The Pretend Boyfriend novel Chapter 70

And more sinister are the photos of Brian which are not downloaded from Google Images. Brian running in the park. Brian at the dry cleaners. Brian at a deli in a shot clearly taken from across the street. Brian at the supermarket.

Sam sits back on her haunches, the blood thundering in her veins.

God, she's got it all planned.

But is this evidence the proof the police need to drop the case?

Several sharp knocks come at her door, startling her. She freezes. Brian doesn't ever show up without calling first, and she hasn't ordered any food delivery. Who can it be? Delilah? How did she get in without buzzing first?

Same way you got into her apartment.

"Open up," says a stentorian male voice. "This is the police."

The police? But she didn't call them. Not yet.

The knocking comes again, loud and insistent. The neighbors are probably all roused by now. Oh, what a field day they will have with the rumors tomorrow.

Her mind in a whirlwind, Sam makes herself pad to the door and unlatch it. The sight of two officers in their black garb outside stops her in her tracks.

"Samantha Fox?" one of the officers says. "You are under arrest for breaking and entering."

As the rest of her Miranda rights are being read out to her, Sam's brain drowns in a litany of Oh my God, oh my God, she knew I was going there ... she set both of us up.

Both Brian and she are so screwed.

10

Brian receives the call at three a.m. It is one of the rare nights he is not with Sam. She had taken a rain check, citing dinner with a friend. He had wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before the inevitable - his incarceration. But he hadn't wanted to interrupt her routine either.

What was he to her after all? A business partner. A friend. OK, a friend with benefits, but it isn't as if they are engaged or anything.

Anyhow, it is better that she spends as much time with her other 'friends' as possible. Her life has to go on while he is in prison. Maybe she'll forget him and hook up with Thor.

God forbid.

When he hears her distraught voice on the other side, he immediately sits up in his bed.

"What?"

Brian hightails it to the police station as fast as his second hand Jeep would allow him. Yes, he has enough money to mount bail, but it's practically all he has left. Everything has been sunk into the gym and its creative advertising.

What is it about the two of them and police stations?

His mind is still churning with the flotsam of his memories as he sits in the waiting hall - waiting for Sam to be released.

After a while, she comes out, disheveled and bleary-eyed. He stands up, his stomach churning painfully to see her like this. She falls into his open arms immediately. He buries his nose in her hair and inhales, feeling his heart swell with unaccustomed emotion.

"Oh Sam, Sam, Sam, what the hell did you do?" he murmurs.

Officer Cutter comes out. Brian lets go of Sam.

"Look," Brian says, "she didn't do anything wrong, OK? She did it for me. To try to save me."

"It's no use," Sam says dully.

Brian swings to her. "What do you mean?"

Officer Cutter clears his throat. "She's right. All those photos she has taken in an apartment that she broke into and entered - " he places an emphasis on the phrase " - merely prove that Ms. Faulkner may indeed have an interest in you, Mr. Morton."

"An unhealthy interest," Sam claims.

"But it still doesn't prove that you didn't rape her," Officer Cutter continues.