, so long as it doesn’t involve hurting anyone. What had once been a once-a-week habit had turned to something that happened every other night.

I had inherited that from my carefree father. I was his only child, and he’d had me late in his life, though early in my mother’s life. She’d been his twenty-year-old maid, and he’d been in his sixties when the two spent a few nights doing the horizontal bop, as my father called it.

Of course, he’d never married my mother. He’d never married anyone. He preferred freedom over all things. He did take care of me and all I needed, though. I was the one person in the whole world that he’d made a commitment to, and he had stuck by it for my entire thirty-two years of life.

He’d sent me to college at UCLA, where I got a bachelor’s degree in art history. I hadn’t cared what I went to school for since I would never have to work. Richard — that’s what I called my father, as he didn’t like to be labeled in any way, not even in a fatherly way — had chosen my major. He said it would make me more interesting if I knew about art and the history of it all.

I supposed he was right. I was popular at his friends’ parties because they all had expensive art that they knew next to nothing about, and I could tell them all about their outrageous purchases.

People with more money than they could ever spend tend to spend money on things that they believe will add to their fortunes one day. Art was one of those expenditures that anyone worth their salt as a millionaire or billionaire had plenty of.

Looking at the painting I’d scored at the last auction my father and I had attended, I took in the priceless piece of art. Well, there eventually was a price put on it as the auctioneer enticed bidders to start the action at seventy million dollars. And it kept creeping up, several hundred thousand dollars at a time. Two hours later, I told my father that I would love to have that painting for my bedroom. So, he upped the ante by a million dollars, and I went home with an Amedeo Modigliani oil painting that he’d done in nineteen-seventeen, titled Nu couché. The title was French, and it meant nude reclining — and boy was that broad reclining!

A hand landed softly on my shoulder as I admired the work of art that hung on the wall facing my bed. She’d emerged from the bathroom without me detecting her movements, which meant she was accustomed to sneaking around. I didn’t like sneaky people at all. “Did you paint that, Finn?”

“No.” I got up to see her out, texting my driver to be at the front entrance, ready to go. “It’s a rather famous painting done by a rather famous French artist. I won’t bore you with the details.”

“Oh. A French artist, huh? Explains the woman’s hairy armpits. Gross.”

I thought the hair under the French woman’s arms was on the beautiful side. When a woman felt beautiful all on her own, not having to shave every speck of hair from her body, I appreciated that. Not that I’d met any woman who was like the one in the painting. I had the idea those sorts of women no longer existed in today’s world — at least not in the world I inhabited.

Not interested in getting into the history of the painting, I asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she gushed as she leaned in and took my arm, wrapping herself around it. “Are you taking me to breakfast?”

“No. I’ll have my driver take you anywhere you want, though.”

“You don’t want to come with me?”

“No thanks.” As we walked down the stairs, I saw her scanning the entrance.

“I was totally blasted last night. I had no idea you lived in such an amazing home.” She batted her false eyelashes at me. “I had no idea you’ve made so much of yourself, Finn.”

“I didn’t,” I said.

And then I heard my father as he came into the foyer from his office just off it. “I did.” He held out his hand to the woman on my arm as we paused in front of him. “And this young goddess is?”

She giggled. “Oh my gosh, aren’t you handsome.” She held out her hand, and my father took it, kissing the top of it like he did with every woman he met. “And so formal too. My name’s Sidney. Sidney Stone.”

“And I am Finn’s father, Richard Murphy. It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Stone.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Murphy.”

“Mr. Murphy was my father. I am merely Richard.” My father was in his nineties, but he acted like he was still a young pup. I found it funny.

“She’s on her way out,” I interrupted their little exchange, for my father could make that idiotic shit last a lifetime if I let him. “I’m having my driver take her to breakfast.”

“It’s past noon, Finn,” he let me know.

“So, he’ll take her to lunch then.” I moved toward the door, ready to say goodbye to last night’s woman and move on with my life. “Thanks for the good time, Sydney.”

“You too, Finn. Should we exchange phone numbers?”

I shook my head; I wasn’t that type of guy. “Not on the first date. Not that it was a date at all, but more like a hookup. So, not on the first, second, or even third hookup. After that, who knows? Not me. I’ve never had more than three hookups with anyone — ever. So, don’t be offended by anything I say. I say it to all the girls.”

“Have there been many?” she asked with wide eyes.

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Should I be worried about anything?” She ran her hand in a circle over her nether regions. “You know what I’m asking, right?”

“I get tested regularly and am in excellent sexual health, and we used condoms. So, you have nothing to worry about from me.”

“Good.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I guess this is goodbye then. One last kiss?”

I settled for pecking her cheek, as that’s all anyone got from me before we parted ways. “Have a great life.”

“You too.” She looked around as she stepped out the door. “Seems like you’ve already got a great life, though.”

“I know, right? Bye now.” I closed the door before she could say anything else.

When I turned to go and see what the chef could stir up for me to eat, I found my father still standing right there. “Oh, hey.” Patting him on the shoulder, I stepped to the side and tried to walk away.

“Hang on, Finn.” He reached out, grasping my arm. “We need to talk. Come into my office.”

“Richard, I am famished. Can we talk in the kitchen while Egon makes me something to eat?”

“It won’t take long for me to say what I need to say. Then you can get on to the kitchen.” He led the way to his office, and I followed.

Taking the seat on the other side of his desk as Dad took his chair behind it, I asked, “What’s on your mind, Richard?”

“You are on my mind, Finn. I have been taking stock of my life recently and have found that I come up short in certain areas. Areas that you have patterned yourself after your patriarch.”

“Not sure what that means.” I looked up at the enormous chandelier that hung high above his desk. “Do you never worry that one day, this thing will come crashing down while you’re sitting here toiling over whatever work it is that you do, and smash you into bits?”

“I have never worried about that. The men who built this home for me were the finest craftsmen in the entire world. I trust their engineering and laborious work.”

“I wouldn’t sit under anything this big. Can we hurry this up, please?” I had never liked coming into my father’s office. Good things rarely came after being summoned into it.

Nodding, he said, “Since you like to follow so closely in my footsteps, I feel it necessary to counsel you on where a life like mine will lead you. It’s not the best place to be, Finn. It’s lonely. I have never settled down with one woman. And now, I am alone in life, and it’s not the best feeling.”

“You probably could get yourself some company if you wanted.” I saw no reason for him to be alone. He had stopped socializing when he’d entered his eighties. The man never exactly said how old he was, preferring to refer to his age by the decade — the eighties, the nineties, etcetera.

“Carousing around the party scene to find a suitable woman to spend the night with is no longer an option for me, since I grow tired so easily nowadays. And hiring a woman is out of the question.”

“I don’t see why you say that. Terry’s father hired a live-in mistress.”

“Terry’s father is only in his sixties. In other words, son, he is still a sexually functioning man, and I am just the opposite of that. An old person’s body can’t do what a younger person’s body can do.”

“They make pills for that,” I recommended. “If you’re too embarrassed to buy some, I’ll get them for you.”

“That is not what I am looking for in my life anymore. And one day, you will find yourself feeling the same way that I have for years now. Sex is not all there is to life, Finn.”

“Richard!” I could not believe what my father was saying. “Might I remind you of the cardinal rule you told me about after I hit puberty and was locking myself in my bathroom for hours at a time to pleasure myself?”

“I know what I said, but I was wrong. Yes, sex is a natural part of life, and no one should be ashamed of expressing themselves in a sexual manner or accepting sex from women who also find pleasure in it. Especially when that pleasure is found without needing a commitment. That said, there is only a certain window of time for which that is true. If you live life the way I told you was best, then all you have to look forward to are years of being alone. It’s not the best. It’s the worst way ever to live.”

“I happen to love my life.”

“I loved mine. Up until my body said, no more. Now, it would be nice to have a companion to hold hands with. Someone to wake up to each morning instead of an empty pillow. Someone to just talk to and grow old with.”

“So, young women are out for you?” I asked. “Is that what you’re saying? Because we can make a visit to the old folks’ home and find you an old woman who would probably love to get to come live here with you and do all that stuff you said you want now.”

“I don’t want some old woman who I don’t even know. You just aren’t understanding me at all, Finn. It’s time to find a good woman and settle down with her so that you two can begin living your lives together, instead of alone. That way, when the years have aged you both, you will have a bond that can’t be broken.”

“Sounds painful. I’d rather not.”

It’s not as if a leopard can change his spots.

Cecile

Sitting on top of a picnic table, I watched as my class of third graders played with each other during recess. My phone made a soft ding, so I pulled it out from the pocket of my skirt to see who had texted me.

Mary, another third-grade teacher at the school I worked for, sat next to me. “Someone interesting texting you, Cecile?”

“Well, I’d thought he was interesting, but from this text, I’m not thinking that way anymore.” I rolled my eyes, but psyched myself up to tell her everything. “So, the backstory on Pete is that he and I were set up by a mutual friend who thought we’d have a lot in common since I’m a schoolteacher and he’s a college professor. We went out to dinner last Friday night. He took me home and asked if he could come inside. When I declined, he nodded and said he understood. He didn’t call the next day, and I didn’t call him either. I’ve heard nothing from him the entire week, but now that it’s Friday again, he texts.”

“What does the text say?” she asked as she leaned over to see it. “Oh, I see. A booty call, basically. ‘How’d you like to forgo the dating shit and get right to the good stuff,’” she read off my screen before scoffing. “And I suppose that’s the address to where he lives? Did that man really write that he hopes you’ll show up, wearing something sexy for him.”

“Another man who’s after only one thing.” I didn’t bother to reply to the nasty text. “Are there no gentlemen in Los Angeles anymore?”

“You know, I’m not sure if there are any left anywhere. Everyone wants to just play the field and avoid commitment like the plague. The longest I’ve dated a man in the last few years is ten dates before he just stopped calling. I eventually saw him out with someone else.”

“The last guy I dated wanted to spend more time in bed than he did actually talking to me. He would take me out to eat and then ask if I wanted to watch a movie at his place. We’d go back to his, and then he wasted no time getting to the making out, followed by carrying me to his bedroom.”

“It sounds romantic,” Mary said with a gleam in her eyes. “I’ve never been carried to bed by anyone.”

“As romantic as it sounds, there was no romance there at all. I think he carried me so that he wouldn't have to actually ask me if I wanted to have sex with him. He did nothing else romantic for me at all. And he most definitely did not want anything long-term. The last time I saw him was when I took a toothbrush and left it in his bathroom so that I would be able to give my teeth a good scrubbing before leaving his apartment the next morning.”

“You left something of yours behind?” she asked with wide eyes. “Wow. That was a big risk if you didn’t talk to him about it before.”

“I found that out the hard way. He changed his number and moved away only a couple of days after I left him the next morning.”

“That’s a rookie mistake, Cecile.”

“We had gone out each Saturday night for six months. I thought that was more than long enough for me to be able to leave behind a toothbrush. Guess I was wrong.”

“You were probably his Saturday night girl, and he had others for the other nights,” she said knowingly. “That’s how my brother works. He takes Sundays off for family. Other than that, he’s got a different girl for each night of the week, and so far, none of them have found out about what he’s doing.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. “Maybe I want an old school kind of man — the kind that the good Lord no longer makes. Maybe I should start looking for an older men.”

She snarled her lip. “I’m not into old men.”

“I’m not attracted to any. But if I could get to know one, I might like the way he treated me — then the attraction would surely come. I don’t know. Maybe I should just wait for guys around my age to grow up a bit. I’ve just hit my thirty-year mark. Surely, men in their thirties start to grow up and look for something that will last.”

“My brother is thirty-six.”

“Well, that doesn’t bode well for me then, does it?” I couldn’t deal with the dating scene in Los Angeles any longer. “All I know is that I am out of it all. No more games. No more one-night stands. No more being asked if I want to just have sex with someone before they even ask my name. I’m out. No more dating for me. Not for at least a year.”

Shock filled her face. “A year? An entire year? No sex for a year?”

“None.” I knew I had to stop trying to find the right man when he just didn’t exist yet. “I can’t take another man wanting only one thing from me. At this stage of my life, I need more than sex from a partner. There won’t always be sex in a relationship anyway. If all you have with each other is satisfying sex, then that’s just not enough.”

“I would settle for just satisfying sex. I have a hard time finding even that.”

“That’s probably because you have no real connection with the men you’ve been having sex with. Real feelings have to bring on better connections, and better connections have to mean better sex, right. It just has to work that way. And I am ready and willing to wait for that to happen for me. So, no more dating until I actually know the man first. And, of course, I have to like him. I’ve been going out with just about anyone so long as someone thinks I’ll hit it off with the guy. So far, I’ve gone along. But not anymore.”

“You sound like you really mean that, Cecile.”

“I do mean it. I’m so tired of all the fake stuff. I mean, why bother to take me out to dinner if all you want is the sex you think you deserve for buying my dinner?” I really was done. “A year. At least one year. No men.”

“But what if Mr. Right comes along and you ignore him because of your little hiatus from men?”

She had a point. “I won’t ignore all men. If someone catches my attention, then I will see where that goes. But he’s going to have to do a lot of talking, some mental connecting, way before we connect our bodies. But I seriously doubt that will happen just at the moment I’ve finally sworn off men.”

She patted my hand, looking concerned. “I’m just afraid that a year without a man — a year without sex with a man — will change you.”

“I can’t imagine that it will affect me that much. I mean, sex with a stranger or a man who wants nothing from you isn’t any good anyway — at least not for me. And you just proved that for yourself with what you said. You haven’t even had satisfying sex, Mary. We deserve more, and we deserve better. I’m tired of acting as if all I want is sex as well. It’s not true. I want so much more than that.”

“Like a hand to hold as we grow old?” she asked with a nod. “I do want that. I want someone who will hold my hand when I have our babies. I want someone who will bring me chicken noodle soup when I have a cold. I want someone who will be happy just sitting with me on our worn-out sofa, watching television while we eat takeout food.”

“Yes. Now you see what I’m getting at. I want to be happy with someone for many reasons, not just one. Sex is good and all, but it’s not everything. We need more than that. We need someone who we can share everything with. And someone who wants to share everything with us.”

Mary nodded in agreement. “You know, I dated this one guy for a few weeks, and he refused to tell me what his middle name was. When I finally got him to tell me why he wouldn’t, you’ll never believe his reason.”

“What could knowing his middle name possibly do for you, Mary?”

“Well, he thought that if I knew his entire name, then I could sign his name to anything I wanted and ruin him financially. The real kicker was that this guy had nothing. He drove his mother’s car. He lived at his uncle’s house, and he worked the nightshift at Panjo’s Pizzeria.”

“We have certainly found us some real winners, haven’t we, Mary?” I had stories like hers too. “When I was in my early twenties, there was this guy I went out with one time. He refused to let me see where he lived. And he said that it was because he didn’t want me to try to stay with him. He’d had that happen to him too many times, he said. Apparently, women would come and not want to leave. Or so he said. I thought he was crazy.”

“He sounds crazy.”

“I stopped seeing him after he told me that. And then I got really curious and did something so unlike anything I’d ever done before.”

“What did you do?” she asked curiously, a bubble of excited laughter about to escape.

“I stalked him one night.” I put my palm on my face, shaking my head as I laughed. “I borrowed a friend’s car and followed this guy home. And what I found made me sick.”

“What was it?”

“When he pulled into the drive of a nice suburban home, three kids ran out to greet him. They hugged him and said how much they’d missed him while he was away at work. And then a woman came out with open arms and kissed him on the cheek.”

Mary’s jaw dropped. “He was married with children?”

I nodded. I had never quite gotten over that one. Not just married with children, but happily married, with children who adored him. And he’d looked as if he adored them all too. It made me sick. How could he be out on the dating scene when he had this wonderful family waiting for him at home? It made no sense. And what was worse, he’d lied about having to be away for the entire week. He’d worked right here in Los Angeles, with his home less than thirty minutes away. I know because I followed him home from there.

“What an asshole,” Mary said as she snarled her lip. “Did you get out of the car and tell the poor woman what he was doing?”

“No.” I couldn’t have ever done that. “She looked so happy. And there were the children to consider as well. Whatever he was doing, that was on him. I was sure that one day, his wife would figure him out.”

“Do you think that she ever did find out about his secret life?”

“I have no idea. My ideal about love were a bit battered and bruised when I drove away that night. Everyone I tried dating after that guy had their own things too. One after another, bad guy after bad guy.”

“You know what?” she asked. “It sounds like you’re attracted to bad boys.”

“Am not,” I said quickly.

“Well, it sounds like it. Maybe you just like that weird charisma bad boys all seem to have. Or the devilishly good looks that seem to guy with that kind of man. Angels and demons have been known to attract. The demon loves to pretend that he’s good for her. But then he thinks he’s good for everyone. And breaking an angel doesn’t bother a demon one bit. Most times, they actually blame the angel for falling for a man like him in the first place.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” I asked as I laughed. “I am a sucker for hot guys.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I’m going to have to stop going after the looks that turn me on and start looking deeper than that. Maybe talking to men who are a bit more average in the looks department is the first step I should take in finding a good man.”

“If all you’ve been seeing are hot bad boys, that could be your problem.” She smiled. “I know that’s mine. I love those dang rebels. But then I hate them when I get replaced by another girl whose heart they’ll surely break as well. You know, the thing is that every single time, I fall for the looks and charm. Even though none of them have satisfied me in bed, I keep on being pulled in by guys like that, hoping that one day, I’ll find that one man who was made just for me.”

“Well, that’s most likely not going to happen if we keep looking at guys like that. I had this friend when I was in college at UCLA. He was the most notorious bad boy on campus. The first time I saw him, he was hitting on this girl, and she was all infatuated with his looks and charm. The next day, I saw him using the same lines and tactics on another girl. And the day after that, it happened again. So, when our eyes finally did meet, I just shook my head at him and walked on by without saying a word. We ended up being good friends — with absolutely no benefits. I guess that seeing him in action made my alarm bells go off and stopped me from falling for his lines and charm the way the others had.”

She nodded her head. “You knew better already.”

I nodded back. “Exactly. I knew better than to set my sights on Finn Murphy.”

I wonder how he’s doing nowadays.

Finn

It had been a year since I’d seen my friend Cohen Nash. I’d met him on a trip to Austin, Texas, and he was the owner of a resort back in the Lone Star State. I stayed at Whispers Resort and Spa any time I was in the state’s capital. The nightlife was off the hook in that town. Cohen had been on his way out for a night on the town at the same time as me, and he’d offered to show me around.

I’d found my equal in that man. Born to party, we both loved every element of the fast-paced club scene. Austin’s famous Sixth Street proved to be party central, and we’d gladly partaken.

My friend had made some drastic changes in the year that had followed my visit, though. He’d found out that he had a secret daughter and he’d ended up marrying her mother.

If anyone would’ve asked me if that man could ever settle down with one woman, I would’ve said hell no!

Apparently, I just didn’t know Cohen well enough to make that assumption, though. But I wasn’t going to stop being his friend just because he’d gone and put himself in the ranks of the unhappily married.

I saw him sitting at the bar we’d agreed to meet at, a smile on his face. He got up as I approached, holding out his arms. “Finn, my party-partner! So good to see you.”

Sharing a bro-hug, I patted him on the back. “Good to see you too, party-partner. You don’t look nearly as bad as I thought a married man would look. And one with a child, too. I thought you would have dark circles underneath your eyes and wrinkles running across your forehead from all the aggravation you must be suffering from. I’m sure it will all catch up to you soon.”

“Your confidence in me is a bit underwhelming, Finn.” He sat back down at the bar, and I took the seat next to him. “Barkeep, can you bring one of what I’m having to my dear friend here?”

I watched the bartender nod and then I looked at the drink that sat on the bar in front of Cohen. “And what are we having this evening, Cohen?”

He ran his hand down the tall glass, which was rimmed with red salt. “This is a Michelada, with Corona beer and top-shelf Tequila.”

Pretty much anything with liquor got my heart pumping. “Sounds good. So, how have you been?”

“I know you’re expecting me to say that being married is really hard and that it’s not my cup of tea at all. But, let me tell you man, it’s honestly fantastic.”

“Stop bullshitting me.” I took a drink of what the bartender placed in front of me. “Tasty. Thank you.” I slid a hundred-dollar bill across the bar to him. “Keep us happy tonight, and there’s more where that came from.”

“Will do, captain.”

“Gotta tip the bartender right off the bat before the place gets busy, or we’ll be waiting forever later on.” I hated to wait for more drinks, and Cohen used to hate it as well.

“Yeah, I’m not going to go on a bender tonight, Finn. I’ve got an early morning meeting with a real estate guy. I was sent out here by my brothers to scout a location for a new resort we’re thinking of building here in Los Angeles.”

Disappointment stabbed me a bit as my old drinking and carousing buddy seemed to be long gone. “Oh, I see.” I took another drink. “Well, I am going to get shitfaced and find someone pretty to take home with me tonight. Sure you won’t join me? Your wife isn’t around to get mad at you for grabbing a piece of tail from a random stranger. And you know that I won’t tell on you, Cohen.”

With a sigh, he said, “You know, I just don’t want anyone other than Ember. Don’t ask me to explain the sudden change, because I’ll never find the right words. Something just clicked in me when I saw her again. And once that clicked, there was absolutely no going back. She and Maddy are my world. They always will be.”

“Sounds like a small world full of boredom.” I took another drink.

He laughed good-naturedly. “It is anything but boring, Finn. I promise you that each day is full of new experiences that make me feel happier than I ever knew I could be.”

“I’m going to call bullshit on that too, Cohen. Don’t think I don’t remember the smiles we had on our faces the whole time we partied up and down Sixth Street.”