The Pretend Boyfriend 2 (Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male Erotic Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

have to feel guilty for doing what comes naturally.”
    “I just assumed you’ve been hanging out with Sam. So this Saturday is a chance for us to double date.” He spied Brian’s deadpan look. “OK, to hang out. It’s a chance for us to be together again. Cassie has been saying she’d like to take in a little culture.”
    Brian was going to open his mouth to protest, and then he thought: What the fuck?
    So here they are in a roundabout, pseudo-double dating turn of events. Because it’s the opera and it’s the Galois, they are all dressed to the nines. They are perched on the grand sweeping staircase that leads to the Galois’s plush interior – all red velvet and glorious golden light and liveried ushers and white marble stairways.
    Brian is wearing a tuxedo.
    “You look very, very handsome,” Sam says warmly.
    “Et tu,” he says, lifting the hem of her beaded white shawl. It’s true. She is dressed in a stunning red gown underneath that shawl. Her earlobes are clasped with diamond earrings.
    He tenderly brushes away a tendril of her curly hair from her face.
    “Thank you for the dress . . . and the earrings,” she says shyly.
    “Don’t get too attached to the earrings. They’re on loan from Tiffany’s.” He would have bought them for her, but she would have read all kinds of meaning into his gesture, and it would be easier to just tell her he loaned them for the night.
    In truth, he had bought them. For her, to be precise. Once she’s done with them, they can go back into his safe. He hasn’t figured out if he’s going to gift them for her birthday or some other special ‘friendly’ occasion.
    “So this is a business meeting,” she says, looking around at all the gorgeously dressed patrons, totally clueless about what he’s going to sic onto her.
    “Yeah, you’ll never know who you might meet at these events. I for one am hoping to catch Senator Adair. She can use a new ad campaign for her re-election. Her current one sucks balls.”
    Cassie comes up and grabs Sam’s arm.
    “You look absolutely fabulous,” she says in envy.
    “Thanks to Brian.”
    “Oh.” Cassie eyes him up and down as she would an insect. “Buying gifts now to assuage your guilt?”
    “Guilt isn’t in my vocabulary.” He smirks.
    “User.”
    “Touche.”
    “Now, now, guys,” Sam interrupts, without seeming too concerned. She is used to their public tiffs by now. “This is one of the few evenings we get to spend together, and I’d like to do so without having to blow my referee whistle every two seconds.”
    Brian leans over to Caleb and says in a very loud voice. “That’s why you should have left your girlfriend back in the psych ward with her meds.”
    Several people turn.
    Cassie says to Sam in equally as loud a voice, “Is he still fucking around on you? I hope the penicillin did the trick on clearing up his syphilis.”
    More people turn. They wear amazed and mildly disgusted glances.
    Sam says, “Now, Cassie, Brian is not fucking around on me. We’re not a couple.”
    “Absolutely,” Brian echoes.
    “We’re just hanging out.”
    “We practically have clothes hangers sticking on our backs.”
    Cassie regards Brian with a murderous stare. She says to Sam out of the corner of her mouth, “It’s just that you deserve so much better than this . . . this . . . ”
    “Ah, words fail you to describe me,” Brian remarks. “It must be my considerable charm.”
    “. . . prick,” Cassie finishes. “He doesn’t even have the decency to set you free instead of manipulating your emotions. That way, you can be rid of him and find a nice, decent guy of your own. Right now, he’s just a millstone around your neck.”
    “I’m an independent woman with a mind of my own, and this is not the time and place to be discussing this.” Sam glances meaningfully at the gathering people around them.
    “We’d better be going in,” Caleb says. “What are we watching tonight again?”
    “Aida, you opera