How to Fake a Love Story

16: Of Potential Wife

The sky was blue and nearly cloudless. It was the kind of day he'd rather spend sleeping in-not cooking food for someone he was quite sure he disliked.

Ugh.

That was a wife's-

Not a pleasant thought.

A blue Post-It note on the otherwise flawless fridge detailed out what was to be made for dinner tonight. 'Noodles' was scrawled elegantly in Mayuri's neat, crisp cursive. Mayuri, Jared's maid, had taken the day off to give Ryan to showcase his skills.

Ryan didn't know how could he have been roped into this. It had been only three days since the scene on the rooftop-and he had yet to stop feeling like the luckiest man on earth for the close escape.

Maybe that was part of a reason he was at Jared's estate, cooking him a meal after rearranging all the books in his massive library. Ryan cursed himself for revealing the fact that he could cook during one if their dates-that small titbit had been harmless at that moment.

But it was now coming to bite him in the ass.

A loud meow distracted him from the note.

He turned to the cat who sat there, looking up at him expectantly. Ryan felt his eye twitch. The black cat had been following him ever since he started working and was showing no signs of leaving him alone.

"Shoo." Ryan moved to nudge it with his foot but it stood up and he quickly withdrew it.

The cat sat back down and Ryan grumbled, determined not to get on this cat's bad side and exhibit his appealing scratching post qualities that most of the cats had taken advantage of.

He was hoping Arthur-Jared's cat-wasn't having the same ideas.

"Fine. Stay there, just don't come near me."

Ryan turned towards the task at hand. He had made noodles before. Cierra liked his home-made pizza better, but she would still always compliment his cooking thoroughly, honestly, and affectionately whenever he did.

Inside the fridge were the noodles as well as condiments and other raw ingredients for food. Ryan's eyes lit up at the salmon still sealed in its packaging. He poked it slightly. It was fresh.

After frying up the noodles, he smoked the fish. Just as he was about to flip the noodles, something warm and fuzzy wrapped itself around his leg and Ryan jumped-nearly spilling the oil on himself.

Ryan growled, cursing his internal sense of fair play and paying back debts, as well as his weakness to looks which should be banned. He didn't know when had Jared learnt to put on such a pathetically sad face nor did he understand why did it effect him so.

Naturally, Myra was to blame for all this as he thought back to the night of the party and flipped the noodles again.

A voice interrupted his thoughts. "Wow."

Ryan pulled a face and didn't need to turn and look to know who was there.

Probably smirking.

That ass.

While Ryan really didn't want to know what provoked a 'wow' response from him, regardless of warnings regarding cats and their damned curios-

"Wow what?" He asked.

Damn him and his curiosity.

Ryan could nearly hear the grin in Jared's voice. "Arthur really likes you. He's usually only friendly to girls. Everyone else is a scratching post."

If listened closely, Ryan could hear the last dredges of his claim to masculinity flush down the drain.

Just fantastic.

It just couldn't possibly be better: He was being stalked by a cat, pretending to be gay for money, getting sexually harassed every six minutes, had been roped into doing this, and was now effeminate enough to fool animals.

Life was grand.

Ryan turned back to the food with carefully hidden death threats murmured under his breath as he added salt and pepper to the food, while one useless hand soaked in a bucket of cold water.

"Is there something you want?" he asked irritably, flipping the food in the pan.

As arms circled around his waist, he felt something tug at the knot of the apron he had worn.

His face turned a brilliant shade of scarlet.

Ryan wanted to go home.

But then he would remember the money and the reason he had stuck to his role for so long and that would be the end of his lapse of homesickness.

"I want dinner," was cooed softly in his ear, a lick making him shudder.

But still, there were some actions that continued to cross lines.

Ryan jumped again and cursed as the oil splashed on his arm and fingers.

Jared snatched up his hand before he could dip it into some cold water and placed his tongue against Ryan's wrist where the oil splattered.

Ryan met Jared's gaze as his tongue traced the burn and a chill of-of something ran up Ryan's spine. A few tense seconds passed as neither of them broke the gaze. Suddenly, a loud chime sounded and Ryan blinked, snapping from his daze. Before Jared could do anything, he snatched his arm back from Jared-resisting the urge to leave the estate as quickly as he could without looking back.

"You'll have to wait," Ryan said briskly, flipping the noodles as if he hadn't just been sexually harassed. Again. "It's almost done."

He pushed the thoughts of how it didn't feel like s****l harassment to the back of his mind. This wasn't the time to be thinking such things.

With a dramatic sigh, Jared leaned away from him, heading back towards the kitchen entrance. "Fine. By the way, you look good in that apron-it really suits you."

Ryan growled.

Bastard.



"Why didn't you tell me that a few days ago? You ass! I'm already back in England!" Myra huffed.

Jared laughed. "Because you would've indefinitely killed him if I did. I know you, Myra, don't deny it."

His study was on the first floor and soundproofed so he didn't have to fear about Ryan listening in on the conversation. He had taken leave from the office today in order to enjoy some homemade dinner for the first time in what felt like forever.

Mayuri did cook for him but he often depended on take-outs since he spent most of the time in the office building.

The lunch that Ryan was cooking smelt promising when he went to check on Ryan earlier. The memory of what happened was still fresh in his mind and he couldn't help the heat that spread across his cheeks.

Myra huffed from the other end. "But still, this doesn't make me happy about the situation. You pulled it off really good too-I TOTALLY thought you were serious about that 'love' thing."

Thankful for the distraction, he tuned in to the conversation. "The confession?"

"Yeah."

He scoffed. "That? That's nothing. You should've seen me when I was consolidating all the iron resources under my roof. My father was a politician, and my mother spent the latter years in her life talking to priggish company executives all day. Acting is in my blood."

And it was true.

If it wasn't then he wouldn't be able to pull off what he did with a straight face. Saying 'I love you' to a boy he definitely wasn't in love with did cross a few of his lines. It was made easier by the fact that while he didn't love Ryan, he did like the company of the man.

Liked him enough to be able to tease him by crossing the line like he had done in the kitchen.

He shook his head in an effort to get rid of that thought.

Myra giggled. "You had me fooled, for sure. You think Cynthia saw through it?"

Jared shrugged, even though the gesture was lost on Myra-Myra being thousands of miles away in another country. "I don't know. Maybe. I never know what goes on in that head of hers."

"Why go through all that trouble? To keep him around, I mean. It doesn't make sense."

"Well, here's how I see it: Rosewood will eventually get used to the fact that I am no longer single-or straight-and the girls will have to all just give up on me. It's only been, what, two-ish months? If I end this stupid thing now I'll get even more junk mail with condolences and other people asking for his contact information and whatnot."

She tutted. "That's kind of selfish, Jared. What about Ryan? What if he falls for you?"

"Pfft. Do you really believe that?"

"I don't know. I'm just pointing it out as a possibility. How about you? What if YOU fall for HIM? He's got those good looks part covered after all."

Jared paused for a moment. "Why does everyone say that? Look, my mail isn't the only reason I'm keeping him around. He's pretty fun to humiliate-and it's pretty damn easy too."

"You're kind of a douche, too, Jared. Now that I think about it-sitting here listening to all this. He's not going to be happy when he learns that you were straight this whole time."

Jared frowned. "What, are you defending him? After everything he's done to you?"

"You're right, I shouldn't be. I'm just saying, Jared; karma has funny ways of getting back at people."

Jared's frown deepened.

This wasn't what he had expected. He expected Myra to be laughing with him, to be on his side. With her history with Ryan he thought she would be taking amusement in all this instead of reprimanding him for his unlawful behaviour.

It was like a mother scolding her child.

It left him with an uncomfortable feeling.

What he was doing wasn't wrong.

Per se.

Whatever Ryan was doing was wrong. He was the one who started this mess. Jared was just playing along for the hell of it. "I don't see why you're so angry about this, Myra. It's not like I'm causing any harm. Just having a little fun with him. That's all."

Myra sighed and he imagined her frowning. "You stupid boy! Don't you ever think about anything at all? How would YOU feel if someone said 'I love you' like that and was faking it in the end? I know what it's like to be that person, Jared. Those are the kind of things you say only if you really mean it. You just might be more of an ass than he is right now."

There was a silence between them. Jared idly grabbed a pen and tapped it, feeling like he had just been sent to his room with no dinner.

Myra was the first to break the silence, "Anyway, I have to get going, Jared. There's a meeting I'm already late for. I'm the CEO's daughter so I can get away with a lot, but missing it is out of the question."

"Alright, that's no problem," Jared acknowledged in a defeated tone.

Myra had effectively killed his interest for humiliating Ryan-who he had finally wheedled into cooking for him while wearing a pink apron.

"By the way, I meant what I said back on the roof. You make him cry and I'll kill you."

He shivered. "I'll remember that."

"Like I said, karma has a funny way of dealing with things. Bye, Jared."

"Yeah... I'll talk to you later, Myra."