My Work Rival Begged Me To Be Her Fake Boyfriend — Until Her Ex Showed Up
Part 1
The 4th of July had always been the loudest day of the year, but my apartment was entirely silent.
I sat on my faded couch with a lukewarm beer, watching a meaningless baseball game just for the background noise.
Most of my coworkers were out on boats or burning hotdogs in backyards with their families.
I didn’t have anyone left to celebrate with.
My parents had passed away a few years ago, and my brother lived three time zones away with his wife and kids.
Holidays were just a quiet, heavy reminder of the empty spaces in my life.
My phone vibrated against the coffee table, buzzing so long it nearly rattled off the edge.
I glanced at the screen and nearly dropped my drink.
The caller ID flashed a name I never expected to see outside of business hours.
Brenda.
We worked at the same massive marketing firm downtown, and for three years, she had been my absolute worst nightmare.
Every pitch, every promotion, every client meeting—we fought like stray dogs over a scrap of meat.
She was brilliant, ruthless, and always seemed to challenge me at the exact moment I felt confident.
I let it go to voicemail, assuming she just wanted to gloat about stealing a recent account.
But the phone immediately rang again.
I pressed answer, expecting a sarcastic remark about my lonely holiday.
Instead, I heard the sound of ragged, panicky breathing.
She didn’t sound like the icy executive who regularly destroyed my presentations.
She sounded terrified.
She begged me for a favor, her voice trembling so badly I could barely understand her words.
Ten minutes later, against every logical instinct I possessed, I was driving toward the suburbs.
The situation was completely absurd.
Brenda’s entire extended family had gathered for their annual barbecue, and they had been relentlessly pressuring her about her love life.
To get them off her back, she had invented a boyfriend.
She never actually expected her parents to demand he show up to the party.
Now she was trapped, and I was her only escape route.
I parked my car at the end of a street lined with massive oak trees and American flags.
The smell of charcoal and grilled meat hung thick in the humid summer air.
Children chased each other across front lawns waving unlit sparklers.
I found Brenda pacing near the edge of a sprawling driveway.
The moment she saw me, the tension drained from her shoulders like she had been holding her breath for hours.
She grabbed my hand.
Her fingers were ice cold despite the ninety-degree heat.
Before I could even introduce myself, she dragged me into a backyard packed with at least fifty people.
She smiled brightly, wrapped her arm around my waist, and announced to the crowd that I was her boyfriend.
The cheering was deafening.
An older woman, who I later learned was her grandmother, immediately started crying and pulled me into a suffocating hug.
Uncles slapped my back and shoved paper plates piled high with potato salad into my hands.
I felt like an actor shoved onto a stage with no script.
But Brenda handled it flawlessly.
She fed them elaborate lies about how we met at a coffee shop, laughing at all the right moments.
As the afternoon dragged on, I stood back and just watched her.
This wasn’t the ruthless corporate shark I knew.
She gently guided her frail grandfather, Brian, to a shaded lawn chair.
She threw a football with her little cousins, laughing until her face turned red.
She remembered everyone’s dietary restrictions, their recent vacations, their pet’s names.
It was incredibly disorienting.
Eventually, I needed a break from the noise.
I found a quiet spot under a massive oak tree near the fence line.
An older man with kind eyes and graying hair sat down next to me, offering me a cold bottle of water.
It was Dan, Brenda’s father.
He thanked me for coming, telling me how happy he was to finally see his daughter smile again.
I gave a polite nod, assuming he just meant she worked too much.
His expression softened as he stared out at the yard.
He told me about Brenda’s older brother.
He had passed away in a tragic accident several years ago, tearing the family apart.
Brenda had taken the loss harder than anyone.
She had funneled all of her grief, all of her pain, directly into her career.
Her relentless ambition wasn’t about power or money.
It was a shield.
Success was the only thing keeping her from drowning in her own heartbreak.
I sat there, the plastic water bottle crinkling in my tightening grip.
Suddenly, every bitter argument in the conference room made perfect sense.
I recognized that exact coping mechanism.
After I lost my parents, I had built the exact same fortress of work and isolation just to survive the empty nights.
I stared at the woman I had spent years fighting in boardrooms, suddenly recognizing the exact same walls of grief I had built around myself.
