Title: I Do (Not)
Author: Anni Lee
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 03/22/2021
Length: 53300
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, fake marriage, love triangle, billionaire, feel-good romance, romance comedy, brothers, office romance, Vegas wedding, boss-and-employee romance, enemies to lovers
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Description
Jacob Conner is never getting married.
Not now, not “someday,” and certainly not when he’s black-out drunk at his sister’s wedding in Las Vegas. The whole “waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room with a ring on his finger” thing was probably just a coincidence. Definitely.
He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it anyway, as Aaron Craig, his boss, assigns him to be the glorified baby sitter for his older brother for the week. Trevor Craig is as obnoxious as he is handsome, immediately pushing all of Jacob’s buttons and all of his boundaries. With one brother trying his patience, and the other acting unusually friendly, Jacob’s starting to wonder if he’s going to survive his work life long enough to find who put that ring on his finger.
I Do (Not)
Anni Lee © 2021
All Rights Reserved
Liz sat next to me on the park bench in the hotel courtyard, digging for food from her lunch box.
“Got any weekend plans?” She handed me half of her sandwich. Having been way too nervous to eat breakfast that morning, I’m sure I looked like a starved puppy as I shoved entirely too much of it into my mouth. Though I always ate Liz’s bread with at least that much fervor. She was a baker and a half.
“Work, work, and more work,” I muttered between chewing.
“Since when do you work weekends?”
“Since Aaron’s brother got to town. I thought I was just going to be a guide, but it feels more like I’m some kind of babysitter or something.”
Liz frowned. “What’s he like? Is he as much of a tyrant as his brother?”
“Worse! I’ll be amazed if I make it through this week without getting fired. I mean, Aaron is kind of a jerk, but Trevor is… He’s…” My face flushed, just thinking about him. His breath intermingling with mine. His body pressing me into the wall…
“What did he do?” Liz’s voice sounded clearly angry.
Ugh. Why am I always so transparent?
“It was nothing. Just work stuff. Anyways, I’ve gotta get back. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course.” She stood up, then gave me a brief smile. “The Jake I know doesn’t let people push him around. Maybe he needs to know that Jake too.” Liz headed off to the shop, not pressing me further. Although I had seen the worry in her expression. She was right. She always was. But it was so much easier to stick up for myself in theory than it was in execution.
I returned to my desk at the front of the hotel and traded out with one of the restaurant hostesses, who had agreed to stand in for me whenever I had to step away this week. I was still handling a majority of the reception work, but it was nice to have someone on hand who could handle the little things I never actually wanted to do.
I resituated my nameplate and logged into my computer. Trevor would be preoccupied by meetings for most of the day, so I at least would have time to collect myself. A lack of work had me scrolling through my phone, staring at vacation destinations I’d never get to and pictures of Anna’s fairytale honeymoon. She must have posted a million selfies in front of that waterfall. No one cares about your perfect life, Anna.
Okay, that’s not true. I cared a lot about my sister’s perfect life. But it wasn’t making me feel better about my own right now.
As the clock ticked past four, Trevor approached my desk. I swallowed my dread, seeing Aaron wasn’t around to help keep him in line.
“Do you want to get out of here?” He leaned on my desk with a curiously soft expression as if nothing had happened. I chose not to give him the satisfaction of eye contact. I’d already lost a battle to that gaze once.
I took a deep breath, trapping my fear in the bottom of my lungs. I needed my insecurities to step aside for a moment.
“No, I think I’ve seen enough of how you work. I’ll find a suitable replacement for you from our concierge.” I don’t know if I actually had the authority to do that, assuming I wanted to keep my job, but I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of having that much power over me. Liz was right. You give a guy like this an inch, and he’ll always take a mile.
“Am I that bad a kisser?”
“Yes.”
“Geez, it was a joke. I didn’t want to be stuck with another boring robot. Think of it like an interview. And you passed! Congratulations!” He motioned with his hands as if he was exploding a ball of confetti.
Lucky me.
“Are you going to apologize?”
“Apologize?” He practically laughed as he twirled the word around his tongue.
“Oh, did your mother never teach you about that? That’s a shame.” I looked up from my computer, deadpan, just long enough for him to fully absorb how little I was going to bend, before returning to my screen. I wasn’t giving him any additional attention until he figured it out.
We existed in silence for what must have been several minutes. The rules were clear. The first person to speak would be the loser.
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Whether she’s racing motorcycles faster than a RomCom lead’s beating heart, or scuba diving deeper than the pit of love they fall into, Anni Lee is always down for an adventure. She was born and raised in Los Angeles with four siblings and a single mother, which is probably why she has such a penchant for writing big city love and tenacious (albeit dysfunctional) heroes.
When she’s not typing away behind her laptop, she’s living out of a tent off the back of her motorcycle on her quest to ride around the world. The wilderness is the best place to catch up on reading, after all!
