The Fake Date Agreement (Awkward Arrangements Book 1) Read online

  Copyright © 2020 Tanya Gallagher

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations within critical reviews and otherwise as permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  ISBN: 1-7339541-2-9

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7339541-2-9

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  tanyagallagherbooks.com

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Also by Tanya Gallagher

  About the Author

  1

  Greer

  “Today’s the day,” I call, swinging into my kitchen in a pencil skirt and silky blouse as the scent of fresh coffee girds me for battle against another cold November morning.

  My roommate Molly glances up at me from her phone, already half a cup of coffee deep in her morning ritual of caffeinating while preparing for the yoga classes she’ll teach later in the day.

  “Monday?” she guesses, running a hand through her long black hair. “The day you finally show up at work on time?”

  I roll my eyes and snatch a Polaroid of me and my ex from the front of our refrigerator. “The day I dispose of all things Damien Price.” To emphasize my point, I pop the lid of my kitchen trashcan and drop the offending photograph inside. Damien’s blue eyes and handsome smile disappear beneath a banana peel and a half-empty container of raspberry Greek yogurt.

  “Good riddance.” Molly lifts her mug in a toast. “You should have done that two weeks ago.”

  “Cut a girl some slack.” I wrinkle my nose at her. “It was the eve of my thirtieth birthday. I was mourning both the loss of my twenties and my short-lived relationship.”

  Molly shakes her head at me, her beautiful Filipino face skeptical. “You didn’t even seem like you liked Damien that much.”

  I clutch my heart dramatically to offset the fact that her comment stings. “It was still a punch to my ovaries.”

  “Speaking of which, while you’re at it, add this to the stack.” Molly waves an informational flyer about freezing my eggs in my direction, dispensed by my ever-so-thoughtful-but-emotionally-clueless doctor.

  That’s what I get for being responsible and scheduling my annual physical on time.

  I groan. “What is it about turning thirty that makes everyone think your life is suddenly over? Even if you’re totally fine being single—which I am, thank you very much—everyone else has opinions about how you must not be doing okay.”

  “True,” Molly says. “But to most people, you’re staring down a new decade while trying to pretend the number of eligible guys isn’t dwindling like snacks at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.”

  “Ouch.” I tilt my head, and my hair cascades around my shoulders. “Are you with me or against me?”

  “With you,” Molly assures me. She points at a to-go mug on the kitchen counter. “I even got you coffee.”

  “You’re the best.” I grin and stamp a kiss on her cheek. Molly and I have the same love languages—food and coffee—though her daily yoga practice keeps her lithe and toned, while my aversion to breaking a sweat means my curves are a little more generous than hers. Potato, potahto, right?

  I pull on a coat, then gather my coffee mug and my purse as I tell my friend, “Monday’s not going to get the best of Greer Lively.” Then I slip out the door of my Wallingford apartment to walk the half block to my bus stop.

  I love my little corner of Seattle—the small boutiques mixed in with cozy cafes and restaurants, the way I’m close enough to get to just about everything I need in fifteen minutes. But my neighborhood fails to impart its normal vigor, and I’m still thinking about Damien as I reach the bus stop and start pacing the sidewalk.

  I frown into the dark morning and try to think of happier things.

  Puppies.

  Truly excellent movies.

  Donuts.

  It doesn’t work.

  Jesus. It’s not like I even liked Damien that much, but to leave me so blindsided by our breakup?

  Unforgivable.

  Also, massively inconvenient.

  As if it wasn’t bad enough to have him dump me, there’s the possibility that we’ll run into each other while I’m rocking today’s pity-ice-cream-induced pimple, since we both work for the same mid-sized tech company, WanderWell. We met at the salad bar in the cafeteria and bonded over a shared love of croutons. What can I say? If you add croutons to a salad, it’s practically a sandwich, which is the only way a salad’s bearable, in my book.

  The 62 bus arrives at the curb in a shudder of brakes and a puff of exhaust. I swing onto the bus and wedge myself on a seat next to a woman knitting what appears to be a sweater for a Great Dane out of pink chenille yarn. The second the bus rumbles into motion, I feel a prickle of awareness run down my spine.

  I turn and look over my shoulder, trying not to make eye contact with the person directly behind me.

  Oh god, Damien’s staring at me.

  Or, his picture is, anyway.

  In addition to being good-looking and smart, he’s also the literal poster boy for WanderWell.

  Picture-Damien smiles at me from an advertisement plastered on the bus’s back wall. He’s got a row of near-perfect white teeth, but his incisor’s turned ever so slightly in a way I used to think was kind of cute but that now just annoys me.

  I can’t.

  I ride the bus a single stop, edging me imperceptibly closer to work. My two-bedroom apartment is close enough for me to walk to WanderWell’s headquarters, but November in Seattle is usually freezing or damp—or freezing and damp—so most mornings I deal with a bus that smells like pee rather than chill myself to the bone.

 
Not today. I can hoof it.

  At the 45th and Wallingford exit, I duck out of the bus and brace myself against the cold.

  I’ll be late, I text Lachlan Mills. In addition to being one of only two other writers on the WanderWell staff, Locke has the dubious pleasure of staring at me all day, since the front of our desks bump up against each other in our shared open office.

  He’s also excellent at being on time. I should learn from the master.

  Locke’s text comes back a minute later. You’re always late.

  Later than normal. Missed my bus. Sort of. I frown at my phone. Cover for me?

  Always.

  I smile and jam my phone into my pocket. Cold air sneaks down the back of my fitted wool coat, and I pull the collar closer to my chin.

  Maybe I should jog?

  On second thought, I’ll power walk.

  I pick up my pace and weave through the morning crowd, the scent of coffee and fresh rain following me as I go. It takes fifteen minutes for me to reach WanderWell’s brick exterior, and by the time I arrive, the increased blood flow and the promise of caffeine have boosted my mood.

  I smile as I wave hello to the receptionist and badge into the offices. While the WanderWell interior decorators maintained the building’s original facade, they gave the interiors a modern overhaul. Orange paint covers the walls in the main hallway, which could be kind of tacky and overwhelming, but which instead feels vibrant. Plaques and framed newspaper articles crowd the walls, bearing images of our founder, Curt Goldberg, wearing his signature T-shirt and flip-flops. In the picture closest to me, Curt stands next to a bank of sleek computers and casts a lopsided smile at the camera.

  Best in class every one of the six years since WanderWell was founded, and now I get to be part of the legacy.

  I take the elevator to the third floor, then duck into my office neighborhood. Right before I started, Curt discovered research showing that open spaces were better than individual offices for coworker collaboration and creativity, and he decided to conduct an experiment with our floor. He tore down most of the interior walls in our space and transformed it into an open office with rows of desks. Coming from the cramped cubicles of my last job, it was a culture shock, but no matter how loud the room sometimes gets, I don’t regret a single thing. Not when I get to stare at Locke every day.

  This morning he sits in front of his computer, nursing a cup of coffee in a mug that proudly declares, That’s a horrible idea. What time? His gorgeous brown eyes are trained on his screen, and I sneak a glance at his profile, which is lit by a single desk lamp—his olive skin, his hair that’s short enough to stay groomed and neat but long enough to run your hands through, the stubble clinging to his chiseled jaw.

  Gah.

  Just like every time I see him, the world spins a little, and I have to take a deep breath to steady myself.

  We keep the overhead lights in the office off, and despite the darkened room, Locke notices me standing in the doorway. He turns to grin at me, and the corners of his eyes crinkle with warmth.

  Damn.

  Locke’s patented smile hits me in the lady bits every time. Warm and melting, but also sly, like we’re sharing a joke and I’m in on it. We’re always on the same side, which is pretty flipping inconvenient when I’m trying to concentrate on work and his smile keeps running through my thoughts. A million times since we’ve met, my mind has wandered and started to wonder what that mouth would kiss like. If, afterward, he’d smile because of me.

  Right now, Locke’s attention makes my stomach dip in a way that feels dangerously close to butterflies.

  The secret I wouldn’t dare breathe to anyone other than Molly? It would have been nice if things had worked out with Damien—he was hot and available—but in reality, he had a lot to live up to, and he could never quite make me feel the way Locke does. But I’ll go to my grave protecting that truth.

  “She lives,” Locke teases as I shrug out of my coat.

  I roll my eyes. “Of course I live. I texted you.” I glance around the quiet room. “Where is everyone?”

  He shrugs. “Early morning meeting about the launch of the visa renewal program.”

  I nod and drop into my seat. WanderWell runs a series of services that help digital nomads manage the way they work and play, from job boards to housing listings to finance and translation services, and we release new services on a pretty regular basis. Locke got his job back when the company was still a baby by writing to Curt and telling our founder that all his writing sucked. Locke was a freelancer at the time, using WanderWell’s early services to work around Southeast Asia, he said, and as a customer, he saw room for improvement. It was a gamble that paid off, and Locke’s now the senior writer on our team. There are only three of us, but still. I wish I could have half of his confidence.

  I used to create product descriptions for the website of a women’s fashion company and write screenplays in my spare time, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t feel like an imposter for being a creative who landed a great-paying job in the tech sector. But when WanderWell decided to start designing a bot last year and I submitted my resume, Locke convinced Curt that my screenwriting background gave me an ear for dialogue and I’d be the perfect person to bring our bot, Wanda, to life. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and my bank account is happy, so there’s that.

  I wake my computer and smile at Locke. “Well, at least I have plenty of time to caffeinate before everyone else comes back.”

  Locke shakes his head, but his eyes are smiling. “Single-minded, aren’t you?”

  “Always.”

  He nods. “Hey, you see that email from Curt yet?”

  “What email?”

  He grimaces. “You’ll see. Fair warning, you’re not going to like it.”

  My chest tightens. “Why am I not going to like the email?” I turn my attention to my computer, and the offending email headline catches my eye. Fall organization changes. “I—oh.” Ohhhh shit. I glance up quickly and meet Locke’s eye. “We’re re-orged?”

  Ever since I started, the small but mighty writing team has been considered part of the customer success organization, which also includes the customer support team that fields phone calls and helps customers navigate premium services. Change doesn’t have to be bad, but this is all I’ve ever known.

  “Seems like we’re part of the Design team now,” Locke informs me. “These things happen every so often. Part of the company’s shifting priorities, blah, blah, blah.”

  I bring my gaze back to the computer and look closer.

  Damien Price will continue to lead the Design team.

  The air goes out of the room, and I feel lightheaded and spinny. The words blur before my eyes.

  “This can’t be happening,” I whisper. The news snatches the breath from my lungs like a gut punch.

  Locke looks at me in concern. “What’s wrong?”

  I don’t have the words to answer. I was wrong before. So, so wrong. There’s something way worse than getting dumped by a guy without warning on the eve of your thirtieth birthday.

  Like having your ex become your new boss.

  2

  Locke

  “It’s not that bad, Greer. It’s really not bad.” I shoot a worried glance at my friend, who’s got her forehead on the edge of her desk and is taking slow, deep breaths through her nose.

  “It is though.”

  “Why? It’s a re-org, but you’re fine. No one got laid off.” Not that I know of, anyway.

  When Greer lifts her head, she looks almost queasy. “Damien and I had a thing.” She mumbles it low and fast, and it takes a second for the words to sink in.

  I lean back in my chair, reeling. “A thing.” My stomach drops. “Like you dated?”

  “Shh.” She darts a glance around, but we’re alone in the office. “Breaking the company guidelines wasn’t one of my proudest moments. And now…”

  Her groan is pitiful.

  N
ow he’s her boss.

  Fuck.

  Damien fucking Price. With a name like that, he should either star in a romance novel or be the villain in a James Bond film. I never gave the guy much thought before, but I instantly hate him a little.

  Definitely the villain.

  I run a hand over the stubble on my chin and offer Greer what I hope is a smile. I’m wired so tight it probably comes out closer to a grimace. “You know, he doesn’t really strike me as your type.”

  She snorts at my assessment and shoves a strand of hair out of her face. Greer has hair like a shampoo commercial—long, thick blond strands that flow partway down her back in a glossy sheet. It’s gorgeous hair, really, and she knows it. Taking care of it is probably half the reason she’s always running late.

  “He’s—” She sits up straighter in her chair and narrows her blue eyes at me. “Wait, what’s my type?”

  Me.

  I hold back from blurting out the word. I’m not going to deny that there were a few minutes when Greer first started at WanderWell that I thought there was a little bit of something there between us. A hint of flirtation, of interest. After all, she’s got this way of smiling at me like I’m the only one in the room, and when she listens, she really listens. But a few weeks into Greer’s employment, Eden, the tech blogger who rounds out WanderWell’s writing trio, cornered me by the espresso machine and said, “Don’t do it.”