A Friendly Wager

A FRIENDLY WAGER A SECRET BABY, FAKE ENGAGEMENT ROMANCE AJME WILLIAMS CONTENTS Also by Ajme Williams Description Prologue 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 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Epilogue I Epilogue II Bet On It (Sneak Peek) About the Author Want more Ajme Williams? Copyright © 2023 by Ajme Williams All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers only. All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual. ALSO BY AJME WILLIAMS Ajme Williams writes emotional, angsty contemporary romance. All her books can be enjoyed as full length, standalone romances and are FREE to read in Kindle Unlimited . Books do not have to be read in order. High Stakes Bet On It Heart of Hope Series Our Last Chance | An Irish Affair | So Wrong | Imperfect Love | Eight Long Years | Friends to Lovers | The One and Only | Best Friend’s Brother | Maybe It’s Fate | Gone Too Far | Christmas with Brother’s Best Friend | Fighting for US | Against All Odds | Hoping to Score | Thankful for Us | The Vegas Bluff | 365 Days Billionaire Secrets Twin Secrets | Just A Sham | Let’s Start Over | The Baby Contract | Too Complicated The Why Choose Haremland (Reverse Harem Series) Protecting Their Princess | Protecting Her Secret | Unwrapping their Christmas Present | Cupid Strikes… 3 Times | Their Easter Bunny Dominant Bosses His Rules | His Desires | His Needs | His Punishments | His Secret Strong Brothers Say Yes to Love | Giving In to Love | Wrong to Love You | Hate to Love You Fake Marriage Series Accidental Love | Accidental Baby | Accidental Affair | Accidental Meeting Irresistible Billionaires Admit You Miss Me | Admit You Love Me | Admit You Want Me | Admit You Need Me Check out Ajme’s full Amazon catalogue here. Join her VIP NL here. DESCRIPTION My next-door neighbor is wifey material. Calm down... I’m not proposing to her. A fake engagement will do for now. My mother won’t get off my back. As a star hockey player love isn’t on the cards for me. Not now, not ever. I had a one-night stand with Ruby a decade ago. But that shouldn’t come in the way of our ruse. I doubt she misses the way I made her shake when I took her v-card. A friendly wager has put her in my debt. She owes me this favor, and I owe her the truth: I will never fall for her. I have it all planned out perfectly until I discover a 10-year-old secret that has never been in my plans... PROLOGUE Ruby I'd always loved summer in Wisconsin. It was a wonderful reward after the bitter cold of winter. Summers were filled with long, lazy days on the lake or going to small county carnivals. As a teen, I’d leave the house early in the morning, meet up with my friends, and often didn't return until the sun had gone down. But the sweet innocence of being young in summer was brutally stolen from me several weeks ago when my boyfriend, Mark, was killed in a car accident. In that instant, everything changed. The future that I had planned was gone. Oh, sure, I was still going to attend community college and get my associate degree in paralegal studies, but I wasn’t going to have the life I’d planned with Mark. I knew my plans weren’t ambitious, like other people who were planning to go to New York to make it big on the stage or go to college to become a lawyer or doctor, but in this part of the country, ambition and success were often defined differently. I didn’t view my plans as small or unimportant. There was nothing small about wanting to live in the small town I grew up in, getting married, and raising a family. Life could go on without actors, lawyers, and even doctors. But it would never survive without family. Without mothers. Of course, Mark hadn't been quite ready to settle down yet. His plans were to join the military for a few years. But he promised he would return, and at that point, we would get married. Since I’d be in school anyway, it seemed like the perfect plan. And then a couple of weeks ago, driving home from a party, he was in an accident. He died instantly, and with his death, so too had died my hopes, my dreams, and my childhood. Mark wasn't the first young man to have died in our small town's history. But it was the first time in a long time. The first in my generation. My friends and I had been so insulated from the pain of real life. Oh, sure, we saw life and death on the farms that were scattered through the county. My neighbor, Mr. Tyler, died a few years ago. But death had never hit one so young for me and my peers. Tonight, as summer was