Accidental Fiancé (Unintentionally Yours #5)

16. Julian

Chapter 16

Julian

“ Y eah. Okay. Great.”

Her words were clipped. Which was how my manhood felt—clipped. I didn’t understand why. This was the perfect solution. Had I said something wrong? “Why are you agreeing but you sound pissed?”

She started cleaning though everything was already clean. “I’m fine, Jules. Staying strictly professional is fine if that’s what you want to do. This sounds like a wonderful plan.”

Why do women say fine when they mean anything but? I was having flashbacks of my marriage, and if she didn’t hold still and listen to me, this conversation would go just as well as that did. “Maggie, put the sponge down. Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You’ve already decided.” She stood before me, sponge poised in her hand. “Lift your forearms for me.”

I did as she asked. She wiped beneath them then quickly spun away. “There’s no need to be snippy.”

“I’m cleaning. Since when is cleaning being snippy? I thought you’d appreciate that your employee is doing their job.”

Fuck . I stood and cleared the distance between us to stand in front of her. But she stepped back, dead coldness in her eyes. That chill made me want to shrivel up and die.

Okay. I clearly had to give her some space. She would soon realize this was the best thing for both of us but she had to figure it out on her own terms. I had never been good at explaining my rationale, but if I left now, she wouldn’t understand why I believed this was the only right way to do this.

“I should have had this arrangement in place before you moved in. That was my bad, and I’m amending it with back pay. But first of all, you’re not an employee.” I snatched the sponge from her hand and threw it into the sink. “You’re a consultant. That’s a completely different tax form.”

Her icy glare didn’t budge.

Okay, bad attempt to diffuse the situation.

“Secondly, the only part of this that is a job is when you pretend to be my fiancée at my mother’s home. The cooking you’ve done here, the cleaning, that’s entirely up to you whether or not you want to continue. I don’t expect it, but I do appreciate it. More than I can say. Maybe I can figure out some kind of bonus for that.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

My head dropped back in frustration. “Maggie, I’m trying to keep things above board here, and you’re making me feel like I did something wrong when I’m literally trying to do the right thing. So how about you tell me what the right thing is, according to you.”

“This is great. I need money and this is a legitimate way for me to earn it. Can’t think of a better arrangement. Done and dusted, right?”

“Then why do you sound and seem so pissed?”

“Because you threw my sponge into the sink, and I was using it.”

I gritted my teeth. “You sounded pissed before I took the sponge.”

“Must be your imagination.”

I stretched my fingers to stop from cursing. “Fine. If that’s how it is?—"

“That’s how it is.” The wrong kind of fire lit her from within, and I hated that I was the one who sparked it.

“Glad we had this talk. I’m going to the gym.”

“Oh, that was all? I thought you wanted to talk about something important,” she spat as she turned to the sink.

I felt two inches tall. I’d hurt her feelings and that was not my intention. “Maggie,” I said as I reached for her shoulder. Her whole body tensed at my touch and not in a good way.

“Just go, Julian. Please.”

I left. It felt like I was being kicked out of my own home but I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to ask her to leave when I was the one who had caused her to be so upset.

As soon as I walked into the gym, Dix read me. “What did you do wrong this time?”

“How the hell do you do that?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It’s a gift. Wanna get changed and then we can talk about it?”

“I’d rather lift about it.”

“That’s the spirit. I’ll meet you here.”

After I changed and rejoined him on the floor, we warmed up with a run on the treadmills where I explained things. “…so really, it’s what’s best for everyone.”

“Julian Black. Brilliant billionaire yet total idiot when it comes to women.”

I hit the stop button on his machine and mine. “How’s that?”

“You gave her an out when she wanted an in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it from her point of view.”

“That’s all I’ve been doing, Dix. She doesn’t want me. She never has. I just made things easier for her.”

“I’m gonna make you give me twenty push-ups every time you say something dumb. As of now you owe me sixty.”

“You are out of your mind if you think?—"

He shook his head. “She doesn’t want you? She never has? You’re making things easier for her? That’s three right there. Three times twenty is sixty. Start now so you can get through them.”

He was not going to let up so I gave in. Screw it. Between reps I said, “She doesn’t. I tried in high school. I kissed her. She blew me off. I’ve never been on her radar, Dix. Not once. Making this into a business thing makes it easier for her when she leaves, so she doesn’t have to feel bad about leaving me and Piper behind.”

“This is my house. We don’t lie in my house, Julian.”

“I’m not lying!” I rolled onto my ass after number sixty.

He sat beside me and we stared at the ocean through the glass wall. “A man who says he’s not lying is either definitely lying, truly not lying, or lying to himself. Only one of those choices makes it a true statement, so there’s a two out of three chance that you’re lying, and half of that means you’re lying to yourself and you don’t even know it, which is just sad and unlike you. You’re more conscientious than that. So the most likely situation is that you’re lying, you know it, and you’re still going to do it because that’s what’s comfortable for you. Am I right?”

“That was too much math and philosophy for me all at once. I needed Maggie to get me through both of those classes back in the day, so…”

He slugged my shoulder. He had one hell of a punch, even when playing around. “Go make up with your girl.”

“She’s not my girl! None of this is real!”

Dix blew out a breath, a considerate expression on his face, while eighties punk rock played on the speakers. Our usual workout music. “I’m a simple man, Julian. I like my steak rare. My wine red and full-bodied. I like to lift heavy. The steak, the wine, the weights, they’re as real as things get. Good steak and good wine, you can’t fake those. The weights weigh the same if you lift them here in California or in Timbuktu. That’s how I like things, and I’d consider myself somewhat of an expert on what’s the genuine article.”

“Your point?”

“You ran into your old crush. Found her in trouble and helped her out. Had a night of passion that turned into a morning of it, then proposed a cockamamie idea to her, which she willingly accepted. You had another passionate night with her, and now, you’re pulling back. Maybe you got scared, maybe you didn’t, but it’s pretty typical for guys to withdraw at the start of things.”

“So what?” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I swear to God if you don’t get to the point soon…”

“What I’m saying is, it might have been on an abbreviated timeline, but all of it sounds fucking real to me.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Falling in love is the simplest thing in the world, Julian. It’s people who make it complicated.”

I frowned so hard it hurt my face. “What?”

“The first time I fell in love it was with a 1973 VW Thing. You know what those are?”

“Some strange-looking old car.”

“Bite your tongue. They are gorgeous. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but still. That convertible had me from the moment I saw her. Falling for her was simple. Love at first sight. I knew I had to have her.” He smoothed his hand over his bare scalp. “Felt the same way about my first girlfriend, too, but she had to go and make it complicated. Eventually, I understood her. Some people like to play hard to get.”

“Maggie’s not like that.”

“I’m not talking about Maggie. Sharon and I dated for two years in college while I was playing ball. Things were great. Until she tried to change me. My point is that people tend to make love complicated when it’s not. But if you insist on making things complicated for yourself, we’ll work it out of you. Time for the stair climber.”

Instead of moving, I laid back. “You’re bringing the stair climber into this because you’re annoyed I won’t go talk to Maggie?”

“Your point?”

“That’s not how training works.”

He snorted a laugh. “You’re gonna tell me how training works now? Should I tell you how the pharmaceutical industry works? Get your ass up, boy. Stair climber or burpees. We’re gonna cook some of that attitude out of you.”

“Stair climber it is.” The grueling march up the fake stairs burned my legs and ass like hell. Even my lungs were smoked in short order. “Feeling cooked.”

“Good. Keep going.”

I smacked the stop button instead. “What is this really about, Dix? Why are you riding me so hard about Maggie?”

“Who else is going to? You’re not going to listen to her for some dumbass reason, and you barely talk to your family. So that leaves me, and it’s my job to kick your ass. Professionally speaking, of course.”

“Yeah, but I…”

“I had you on the treadmill, push-ups, and now this beast. You wanna know why?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Because when your head ain’t in the game, you’re more likely to hurt yourself on the heavy equipment, and Julian, your head is so far up your own ass that you can’t possibly have it in the game.”

“Bullshit.”

“You almost sounded like you believed yourself, that it’s better for her this way.”

“It is.”

He clapped my shoulder. “What you meant to say is that it’s better for you this way.”

“In what world is this better for me?” I asked a question I already knew the answer to. I was stalling for time until I thought of something to distract him with.

“If this is just a transactional relationship, then once it’s over, you don’t have to feel bad about it later. Didn’t you tell me you planned to hire an actress for your family thing?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Why didn’t you go with that original plan? You know it’d be less messy than this. But when opportunity knocked, you went for it with Maggie. So why not hire the actress?”

“Maggie knows me.”

“Maggie knew you.”

“Exactly. That’s why it made sense to go with her. We could make it more believable seeing as we had shared history to reminisce about in front of my family.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Maybe you should have been an actor, man. I could have almost believed that line.”

“Dix.”

“Get over yourself and go get your girl or be complicated and miserable. The choice is up to you. But no more lying in my gym.”

“Since when are you my therapist?”

Another laugh. He pointed at the diploma on the wall. “Since you walked through my door six years ago. Remember?”

“You’re not playing fair. I forgot you’re a therapist.”

He grinned. “Never said I played fair. I play to win.”

“So do I.” I marched off the stair climber past him to the locker room.

“Where are you going?”

“To fix this.”