All Chapters of Fake Dating My Ex’s CEO : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

~ Lena POV ~I bought him tiramisu.That was the part I kept coming back to, sitting on the cold concrete bench outside my own apartment building at eleven-fifteen on a Tuesday night with a duffel bag between my feet and the smell of his cologne still clinging to my jacket. I had taken my lunch break to walk four blocks to that overpriced Italian place on Mercer Street, the one with the tiny handwritten menu and the line out the door, because Ryan once mentioned the tiramisu there was the best he had ever tasted. I carried it home in a little white box tied with string. I climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator so the jostling wouldn’t ruin it.I set it on the kitchen counter.And then I heard them.Not loud. That was somehow the worst part. It wasn’t a crash or a shout or something that would have given me half a second to prepare. It was just a sound, low and unmistakable, coming from behind our bedroom door, and my brain decoded it before the rest of me caught up. My han

He sent the terms at seven forty-three in the morning.I was still in bed when my phone lit up, one hand around a mug that had gone cold, Maya’s spare blanket pulled to my chin because her apartment ran cold in November and she refused to argue with the thermostat. I had not slept well. I had lain in the dark replaying the street outside the restaurant, the card in my hand, the single question I had carried all the way to the subway and into sleep.What exactly was he hiding from his parents?The email was four paragraphs. No greeting, no preamble. Just terms, numbered, clean.One. They would be seen together at a minimum of two events per month. Two. All physical contact was to be agreed upon in advance or mutually understood as performance only. Three. Neither party would discuss the arrangement with outside parties. Four. The arrangement would conclude in ninety days unless mutually extended.At the bottom, one line that was not numbered:I require your discretion regarding a perso

~ Adrian POV ~I arrived at the restaurant twelve minutes early.Not because I was nervous. I arrived early because I liked to see rooms before I was in them, to understand the layout, the sightlines, where my father would sit and what angle that gave him on the door. Victor Cole had not survived thirty years in business by being unobservant, and neither had I.The table was good. Corner booth, low lighting, my father’s preferred configuration. I ordered water and checked my phone.One message. The contact saved as only a letter.V: Thinking about you. How’s the performance?I put the phone face-down.Performance. That was the right word. Lena Carter would arrive, we would present a convincing picture, my father would back down from his ultimatum for a few more weeks, and I would have time to figure out what came next with Vanessa. Clean. Manageable.I had no reason to feel the tension sitting in my chest like something waiting to snap.The door opened.I looked up, and then I did not