Let’s Pretend

  Let’s Pretend

  River Laurent

  Let’s Pretend

  Copyright © 2019 by River Laurent

  The right of River Laurent to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  978-1-911608-32-5

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Synopsis

  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

  Epilogue

  Coming Next…

  About the Author

  Also by River Laurent

  Acknowledgments

  Thank You

  Leanore Elliott

  Brittany Urbaniak

  Michelle Barber

  Synopsis

  I’ve always had a thing for Scarlett Johnson. She has the cutest butt around town and that mouth. What I could do with that mouth! But she has always been out of bounds. She’s the daughter of a man respected a great deal, but now he’s dead and he has drawn up his will in such a way that his daughter needs me to marry her.

  She wants it to be a pretend marriage, but I’m not known as the great big white shark in the circles I move in, for nothing. I tell her nothing is for nothing. The deal has to work both ways. She gets something and I get something.

  It kills her to do it, but she agrees.

  Well, well, well…Scarlett Johnson

  Chapter 1

  Scarlett

  “What?” I gasp in shock.

  “I don’t believe it,” my younger sister blurts out.

  Ernest, my father’s attorney squirms slightly in his chair and pats his slightly askew-wiff hair piece. He’s worked for us for so long he almost feels like part of the family. If there were anyone I would trust, it would be this man, for sure. For certain.

  “It cannot be. My father would never do something like this. There must be some mistake,” I whisper.

  Ernest shakes his head.

  “Are you sure? Let me see the will,” Lori demands.

  “I’m very sorry Scarlett and Lori, but there is no mistake,” he says quietly, handing her the sheaf of papers. “I drew up this will, your father read, then signed it in front of me. This is what your father wanted.”

  Lori freezes beside me, and I know exactly what’s running through her head. The conversation we had with our mother right before she left us for good.

  "Can I just ask you one thing?” Mom whispered, as we sat by her bed. By this point, the notion of curing her had long been abandoned, and the best we could hope for was she would be comfortable in her final few days on this Earth.

  "Anything you want," I promised, and I meant it. There wasn’t a thing in the world I wouldn’t have done for her.

  "I want you to make sure that this house stays in our family," she replied, grasping my wrist weakly in her wasted claw-like hand. "This house has a heart and a soul. The walls keep the memories of our ancestors. I grew up here, my grandmother and mother grew up here, you and Lori grew up here...it must never end up anywhere, but your hands. You are my oldest. I entrust it to you as my mother entrusted it to me. Do you promise to take care of it until you can pass it on to your heir?”

  "Of course!” I exclaimed.

  At that time, I hadn’t even considered the idea of our home belonging to anyone else, but our family for as long as our blood flowed. How could it be? It was ours. I wanted to raise my own children here, along with Lori’s brood, whenever she had them. I would have given up my life to keep my promise. But now, here I was, hearing that it is going to be ripped away from me. From us.

  That Victoria is going to walk away with my mother’s beloved home.

  “But he wouldn’t have left Wotton Hall to her!” my sister, Lori cries out. “He knew she hates it. She called it a mausoleum right to his face.” She flung her hand in the direction where my stepmother is sitting, dressed from head to toe in black, milking her widowhood as if she truly is mourning.

  Ernest looks at my sister and me sadly. “I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do. Your father did leave the Wotton Hall, the grounds, and the woods around it, to Victoria.”

  I sag with disbelief and confusion. How could it be? My father promised me he would leave the house to me. He knew what it meant to me. It was my mother’s dying wish for me to have the house. She only left it to him temporarily to take advantage of some tax avoidance scheme his accountant had devised. He swore to her that he would pass the house to me on his death. I was there when he told her that. With tears streaming down his face, he’d promised her he would.

  Tears start clogging my own throat. My father’s betrayal is impossible for me to accept, or even comprehend. I was the only one present that night when he drew his last breath. He held my hand and said, “I love you, Scarlett my darling. You are my first born and have always been my favorite. I have set it up so that you will be safe from this cruel world.”

  Then he goes and does this!

  “Don’t worry, you won’t be homeless,” Ernest says in his most comforting voice. “Your father has made provisions for both of you to live in his London apartment.”

  “Right, I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Victoria speaks up, her voice full of irritation. “What else has he left for me?”

  “I’m afraid there is nothing else for you except the house and your monthly allowance that will continue to be paid to you until your dying day,” Ernest says coldly.

  “That’s it?” she screeches. “That’s what the old fool left for me?”

  “That’s it,” Ernest says tightly.

  “What about the business? The ancestral jewelry, the house in Paris and Bahamas?” she demands, her face twisting with anger.

  Ernest’s lips went thin. “That is for his daughters. It may surprise you to know that I believe your monthly allowance is actually too generous.”

  “You call that pittance, generous?” she asks scornfully. “Well, then you don’t know what I’ve had to do for it. The stingy, decrepit bastard. I had to suck his shriveled coc—”

  I see red. Without even realizing it, I jump out of my chair and streak across the room. The sound of my hand connecting with Victoria’s cheek reverberates around our stunned figures.

  Victoria holds her cheek and glares at me with pure hatred, but she does not dare retaliate. She can see that she has pushed me beyond civilized limits.

  For the first time during th
is will reading, Lori smiles.

  I’m ready to claw her eyes out. “Get out,” I snarl. “Get out. You’re a vile, disrespectful bitch. Why my father ever married a conniving gold digger like you, I’ll never know.”

  She smiles suddenly. “It’s not actually, a secret, you know. Nobody can suck dick like me. I’m sure I could give you a lesson or two about that. You look like you need it.”

  “You are disgusting!” Lori yells.

  “Get out,” I grit through clenched teeth.

  “Yes, I’m going, but let me tell you my first order of business is to sell this damn place, so I’ll expect you to move both your snooty asses out of my property by the end of the week,” she says with a sneer before turning on her heels and walking out of the door.

  Chapter 2

  Scarlett

  I’m stunned. I can’t even think straight anymore. I can feel my breath coming out of me shallow and fast.

  My sister comes over to me. “Calm down, Scarlett. She’s gone now.”

  I clasp my sister’s hand tightly, then I turn to Ernest, my voice shaking with emotion as I speak, “Can I instruct you to immediately buy the house off her?”

  Ernest shakes his head. “Unfortunately, no.”

  My eyes narrow at him.

  “Why not?” Lori asks.

  “I’m afraid you won’t be able to touch your inheritance until you are twenty-one.”

  Now, I’m even more confused. “What? Why would Dad make a stipulation like that?”

  Ernest adjusts his glasses and shrugs. “Such stipulations are usually made when the heir is very young and is prone to making…er…bad decisions, or is too naïve and is in danger of being cheated by the people around that person.”

  “I’m twenty, but I don’t make stupid decision and I certainly don’t hang around iffy people. My father knew that.”

  Ernest shrugs.

  I collapse into the black giant leather chair nearest to me. I know these chairs are meant to make his clients feel comfortable, but to me it feels like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe poem. A tragedy, of course.

  Never, ever did I imagine the reading of my father’s will would bring me to this. I have to sit back and watch the home that has been in my mother’s family for six hundred years being sold to complete strangers. They could tear those old walls down. They could change it. They could dig up my mother’s grave. There is no way I can allow that.

  Lori reaches over and pats my hand.

  I lift my head. “There must be another way. I can’t give Wotton Hall up. I promised my mother I would take care of it. That I would never let it go out of our family.”

  Ernest looks at me from over the rims of his glasses for a moment with a strange glint in his eyes.

  “There is a way, isn’t there?” I pounce immediately.

  He pushes his glasses up along his nose.

  I lean forward in my chair.

  Lori scoots to the edge of her seat too.

  “Yes, there is, but you won’t like it,” he says, shuffling the papers on his desk.

  “What is it?”

  He coughs discreetly. “Well, did you notice how you and your sister only hold forty-nine percent of the shares of your father’s company?”

  I shake my head.

  Lori shakes hers too.

  Truth is, I’d heard nothing once I knew neither my sister nor I would be inheriting Wotton Hall. “No, but carry on.”

  “That’s because Zachary Winston Black owns the other fifty one percent.”

  Lori stares at me with her mouth slack.

  Zachary Winston Black! Into the fog of my confusion and despair comes the image of Zachary Black. Raven black hair, tanned; piercing, icy-gray eyes, tall, broad shouldered, a V shaped torso, sensual mouth, but my father told me one shouldn’t be fooled by his gorgeous exterior. He was a very dangerous American predator. His business was asset stripping. His job was to identify businesses that appeared vulnerable and make an aggressive takeover bid on them.

  “Zachary Black owns fifty one percent of our company?” I echo in shock.

  “That cannot be true!” Lori exclaims.

  Ernest nods. “Yes, he bought the shares from your father about two years ago.”

  I shook my head to clear it. Two years ago? How come I knew nothing about any of this? My father always made a point of updating me on the happenings of his company. When we were young, he made business cards for both Lori and me to get us interested in the company.

  But even more than that… how very strange to have sold shares to this particular man. Why would my father sell the controlling interest of his company, the company he had worked all his life to build, to an asset stripper he considered a very dangerous predator? The only thing I could think of was my father’s business was in trouble and Zachary had swooped in.

  “What does this mean? Was the business in trouble?” I ask.

  “It has never been in trouble before,” Lori adds.

  “Oh, no. The business was fine. In fact, since Zachary came into the picture, it’s never been in better shape. Selling the controlling interest to Zachary was the best thing that your father did.

  My head starts to spin. “So what has he got to do with the house?”

  “He doesn’t, but there is a clause in the will that if anyone jointly owns more than seventy five percent shares of the business they can move to stop the sale of the house, grounds and woods. Of course, you and your sister will not have enough on your own, but if you were to…well…marry Zachary Black… you could stop the house from being sold until you were old enough to buy it from your inheritance.”

  Lori gasps as she stares at him.

  I too, stare at him with open-mouthed astonishment. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m afraid I am. That is the only way for you to save Wotton Hall.”

  Chapter 3

  Scarlett

  Marry Zachary Black?

  I feel as if I’ve fallen through a black vortex into an alternative universe. This can’t be happening. It has to be a nightmare. It has to be.

  Lori reaches over and takes my hand, squeezing it gently. "Hey," she murmurs, drawing my attention. "It’s going to be okay."

  I turn to face her, my mind blank with shock. I stare at her dumbfounded. She’s my baby sister, only sixteen. I’m meant to be the one in charge here. It’s been that way since we lost our mother, but I’m such a toxic mess she’s taken charge. I have no idea what I’m meant to do anymore.

  Lori tucks a loose strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear, and smiles sweetly at me. She got that sweet smile from our mother, along with her blue eyes, whereas I inherited my father’s blonde-hair-brown-eyes combination. Looking at us, you would never guess we were sisters, but we are bonded by blood. I would give anything to protect her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she repeats. “We’ll work it out somehow.”

  “How?”

  “Maybe I can marry Zachary,” she says, dimpling prettily at me.

  I crack a watery smile for her benefit. “Very funny.”

  “Actually, I totally wouldn’t mind it.”

  Something in her eyes makes me frown. “Don’t be so silly, Lori. You’re sixteen. I’m not going to let you marry a thirty-one-year old man.”

  She pouts. “You’re such a spoil-sport.”

  I close my eyes. I don’t need this.

  “I wish Dad had never married her,” Lori snarls.

  There’s such hatred in her voice that my eyes snap open. I didn’t know she hated Victoria so much. Most of the time she was away at school and she hardly spent any time with our step mom. Only one summer vacation and Victoria was on her best behavior then, since we were staying at the home of an Italian Count and his glamorous wife.

  Lori’s eyes fill with tears.

  “Don’t cry, Lori. She made Dad happy,” I lie softly. I’ve never blamed Dad for getting remarried. I know it’s what Mom would have wanted for him, to move on and find someon
e who made him happy. I suppose Victoria must have made him happy, in one way or another, at least at the beginning, though I’d be damned if I could figure it out. She was a full twenty-five years younger than he was, and it was really strange that a cunning old fox like my father couldn’t see through the thin veneer of what she was really after.

  I guess he had been as lonely as we were when Mom passed away. Maybe he was just looking to reclaim some of that incredible connection he had with Mom, or maybe he was just looking for someone to come home to at night after a long day at the office.

  Whatever it was, it didn’t work out. It only took a few months for Victoria to show her true colors. To keep the fights down, she stayed up in London most of the time, only coming down twice a week. It was clear he was horribly lonely, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  There is something I can do now, for my family though. I stand and turn to face Ernest. “I’ll call you sometime this week. Thank you for everything you’ve done for my family.” Then I hold my hand out to my sister. “Come on, Lori. We got plans to make.”

  Chapter 4

  Scarlett

  “I presume you are not here to apologize for striking me,” Victoria says as soon as I am shown into the living room of her plush London apartment. She’s wearing a white pantsuit and her dog is curled up on a velvet cushion next to her.