Don't Mind If I Do : A Fake Marriage Romantic Comedy Read online

  Don’t Mind if “I Do”

  Everly Ashton

  Copyright © 2021 by Everly Ashton

  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 for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Deep Thoughts

  About the Author

  Also by Everly Ashton

  One

  Nick

  “I’m afraid you have a penis fracture.” I manage to refrain from cringing as I deliver the unfortunate news to my patient and his girlfriend.

  His girlfriend’s hands fly to her mouth. “He broke his penis?”

  The patient grows pale and bends over the hospital bed, looking ready to puke. I step back as a precaution. It wouldn’t be the first time a patient threw up on my shoes during my shift.

  “Doctor…”

  “Ryan,” I supply for him.

  “Doctor Ryan, I don’t understand. There aren’t even bones in my dick.”

  He’s right about that.

  “No, but you do have two corpora cavernosa in there that fill with blood when it’s erect. And vigorous sex”—the girlfriend groans and I glance over—“can rupture the outer lining of one or both of them if the penis is bent suddenly or forcefully.”

  His eyes widen, his mouth opening and closing like a fish pulled from the water. I bet his dick feels as if a hook’s been stabbed through it. The ultrasound I conducted on him showed major damage.

  I’ve had to give horrible news, but never anything like this before.

  “So is it broken… forever?” He dry heaves.

  I shake my head. “No, but you need surgery to repair the damage.”

  He puts his fist to his mouth and bites his finger. I squeeze his shoulder. Screw my shoes at this point. Being a male, I feel for the guy.

  “Surgery is really necessary?” the girlfriend asks.

  “If he doesn’t do the surgery, he risks having a curved penis every time he gets an erection, and that’s if he can even get an erection anymore.”

  “Fuck that.” He sits straight up bed, but cringes from the pain his quick movement caused.

  I can imagine. The bulge that’s forming on the side of his penis looks like a small eggplant. Not exactly something any guy wants to see on his dick.

  “Surgery will make sure you have a long, fulfilling sex life.”

  He nods, pressing his lips together. “Yeah, okay. I’m ready now. Take me. Is time crucial? I can’t lose my dick, doctor.”

  Now he’s panicking. I would be too. No guy ever wants to hear “no erection for the rest of your life.”

  His girlfriend stands by his side, rubbing his back. “I’m so sorry. I knew I shouldn’t have tried that new move from the internet.”

  I clear my throat. “I’m going to get the surgeon, but if you need anything before I come back, just press the button”—I motion toward the call button on the remote at his side—“and a nurse will be in to see you.”

  “Thanks.” His face holds a mixture of relief and trepidation.

  “You’ll be good as new in a few weeks. No worries.” I wink, leaving the hospital room to head down the corridor toward the nurses’ station.

  When she sees me, Lucy perks up, standing from her chair and resting her hands on the desk, her double D’s straining her nurse’s uniform. “What can I do for you, Dr. Ryan?”

  She says Dr. Ryan as if it’s a filthy word, but I ignore the inuendo.

  Last week, Lucy dragged me into the break room and made out with me. I’ll admit, I went along with it for about thirty seconds before I pushed her away. As would any sexually-healthy single male.

  I might be the world’s biggest flirt—and yeah, I enjoy a fair amount of casual sex—but I hate drama and headaches, so I don’t screw around with coworkers. Lucy is more persistent than most, though I’ve been telling her no since she started working at the hospital a month ago.

  Women think they can change me, but there’s no chance of me settling down or getting into anything serious, which also means there’s no chance of starting anything with anyone at work. Getting my dick wet is not worth having to put up with a pissed-off ex (if you could even call her that) on every shift I work in the ER. No fucking way.

  “The guy who came in with the penis fracture needs to see a surgeon. Can you ring Dr. Li for me?”

  “Sure thing.” Lucy smiles, her gaze dipping to my lips. “Anything else I can get you? There isn’t anyone waiting to see you at the moment.”

  “No, that’s it.”

  The phone at the nurses’ station rings and she picks it up. “Emergency department.” She pauses and her gaze moves back to me. “He’s right here. Yes, I’ll tell him.” She places the phone back down on the receiver. “Dr. Schwartz wants to see you in his office.”

  Both of our lips tip down.

  What does the Chief of Physicians want to see me for?

  “Right now?” I ask.

  She nods. “And he didn’t sound happy.”

  I push my hand through my dark hair. “All right. I’ll be up there. Page me if anything major comes in.”

  “Okay. I’ll contact Dr. Li right now.”

  “Thanks.” I knock on the desk and make my way toward the elevators.

  I step in while the other people inside step back, then I press the button for the tenth floor before stuffing my hands in my pockets. I’m not sure what to think of Dr. Schwartz wanting to see me. I’ve never had an issue with him, but he’s a hard-ass. Then again, you don’t get to be the Chief Physician without being one.

  I knock on his door with clammy hands.

  “Come in,” a gruff voice calls from behind the door.

  I push the door open. The sixty-year-old man is seated behind his desk with his glasses on. His bald head gleams under the fluorescent lights.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Have a seat.” He removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.

  I haven’t been this nervous since one of my one-night stands showed up at my house a month afterward and I thought she was going to tell me she was pregnant. Turns out she’d lost an heirloom earring and we en
ded up finding it between the couch cushions in my living room. Let’s hope I get off as easily today.

  He sets his glasses on his desk and pins me with a hard stare. “We have a problem.”

  I swallow. “What’s that?”

  I mentally file through the last few months of patients to decipher if I’d expect any complaints or bullshit malpractice claims, but nothing comes to mind. The last months have been relatively easy as emergency medicine goes.

  “This.” He spins his laptop around to face me.

  The first thing I read is the headline: IS THIS WHAT YOUR DOCTOR IS DOING INSTEAD OF TREATING PATIENTS? There’s a picture under the headline—Lucy and me in the break room at work, hands all over one another and lips attached. Since the picture is taken from above us, I assume it’s from a security camera.

  “What the hell is this?” I look at him.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” Dr. Schwartz leans back in his chair and crosses his arms.

  I scroll through the article, skimming it enough to understand that it’s calling me out for inappropriate behavior while on shift, putting into question hospital policies for things like this and whether or not I’m using my position of power as a doctor to take advantage of a colleague.

  Anyone who works at a hospital knows that doctors would be lost without the nurses, so I question whether it’s me who has a position of power over a nurse. Regardless, the story doesn’t play well.

  I scroll down to a video and reluctantly hit Play, feeling Dr. Schwartz’s hard stare on me. The video shows the two of us going at it—conveniently missing the parts where she ambushed me, and I pushed her away.

  “How did this end up on here?”

  Dr. Schwartz spins his computer to face him again. “That’s not really the point.”

  “I think it kind of is.” My anger makes my carotid artery pulse.

  “We suspect an employee who works in the security department and has some recent issues with his superior. But never mind who. IT will get to the bottom of that. What I want to know is why you were using the hospital’s time to feel up a nurse?”

  Now I pinch the bridge of my nose. “She came on to me. The tape doesn’t show it, but that’s what happened. I didn’t take advantage of anyone. I pushed her away right after that video cuts out.”

  His mouth twists from side to side as he studies me.

  “What? I’m only human. I got lost in it for a moment, but I stopped it.” I hold my hands out to the side.

  “I believe you.”

  My shoulders relax. “You do? I mean, okay, good.”

  “I already got the full footage from security. But that hardly matters now. The board is up my ass about this since it came to their attention first.”

  “Shit.” My shoulders tense again.

  “Exactly. After that debacle earlier this year, they can’t risk any more bad press about the hospital.”

  I nod.

  About six months ago, a nurse was caught looking into patients’ files without authorization. They weren’t her patients or even in her department. It hit the media and instantly became a firestorm. Now the same newspaper has dredged up this bullshit story about me.

  “Am I gonna lose my job?”

  “No. Not yet anyway. But they want you to clean up your act. Stay out of trouble. Make a good name for yourself. You’re an excellent physician, Nick, but to be blunt, you need to get your shit together. Stop dating the twits. Find someone your own age who measures up to you. None of us have forgotten the Christmas party a couple years back, and that’s what has the board worried.”

  Jesus, I’m never going to live down that night.

  I brought a much younger date to the holiday party a couple years back and she thought it’d be fun to spike my drink. By the time I figured out what had happened, I didn’t much care because I was feeling so good that I practically tried to get her naked on the dance floor. Luckily, my best friend, Ollie—also a doctor here at the hospital—dragged me out and got me a drug test. Thanks to his quick thinking, all my colleagues believed me when I told them the girl had put something in my drink.

  “The hospital can’t afford any more bad press. You need to turn this around,” he says, his beady eyes staring at me under his bushy eyebrows.

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  He stands from his desk. “I don’t know but figure it out before the next board meeting. I can’t stress enough how serious this is. You’re my best ER doctor and I’m not about to lose you because you can’t keep your tongue in your own mouth. I put myself on the line in the meeting today and convinced them that you deserve a second chance. I shouldn’t have to tell you that optics count in today’s world, sometimes more than the truth.”

  Fuck. I could kill Lucy.

  “Is Lucy getting this same talk?” I ask.

  He walks around his desk and stands in front of me. “She’ll be spoken to, but her job isn’t on the line.” My jaw falls to the floor and he squeezes my shoulder. “You’re free to go to Human Resources, file a complaint.”

  “This is bullshit.” I clench my fists in my lap. Dr. Schwartz knows I’m not going to go to Human Resources because Lucy is young and I’m not going to ruin her career with this or bring more attention to mine.

  “Maybe. But there’s no changing it.”

  I shake my head and press my lips together to compose myself. “Thanks for going to bat for me.”

  “Don’t make me regret it.” He raises one of his bushy grey eyebrows.

  I stand from the chair and hold out my hand. “I won’t. I’ll make it right.”

  Two

  Mazzy

  One Week Earlier…

  I exit the black SUV and hustle into the downtown high-rise, doing my best to not look as if I’m rushing in case photographers are around. They don’t usually bother me throughout the day, reserving that for events or red carpets I attend in the city—it’s not as if I’m a famous Hollywood actress or anything. But ever since my divorce less than a year ago, I’ve been the subject of gossip in Boston far more often than I’d prefer. If I have to answer one more time how it felt to find out my husband was banging a twenty-one-year-old barista, I might go Sean Penn on the guy. Keeping the smile on my face and brushing it off as if the affairs were a minor inconvenience isn’t the easiest thing to do, but it’s what is expected of a Pembrooke. We never show weakness, never show emotion.

  But now that my grandfather passed away, I feel as if I’m walking on a razor-thin edge, ready to topple over at any moment.

  I rush through the lobby of the high-rise that houses the Pembrooke family lawyer. Harold Reilly has been our family’s lawyer for years and probably knows more secrets about us than all the gossip columnists in this country combined.

  I wave, rushing past the security guard. I’ve been here many times, including during the divorce of my short-lived marriage that never should have happened in the first place.

  As luck would have it, the elevator doors open as I’m approaching, and I wait for it to empty. A few people step in in front of me. I step forward to join them and the heel of my studded black-and-beige Valentino catches in the gap where the marble floor meets the floor of the elevator.

  I move to step forward and my foot won’t budge—but my momentum does, and I fall headfirst. Luckily, the man standing in the corner of the elevator steps forward to prevent me from bashing my head into the glass wall.

  “Thank you,” I rush out. While I’m still holding on to his lower arms, I try to yank my heel out of the gap.

  The elevator makes a horrendous buzzing sound, detecting that something is preventing the doors from closing.

  I try again to yank my foot free. I look at the man I’m holding on to. “I think I’m going to have to take my shoe off and try to pull it out.”

  “That’s not necessary. I can help.” He looks at an older lady standing on our left, watching the entire exchange. “Can you help balance her while I yank her foot free?”
>
  The woman nods, although clearly distraught by the inconvenience. Nevertheless, she holds my arms.

  The elevator alarm continues to blare as the man’s hands wrap around my ankle. He tugs. “Let me know if I’m hurting you.”

  “Will do,” I say through gritted teeth. The woman’s perfume is cloying, so I hold my breath while relaxing my leg enough that he can pull on it without hurting me.

  He tugs a few more times and I cringe when it hurts. “This thing is really stuck.”

  “I can take my shoe off to make it easier,” I suggest once again.

  “No, I think… I’ve… got it.” He wrenches my foot and a crack sounds.

  It takes me a moment to register that there’s no pain in my leg and I can move it, thank God. When I thank the woman and set my foot down, I realize there’s no heel on my shoe. I turn to face the man holding the heel up with a look of apology.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says.

  I give him a tight-lipped smile and take the heel. “It’s fine.”

  “I hope they weren’t expensive.”

  “These things happen.” I toss the heel into my purse and punch the button for my floor.

  At least the incessant alarm has stopped.

  I reach my floor and hobble out, limping down the hall with just the one heel. As soon as I step into the over-priced law firm, Harold’s secretary waves me through since I’m late. A late Pembrooke is unheard of.