Don't Pretend I'm Yours

Don’t Pretend I’m Yours NATASHA ANDERS Contents Also By Natasha Anders 1. I give you this ring… 2. Six Months Ago 3. The Groom’s Cold Kiss 4. Four Months Ago 5. The Wedding Reception 6. Two Months Ago 7. At Last… 8. In Name Only 9. Honeymoons Are For Lovers 10. A Web of Lies 11. Mr. and Mrs. Fake As Fuck 12. Fifteen Years Ago 13. Her Tattered Heart 14. His casual cruelty 15. Purgatory in paradise 16. The chaotic crescendo 17. This horribly empty moment 18. Not a sustainable situation 19. This small token of comfort 20. You’re playing with fire, cupcake 21. Just a kiss 22. Breathe with me 23. Eight Years Ago 24. You hate losing. Period 25. Nine Months Ago 26. Doomed from the start 27. Messy and crazy and complicated Epilogue Fifi About the Author Also By Natasha Anders The Unwanted Series The Unwanted Wife A Husband’s Regret His Unlikely Lover Alpha Men Series The Wingman The Best Man The Wrong Man The Broken Pieces Duet More Than Anything Nothing But This (Un)professionally Yours Series The Best Next Thing Protect Me Not Standalones A Ruthless Proposition All I’ll Ever Need Fornever Yours * * * This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Text copyright © 2023 by Natasha Anders All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Editor – Tamsyn Bester Formatting – Ashleigh Giannoccaro Cover Design – The Dirty Tease Cover Image – Xram Ragde/Marx Edgar Chavez ONE I give you this ring… Benjamin Templeton had always dreaded the inevitability of his wedding day to Lilah Beckett. He’d hoped to somehow delay it, even avoid it. But here it was—sooner than he’d anticipated—his own personal doomsday. There he stood, wearing the most ridiculous clothing, tails and a cravat—Ben had balked at the suggestion of a matching top hat—hands clasped in front of him, watching the woman who would soon be his wife make her way down the aisle toward him. She was moving excruciatingly slowly, keeping pace with the eighty-two-year-old man beside her. It gave Ben ample time to turn tail and run for the hills. “Last chance to do a runner, mate,” his best man, Rhys Harper, leaned toward him and said in a low voice. The words were joking but there was an undertone of seriousness to them. Rhys knew exactly how loath Ben was to do this. He didn’t want to marry this woman. God, he didn’t want to marry anyone. He liked his life. Enjoyed his freedom. And—the worst of it?—Lilah was not his type. He’d never been the slightest bit interested in her. But he’d always known that one day he’d have to bite the bullet and marry her and attempt to make some kind of passable life with this bit of fluff who didn’t appear to have serious thought in her head. So why the fuck are you marrying her, Ben? his dickish inner voice asked with a sneer and Ben sighed quietly, his eyes drifting to the old man beside his soon-to-be bride. He had legitimate reasons for doing this. The best reasons. But he honestly hadn’t expected Lilah to get so caught up in the wedding planning. And now this… this… ballgown. Jesus, she looked like a little girl playing dress up. Honestly, he didn’t know why he’d expected anything else. The woman was twenty-seven but right now she reminded him of the twelve-year-old he’d first met more than a decade and a half ago. The girl with braces and pigtails, in a catholic girl’s school uniform that had lost an inch in the hemline every year as she matured. Ben had been seventeen when Cyrus Beckett had first brought him to live with them and Lilah had obviously had a crush on him, which he’d done his damnedest to discourage. He’d been so certain, when they started this engagement thing, that Lilah had outgrown her infatuation with him. She’d certainly given the appearance of maturity. Even-tempered, usually affable, she was as sweet and bland as rice pudding. He was sure they had an understanding. They both knew why they were doing this. But then she’d started planning this thrice damned wedding. So much fucking secrecy and coyness around the wedding dress. It had been ridiculous. He’d expected… well, he wasn’t sure what he had expected but this cupcake-shaped gown—with a strapless lace bodice and massive poofy tulle skirt—was certainly not it. The dress had likely cost an obscene amount of money—with Lilah flying from Cape Town to London for the final fitting—but Cyrus, Ben’s mentor and Lilah’s grandfather, would deny his precious granddaughter nothing. She was wearing a long veil and he could barely see her face. It was an antiquated custom, this veil wearing business. It had been the one detail of her bridal attire that Lilah had shown him upfront. She’d been excited to wear it. Some sentimental drivel about it being her mother’s veil. Now, watching her painstaking progress down the aisle, Ben felt like he was watching an innocent lamb being led to the slaughter. And he was the damned butcher. They finally reached his side and her grandfather lifted her veil to plant a kiss on her cheek. She was smiling. That ridiculous, wide, happy smile of hers. Typical. Ben had never felt further from smiling than he did at this moment, but his bride-to-be was grinning mistily up at her grandfather who’d bent down to whisper something in her ear. She nodded, blinking back tears, and the smile—which had slipped ever so slightly—widened again when