Read Because You Want Me (Falling for You, Book One) for Free Online Page A

catch him at the Masonic back in April. We grabbed a coffee and the rest was history.
    Question three had everyone on the edge of their seats. What does he do for a living? My mother was practically clutching her rosary beads, praying something along the lines of, Please say pediatrician. Heck, I'll even take a veterinarian. It was clear that everyone was waiting for some catch and expected me to be as vague as possible. I told them that he was CEO of Wade Enterprises and worked in the financial district. My mother's exaggerated sigh of relief wasn't remotely amusing because I knew what her next comment would be.
    “Finally someone respectable with his own means!”
    Means enough to pay me twenty thousand dollars to be his girlfriend.
    It was a perfect segue into me needing to go to the bathroom.
    I sunk into the oversized armchair, fighting the urge to check the time. I didn't really want to know what time it was. No matter how long I'd been in here, I doubted anyone would notice until closing time. I was really checking to see if Xander had texted me—and just like the countless times I'd gone to my messages in vain, I knew the answer was no.
    He's a fake boyfriend, dummy.
    I could barely get my very real ex boyfriend to text me. I was always the one that reached out, the one who sent 'I miss you' and song lyrics. But something felt different with Xander.
    I wasn't completely naive, I could feel the desire radiating from him like some hypnotic cologne. Pulling me in, making me count all the ways our bodies could fit together. The sexual tension between us was palpable yet when he looked at me, he didn't ogle my breasts. He didn't leer—he took his time as those emerald eyes stroked their way up and down my body. When he really looked at me, looked into my eyes, it wasn't lust that I saw. I saw genuine interest. Like he wanted to get to know me, inside out.
    I crossed my ankles, looking at my phone sitting on the teakwood tabletop. Appetizers hadn't even been served, so the fun was just beginning. I wanted to text my best friend Thalia, but considering she got to see her family that lived back east once a year, I figured the last thing she wanted was to listen to me whine about wanting to escape mine.
    There was someone that got it, that understood what it was like to feel a rift so great that it seemed impossible to bridge. Someone that got my angst about my family. But I didn't know the rules of our arrangement—and there was a part of me that felt like I was already swimming in unchartered waters, and I wasn't a good swimmer. In fact, I kind of excelled at drowning.
    “...so that's when I told the idiot sales girl not to even bother if the shoes didn't have red bottoms.” Lara's signature lilt was an alarm bell going off, five seconds too late to avoid tragedy. There was no time to dash into a stall or fly to the window for a quick escape. The annoying guffaw that followed the tail end of her story of pretending that she was a queen and everyone else was at her beck and call had to be Janice. She was a bottle blonde, but she made up for it with a permanent ditzy grin that seemed glued to her face and a little chihuahua that she carried in her purse and called her 'baby'. Her little bundle of growling joy would have been attached to her hip now if my sister hadn't insisted on Janice finding a pet sitter for all wedding related functions.
    I swiped my phone and dumped it back inside my purse, hopping to my feet as I paused, hoping they were headed into the stalls to take care of business, but the chatter hung at the vanity.
    Makeup touch up. Just my luck.
    There was a floor length mirror perched on the wall beside me and I caught my reflection. I wore my usual school day uniform, an ordinary white blouse and black pants that skimmed down my legs, stopping at the ankle. They were the kind of pants that popped with stilettos, but I felt most comfortable in flats. My black, slightly scuffed flats with one of the bows