Not Pretending Anymore by Ward, Penelope (big ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Copyright © 2020 by Penelope Ward and Vi Keeland

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

NOT PRETENDING ANYMORE

Cover designer: Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative

Edited by: Jessica Royer Ocken

Formatting and proofreading: Elaine York, Allusion Publishing

Proofreading: Julia Griffis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Other Books by Penelope Ward & Vi Keeland

About the Book

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Epilogue

Free for Our Readers!

Acknowledgements

Other Books by Penelope Ward & Vi Keeland

Connect with the Authors

Before You Go!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

About Penelope Ward

About Vi Keeland

OTHER BOOKS BY PENELOPE WARD & VI KEELAND

Park Avenue Player

Stuck-Up Suit

Cocky Bastard

Mister Moneybags

British Bedmate

Playboy Pilot

Rebel Heir

Rebel Heart

My Favorite Souvenir

Hate Notes

Dirty Letters

Happily Letter After

OTHER BOOKS BY PENELOPE WARD

The Crush

The Anti-Boyfriend

Just One Year

The Day He Came Back

When August Ends

Love Online

Gentleman Nine

Drunk Dial

Mack Daddy

RoomHate

Stepbrother Dearest

Neighbor Dearest

Jaded and Tyed (A novelette)

Sins of Sevin

Jake Undone (Jake #1)

Jake Understood (Jake #2)

My Skylar

Gemini

OTHER BOOKS BY VI KEELAND

The Invitation

The Rivals

Inappropriate

All Grown Up

We Shouldn’t

The Naked Truth

Sex, Not Love

Beautiful Mistake

Egomaniac

Bossman

The Baller

Left Behind (A Young Adult Novel)

Beat

Throb

Worth the Fight

Worth the Chance

Worth Forgiving

Belong to You

Made for You

First Thing I See

ABOUT THE BOOK

Finding a good roommate through a classified ad isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I was starting to lose hope.

Until a knock at my door came and God answered my prayers.

Except…uh…wrong prayer, God.

I’d definitely requested the big guy find me a drop-dead gorgeous man on more than one occasion...just not as my roommate.

Declan Tate talked me into interviewing him anyway.

While he was amusing and charismatic, I wouldn’t have been comfortable living with a man, so I regretfully declined.

Then cupcakes showed up at my door—freshly baked by Declan and just as sinfully delicious as he was.

You could say he was persistent.

I eventually folded. It wasn’t like I had another viable candidate anyway.

Plus, I was interested in someone else. And Declan was into another woman. So it wasn’t like anything would happen romantically.

After he moved in, the two of us became the best of friends. We even started to give each other advice on getting our crushes to notice us.

Eventually, Declan concocted an idea: we should pretend to be a couple to make our love interests jealous.

I was hesitant, but went along with it anyway. To my utter shock, his crazy plan worked.

Now I was dating the supposed man of my dreams, and my best friend had the woman of his.

But there was one problem.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Declan.

Those feelings we were trying to fake?

Yeah…I wasn’t pretending anymore.

CHAPTER 1

Molly

“So, what do you do for a living?”

The woman drummed her fingers on her thigh. “I’m a musician.”

I glanced down at the renter’s application in my hand. Lyric Chords was the name listed at the top.

I bit my tongue and tried to keep an open mind. This was the twelfth woman I’d interviewed as a prospective roommate. Just because she had a few safety pins in her eyebrow and what looked like a dog collar around her neck didn’t mean I should rule her out.

“Oh. That’s nice. Are you a singer?”

Lyric shook her head. “Drummer. Do you know the dimensions of the bedroom I’ll be sleeping in? I have two sets of drums I need to fit.”

“Umm... I think it’s fourteen by fourteen. But you don’t practice at home, right? I wrote in my ad that I’m looking for a quiet roommate because I work nights.”

“I do. But no worries. I’ll practice in my room.”

My bedroom and my potential roommate’s bedroom shared a wall, so that was the end of interview number twelve. I sighed and forced a smile. “Thank you for coming. I have a few other people left to meet with before I decide. I’ll let you know.”

“Great.” The woman stood. “Also, I know your ad said two months’ rent up front, but I’m running a little short right now. Would one be okay?”

I smiled. “Sure, no problem.” Since you’re not going to be living here.

After Drummergirl, I interviewed two more candidates. One wanted her boyfriend to move into the room with her, even though my ad had specified I was only looking for a single. And the other arrived twenty minutes late, reeked of alcohol, and slurred her words…at three thirty in the afternoon.

Why in the hell was it so difficult to find a roommate in a city of almost three-million people? I needed my last interview of the day to be a miracle, or I was going to have to shell out money for another ad and start the entire process all over. And I definitely didn’t have the time or the funds for that. Rent was due in two weeks. If I got stuck paying the full amount on this place myself again, I’d be eating cat food for a month.

When my last appointment knocked right on time, I took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, and asked the big guy in the sky for a little assistance.

Opening the door, I blinked a few times.

Uhhh. I think you answered the wrong prayer, God.

A man stood in my hallway—and not just any man, an absolutely gorgeous one with a perfect, straight nose, cheekbones to die for, a masculine, square jaw, full lips, tanned skin, and the sexiest chocolate brown, almond-shaped eyes I’d ever seen in my life.

“Uh.