Effortlessly Real: Frisky Business, #2

By Christa Wick

"Fake it for me."

 

Four words no man has ever uttered to a woman. Except for my man. Or my best friend, rather.

 

Well, he didn't actually ask me to fake it, I just did. How else was I going to prevent his unexpected family emergency from turning into a tragedy?

 

And honestly, I'm not faking my feelings. I've been madly in love with the guy forever. Yes, I know that going along with all this probably isn't the smartest or safest idea.

 

But, I'm always the smart, safe one. 

 

For once, I want to be the sexy, irresistible one.

 

Formerly titled Curvy Seduction—same characters and storyline, with a less commonly-used title and more fitting cover. The first edition of this book was previously published as Curve Fix in 2018 and has since been edited throughout and re-issued in 2019. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christa Wick
• Release date: Jan 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224822492

Book preview

Chapter One

Marla Staples walks in front of me, her spine loose, her heart-shaped ass keeping perfect time as it swings left then right over and over. Looking back, she tosses a smile across her shoulder, her lips a deep scarlet that matches the skirt hugging her lower body. One carefully penciled brow lifts as she fires off a fresh question.

Have you decided what you’re getting Phil for his birthday?

Phil is a senior associate at the law firm where I will soon be a partner. He’s also my fiancé—and Marla’s boss.

Still thinking about it, I answer even though I have an indoor putting green and a custom club hiding under a tarp in my garage.

I hope we don’t decide on the same thing, Marla sighs, her hand landing on the doorknob to the firm’s copy room. That would be embarrassing.

Considering how the artificial green and club set me back a thousand dollars, I’m not worried—at least when it comes to duplicate presents. But a growing concern nags at my insides over the far too familiar relationship that exists between my fiancé and his secretary.

I was thinking about getting him a bottle of Armani Code Profumo, she says, the razor-thin smile cleaving her face in two. The closer you get, the better it smells on him, don’t you think?

I stare at Marla. My flesh begins to heat. At my back, I feel the surreptitious stares of everyone in the law library that houses the copy room. In front of me, all I see is the personal agenda lurking in Marla’s sly blue gaze.

She shrugs, her conventionally pretty face turning ugly as her hand begins to twist the doorknob.

I imagine Phil is about done making copies, she purrs. "Of course, I told him I would do it, but there are certain things he likes to handle on his own."

My muscles lock tight. Part of me wishes I’d gone back to my office after finding Phil absent from his. I could have sent him a text or an email about dinner reservations. But I decided to drop by. And then I let Marla string me along.

Why? Because I’m an idiot.

Of course, I’m anything but dumb in the courtroom or in front of planning councils and state regulatory agencies. In those cloistered venues, I reign supreme. I write briefs that make appellate judges weep for the plight of the endangered Key Largo cotton mouse or the equally threatened Atlantic salt marsh snake that feeds upon it. I offer passionate oral arguments that leave planning commissioners shivering from the cold of imagined floodwaters devouring overdeveloped beachside cities.

But, away from the law, I am the mouse. Marla is a snake. Deep down, I know Phil is the biggest reptile of all.

Just open the door, I whisper with half a dozen colleagues scattered around me, all of them pretending to read or search for a casebook.

Marla makes the last quarter turn of the knob then pushes the door inward as she steps aside.

I don’t need to enter the copy room to see what is happening. Angie Zelnick, the firm’s least qualified summer associate, is bent at the waist, her hands wrapped around the sides of a tall IBM network printer. Her head hangs between her arms, the long red hair obscuring her face. The sedate, navy blue skirt so carefully pressed when she came in this morning is rucked up around her narrow hips.

Grunting and thrusting, Phil clutches those frail hips.

Angie must be less engaged in the act because her head whips up as the door opens. Seeing me, she squeals and tries to straighten. But Phil is thoroughly lost in the moment. He curls a big hand around the top of her shoulder to keep her wedged in place as his thrusts become more desperate.

I move to close the door. Stopping myself, I push it the rest of the way open before I turn and leave the library. I take the shortest route to my office, grab my bag and head for the parking lot. People say things as I pass them in the hall. It could be pleasantries, could be attempts to gain a professional opinion on some matter. Deaf from the sound of blood pulsing hot and angry against my eardrums, I’m unable to respond.

Sinking into the driver’s seat of my Tesla, I lock the door and rest my head against the steering wheel. Body sagging, I’m not waiting for Phil to realize what just occurred and rush out to apologize, to prostrate himself on the asphalt in front of the car and plead his case.

That’s never going to happen. I know that. But there’s no way I can drive right this second. Not safely.

I lift my head off the steering wheel then drop it. I repeat the sequence again, then again. The act of lift/drop/lift/drop turns into an incessant tapping. I can’t breathe and I don’t know whether my tight throat and belligerent lungs are from rage or grief. Either is plausible. I have almost three years invested in this relationship, with eight months as Phil’s fiancée.

Rage, I decide, grinding my back teeth. I’m not crying, and I damn well won’t—not over that bastard. No way is this grief. My skin burns with the constant rush of blood to its surface. My fingers won’t stop squeezing and twisting around the steering wheel like it’s some kind of stand-in for Phil’s scrawny neck or pencil dick.

His name claws its way up my throat with a rough bark.

Damn Phil! Damn Angie. Damn Marla. After what I just witnessed, I don’t doubt that Phil has fucked the secretary, too. Marla could have told me he was in the copy room and stayed at her desk, but the bitch walked every step with me, poking at me with her questions. Marla wanted me to know she knew about the tryst, wanted Phil to know she was the one dropping the hammer on his thick, fatuous head.

Fuck, just damn everyone, I decide. Damn the people in the firm who knew and sniggered behind my back. Damn those who pitied me but were content to let me head to the altar knowing I would pledge the rest of my life to a snake.

Most of all, damn me for being a blind fool.

I tap my head again, a little harder, then lean way back and prepare to do it harder still. The phone rings before I can knock my brain loose. It’s not the call per se that stops me, but the specific ringtone. I pull the device from my bag and consider answering because I really need a friendly voice right now.

Incoming - Owen Caryl

A call from Owen should light me up. He’s been my best friend since I was in the third grade and he was in the fifth. But even Owen can’t fix what has happened. I drop the phone in the cupholder, my lungs and throat still tight, my vision dancing.

Breathe, Gemma. Breathe, damn you.

Circling the edge of self-pity, I wonder why I didn’t see this coming. Then I realize I totally saw it coming. For nearly three years Phil has been fucking me at my place. He keeps fresh clothes there, a toothbrush, tells me when I’m low on his favorite food, his shaving cream, his deodorant.

My footprint at Phil’s place? Fucking zero.

Sure, his condo is further out from the firm, the courthouse and the agencies where we practice—but it’s not that far out.

You idiot! I shout, slamming the side of my fist against the dash as the phone chirps twice, first with the notice that Owen or someone else just left a voicemail, second with a text alert.

I really don’t want to talk to Owen. He’ll hear the hurt and anger in my voice. When I confess my stupidity, he’ll probably want to kick Phil’s ass. And I’ll be tempted to let him do it. But I don’t want Owen getting in trouble, especially over a man not worthy enough to walk in Owen’s shadow.

My muscles ease a little. Rubbing at my forehead, I decide to first reconcile myself to the fact I’m going to die a childless spinster—with a really great manicure and an awesome best friend. Only then will I call Owen, shoot the breeze and casually drop the fact that I’ve called off the wedding so he doesn’t need to get his suit dry-cleaned anytime soon.

That’s the plan—until my phone starts playing Club Nouveau’s cover of Lean On Me again. I scoop it out of the cupholder, swallow a deep breath and fake sounding cheerful.

Hey, Owen. What’s up?

I need you, Gemma, he answers, strain running through the heavy baritone.

Even with the thread of tension in his voice, a familiar thrill races across my flesh. I’ve been waiting to hear these words from Owen since before I was old enough to act on them. It doesn’t matter that I tried like hell to ignore all my friends-to-lovers fantasies starring Owen while I was with Phil. The attraction to my best friend has never faded.

Still, I’m not so far gone to think Owen’s current need of me, whatever it is, has anything to do with my dirty desires or the many orgasms they have inspired.

Should I bring a shovel? I tease, Phil’s betrayal momentarily pushed aside as I focus on lightening my best friend’s mood.

Just you, Gemma, he answers, the strain magnifying to a slight warble. At the address I just texted. I need you now.

Okay, I answer, my fingers fumbling with a creeping panic as I check the text to make sure the address is complete. Tell me what’s going on.

A piercing, terrified scream shatters my eardrum and rips through my gut.

Is that a baby? I demand.

Owen doesn’t answer right away. I hear a thunk and a scuffing, like he’s dropped the phone, and then heavy breathing and more distressed crying.

Yes, it’s⁠—

Give me Moses! You give me back my baby!

I hear a grunt and a gasp, both of them from Owen, and then the call disconnects. Heart hammering in my chest, I start the Tesla, throw it in gear and peel from the parking lot.

I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I have a best friend and a baby who need me!

Chapter Two

My frantic twenty-minute drive dead ends on a cul-de-sac in front of a broken down house.

I’ve never been to the single story home before, but it is exactly the type of place I expect to find Owen occupying. Since leaving the Army, he supports himself both as a contractor renovating the homes of others and by buying rundown property he can fix and flip. The house in front of me definitely looks like it’s a fix-and-flip purchase.

Getting out of the car, I brace against what I’ll find inside. The home is probably a recent foreclosure. Maybe the bank screwed up the legal paperwork somewhere along the line and didn’t give the prior owners notice to vacate. That has happened before, but the scenario still wouldn’t explain Owen holding someone’s baby without their permission. He wouldn’t just grab someone’s kid, not unless the child was in distress. And if the child’s mother was causing the distress, then Owen would call the police, not me.

Without the distraction of traffic and frenzied alarm following the call, it finally filters through my brain that it wasn’t a mother screaming for her baby’s return—the voice was far too young to be the mother.

More confused than ever, I step onto the porch. Owen jerks the front door open before I can knock. He says nothing, just stands there, breathing hard, sweatier than I’ve ever seen him, his gaze filled with a darting panic.

This is not possible. The man has a combat badge. He has a Purple Heart, and not for stubbing his toe or getting a splinter in his eye.

Gemma!

That’s all the greeting I get. He wraps his big hands around my shoulders and pulls me in like I’m a sack of feathers instead of a dump truck of potatoes.

I tried calling⁠—

He spins me toward the hollowed out shell of what was probably once the living room. Before I walk out of the house, I’ll notice the broken sheetrock, the exposed pipes and wiring, the torn tile and ratty carpet.

But, at this moment, I can’t look away from the small huddle of bodies sitting on top of lawn bags. Owen’s problem, the source of his panic, isn’t just an infant. His problem is the infant, the girl holding the baby, and the preschooler clinging to her arm.

The preschooler is a boy. I rule him out as the one screaming for the baby’s return. That means the screamer is the pre-teen girl currently shooting daggers at me with her dark brown gaze. Even now, her shoulders shake with fury.

I stare at the desperate cluster of children for a few seconds before my paralysis breaks. I cross the room slowly, trying not to startle them, then sink to my knees in front of the girl.

Natalie, honey, I don’t know if you remember me⁠—

Gemma Fine, she growls.

I nod and lick nervously at my lips. The girl’s eyes are dry, mine want to unleash just looking at her. She’s underfed. The stained t-shirt and shorts she has on dwarf her thin frame. The worn flip-flops are a couple of inches too big and part of the strap is duct-taped to the sole.

My stomach churns with memories of my own childhood spent skating the edge of poverty. This is so much worse. This is a long maintained neglect.

This is abuse.

The girl’s hard gaze freezes my tongue. The last time I saw Natalie Caryl, she was holding a different baby—the preschooler now clinging to her side.

I direct my attention to the little boy.

Gio, sweetie, I say, an unconvincing smile lifting the pitch of my voice. You were just a baby the last time I saw you.

Don’t talk to her, Natalie warns the child. We’re going to Marta’s. We just have to find her.

Owen curls a hand around my shoulder then tugs. Gemma, we don’t have time for this. Child services will be here any second.

I shake my head. If this is about child services, Owen should have called someone other than an environmental lawyer, best friend or not.

Grabbing my phone, I pull up