Marrying My Fake Boyfriend

Chapter 3

By the time Sunday came around, Cherrelle was a bundle of nerves. She changed her outfit three times before she managed to settle on the right one. She kept walking into rooms and walking out again when she forgot what she went in for. Her nerves were a wreck.

They needed to get this to work. If anything slipped, if either of them slipped up…Logan Mason would be on them. She would be subjected to a dictatorship, dragged back to the family home, and forced to stay indoors, locked up if necessary until the wedding to Colney.

Cherrelle didn’t completely believe that would happen but she wouldn’t put it past him. The man liked to get his own way in the most extreme of terms.

It was exactly ten-thirty when Brad pulled up outside her apartment just as Cherrelle was stepping out to wait on the sidewalk. He climbed out and walked around to open the passenger door. He was dressed in black trousers and a pressed white shirt open at the neck. Cherrelle had never seen a man more handsome.

Brad gave her a courtly bow. “My lady. Your carriage awaits.”

Cherrelle rolled her eyes and approached the car, climbing in and buckling herself in, laying her bag on her lap. She waited until Brad got behind the wheel before she spoke. “You need to work on that sense of humor of yours.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Normally nothing. But Pa is one of those people who doesn’t appreciate that sort of humor.”

Brad snorted. He turned the engine on and the car pulled away from the sidewalk. “Has he been forgetting his daily injections of a sense of humor?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him laugh or smile when it wasn’t part of an act.”

That sounded incredibly sad. Cherrelle hadn’t realized that until now that she had never seen genuine emotions from her father. He was incredibly restrained and always seemed to be angry.

“Your life sounds like sh*t,” Brad commented.

Cherrelle didn’t say anything until they got on the freeway. It sounded embarrassing that, even with all the money and the lifestyle she should have had, she hadn’t really had a good life at all. She had known her life hadn’t been great but to hear it like that…

She looked out the window, not able to look at Brad, whose hands were driving her insane with the way they controlled the wheel.

“Usually people tell me I should be appreciative that I have money and don’t understand why I’m complaining.”

“I didn’t grow up with much money so I didn’t take things for granted,” Brad said. “But money doesn’t buy love. I learned that the hard way.”

He sounded so bitter that Cherrelle turned to look at him. While his expression was calm and pleasant enough, his knuckles were white on the wheel. Cherrelle realized that she didn’t really know him as all. She gave him her full attention.

“What happened?”

It was a moment before Brad spoke. “My mom always aimed higher than she should have. When my parents divorced, she used her position as a caterer to snag a new husband from the elite classes.” His voice sounded loathing. “She succeeded but ended up with an abusive man who…liked to touch kids.”

Cherrelle’s heart clenched. “Dear God.”

“I kept telling her but she refused to give up the money.” Brad snorted. “She chose money over me. In the end I turned myself in to social services. They allowed me to live with my dad, but all the charges against my stepfather were dropped because he bought someone off.” His mouth twisted in a snarl. “Three months later, I heard she had been killed by her husband. Simply for overspending.”

Cherrelle was speechless for a moment. She knew a lot of things that went on behind mansion walls were unsavory, but this was one of the worst she had ever heard of. She reached out and put her hand over his as it rested on the gear stick. “I’m sorry that happened. Not all rich people are like that.”

“I know. But it gave me a reality check with money and what it can do to people.” He glanced at her. “A bit like Mr. Colney and yourself.”

“You got that right.” Cherrelle sat back and snorted bitterly. “Pa thinks everyone should be like Colney. I think Colney should be sanctioned.”

They drove in silence for a little longer. It wouldn’t be too long before they got to her parents’ home, behind steel gates and acres of land. Something that just spoke of money – practically screamed it – and not much more. They needed a game plan, a plan between them what to say.

“So, what do you need me to know about your family?”

Evidently Brad was of the same mind. Cherrelle knew they would be able to pull this off if he was able to be on the same page.

“Both of them will quiz you about our relationship,” she said. “Pa will not hide the fact he is questioning you and will be very rude and invasive. Ma will be a lot more subtle and appear very nice, but she’s all about image. There’s a snake hidden under there just itching to get out.” Cherrelle swallowed. “I also have a sister, Serena.”

“I thought you were an only child.”

“Technically I am.” Cherrelle bit her lip. “Pa had an affair with a woman who used to clean for us and she got pregnant. To avoid a scandal and the fact the woman was living in conditions unfit for a child, Pa paid her off, so once Serena was born she would immediately become one of the family. Ma is named as her birth mother on the birth certificate. Her biological mother has been banned from ever seeing her daughter, which resulted in her committing suicide a few months after the birth.”

Cherrelle had discovered the truth when the brother of the woman in question had confronted her when she was sixteen, demanding to know why she hadn’t bothered to find her birth mother. After both realizing it was a case of mistaken identity, the brother had told her everything. It had shocked Cherrelle initially, but after it sunk in, she realized she wasn’t really surprised. She had known for years that Emily Mason hadn’t given birth to her, so it wasn’t a stretch.

Even then the story was shocking.

“Dear God,” Brad breathed her words from a while before. “And your mother allowed him to do this?”

“I was born via a surrogate. Pa’s sperm and Ma’s eggs but implanted in another woman. Ma didn’t want to ruin her figure by having a baby even though she wanted children so she could be shown as the perfect mother.” Cherrelle sneered. “And that was the only time she could give viable eggs; they had been trying for ten years before they discovered that her eggs weren’t usable due to an undiscovered cyst in her fallopian tube.” Her mouth curved in a sneer. “She hates the scars they had to make to open her up, but that part of her body she can hide.”

“Can you spell dysfunctional?”

Cherrelle snorted. Open the dictionary and there would be a picture of her family under the word. “Serena is a bi*ch of the highest order. She doesn’t know of her actual parentage and thinks she’s Lady Luck. She also believes men can’t resist her and she’s only eighteen.”

“I thought the age of consent was eighteen.”

“It is.” Cherrelle glanced at him. “So, watch out around her; she’ll try and seduce you. Maybe right in front of me.”

“She does that?” Brad sounded incredulous.