it's a fugly life (The Fugly Series Book 2) Read online

  He slid a small black box from his pocket and opened it to reveal a gorgeous diamond ring.

  I was too excited and overwhelmed to actually look at it or make my lips move or get my feet to walk around the counter. I wanted to kiss him and cry and tell him how damned sorry I was for fucking up our relationship.

  “Well?” Those hazel eyes drilled into me.

  I held up my index finger. “I think I’m going to be sick.” I turned and ran for the back of my little store. I flipped on the bathroom lights and leaned my body over the toilet, feeling the wave of nerves hit me hard.

  “Lily?”

  I panted, but nothing came out. Breathe, breathe, breathe. The wave passed, and I stood upright. Slowly, I turned my gaze toward the tall, muscularly framed, beautiful man standing in the doorway, with one eyebrow cocked and his thick arms crossed over his broad chest.

  “This is not going how I imagined.” He flashed a cocky little smile.

  Oh shit. Reply. Reply, stupid! “Yes! Yes. Wait. No!”

  “No?” His head jerked back.

  Fuck! “I can’t accept your proposal.”

  He blinked at me. “This is definitely not how I expected it to go.”

  I stepped back an inch, needing to put distance between us in any way possible. He had no idea what I’d been through these last six months. He had no idea how hard it had been to get up every day and not cry or hate myself for what I’d done to him, to us. But I’d finally pulled my life together a few crumbs at a time. I’d…moved on. At least, I was trying.

  I tugged down on the hem of my pink sweater and lifted my chin. “I’m sorry,” I said with a firm tone, “but I can’t marry you.”

  He stared with a scowl I knew so, so well, reminding me of when he was Mr. Cole, my boss. My hot dickhead of a boss with a very strange secret.

  I inhaled deeply. What I had to say next would not please him. Not in the least. But he and I had always been honest with each other. It was the foundation of our relationship and what I loved most about us. Okay, that and the sex.

  I swallowed and looked down at my pink flats—yes, they went with my sweater and my pink jeans. Why hadn’t I worn something more serious today? Because saying what I had to say next, dressed like a piece of Pepto, made me feel ridiculous. I needed a black leather jacket or a flame-retardant suit for this.

  “I, uh…” I cleared my throat. “I’m engaged already. Well…mostly.” I hadn’t officially said yes to my boyfriend, but I’d intended to.

  “What! Who? Who, Lily!” Max yelled.

  I cringed, knowing full well he would not understand. With one eye closed and the other squinting, I turned my head to the side, preparing for a giant explosion. Boom! Male ego everywhere.

  “Patricio Ferrari?” I eked out.

  Max’s face seemed to inflate like a giant angry red balloon. “The fucking actor?” he roared.

  It wasn’t a question. Not really. Maxwell Cole knew exactly who Patricio Ferrari was. Nope. They weren’t friends.

  “Yes,” I whispered with my eyes closed, “the actor. Who else?”

  Max opened his mouth to speak, pointed his finger in my face, and then snapped his mouth shut and looked away. I watched while he repeated the action—open mouth, point, close mouth, look away, open mouth, point, close mouth…

  “Max.” I stepped forward and gently grabbed his arm. “Please try to understand. You didn’t want me. You said goodbye.” Or at least that was how it seemed at the time when I’d said something like, “I am so sorry. Please give me another chance.” And he’d said something like, “Thanks for coming by, but I have to meet with my lawyers.”

  “But you…” he snarled. “You…Patricio. Really?” He shook his head in disgust.

  “Max, I’m sorry, but yes, really. He loves me, and he makes me happy.” Patricio and I cooked dinners together and watched silly movies. We wore stupid hats and rollerbladed at Venice beach. We took off to the mountains and went skiing. I couldn’t remember having so much fun and that was because I never knew how. Not before Patricio. He’d introduced me to a part of myself I needed. And he taught me how to breathe again. His looks weren’t so bad either.

  Max ran his hands through his messy dark hair. “Do you fucking love him, Lily?”

  I didn’t even need to think about the answer. Yes! Maybe? No, definitely yes. But did I love him like I loved Max, with pure chaotic passion? No. Patricio and I were more like friends, and after having my heart decimated by Max, that made me feel safe. Yes, Patricio was definitely the type of guy I should marry and could grow to love more over time.

  “Yes. I love him,” I replied without specifying the type of love. It wasn’t any of Max’s business.

  Max’s rapid pulse ticked away on his neck. “How…but…me…but…”

  To see such an articulate, opinionated, stubborn-as-hell man like Max fail to find his words tore out my heart.

  “Six months,” he growled like a horrible accusation. “Six fucking months!”

  “Stop yelling at me,” I snapped. “Not when I could say the same to you, Max. Six months. Where were you?” I hadn’t heard a word since that day I asked him to forgive me, about a month after the accident.

  “I was taking care of some very important things.”

  “Can you be any vaguer?” I asked.

  “What does it matter what I was doing? Because clearly you were keeping yourself occupied.”

  Jerkface. Why did he expect me to sit around for half a year like a helpless, lovesick woman? That was not me. I was the type of person who picked herself up after she fell down.

  As for Patricio, he was a very intense man who pursued his desires with passion. No different than Max. Ironically, Patricio and I had met at a party in Milan right before Max and I started our relationship. Anyway, Patricio and I had danced at that party and had fun. He didn’t care about my presurgery looks or my fameless status. And a month after my Maxwell-meltdown slash very public breakup, Patricio somehow tracked down my number and asked me out for a drink. I said no at first. And the second and third and fourth times, too. Finally, a few months ago, I felt ready to take a step forward and move on. I accepted. Patricio made it clear on the very first date that he knew Max had broken my heart. “I don’t care if you still love that asshole. I am here, claiming my stake. I want you, Lily. And I know what you’ve been through. I know what you must feel. But I also know what I feel. You,” he’d kissed the top of my hand, “light up my life like no odder.” He’d meant “other” but his Italian accent became exaggerated when he was excited or emotional. “Jess” instead of “yes.” “Chew” instead of “you.” “Hot” instead of “heart.” Jess, Leely. My hot belongs to chew.

  I loved it. He had a wild, crazy side, and when he had his breaks from filming, usually in L.A. where he now lived, I enjoyed spending time with him. No, Patricio and I didn’t know each other extremely well, which was why his proposal seemed sudden, but like I said, we were good friends, we had fun, and what woman wouldn’t want a famous, hot, Italian actor as a husband? We were a good match. Max, in comparison, made me feel lost to emotion, vulnerable, and…well, extremely aroused. Stop that.

  I lifted my chin. “I’m sorry, Max. But you’re six months too late. I’m marrying him.”

  “So you said yes.” I could practically see the steam rising off the top of Max’s head of messy brown hair. Perfectly messy, of course, because Max demanded perfection in everything he did.

  “No.” I had needed time to think. “But I will. Tonight.”

  A long moment passed while Max stared into my eyes. “Then you have to wait.”

  “Why would I do that?” Patricio loved me. I loved Patricio. No, as I explained, it wasn’t the same type of love I once had with Max, but for as long as I breathed, I would never love anyone like that. But that was because the evolution of our relationship had been unlike anything else. Like many women, I first thought of Max as the indescribably sexy and driven man who appeared in all of those stea
my ads for his company. Naked. Hand covering the goods. Ripped from head to toe. Words could not describe how much I worshipped him. Then we’d met when I interviewed for a sales position at his company, and I caught a glimpse of his ugly side. I hated the man. I hated how he looked at me, I hated looking at him, and I hated how he made me feel like the ugliest creature on the planet. Then he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and talked me into working for him. After that, we started to really see each other and ourselves for who we were.

  I fell hard for him.

  But Max and I had ended in self-destruction. Me with my ugly problems and him with his. Oh yes, that man had issues. Big, scary issues with fangs and wiry hair and an ice pick. We were so tainted by our fucking hang-ups that we were bound to end in a blazing fire of hurt. That had been the one sane thought I’d clung to these past six months: we were bad for each other, and it never would’ve worked. It didn’t matter how much I loved him or he loved me.

  “You owe me, Lily.” Max’s nostrils flared a bit.

  I frowned. “I owe you what?”

  “You took everything from me—my company, my sanity, and my peace of mind.”

  Whoa. “According to you—two seconds ago—you didn’t want your company anymore, and before I came along, you were a slave to your…secret,” I whispered that last word. I don’t know why exactly, since it wasn’t a secret anymore. Max’s perfection-obsessed mother had psychologically abused him and his older sister, causing him to believe that anything unaesthetically pleasing was a cancer. His secret disorder was called cacophobia. He would experience extreme anxiety at the sight of ugliness. It sounded kind of funny until you were at the receiving end of that disgust or understood how hard it had made his life. His own sister had disowned them all, likely to save herself. Last I’d heard, Max was trying to find her.

  As for his disorder? I had been Max’s antidote. His desensitization therapy. Which was why he’d hired me. Okay—it was part of the reason. He believed in me and wanted to help me find my confidence. And while my outsides made him break out in a cold sweat, he found my insides irresistible. He eventually overcame his aversion, and we shared a few days of magic. Bliss. Heaven. Yes, for a few short moments we both believed we’d had a future together, without our uglies.

  We’d been wrong.

  “Lily.” He gripped my shoulders. “We both know where this will go. Why make us suffer any more than we already have?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I love you. More than anything, and I know you feel the same. So why put yourself or Patricio through any unnecessary turmoil?”

  I felt enraged by his presumptive nature. He didn’t own me. He knew nothing about what I’d been through. There was no way in hell I’d risk getting hurt like that again by him. Nope. Nuh-uh. I’d rather have a do-over of my face getting mangled—it would hurt less.

  “I think you’re going to have to accept the truth, Max. We. Are. Over. I am marrying Patricio.”

  “No. You won’t.”

  “Says who?” I asked.

  “Me.”

  I laughed.

  He squeezed my shoulders firmly. “I know you, Lily. I know the smell of your darkest fears and the sound of your happiest laugh. I know how your heart beats faster when I kiss that little spot at the base of your neck.” He leaned down to whisper in my ear, “And I know how your pussy feels when you can’t get enough of my hard cock.”

  I jerked back and stared into his hazel eyes, unable to deny a single shocking word. “Your point?”

  He slid his hand behind the back of my head and kissed me hard. His lips were punishing. His tongue was hot. His body told me he was ready for war and taking no prisoners.

  Goddammit! I missed his soft lips. They felt like perfection against my mouth.

  He pulled back, leaving me breathless. “My point, Lily, is that I own you. Not because I’m a possessive asshole, but because you already gave yourself to me.”

  He was overlooking how he’d turned me away when I groveled at his perfect feet and begged for forgiveness. I have suffered and suffered and suffered some more. I’m done suffering. I was not about to invite that horrific breed of vulnerability into my life. Never again.

  I walked out of the back room and weaved my way between my display tables to the front door.

  Max followed closely behind. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I pushed the door open and stepped to the side. “This is the only thing I’ve got to offer, Max. The exit. And don’t come back.”

  He smiled, walked straight for me, and stopped with less than a foot between us. “You’re mine, Lily, and you can pretend otherwise, but it won’t change the fact: Patricio doesn’t love you like I do and he never will.”

  I held up my left hand to show my engagement ring. “He says otherwise. And so do I.”

  Max shook his head. “Marketing, Lily. It’s all about marketing.” He turned and left, leaving my mind to wonder what he’d meant.

  I spent the rest of the day with the fakest smile I’d ever worn, a necessity to greet my handful of customers and make sales, but make no mistake, underneath that smile was outrage.

  How dare he say that to me? Patricio loves me! Why else would a famous, hot-as-hell Italian actor want to marry me? Patricio had nothing to gain. Nothing. I mean, yes, marrying me would get him a green card, but with those big green eyes, that handsome face and sexy body, he could get anyone, really. Me, I came with baggage. I was complicated. I was not marriage-of-convenience material. More like inconvenience material. Besides, the studio had him on a work visa for some movie he was filming. He could eventually apply for a green card on his own.

  Ha. See, Max! He does want me. Wait. What am I doing?

  “Fuck!” I yelled, stomping my feet in the back room, where I kept my inventory and had a desk for paperwork. I’d let Max get inside my head, which spoke to the deep emotional connection we’d once shared. A connection I’d released for sanity’s sake.

  I stared up at the industrial tiled ceiling, feeling like the Lily-planets were about to collide. I am not letting this happen. I had my life together now. Okay. Sort of. And I was happy now. Sorta. But Max was…he was…

  “Gah!” I walked out to the floor, locked the front door, and turned the sign to closed before going for my broom. My cell vibrated in my pocket. I slid it out.

  Patricio: Dinner at your place tonight? I will bring the salami.

  I smiled. Patricio loved to joke around and call his penis the salami. So unlike Max. Who was alpha male to the max. No pun intended. He was serious. Demanding. Always in control.

  Christ. My smile melted away. I needed to tell Patricio what had happened today, and he would not be happy. He did not care for Maxwell Cole one little bit, and given that his ego rivaled Max’s, he’d go into instant caveman mode. No, he’d never told me why the two weren’t friends, but I guessed they’d had some sort of run-in at one of the many glamorous events both frequently attended. Over a woman? Maybe. But I didn’t want to know.

  My cell buzzed in my hand, reminding me of the unanswered text.

  Me: Dinner sounds great. Looking forward to the cannoli.

  I grinned. At this very moment, Patricio was somewhere in L.A., swearing in Italian. No one, and I mean no one made fun of his junk.

  Patricio: there will be spanking tonight

  “Yeah. You wish,” I muttered to myself. We were not going to be having sex tonight. He would be too angry about Max’s reemergence. And I had Max on the brain.

  Around eight fifteen, the front door to my little apartment buzzed, jarring me from my calming breathing exercises on the couch in my living room.

  After the car accident, I had terrible nightmares followed by moments of sheer panic—a tightening in my stomach, dizziness, cold sweats. I endured a month of that before my mom talked me into seeing a therapist, Clara Monroe, who told me I suffered from a sort of post-traumatic stress. She taught me how to breathe and meditate, which
helped a lot, but more importantly she convinced me to finally begin confronting my issues. Plainly put, growing up severely ugly had severely screwed with my head. I walked around with my chin held high, feeling confident and powerful, while a part of me, buried deep inside like a cancer, constantly whispered I wasn’t good enough. “Try harder. You know they think you’re a loser because you’re ugly.” “Run longer, because you’re too fat.” “Change your clothes. You look like shit in that outfit.”

  Ugh. That voice.

  That motherfucking voice.

  It was always there, telling me why I sucked. Why couldn’t I have a voice that told me things like, “You’re smart, you have an amazing heart, and be proud of who you are”?

  “That’s what mothers are for,” Clara had said.

  “Fine. Then put her in my head.”

  Clara had laughed. “If my mother were inside my head, I’d be in a padded cell. Not here with you.”

  “Good point.”

  But Clara had pointed out that fighting with myself—getting angry because I had this fugly voice in my head—was simply another form of self-hate. “The only way to break the cycle is to acknowledge it’s there,” she’d said.

  “And then?”

  She’d shrugged. “Make peace with it.”

  “How the hell do I do that?” I wanted to shoot the little bastard.

  “You may not realize it, but the part of you that feels so imperfect has gotten you where you are. It’s pushed you to be a better person. So has that part of you that says you’re good and deserve good things.”

  Okay. Sure. I understood how not feeling perfect drove me to get into Stanford, pull straight A’s, and become a workaholic—but it also kept me from having a peaceful, fulfilling life. Don’t get me wrong. Most of the time, I felt good about myself. I worked hard, cared about others, and tried to do good. That was the real me. But that ugly whisper of self-doubt held me back sometimes, and I knew it. My relationship with Max being the perfect example. Some woman, who had a huge and very personal bone to pick with Max, had written a book that would expose his disorder to the world. She wanted me to corroborate her story, claiming that Max only planned to use me as proof that he did not have any such disorder. I mean, why would the world’s hottest bachelor, a guy who couldn’t stand the sight of ugly women, date someone like me, right? My heart had known that to be a lie, but my fugly little voice convinced me otherwise. I helped that horrible woman out Max and his secret, and the price had been catastrophic. The CEO of Cole Cosmetics, a company that had built its reputation on telling women that looks didn’t matter and their beauty was “soul deep,” actually couldn’t handle being in the same room with an ugly woman. The optics were devastating. Of course, Max, true to his fearless nature, confronted the media head-on. He admitted to having his phobia and explained that while he’d kept it hidden, he’d refused to allow it to rule his life. He’d also confessed to being madly in love with me and proceeded to berate the press for their cruel comments about my looks.