Lucky This Isn't Real: MacBride Brothers Series St. Patrick's Day Fake Fiance Romance Read online

  Unless he hadn’t answered because he was with a client or something. Even then, though, in the past, he would have called me back when he could have.

  Lately, it seemed that everyone I cared about was ignoring me, and I wasn’t sure what to do about that. I returned my thoughts to my inner realm and had calmed down by the time I reached the elevator.

  Realizing that Kenny hadn’t picked up yet again was certainly sending my mind into a tailspin and making me forgetful. I was more than halfway to the park before I thought to look in my bag. Driven by an unknown force, I rummaged around and discovered that I hadn’t brought my notebook.

  I must have been distracted by Raquel’s rudeness in addition to Kenny ignoring me. No one in my life seemed to want to pay me much attention lately and I guess it was rubbing off in the form of me not being able to focus on anything else.

  I couldn’t write without my notebook, though, so I had to go back to the apartment, but I decided to stop for some caffeine first.

  I had planned for a quick trip in and out, but the barista was clearly new and wasn’t very quick about anything. I identified his accent immediately as Northern Irish, Jamie Dornan being a major crush. I had a thing for Irish men. Nothing turned me on faster than that soft, lilting accent.

  Cute as the barista was, I got a bit frustrated because I was working on a really good story and was anxious to get back to it. I took a deep breath in and slowly let it out, actively trying to slow my heartbeat. Stress never helped anyone.

  I focused on my story and where I was planning to go with it when I got the chance. I was trying to get it clear in my mind to help things go more quickly when I would actually be able to have a pen in my hand.

  Finally, I got my latte along with a lilted apology that sounded so much like Jamie it almost made the wait worthwhile.

  “Thanks,” I said, and hurried to my car, hoping to dash in and out of the house so I could start my writing.

  I was in no way expecting to hear what I did when I got home, though. I thought Raquel had brought a guy over for some afternoon– or, at this point, still morning– delight, and I tried to ignore the creak of mattress springs and grunts of assertion until I realized that those noises were coming from my room.

  Raquel was actually fucking someone in my bed!

  She had some nerve.

  I was used to her bringing men home. She had been screwing regularly since her sophomore year, but usually, she did it in her room and tried to keep things quiet.

  Why the hell was she doing it in my room, though?

  Plucking up my courage, I went in to kick her and her latest lover— she went through them so fast it was entirely impossible to keep track of them— out of my bed.

  But my brain was in no way prepared for what I saw when I opened the door. My once sweet little stepsister was naked and on all fours, biting her lip to keep from screaming. And my boyfriend, who was also naked, towered over her small frame.

  He was railing her from behind, demolishing her like the world was ending.

  They didn’t even look up at me. Clearly, they were in too much of a trance to care who saw them. Choking back a cry, I hurried up to leave.

  I ran outside as fast as I could and stopped when I got to the front lawn. The grass was soft, and the sun was warm, giving me a moment to catch my breath.

  Suddenly it made sense why Raquel was being cold, and Kenny was being distant.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been going on.

  Since she turned eighteen? Or even earlier?

  I had noticed him looking at her as she started to mature but hadn’t thought anything of it, assuming he wasn’t a pervert and never thinking she would betray me like that.

  I was still thinking about this when they both appeared.

  “Maggie!” Kenny called.

  “How could you?” I demanded.

  “I—”

  “I wasn’t talking to you!” I screamed at Kenny, then glared at Raquel, who was smiling in her victory.

  “Because he’s really fuckin’ good,” Raquel gloated.

  It was then that I realized they had known I was there, but they hadn’t cared. They had clearly been doing something so wrong– having sex in my room– that they had wanted me to catch them.

  Apparently, my stepsister had turned into even more of an evil bitch than I’d thought.

  “It’s over,” I said, as sternly as I could, glowering at Kenny.

  Then I looked at Raquel and said, “And don’t ever call me your ‘sister’ again.”

  They both just shrugged, and I told myself to be as done with this whole thing as I could be. They clearly didn’t care about my feelings, so I shouldn’t give any further thought to any of this.

  I knew this would be easier said than done, but I was determined to try.

  First things first, though: I had to find a new place to live ASAP.

  Chapter Three – Maggie

  Six Months Later

  Traffic was hell, which was normal in L.A. on pretty much any day and at pretty much any time, let alone a Tuesday morning. They Might Be Giants spun in the CD player of my car. Old tech for an old band seemed fitting, really, as did the music.

  “Birdhouse in Your Soul” was playing. The song was a mind-blindingly weird one that needed to be heard to be believed. It always cheered me up. Pushing past my sadness and inhibitions, I started singing along with the music.

  I wouldn’t have gone to a therapist under most circumstances. I just needed to find out why I was still so depressed.

  Granted, my life had gone to shit since I found out about Kenny and Raquel. I could only afford a small shoebox apartment, which I shared with my amazing and supportive new friend, Darcy.

  We both worked together now, but we had first met when we were both looking for a new place. After bumping into each other at several viewings and losing them all, we decided it would be easier to share a two-bedroomed place rather than compete for a one-bedroom studio.

  She’d helped me get an assistant’s job at the place where she worked, mostly by telling some well-placed and believable lies about my experience.

  Meeting her was a silver lining in an otherwise dark and meaningless existence in which all of my creative inspiration had vanished.

  I tried to write, particularly the story I had been working on the day I had found out about Kenny and Raquel, but none of it came out right. Blood from a stone was the expression that came to mind when I thought about it.

  Everything I tried to write was just boring and angry. With my inheritance money dwindling and everything in L.A. being crazy expensive, I had to start get serious about it again and get some good, inspired words down on the page soon.

  I still had the freelance writing gigs I did online, but that wasn’t the same. My spark was gone, snuffed under the dark cloud of hurt and betrayal.

  I knew I should just get over it. For crying out loud, it had been six months, but I was no better off. I couldn’t climb over the hump, and I needed some professional help, no matter how embarrassed it made the self-sufficient part of me feel.

  I’d spent way too much time worrying about Raquel and Kenny. Their duplicity made me afraid to trust anyone again.

  I knew it was foolish to let one bad (okay… horrible) experience turn me off to love in general and that it couldn’t happen every time– it was statistically impossible, and I tried to tell myself that my odds for being cheated on had already been cashed in– but it hadn’t been the first time I had been burned, and I was starting to become really wary of people in general.

  I must have been experiencing some kind of deep depression, and I just wanted, needed, to get out of this funk before the dark abyss pulled me in any deeper.

  The professional building that my new therapist’s office was in had a common waiting area, with halls going off to the various offices, which housed those ranging from therapists to dentists to lawyers.

  I wondered if there were ever any mix-ups.
The thought of someone leaning back in a dentist’s chair, pouring their heart out about their problems, made me smile.

  One of the professionals appearing on the listing, Dr. Anderson, was a couples’ therapist. I sure could have used his help with Kenny, I thought. Maybe then he wouldn’t have fucked my little sister.

  The idea still made me feel icky. Not only the betrayal, but also the fact that Kenny had been older than me, nearly thirty-five, and that had felt like a barely acceptable age gap. Granted, Raquel was only a couple years younger than me, but he was old enough to be her dad— if he had had kids when he was seventeen.

  Gross! That meant he was seventeen when she was born.

  “Maggie Sanders,” I announced to the receptionist when I arrived at the check-in desk.

  “You’re a bit early, but we will call you when the therapist is ready for you,” she said. “It’ll be a couple minutes.”

  I was glad to hear that, as it gave me time to run to the bathroom beforehand. On my way back out, I all but ran into the hottest guy I’d ever seen.

  He was walking away from having just checked in at the reception desk, though I couldn’t imagine what he might need help with. It looked from where I stood as if life had been pretty damn good to him, starting with the genes he had inherited at conception.

  He had dirty blond hair with a copper tint and blue eyes that almost knocked me down when they turned my way. His physique was broad and tall, and his muscular arms hinted that he liked lifting weights.

  He took a seat, and then it quickly turned into a not-staring-contest as we both tried to hide the fact that we were looking at each other. Although I wasn’t quite sure what he saw in me. I had big boobs and people always complimented my curves, but I was pretty overweight by Hollywood standards and was hardly the city’s prettiest girl. A 7 at most, in a town known for being full of 10s.

  I guessed if I didn’t live in LaLa Land, I might be considered cute and curvaceous. But here, some considered me to be plain and fat.

  Suddenly, a flurry of bright pink clothing being worn by someone charging in through the front door caught my eye.

  My stomach fell to my toes.

  Hell to the no.

  As the damned fates would have it, Raquel now stood a few feet away from me.

  As did Kenny, who had been trailing along behind her.

  What the fuck are they doing here?

  I did my best to pretend I didn’t see them and hurried over to sit down in the lobby. Mr. Sexy Pants nodded at me as though telling me that he wanted me to sit with him. Not one to defy such a sign, I did so, marveling at the timing.

  The hottest guy I had ever seen was hitting on me six months after I’d sworn off guys altogether. At the same time, my back-stabbing sister and fucking bastard of an ex had turned up to try and ruin my life all over again.

  I tried to deny it, but they had clearly spotted me. I could smell them as they approached. They both stank of Kenny’s drugstore cologne, which had been her idea, no doubt. She could always be pretty tacky.

  “Well, hello, sister dear,” Raquel said, in a way that made me want to slap her.

  “Excuse me, Miss. Who are you here to see?” the receptionist asked brusquely, as if she was already sick of Raquel.

  “Dr. Anderson,” Kenny said, after coughing slightly.

  He looked at me a bit forlornly.

  Why the heck were they there to see the couples’ therapist?

  Were they having trouble already?

  I would be lying if I said that idea didn’t make me smile a bit.

  “For pre-marital counseling. There’s nothing wrong, of course,” Raquel quickly followed up. “Everything’s great, and we can’t wait to get married.”

  She shot a glance my way. “It’s just standard procedure in our church to have all the couples go through counseling before getting married.”

  “What church is that?” I blurted out, “the First Congregation of the Backstabbing Harpies?”

  Under the admittedly clever vitriol, I was hurt. Not just from the fronting— Raquel had always been an atheist and had hardly lived life as some kind of religious person, so this must have been Kenny’s parents’ doing since they were pretty devout— but because they were getting married so quickly.

  “Everything okay, darlin’?” Mr. Sexy Pants asked, no doubt noticing the shade of red I had turned.

  But what I couldn’t help but notice was his soft but deep Irish accent. It drenched my panties right away.

  I glanced in his direction.

  “That’s my scumbag ex and my scumbag stepsister, Raquel,” I whispered. “He cheated on me with her.”

  “Oh.”

  He looked concerned, as if he couldn’t possibly fathom someone cheating on me, which was nice of him.

  “Can we pretend to be deep in conversation?” I asked, feeling desperate.

  “Anything for you,” he said, with a wink that made me want to kiss him right then and there.

  “Thank you,” I said, my cheeks getting redder by the second. “My name’s Maggie.”

  “Gavin,” he whispered and cleared his throat. “I really think it was a mistake, casting fecking DiCaprio as the lead in Gangs of New York.”

  He quickly improvised as if picking up a conversation we had been in the middle of.

  “He did okay, but come on. There are lots of bankable actors with real Irish accents. And having Daniel Day-Lewis play the true blue American, well, it felt like opposite day. But somehow, it worked. Saved almost single-handedly by Liam Neeson.” He grinned. “The less said about Cameron Diaz, the better, though.”

  “Agreed,” I said, as he pretended to be enraptured. “I mean, I get why they cast American actors for most of the roles, but at least they tried to get actual Irish and British people where they could, and most of them didn’t do too badly. I was put off at first by the historical inaccuracies. But then I read the book it was based on and realized that most of the stories were greatly exaggerated from the beginning.”

  “Like how?”

  “Well, for starters, Bill Poole, who Bill the Butcher is based on, is not known to have killed anyone.”

  “Well, blow me down,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Look at you. I’m impressed. I never knew a film buff could be so beautiful. Today is for sure my lucky day.”

  I beamed at the compliment and glanced over at Kenny and Raquel, who both scowled in our direction. I really hoped they would be called in before my appointment. It would be mortifying if they knew I was there for counseling. On the upside, I caught a look from Raquel, and she actually looked like she was jealous because I was with such a hot guy.

  I started to get scared then because I wasn’t ready for a confrontation, but Mr. Sexy Pants remained calm, as if he had seen situations much worse than this and just kept going. He continued talking about the movie as I basked in his beautiful lilt, getting lost in his gorgeous eyes that were as relaxing as lying back and watching clouds float past on a warm summer’s day.

  A girl could get used to this, I thought, before following up with a second thought.

  Well, I shouldn’t.

  I could only be so lucky.

  And so far, I’d only had a string of bad luck, so I wasn’t expecting that to change any time soon, even though I really wished it could.

  Chapter Four – Gavin

  Today was turning into an adventure I hadn’t expected.

  I had just walked into the building to see my immigration lawyer to talk about extending my visa and applying for a Permanent Resident’s card. I wasn’t expecting to see such a beautiful woman the second I walked through the door.

  Curvy in all the right places, with dark hair and dark eyes, she was just the sort of woman who got me hard. She was also friendly and knew about movies, which was always a plus since it saved me from making silly small talk.

  I seriously wanted to head-butt this douche bag of a guy who was staring at her with lost puppy dog eyes. But that could ha
ve gotten me arrested or, at a minimum, deported, and I really didn’t need the headache. Literal or figurative.

  My mind raced with what I would like to do with the gorgeous creature sitting beside me. Maggie looked at least a few years younger than me, so maybe I’d have to break her in, but that would be something I would relish.

  We could start with a bit of oral to get us both warmed up and primed. I imagined her sweet lips working up and down my cock and shuddered a bit. Although not as much as I did when I imagined burying my face between her thighs.

  I wondered if she shaved. I’d heard a lot of American girls did that. Not that the trend was completely lost on Europe, either. I imagined lapping at her smooth, tender pink folds until she moaned and then climaxed all over my face.

  Then, when she was ready, I would ease my cock inside her and fuck her until she screamed with pleasure. After that, if she was up for it, I might persuade her to try anal.

  It seemed too much to hope to that she might be into me, too, since, clearly, she was trying to avoid the assholes a few feet from us. But there was still a possibility that she had come over to talk to me because she was interested.

  “So, are you two together?” Raquel the Revolting, as I’d dubbed her, asked in a supremely bitchy way.

  Most of the girls I knew in Ireland had gotten that tone smacked out of them by their mothers before they got their first training bra.

  I could see my seatmate’s leg shaking, and I decided to help her out by gently laying my hand on her thigh. This show of affection clearly answered Raquel’s question, and hopefully it would get her and her fiancé to bugger off. My gesture had the added benefit of covering up Maggie’s clearly nervous tick.

  “See, Maggie, I knew you’d get over me and move on just fine,” the scumbag guy said, with a scowl on his face.

  He was trying to sound mad, but he was clearly pining after her.

  And who wouldn’t be?

  I couldn’t blame the guy myself.