Fake Fiancé Next Door

Copyright Copyright © 2023 by Sia Wiley 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 as permitted by U.S. copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Contents 1. Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 4 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 6 7. Chapter 7 8. Chapter 8 9. Chaper 9 10. Chapter 10 11. Chapter 11 12. Chapter 12 13. Chapter 13 14. Chapter 14 15. Chapter 15 16. Chapter 16 17. Chapter 17 18. Chapter 18 19. Chapter 19 20. Chapter 20 21. Chapter 21 22. Chapter 22 23. Chapter 23 24. Chapter 24 25. Chapter 25 26. Chapter 26 27. Chapter 27 Chapter 1 Juliet “You can’t say that about him, Juliet! He’s the defendant in a case you’re representing!” “But he is gorgeous. I’ve had a secret crush on him for years, that doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it. Sheesh. A girl can have an opinion, can’t she?” Brooke, my paralegal, was almost affronted that I found the defendant attractive. And I could relate. After all, it was against the rules of professional conduct to even speak to the opposing party to a law suit one was representing without their attorney present. But what happened in my mind was a different story. This was a place where anything could happen. And sometimes, it did. “Not the point! Okay, whatever. You need to get to sleep. The hearing starts early and it’s already late as it is.” “Fine. Fine. Going to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Okay, but don’t spend too much time fantasizing about him tonight. You need to wreck him in court tomorrow.” “I always do.” It was half past midnight already, and I was lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t sleep, anxious about the hearing later that morning. I had already won hundreds of cases but still had jitters the night before a trial no matter how prepared I was. But it was more than just the court case. I had that handled. My personal life, on the other hand, not so much. After my parents’ divorce years ago, I took sides with my dad. My mom and sister Leah had cut me out of their lives since, because they never forgave me for it. They hadn’t been easy to live with. They had always been manipulative, and I didn’t appreciate the way either of them had treated my dad. He was a sweet guy, and although he didn’t have much money, just enough to make a decent living, my mom squeezed whatever money she could out of him. Everything was about her. He worked himself to the bone for us, but she didn’t care. It was never enough. She had always been emotionally abusive and completely unsupportive of anything any of us did that didn’t line up with whatever benefitted her the most. And she was cold. She didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. I knew all this, but through the first few years, I tried several times to re-connect with them. Make amends. But they wouldn’t have anything to do with me. So, I’d accepted that they didn’t want me and moved on. Being a lawyer had not been in my plans. I’d always dreamed of being an artist. Unlike my mom, my dad fully supported me, and together, we made what was to us a good life. We were living paycheck to paycheck, but we were happy. Until we weren’t. My dad got sick and needed help. I figured, with all the bills stacking up, the best chance for us would be for me to go to school for something that would pay me a lot more money than being an artist ever would. As I was finding out as I went, they weren’t called “starving artists” for nothing. Considering my options, I realized I hated the sight of blood and never cared much for math, so being a doctor or accountant was out. That left me with the one option I was trying to escape from the beginning, but lawyering it was! It was a tragic irony to end up doing what my mom wanted me to do in the first place, but I guess that’s life. And I just so happened to be very good at it, which was always odd to me to be so good at something I hated. I was one of the most prominent attorneys in New York for civil cases like this, and the high-profile nature of this case was sure to bring more recognition to the firm, which was a win for us, but I was finding it harder and harder to go to work every day. It was sucking the life out of me and couldn’t have been further away from what I really wanted to do. Of course, being as good as I was had its advantages too. It paid well. So I was able to help Dad pay the bills, which delighted me, but had a very disconcerting side effect. Both my mother and my sister had come crawling back and magically reappeared in my life after I finished law school and started making good money. Problem was, after they’d both turned their backs on me, I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable. Not to them. Years later, and they were still attempting to worm their way back into my life here and there. My phone went off with a text, pulling me away from my mind. We’ve got him. I just got the email confirming the source of the sex tape leak. It came straight from Griffin’s personal email address. We’ve got