World's Worst Boyfriend: A Romantic Comedy Adventure (Fake It Book 3), Carina Taylor [ebook reader online txt] 📗

work of the stain. Her nails were painted a pale green that reminded me of mint ice cream.

“Again, I’m so incredibly sorry for spilling this all over you.” She kept talking as she pulled out another wipe, trying to salvage my shirt, her hands brushing against my skin as she lifted the hem of my shirt to scrub at a particularly tough spot.

“Uh-huh.” Words weren’t working right now. My brain wasn’t working either. Do you know what happens to your mind when a beautiful woman puts her hands on you? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Your brain simply turns to mush.

“There, that’s better!” she exclaimed as she straightened the hem of my shirt, then ran her fingers over the wet spot that was now miraculously free of a coffee stain. She glanced up and her satisfied smile fell. Her cheeks began to redden, and she took a step back, running a hand over her forehead. “I can’t believe I just did that. I’m so sorry. You don’t even know me, and I’m touching you and all up in your space. I’m so sorry and so embarrassed. Can you please pretend like you never saw me?”

I pretended to think about it. “Hmm, nope. I don’t think I can.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, her long lashes brushing her cheeks. I didn’t think she had a stitch of makeup on, but she was still beautiful. “I’m so sorry. First, I scare you, then bump into you and spill coffee, then—”

“I kind of like the way we met. I mean, it’ll be a great story to tell everyone when we start dating.”

“What?” Her eyes popped open. “Are you asking me out?”

“Well, how else am I going to find out more about this limited-edition wallpaper?”

She smiled and her shoulders relaxed. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot. It’s not every day I get asked out by someone who tried to be my hero.”

Chapter Four

Fletcher

Present time

Thanks to the ongoing investigation, I still couldn’t tell Saidy what I did. We’d been dating for four solid months now, and I was still in the middle of the same investigation.

I hated lying to her—I was a horrible liar—which was why I hated undercover work.

Every time I told a lie, it felt like a rock dropped in the pit of my stomach. The longer I lied, the harder it became.

I still hadn’t been able to introduce her to my family. My dad was a police officer and knew better than to tell anyone, but the rest of the family would blow my cover in two seconds flat. My family was going to love her when they finally met her, though. Heck, my stepmom would be planning the wedding three minutes after laying eyes on her.

But since I’d blown my cover on my last undercover job, I was taking extra precautions with this one.

I had been lucky it wasn’t a serious operation. It turned out the guy was smuggling fireworks, not guns.

That wasn’t the case anymore. Sullivan was the real deal and was neck deep into selling black market goods, cleaning money, and even forging some on the side. Anything that carried a big price tag—he sold it. That was why I had been planted undercover as his new tech solutions guy—to shut down his prolific operation.

Now that we were getting closer to closing in on all of Sullivan’s contacts and partners, I was feeling dangerously impatient. I wanted to tell Saidy the truth. So stinking bad. But she was an even worse liar than me, and I knew Sullivan checked up on all of his employees. If Saidy mentioned me being an undercover cop to anyone else, it could easily get back to Sullivan and it would be the end of our operation and any hope of putting him behind bars.

I couldn’t ask that of her or put that type of pressure on her. She was everything that was good and right in the world, and I was going to protect her from this dark side no matter what.

Unfortunately, I felt like I was shutting her out, more and more. And with things heating up with Sullivan, I was spending more and more time working, which afforded me less time to spend with her.

I knew Saidy was mad at me, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I couldn’t just quit this job. It didn’t work that way. If I gave up on this undercover job, I’d be fired. And then I’d have to do something with myself, like actually start an IT company. Which sounded horrible. I’d been in a phase in high school where I decided I wanted to become a billionaire tech mogul. What wasn’t to love about that idea? I was a quick study on all things computer related and being a billionaire didn’t seem like too much of a hardship.

While that phase had passed, my love and understanding of technology had stayed, making for the perfect cover story when I began investigating Sullivan.

But I’d messed up. I knew I shouldn’t have asked Saidy out when I had. It was the worst possible time to start dating someone with my current work obligations.

I didn’t have time to eat or do my own laundry, much less start a relationship with someone.

But…Saidy wasn’t just some girl to pass the time with. She was the girl. Ever since she’d spilled that coffee on me, I knew she was something special.

I was going to do something to make up for what a lousy boyfriend I’d been lately…

And so, after working the day at Sullivan’s, I’d done a little bit of shopping. Esme, Sullivan’s housekeeper, had come with me.

She was working on renewing her work visa and getting her Oregon driver’s license. Luckily it wouldn’t be too difficult since she had all the proper documentation, but all of the red tape took a long time. In the meantime, she didn’t want to get caught driving without a license and risk deportation, so I’d been driving her home