How to Fake Date Your Grumpy Boss (How to Rom-com #1)

by Camilla Evergreen

The man I love is the man I liked, and I left both times in sudden and insensitive ways—all because I never knew that when I tripped, he fell, too. It’s honestly a tragic story. Lonely girl meets lonely boy. Neither of them understand anything about what it means to be seen. Both of them get a little lost in the way the other manages to look at them.

To be honest, I’m in love with a guy I have spent years connecting to a horror game villain. To be honest, this might be my best moment.

Three cats wail, as if they’ve just been alerted to my presence, and the hushing sounds Levi makes as I feel his footsteps move the entire building send my heart rate kicking into overdrive. “Come on,” he murmurs, just beyond the door. “It’s not a murderer. It’s probably Mrs. Quinn bringing me a pie again, because she’s wonderful like that. I know you like Mrs. Quinn. Come here, you. The last time you snuck outside, you were gone for two days removing the frog population. Mrs. Quinn and I do not appreciate that. You have to be more considerate of the neighbors, you know?”

Thick glasses. Tousled hair. A writhing black cat in his arms. He’s so beautiful I could cry.

Levi stares at me, his blue eyes large beyond the giant, dark frames. His lips part. “Kitten.” His awareness of me snaps as the little gray cat at his feet attempts to dart past his legs. “No. No.” He winces, then he reaches for me, grabbing my arm and tugging me into the modest kitchen. Kicking the door shut before anyone can escape, he drops the black cat, and I trip against his chest, taking up the place the cat previously held in his arms.

He soaks in a breath, letting it out slowly before muttering, “So would now be a good time to tell you that I was never actually faking?” A laugh escapes me. “I think I figured that part out.” His eyes close a fraction of a second before his forehead settles against mine and his grip on my arms solidifies. “I’m sorry.” “Levi.”

“I want you.” I let my fingers spread across his chest. A shudder runs through him.

I frown. “And you’re more experienced? I couldn’t fall on you without the media eating it up. Tell me how you hid a string of torrid affairs in these past five years.” His mouth opens and closes. “That’s what I thought,” I mutter.

Gripping my hands in his sweater, I decide that isn’t the point and shake him a little. “I was making a joke. We both know that I don’t care about your money or the fact you could take care of me forever and ever. I like you. I had a crush on the person I met in the rain, and my stories were my way of trying to keep him in my life. But they pale in comparison to you.” My stomach somersaults as those words spill out. I stop shaking him, obliging to just clutch my fists and stretch out whatever his sweater is made of. Probably pretentious cashmere. “You make me laugh with your deadpan, inappropriate humor. And nothing feels better than when I manage to make you smile. I love being around you. You make me feel safe and okay and right. The way I see it, we either both pretend it matters that we don’t have any experience and go off to discover that no one is going to come close to sharing what we have, or we just accept that fate threw us together in the middle of a storm and was writing our story before we understood our roles. I want to learn more about you. I want to learn everything. And I want you to learn me, too.”

His nostrils flare as he sucks in a breath, then he whispers a curse. “Rose,” he all but growls. “You don’t understand what it sounds like you’re saying.” “I do, actually.” “You do?” he exhales. “Yes.” He curses again, raking my body into his by the sleeves of our coat. “I told your dad I’d marry you first.” “You told my…” I blink at him, my brow furrowing. “Wait. Okay. Maybe I don’t know what I’m saying.” He chuckles, circling his arms around my waist. His lips come so close to mine, they’re brushing, but it’s not a kiss. “Told you.”

“When did you talk to my dad about anything?” “When I was at your house. After I read that you loved me in your notebook, I lost my mind and took your father aside and asked him if I could marry you with his blessing if that was something you decided you wanted.” His breaths skim my lips, their touch teasing me silly. “Knowing that the moment that changed my life had also impacted you, seeing that I wasn’t crazy for thinking your eyes were looking at me in a way no one else’s ever had, it did things to me. I thought I wanted you before. After that? I was hopeless. I wa...

He kisses, soft and pecking. “I’ve not done this before. I’m scared I’ll disappoint you.” Drawing back an inch, he must see the trance on my face because the next thing I know his hand is crawling up to the nape of my neck, and he’s murmuring, “Or maybe you can look at me like that, and I can say, screw it, I’ll learn whatever you like so long as you’re patient with me.” “I’ve waited five years already, haven’t I?” Levi smiles, framing my face in his hands and angling his mouth to meet mine. It’s tentative, exploratory, and shy, but it steals my soul all the same, and I melt into his body, letting him keep me upright as his lips caress mine with sloppy desperation he’s fighting to hold back. His fingers sink into my hair, and he catches a muffled whimper that escapes me the moment he deepens the kiss and draws me up to heights I never even expected to exist. When his mouth abandons mine, so I can gasp in a breath, he doesn’t bother pulling away as he yanks his glasses off, dropping them somewhere on the kitchen counter, and trails kisses across my jaw, behind my ear, then down. A rumble of his delight tickles my throat, and I plaster myself to him, squeezing my eyes shut. I atte...

“That’s my girl,” Levi murmurs when I emerge from the bathroom—his bathroom—in nothing but one of his giant t-shirts.

I flush, a little too helplessly in love with the man covered in cats.

“Haven’t you realized it yet, kitten? Everything I am is a love letter to you.”

I melt into his embrace, for the briefest moment unconcerned that his t-shirt on me is the opposite of what I’d call modest. It slides up as I settle, and he tugs it down when his arm fixes around me. I hold him close, my head against his shoulder, and sigh.

“I thought you weren’t responsible for my modesty.” “If anything, kitten,” he murmurs, “I hope to be responsible for its total absence soon.” I shiver. “How soon?”

“Kiss me? Kiss me until the taste of your lips is as familiar as breathing?”

“Kitten,” he exhales, and I’m the daring one this time, skating my lips across his jaw, exploring the caress of his smooth skin and the scent of his aftershave, kissing his throat. He grits a harsh curse out between his teeth. “Oh, kitten. Please.” He rolls his fist up in my shirt, then firmly yanks me back, putting distance between us.

“I forgot to feed them. I was in the middle of feeding them.” My head tilts, and I lick my lips, entranced by the way his eyes hone in and follow the motion. “Hm?” “Our children,” he says, smoothing his shirt down my back, against the middle of my thighs. “I need to feed our children dinner. And you still need to help me name them. And—” He cuts his attention toward the clock on his nightstand, wincing to discover it’s nearly eight; have we really been lost in each other for hours? “—we need to sleep before I do something terrible to you.”

“Don’t seduce me, kitten. It would take precious little effort.”

“Levi,” I stop him from leaving just before him and our three trailing cats can reach the doorway. He looks back at me. “Are you serious? You want to marry me?” Cursing, he returns to me, ignoring every meow of complaint as he consumes my mouth with his in a brief, all-eclipsing kiss. “I have to take responsibility somehow for ogling you as a minor.” “If it’s any consolation, I was five months away from being legal.”

“Mhm. I don’t need a present though. I just want you.” “Rose.” He kisses my cheek, my nose, my chin. “You underestimate how obsessed I am.” When he draws back, I open my eyes. “I’ll show you your present early tomorrow—if you’re a good girl for me tonight.” I sigh. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d be proper scared right now.” Smiling, a glimmer of love in his eyes, Levi strokes my cheek with the back of his index finger. “I know. I know. I’m a monster.” “Straight out of a horror game.”

He kissed me into an oblivion of exhausted, breathless heat, then he curled me up in his arms and murmured sweet nothings until I passed out.

I’ve heard his morning voice before, but it sounds very different alone in his house in the woods than it did in my parents’ house.

“You made me breakfast, puppy?” He nuzzles his face against my neck. “Mm.” “Levi,” I whisper. “What?” He kisses. I swear we haven’t come up for air once. We only stopped last night because we lost consciousness.

“Sweetheart, it’s never about anyone else.” I secure one of the forks resting on the platter of warm pancakes, syrup, and melted butter. “Says the man who built a billion-dollar company out of a ten minute encounter with one girl and three cats.” “Exactly. It’s always about you.”

It was us. It was never not us. It will always be us. I’ve missed you until my heart was breaking for five years, and I didn’t even know how badly it hurt until you came back to me.”

“I’m special?” “You have no idea how special.” I think I’m beginning to.

Don’t have an epilogue occur less than six months after the previous chapter. People grumble about it. For some reason. ~~~ Thirty minutes later

He holds the first book out to me, and I clasp it on reflex. He murmurs, “I love you.” My heart panics. Plucking another book free, he sets it on top of the other in my hands, and I realize it—like the last—is one of the books I admired on our first date. When his fingers release it, he says, “I love you.” “Le—” “I love you.” He adds another book. “Levi.” Another book, another whisper. “I love you.” “Levi, you built me a library?”

Arms full of books, I stare at him. And I just keep staring until my gaze catches on a familiar cover from a series I’ve been wanting to read forever. This… He… Books are your love language, huh? My legs go weak, and only his arms bracing beneath my elbows keep me from plummeting to the ground. Tenderly, he lifts my books away, sets them on the shelf, and murmurs, “Do you want to trip and fall into my mouth again?” I press my face against his chest, letting my arms snake around him. “This isn’t fair. How am I supposed to tell you I love you now without you thinking it’s just because you bought me all these books? Because…wow…” “You love me?” he whispers. “So much it hurts sometimes. When you didn’t talk to me after I left, I cried myself to sleep every night missing you. And I know. I know I was the one who left, but you didn’t ask me to stay, and I was so uncertain, because how was I supposed to know you were my coat guy? How was I supposed to know I was important to you?” He holds me. “I did try to show you with my every breath.” I look up at him, at that subtly amused and largely relieved expression on his face. It’s like—for the first time in forever—he’s happy. Really, truly happy. Sweeping my hair to the side, he murmurs, “Let’s pretend I didn’t get you eight hundred forty-three books.” I gasp, looking around. “There are eight hun—” “Let’s pretend,” he says a little severely, “that I didn’t get you a number of books. Let’s pretend my hair’s still long, and I look unc...

He hisses a curse and sweeps me tight against his chest. “You saved me, Rose. The way you looked at me and talked with me that night saved me. In a matter of moments, you had given me a reason to exist and a push to change my world. I’ve spent every day since searching for the way you made me feel like I belonged here and had a purpose—like someone could see me and joke with me. I told myself it wasn’t love that night, because that would be ridiculous and illegal.” I smile a little. “Touching me would have been illegal, not loving me.” “Allowing myself to love you then would have been a desperate thing, kitten. That’s always been our fate. Forcing myself not to touch you these past months has been torture. Letting myself start when I read how you felt about me after our encounter was a gateway drug. I’ve been enamored from the first instant I laid eyes on you. I can’t help myself around you. I turn into a mess and a horrendously inappropriate flirt because I’m desperate to affect you, even in some small way. I need to see color rise to your cheeks so I know I’m not the only one entranced, even if my spell only lasts for a moment and yours has had me bewitched.”

“I love you. And to be loved by you? It i...

“Now?” I ask, thinking back to those silly pages in that silly book. “Now I kick myself for not better assessing whether or not my grumpy boss was already in love with me.” “He was.” “Is.” “You’re such a grammar stickler.” I stand up on my tiptoes to touch my lips to his. “I like words, and I like when my words are correct.” “So I’ve been told.” “Puppy?” I exhale his nickname into another languid kiss. He nips at my lip before murmuring, “Yes, kitten?” “Loving you is correct.”

Put the pitchforks down already, sheesh… ~~~ Two years later

My wife never ceases to amaze me. And that’s saying something since our first meeting involved her hunching over a box full of kittens in the rain, and our second included her managing to throw me onto asphalt. Best days of my freaking life.

She has to know I’d build her a bigger library and buy her every book she looks at if she’d just let me. Our baby needs the kind of selection her funds won’t allow and my habit of purchasing only the books I’m intending to immediately read would stifle.

I have a feeling Rose is going to force me not to spoil my baby. And considering I have an entire shelf in the kitchen dedicated to cat treats, that is going to be an issue.

When I chance a look up at her, she’s smiling, then her fingers are in my hair, and I come undone at her bidding. If I found her hypnotic before, now that’s she’s carrying our child, I’m at her mercy. “You’re so beautiful, kitten,” I murmur. Blush slashes red across her cheeks, and I hope she never gets used to me. Never. I always want her to look at me like that, those warm brown eyes glimmering with shy love. She’s so beautiful. She’s like poetry. Careful words strung together into intentional lines with limitless meanings and endless emotion.

We needed his POV a ~long~ time ago.

“Melanie Richards has not written a book called How to Be the Perfect Parent, so I anticipate being wrong at least twice before our little one turns eighteen.”

“Two whole times? How scarring for them.” She drives me mad by tracing her fingertips around the curve of my ear. “I bet both times are on account of your inappropriate jokes.” “They’re not jokes anymore, kitten. They’re pleas, and you know it. That’s how we got our tiny one in the first place.”

For the billionth time, I lose my heart to this woman. But it hardly matters. It was hers, from the moment she fell.