Marrying My Fake Boyfriend

Chapter 8

Brad pulled up in Cherrelle’s parking garage and sat for a moment to calm his pounding heart. It was beating so hard it felt like it was thumping in his ears.

He was going to tell her. Tonight. Before the big day. He didn’t care if she decided she couldn’t marry him after all or was scared off by his declaration – he had to tell her. If he didn’t, it was going to eat him up inside and he wouldn’t be able to cope.

Maybe he could persuade Cherrelle that they could have a real relationship, a real wedding, and really become husband and wife instead of doing it as part of a facade. Nothing would please him more than saying Cherrelle was his wife and he was proud of her.

Unable to sit still and remembering that he had a key, Brad climbed out and locked up. He was whistling as he walked across the garage towards the elevator.

“Brad.”

Brad stopped and turned. He groaned. “What are you doing here?”

Serena approached him slowly. She looked uncomfortable, biting her lip and wringing her hands together.

“I’m sorry, Brad. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. Ma just called me.” She took a deep breath. “It’s about Cherrelle.”

“Cherrelle?” Fear gripped Brad’s chest. “Is she okay? Is she hurt?”

“She’s fine.” Serena eyed him nervously. “She…she’s run off with Jason.”

Brad felt like he had been punched in the chest. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. He swallowed. “What?”

“She told Ma that she was tired of playing about with you and wanted a real man.” Serena looked down at the ground. “Jason picked her up from home and they’re jetting off for the Caribbean. She said she’ll send the divorce papers to you as soon as possible.”

Brad felt like the bottom had dropped out of his world. Suddenly, he felt hollow. All thoughts of love went out the window. Now he just felt nothing.

She had been playing with him. And he had fallen for it like a fool.

“She’s left me.”

Serena laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Brad,” she said quietly. “I know you cared about her.”

“You know nothing.” Brad blinked back the tears. “I loved her.”

“I know.”

She tugged at him and Brad blindly allowed her to draw him into a hug. Serena pressed against him and pressed a kiss to his jaw. Brad then became aware of her kissing a path across his jaw, over her cheek, and towards his mouth. She came inches from actually kissing him when Brad realized something was wrong and pushed her away.

“What are you doing?”

Serena blinked, looking confused. “What do you think? I’m consoling you.”

“I’m not that inconsolable that I have to have a pity fu*k.”

Serena snorted. “Screw pity. Just a fu*k. I can go with that.”

She started to reach for him but Brad pushed her hands away and backed out of reach. “No.”

He had had enough of this child. She was bordering on s*xual harassment and that was the last thing he needed right now. He glared at her.

“You are not to come near me again,” he snarled. “If you do, I’m calling the police and having a restraining order put on you.”

Serena blinked. Clearly, she had been expecting anything but a rejection.

“But Brad,” she protested. “She’s not coming back.”

“And that makes a difference to your consolation? Go home, Serena.”

Brad shook his head and walked away, going back to his car. There was no point in staying here if Cherrelle had jetted off to Jamaica or some place in the Caribbean with Jason Colney. He might as well go home.

But even then that might not be enough.

*****

Cherrelle drove home as fast as she could dare, narrowly getting caught by a police car. But she got lucky and managed to get home in thirty-five minutes. Locking up, she hurried across the parking garage. She heard someone calling her name and she turned.

Her smile died away when she saw who it was.

“I have nothing more to say to you,” she said stiffly. “Stop following me or I’m going to call the police.”

“Not after you’ve seen these.” Jason held up a wadded envelope. “He’s been playing you for a fool, Cherrelle.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jarrett. He’s been playing you.”

Cherrelle rolled her eyes. “We’re going down this route now, are we? He is not playing me.”

“Then you’d better check these out.” Jason held the envelope out. “I’ve had a private detective follow Jarrett for a while now. They show Jarrett with a woman that isn’t you.”

Cherrelle stared. But Jason wasn’t smirking. He looked perfectly serious. Maybe this wasn’t a joke after all.

She took the envelope and opened it, taking out half a dozen photographs. They had been taken with a high-quality camera. Cherrelle could only stare at them in amazement as she looked through them.

“What the…?”

They showed Brad and Serena in some kind of embrace. Brad was holding Serena as she planted kisses on him. The way they were holding each other could only be described as intimate.

“He really has been cheating on you with Serena, no matter what he told you.” Jason sighed and shook his head. “I did say he was only after your money.”

“Oh, God.”

Cherrelle felt like the world was cracking. The life she had been imagining for herself and Brad was being ripped away from her. Brad hadn’t asked for her money but he had lied. He had been having an affair with Serena. The show Serena had put on had weakened him and now they were getting caught in romantic clinches.

Then something clicked in her mind. Why would Jason have hired a private detective to follow Brad? What did he hope to achieve following Brad? Then she looked closer at the pictures.

“Hang on, these were taken outside my apartment. And Brad was wearing those clothes when he left this morning.”

The pieces began to fall together. Brad wasn’t in an embrace with Serena – she was plastering herself all over him again. Just like at the rehearsal dinner. Was she in on this as well? Cherrelle wouldn’t put it past her.

She looked up at Jason, realization dawning.

“You set him up, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jason’s expression hadn’t changed, but Cherrelle had learned to read him very well. His hands tightened together when he was lying. And there was a glint in his eyes that was very smug. Big giveaways.

“You’ve wanted to split us up from the beginning because you can’t get it into your head that I’m with someone else. Someone who is a better man,” Cherrelle snarled. “The debacle at the rehearsal dinner with Pa and Serena didn’t work, so you’re trying a different tactic. I bet you got Serena to tell Brad that I’ve run off with you as well. There wouldn’t be any reason otherwise for him to be holding her.”

“Or maybe he’s shacked up with Serena at his apartment by now,” Jason added.

“I don’t think so.” Cherrelle was shaking with anger. This had gone too far. She had never known so much high school vengeance to get what he could never have. She jabbed a finger at him. “You set him up, thinking I’d believe he’d cheated. If I hadn’t witnessed Serena’s attempts to seduce him, I might’ve gone along with your thinking. Then what would you have done. Say the wedding tomorrow can go ahead but with a different groom?”

Jason shrugged, a slight smile on his mouth. “That was the idea.”

Cherrelle felt the urge to do something irrational and she reacted. She punched Jason in the face, catching him right on the nose. Jason screamed as his nose exploded and he collapsed to the ground, clutching at his face. Blood dripped through his fingers onto the tarmac. Cherrelle stood over him, glaring at him.

“I’m going to do what I should’ve done at the start when you began acting the sh*t. I’m calling the police. I think I’ve got enough cause.” She turned away, giving him a sharp kick in the stomach as she walked towards her car. “Now get away from my home.”

She needed to get out of there before the cops came or she would be getting arrested for murder. That’s what would happen if she stayed in Jason’s presence much longer. And she had more important things to worry about.

Like convincing Brad that they had been played.