Pretend for Me (19 page)

“She’s a twenty-six year old woman who should be free
to make her own choices.”

Andy placed her clothing back into the case.

“Sara is trusting, and she’s not like us. We know how
the world works, but she’s always been different. When we were younger she used
to lie out on the lawn and stare at the sky. She was convinced if she stayed there
long enough she’d move with the rotation of the planet.” Danny chuckled running
a hand through his hair. “She never cared for material goods, and it took
several barbeques before she’d even look Dylan’s way. She had a crush on him
but wouldn’t do anything about it. Her whole life was devoted to books. I
remember she used to write in her little journal anything that took her fancy.”

“Why are you
telling me all this?”

Danny stood slapping him on the back. “So you realize
we did everything because in our own messed up way, we love her. It’s not a
good enough excuse, but I see what we’ve done. We messed up, and I’m sorry.
She’s the baby, and she was never designed for this way of life. You’ve lost
your clubs and whatever else with money, but Sara never saw that in you. She
saw who you were. Think about that before you walk away from her as the clubs
can be opened back up. Your life isn’t completely ruined.”

“I can’t just open them back up. I don’t have the
funds to do so.”

Danny shrugged. “There’s always a way.”

Her brother left him to finish packing. There was no
other way for him to open up his clubs. He didn’t care what the other man said.
 

Andy was more confused as he bundled their cases into
his car then let Champion ride up the front with him. Was Danny on his side or
warning him?

Sara wasn’t money oriented. Andy knew that in the way
she worked. Her apartment had barely any furniture in it at all.

“What does it all mean?” he asked.

Dropping the cases outside of her door he made his way
up to his apartment to see the spare key had been taken. He knew Sara was
waiting for him. Instead of going in to face her, he went down to her apartment
to wait.

When the sun went down he saw her in the beautiful floral
pink bridesmaid dress. Andy watched her from a secluded alcove in the apartment
hall. He watched the tears fall onto her cheeks, and he felt like the world’s
biggest asshole. His hands itched to be touching her. Already he felt lost
without her but knew this was the right thing for him to do.

She walked inside her apartment and closed the door.
He went to her door pressing his palm against the wood.

His love for her was not in question.

Turning away he went to the elevator that took him
down to the underground parking. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and
dialed Travis’s number.

His friend picked up on the fifth ring. “I thought you
were supposed to be at a wedding?”

“I was.” Andy gave him an update on everything that
had happened in the last few hours.

“Shit, are you okay?” Travis asked.

“I’m fine. I’m going to be out of town for a while. I
was wondering if you and the guys would keep an eye on Sara for me while I’m
gone.”

“She’s serious for you?”

Andy ran a hand over his face. “She’s the most serious
thing in my life. I love her, Travis. Please, will you take care of her, but
make sure she doesn’t know you’re there because of me.”

“I’ll take care of her. The guys and I will be there
for you. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. I’ll keep in touch with you guys. Thank
you for doing this for me.”

“You’re a friend. I’ll do anything to make sure you are
okay.”

Nodding his head, Andy said goodbye and climbed behind
the wheel.

“We’re going on a road trip, buddy.” He scratched
behind Champion’s ears then started up the car.

Andy pulled out of the underground parking without
looking back.

Chapter Seventeen

The days passed, and Sara refused to have anything to
do with her family. Some of her days were spent inside Andy’s apartment. When her
pain was too unbearable she would lie on his bed feeling his masculine scent
surround her. How could they have gone so wrong? Sara would have helped him,
put a stop to it. All he needed to do was tell her what was going wrong. She
stared around the small space, and her mind was bombarded with images of them
together. Sara remembered how he made her laugh when she’d spent
a miserable
day writing in front of a computer. Andy had
become her rock.

Her brothers tried to reach her along with her parents
and sister. There was nothing they could say to her. For too long she’d let
them rule her life to the point the one man she’d truly fallen for had been
pushed away. She missed him all the time. Not a moment passed when her thoughts
weren’t filled with him. They’d had something, and because of her meddling
family they’d taken it away. Dylan tried to call her, in between calls from her
family. At the moment Dylan and her family were not talking. She had even
listened to her father as he told her through an answering machine message,
that they’d withdrawn their shares from Dylan’s company. They were pulling away
from Dylan and trying all they could to repair the damage to Andy’s clubs, but the
clubs were not as yet for sale. She always hung up the phone but listened to her
family’s messages, and finally after three weeks she changed her number without
telling them. They would find her number out, but until then she would enjoy
the peace. Just because they were helping Andy now, didn’t mean she’d forgive
them so easily. She wasn’t throwing a tantrum; she was serious. Sara didn’t
want anything to do with her family.

After some time passed she stopped going to Andy’s
apartment and handed the spare key over to the landlord. She needed to stop
obsessing over him, and the key always gave her hope,
then
took it away.

 
Andy never
called her, and when she went to his apartment a few days after handing in the
key, she discovered he’d moved out. The pain she felt at his loss was more than
she could bear. Seeing the new couple in his apartment woke her up. Andy was
gone, and he was never coming back.

Cube remained closed. She ran her hand over the sign
whenever she passed the club. They’d wasted so much time dancing around each
other instead of giving into the need they both had craved. Looking back she
saw the attraction had started between them the moment they first met on the
apartment stairs. They’d been friends, but that was merely a ploy for them to
spend more time with each other.

She saw his friends hanging around on occasion. They’d
smile and wave at her in acknowledgment. They never spoke to her directly.

Life needed to move on. The days turned into weeks,
and those weeks turned into months. The sale of the clubs went ahead, but she
didn’t have enough money to pay for them. She didn’t know who did buy them,
only that they were sold to a private firm.

She threw herself into her work, her muse working
overtime to get books finished in time with the schedule she’d set out for
herself.

Her publisher organized a book tour around the local
city hot spots. The latest book she wrote was hitting all of the bestseller
lists. She’d been surprised to see it in paperback on the shelves. Her
publisher told her they wanted her book to be available for all readers. The
e-book outsold all of her other books. The friends-to-lovers story seemed to
capture a huge crowd. When she logged onto her blog she discovered a surge of
activity on her site. She’d never seen such an amazing response. The characters
of Andrew and Sarah—not original names for herself and Andy, but they
worked—were talked about all over the web. She didn’t understand why. Either
way, her publisher loved the success and asked for more work.

Sara wished she could be overjoyed with the news, but
she couldn’t. Every time she saw the book cover, tears filled her eyes and an
ache filled her chest. That book had been written with Andy in mind. The couple
on the page looked nothing like her and Andy. In her mind she knew who the
story was about. The first weekend they’d spent being a pretend couple had
started it all. That was how the book began. The book’s ending at least was a
happier one. There wouldn’t be any happy ending for her.

The book signings had been a new experience. She sat
behind a desk expecting to wait for a few women to show up for a signing. Never
in all of her life had she imagined the queues that were waiting for her. Women
talked to her endlessly about the love of her life. People had even gone and
visited the town where she grew up. Her family tried to contact her, but she
ignored them. The success of her story was all down to her. They couldn’t take
that away from her. Her publisher had told her she’d made it, and she wouldn’t
have to worry again. The news felt good even if she had no one to share the
success with. Her friends tried to reassure her.

She invited them round for a drink one Friday night.

“Why can’t you ask his friends?” Tiffany asked.

Sara shrugged her shoulders sipping the expensive red
wine she’d bought in celebration. She’d decided celebrating with a drink was
better than mourning what she couldn’t have with Andy. But without Andy it
didn’t feel like much of a celebration.

“You’ve got to stop this, Sara,” Samantha said,
clicking her fingers in front of her face. “Why is Andy different from all the
other men you’ve dated?”

“Yeah, listen to Samantha. Why is he different?”
Tiffany voiced the same questions.

Tears welled in Sara’s eyes, and she forced them down
with a growl. “Because I was never in love with the other men I dated. Andy was
different. He never took my family’s money. They purposefully closed him down.
I saw how much those clubs meant to him, and they took it away because he
refused to back down.” She dropped her head in her hands. “I sound like a lovelorn
sap, don’t I?”

Their arms surrounded her. “You sound in love,” they
both said together.

Sara laughed feeling a little happier they weren’t
judging her.

The book signings were getting more frequent as the
days went on. She spent less time at the computer and more time travelling. The
success meant she had no choice with regards to the signings. They thought it
was going to hit all the right spots for everyone. The book held just the right
amount of heat and romance that women wanted. The book was simply titled
Friends with Benefits
. It wasn’t an
original title but fit the whole book.

Sara furnished the rest of her apartment without
Andy’s help. After finding out he’d left without a backwards glance, she’d been
tempted to leave herself. She loved her apartment and decided staying was the
best course of action for her. She really wanted to speak with him and
apologize for what her family had done. Cube and the rest of his clubs
continued to be closed, and nothing was happening to them. The people who’d
bought them hadn’t changed them at all. She passed them every day in the hope
that she’d see him. Sara started to feel like a stalker in her spare time.

Andy clearly wanted nothing to do with her.

When she passed a café near her apartment and saw his
friends sitting there eating before she could stop herself she walked next to
their table. They stopped eating as they looked at her.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said.

Travis was the first one to speak. “Take a seat.”

Wade moved up giving her room. She declined coffee and
stared at her hands. They hadn’t spoken since they’d come around Andy’s place
to watch football.

“I was wondering if you’d heard from Andy. I haven’t
seen or heard from him. I wanted to apologize to him. My family shouldn’t have
done what they did.” She paused when she felt the tears clog her throat. “I’m
sorry. Everything has been a mess,” she said. Sara rubbed her eyes. What kind
of a woman was she, to be trying to contact a man even though he’d made it
clear he didn’t want to be in contact with her?

“We haven’t heard from him recently. The last time he
talked to us, he asked us not to pass on any information of where he was, but
we can tell you he’s safe, Sara,” Lenny said. He reached out and patted her
hands.

“He hates me. I get that. Not many men would want to
stay around when the girl’s parents destroys their livelihood.”

“Andy doesn’t care about that, Sara. He’s getting his
stuff together. He’ll be in touch when he’s ready,” Travis said, updating her.

The tears fell thick and fast. She was tired of
crying. All she wanted to do was move on from the crap of her life. Why did it
feel so damned hard to do? “Erm … I was wondering if you could tell him that I
have a signing and I’d really like to talk to him.” She reached in her pocket
for the leaflet with the details of the signing. Sara handed over the leaflet
she’d been given by her publisher. “It should be good, I think. I’ll go and
leave you in peace.”

She stood and left the shop, the pain in her heart
worse than anything she could have imagined.