The Reporter's Fake Fiancé (A Contemporary Interracial Romance): UnReal Marriage, #10

By Tasha Hart

Lana is about to supercharge her career. Except there's one problem… She needs to marry her hated rival to do it!

 

Seriously, it's like Tate Anderson was created by God to be a pain in Lana's luscious backside. Everything about him rubs her the wrong way. They way he's constantly one upping her. Or always there to swoop in whenever she makes a misstep.

 

She'd be perfectly fine ignoring him, but now this Black Queen must marry him!

 

See Tate and Lana are the best reporters in their field. So when their boss needs two of his greatest to pose as a couple and bring down a shady operation, he's got only one place to turn.

 

They don't need to like each other—just pretend to love each other.

 

You'd think something like this would be easy to two seasoned professionals. But never discount what happens when you put opposites in the same vicinity. When Lana and Tate are forced to work together, will they realize that pretending to be in love isn't as hard as it looks? Especially if there's already something there to start?

 

Discover what happens by one-clicking this sensually sweet contemporary romance!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Summerhouse Publishing
• Release date: Mar 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215253403

Book preview

Chapter One

I wake up to my alarm blaring, scaring the shit out of me. Ugggh, I groan. I really don’t want to go to work today. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job—but my coworkers? Not so much. And everyone knows that it’s your coworkers that truly make the job enjoyable or not.

I work as an investigative journalist for a small paper. We mostly tackle fraudulent company cases, some shady small-business practices, and the occasional neighborhood dispute. Nothing too big, but definitely important work. I’ve always been interested in this kind of work and I’d like to say I’m pretty good at it. I was top of my class in high school and college, and I’m one of the lead investigators at the company I work for. Although I would probably be a lot farther along if it weren’t for my rival, Tate.

Tate is a boy I grew up with who always seems to be trying to bring me down. He’s like that little boy sitting behind you in class who’s constantly tugging at your hair and throwing things at the back of your head. No matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish—there’s Tate, trying to pull me back to the bottom. I couldn’t really say when this started, it truly has been like this for as long as I’ve known him.

So why haven’t I put him in his place? Oh, believe me—I’ve tried. He always seems to one-up me. It’s like he gets off on making me miserable. I’ve learned to just ignore him, he’s become like an annoying fly that keeps buzzing at your ears, I just shoo him away.

Tate is one of the reasons I hate going to work sometimes, no matter how much I ignore him. We work in the same department and oftentimes end up fighting over who gets what cases. I suspect my boss likes him more than he likes me because he usually gets the better ones.

My boss, George and I have an odd relationship. We get along just fine most of the time, but I tend to get in trouble a lot at work, and he’s always the one who has to dig me out and discipline me. It’s nothing big, really. I guess I’ve just always been kind of a rebel and tend to try to do things my own way, and George isn’t always too fond of that. I always get my job done though, and he appreciates that.

I finally force myself to roll out of bed and get ready for work. Once I’m dressed, I go to check on my four-year-old son Johnny. Lately he’s been getting in the habit of sleeping in—which would be fine if I didn’t have to be up super early to drop him off at daycare before heading to work. Other than that, I got really lucky with Johnny. He’s growing up to be such a sweet boy, I just hope he always stays this sweet.

To my surprise, Johnny is already awake and dressed in the outfit I had put out for him last night. Which probably means he wants something, but in this moment I don’t care. I’m just happy I don’t have to drag him out of bed today.

Mom, can we have waffles for breakfast today? Ahh here we go.

I’m sorry baby, but we don’t have enough time to make them before we have to leave, I see his pouty face forming, so I quickly do some damage control, "why don’t we make waffles for dinner later with chocolate in them? I’ll even let you mix the batter!"

This seems to satisfy him enough, so we have a quick breakfast and head to daycare. I used to hate taking him to daycare because it made me feel like I was a bad mom, but he’s been going for almost a year now, and he absolutely loves it. On the days he doesn’t go, he actually misses it. Not only that, but he’s made so many friends and social skills from it.

Once I get to work, I head straight to my office to catch up on some paperwork. I’m settling into my normal workday routine when I get an email from George asking me to come see him in his office when I get a moment. ‘Uh-oh,’ I think to myself, ‘what did I do this time.’ Which is exactly what I say to George as I stroll into his office.

Well, nothing yet, he eyes me. Actually, I have a project for you, take a seat, will you?

All right, fill me in.

Okay, so I need to start off by telling you that this is probably the biggest case you’ve worked on yet, and it’s very important. I’m putting a lot of faith into you by giving you this, but I know you’re ready. So, don’t let me down.

Yes, sir. I promise. Normally I would be making a joke of some sort, but I don’t want to mess up this opportunity already, whatever it is.

Okay, so there’s a tourist location a few towns over that we’ve been eyeing for quite some time. We knew something fishy was going on, we just weren’t sure exactly what. Luckily, we finally caught wind of exactly what they’ve been doing. Turns out, they have been scamming young couples and families that come in by opening credit cards in their names to fund their business. It looks like they’ve been doing this for years under the radar, but they’ve been getting more ballsy the last couple months. Which as you know by now, is something that happens with a lot of these scammers. They’re extremely careful in the beginning, and they start building up this confidence that they’ll never get caught… and that’s our opening to come in and bust them.

So, your job is to go in there, gather as much evidence as you can, and make up a report on them. How does this sound so far?

Wow, George this really is a big case. They’ve been doing this for years? I mean that’s insane. This might be the biggest case we’ve had since I’ve been here.

"Exactly, which