What you make me do Read online

  Copyright 2020 by Emma Quinn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  WARNING: This eBook contains mature themes and language intended for 18+ readers only.

  What you make me do

  Emma Quinn

  Content

  What you make me do

  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

  Extract from the book: The billionaire's (fake) fiancée

  What you make me do

  Emma Quinn

  1

  Helen

  T

  he least interesting thing about Helen according to everyone she ever went to high school with was that she loved science and the environment. But as she measured the chemicals exactly into the beaker, stirring the mixture with a clear glass stick, she admitted to herself that she loved it. She always had. The water turned murky, the colors swirling together.

  Not a good sign.

  Frowning, she put the beaker down, the color still moving around and changing the contents to a swimming, murky purple. “Fiona, this sample is toxic. Are we sure it wasn’t contaminated along the way?”

  Fiona was tall and twice as nerdy as Helen, her frizzy hair pulled back and her glasses big enough to start a fire in the woods. But her smile was huge, her emotions written across her features as though painted on. At Helen’s words, however, the smile dropped, and her lips puckered into a thoughtful frown.

  “No chance,” she insisted. “Luis collected the sample. You know Luis. He’d drink that before he’d drop off a contaminated sample.”

  Taking off her protective goggles, Helen made a face. “First, ew, gross. No one should be drinking this. And second, damnit, I was really hoping it was a screw up along the way. The last thing I want to do is offer these findings to anyone.”

  Fiona walked across the tile floor, her ballet flats making soft scuffs until she stopped in front of the table where Helen was doing her experiment. Helen gestured towards the murky contents. Fiona winced. “Jeez, that’s bad. Have you tested the other samples yet?”

  Helen shook her head. “Not yet. I’m hoping this one is a fluke and the rest of it isn’t nearly as bad, but…” She trailed off and shrugged her shoulders.

  Fiona nodded knowingly. “Highly unlikely.”

  Fiona returned to her desk, jotting down some notes and adjusting her glasses when they started to slide down her nose again.

  Helen returned to her sample with a sigh. She wanted her results to be false, for this water sample to not be as toxic as it was, but she knew better. She would do her due diligence and test the rest of the samples, of course, that was her job and she was damn good at it. But she had little hope that they would be any different.

  The river outside that little town was contaminated, and bad. Cleanup would take years and who knew how long the people had been drinking that water, its contents unknowingly tainted? And of course, there was the little issue of who contaminated the water in the first place…

  “My money is on that plant just outside of town,” Helen called to Fiona out of the blue. She used a dropper to take a tiny sample of the purple liquid and dropped it onto a glass slide. She slipped it under the microscope and took a gander. The molecules were mutating, distorting themselves.

  “It’s always the plant,” Fiona said blithely.

  “Are you saying the plant is the husband of the environmental world?” Helen teased.

  Fiona laughed, a tiny snort hiccupping in her voice. “No! Sometimes it’s the best friend,” she teased, wiggling her long fingers towards Helen. It was supposed to be spooky but mostly came off like goofy spirit fingers.

  “Yeah, right. And I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  “Well…”

  Helen held up a hand to stop Fiona before she could start. “I don’t want to hear it about biological evolution and common ancestors. I am not an uncle and I am not a monkey, ergo, I am not a monkey’s uncle.”

  Fiona shrugged. “True. But you could be closely related to one…”

  “Can we stick to plants? They’re much easier to relate to.”

  Fiona laughed again. “That is the absolute truth. It’s so hard to connect to people these days.”

  Most of the time, neither Helen nor Fiona were concerned about this fact. Not in the slightest. They worked well with each other and they had their respective families, what more did they really need? Much like Fiona, Helen was married to her work. It was more important both long-term and short-term and that was what counted.

  But every once in a while, she felt a twinge of sadness, like now, where she realized how isolated she was. If it weren’t for her parents and their little restaurant, she would probably be completely shut off from the world, not a soul to turn to.

  The reasonable, honest part of her acknowledged that that wasn’t healthy.

  “It’s not hard to connect,” Helen countered. “It’s hard to find someone you want to connect to.”

  Fiona touched her index finger to her nose and tapped it. “There, now you’re on to something.”

  “If you want to connect, I’ll sign you up for that new dating app – I guarantee you’ll find some connections.”

  Faking a shudder, Fiona shook her head. “No thank you. The last thing I need is a bunch of messages asking me to show them my boobs. Do you remember that last one I tried? Awful.”

  They started cleaning up the lab and putting away the samples as they continued chatting about Fiona’s epic mishap with the last dating site she’d been using. It had involved a lot of unsolicited body part pictures as well as requests for her to take off her clothes. When she started talking about her job as an environmental researcher, every guy she spoke to would abruptly disappear.

  Helen’s track record was worse. Every guy she’d been on a date with in the last two years had been awful. From groper to narcissist, she’d all but sworn off men after the last date insisted that the ugliest of them paid – then handed her the check.

  When they had the lab cleaned up and had finished washing their hands to make sure there wasn’t any residual chemicals lurking on their skin, Helen asked, “I’m stopping by the restaurant today. Are you coming?”

  Fiona shook her head. “You know I’m normally all about your parents’ food, Helen, but I have a date with a block of ice cream and that new crime show.”

  “You and your crime shows.”

  “Don’t be jealous. You, too, can bask in their glory.”

  “Whatever. I’ll stick to the food.”

  They said goodbye and parted ways in the parking lot.

  The restaurant was unusually quiet that afternoon when Helen stopped by. Joe, the regular who never took off his coat was seated in the corner b
y the window. He had the paper open and was nursing a plate of pasta as he tutted at whatever he read. Ms. Beasley and her husband were arguing about desert at the table in the middle of the room. And a couple of new customers had just left, passing Helen on their way in.

  “It’s so sad,” the woman commented to her friend.

  He clucked in sympathy. “I know. They’ve been here so long.”

  The door closed after them, cutting off the conversation. But Helen caught just enough of it to feel uneasy over what they’d said. They could have been talking about anything, anywhere, but there was something about how they said it that left Helen worried.

  Helen’s mother, Melody Willems, pushed open the doors to enter the dining room, smiling the instant she spotted her daughter.

  “Helen, there you are,” she cooed, drying her hands on her white apron. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d made other plans. Perhaps with an attractive young man.”

  Mrs. Willems winked at her daughter as they embraced. Helen made a dramatic sigh but smiled just the same. “You know I’m married to my work, Mom.”

  Waving off her daughter’s standard reply, Mrs. Willems said, “Pfft, don’t be ridiculous! You just need to find a man who loves your work as much as you do—and you more.”

  “Oh, of course. That should be easy then,” Helen said dryly.

  Mrs. Willems laughed, but stopped short when the bell above the door dinged. Her gaze darted to the door, almost worried, then she seemed to relax a little when she saw that it was Carl from across the street. He waved at the pair of them.

  “Hello, Willems ladies,” he greeted. “I’m gonna sit for a minute and peruse the menu.”

  “Of course, Carl. I’ll have someone out in a few to get your order.” To Helen, she added, “I don’t know why he looks at the menu. Man gets the same thing every time he comes in.”

  She was smiling as she said it, but Helen had caught the abrupt way her demeanor had changed when the door opened. “Are you expecting someone, Mom?”

  “What? No, of course not. Who would I be expecting?”

  Helen frowned. “Mom. What’s going on?”

  When Mrs. Willems’s face finally crumpled, she looked ten years older. The corners of her mouth dropped; her eyes seemed heavy with dark circles showing beneath them. “I’m so sorry, Helen,” she began. “We thought we would be able to work it out without any trouble, but…” She shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  That was when Helen’s father, Brandon Willems came out. He, too, looked worn beyond his years. His typically happy, smiling face was drawn and it was clear he was tired. He yawned as though to drive that home. “Sorry, kiddo. Been some long nights lately.”

  “Brandon, I was about to tell her.”

  He winced at his wife. “Melody—”

  “Dad just tell me. I’m not a kid; I can handle it.”

  Sighing, he ran a hand through his gray hair. “We were approached a couple of months ago with an offer.” He gestured towards a table along the wall, their usual table.

  “An offer?” Helen asked as she sat down.

  Mrs. Willems sat to her right and her father took the seat across the table. “Yeah. We told them we weren’t interested in selling and thought that would be the end of it.”

  “It should be. They made an offer and you said no. That seems pretty final to me!” Helen knew that the world wasn’t so simple as all of that and worried that her parents were dealing with people that had a lot of money and resources—and weren’t afraid to use them in devious ways.

  Mr. and Mrs. Willems shared a look, then Mrs. Willems took her daughter’s hand. “They came back and made another offer. I suppose it was…” She wrinkled her nose, making a face as though something smelled bad. “…generous. But this place has been our dream and our lives for a long time. You practically grew up here! We turned down that offer, too.”

  “They came back again?” Helen guessed.

  Mr. Willems’s face began to redden, a spark of anger lighting in his eyes. “Yeah, and this time they lowballed us and said we didn’t have a choice, that everyone else has already gotten on board.”

  “What?” Helen was legitimately shocked. Although not every business here had the same mentality as her parents, most were mom-and-pop shops with people’s life works and savings sunk into the places. Even being offered a lot of money, she thought it odd they were all willing to sell.

  “They were offered a lot of money,” Mrs. Willems offered hesitantly.

  “Oh, bullshit!” Mr. Willems fumed.

  “Language!”

  Mr. Willems waved his wife off. “She’s an adult, as she pointed out. I can curse if I want to. And you know those thugs made everyone sell.”

  “I know no such thing,” she argued, narrowing her eyes at him. “And neither do you. Just because we had the luxury—”

  Mr. Willems barked out a quick laugh. “Luxury!”

  “Yes, luxury, of saying no, doesn’t mean everyone else did. The Larsons have that little girl to put through college—”

  “She’s smart enough to get a full ride!”

  Sighing, Mrs. Willems reached across the table and placed her hand on his arm, sucking much of the anger right out of his veins. “I know, honey, but uncertainty and children make people do things they might not otherwise. And it is a lot of money.”

  Hesitating, Mr. Willems’s eyebrows pulled together in worry. “Do you think we made a mistake?”

  “Oh, of course not! This is our life and I wouldn’t trade it for any amount of money. We can’t be bribed like that.”

  They shared a moment that only people who had been together as long as they had could. A pang of unexpected sadness struck Helen. Most of the time, she believed what she said to her mother. She loved her job and that was enough. But then there were moments like this, Helen couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing in her life.

  Something important.

  Helen looked away then, unable to work through whatever was trying to grip her heart. She looked around at the customers, regulars who came by at least once a week, sometimes more. Would they care that her parents were forced out, if they did sell? Would they still visit the little restaurant if it was suddenly thirty minutes or an hour out of their way?

  She frowned. It was unlikely, no matter how loyal.

  “But it may not be up to us in the end.”

  Helen dragged her attention back to her parents. “Why are they so interested in this place? It’s a nice location and all, but…” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s just a building.”

  Mr. Willems nodded. “It is. But they want to scoop up the area to turn into some high-rise apartment building, complete with a parking structure.” He hesitated, then admitted, “They’re going after the park, too.”

  “The park!?”

  Helen stood suddenly, shoving her chair back and nearly tipping it over as she slammed her hands down on the table. She loved that park. In a city full of iron structures and shady back alleys, that park represented what the world could be if people would put a little effort in and have a little faith.

  “They can’t do that! It’s the property of the city!”

  Mrs. Willems tried to calm down her daughter by patting her hand on the table. “We know. And they probably won’t get it.”

  “I played in that park every day as a kid,” Helen said weakly, but sat back down. “They can’t just tear it up.”

  “It’s a lovely park,” Mrs. Willems agreed. “And the city probably won’t sell. You know how the public gets over pretty parks.”

  But they were empty words of comfort and did nothing to make Helen feel better. The way her parents had been talking about these corporate thugs, she didn’t get the impression that they were going to leave without getting what they wanted.

  “I just don’t know how we’ll survive a move,” Mr. Willems admitted, raking a worn hand through his hair. “We’d have to find a suitable
place to set up, then let everyone know that we’re at a new location—” He shook his head. “It’s bad business, is what it is.”

  “I’ll help you find a way to save the restaurant,” Helen promised.

  “Oh, honey, it’s not your fight,” her mother assured her.

  “Yes, it is. This little corner of the city is everything I love and everything I grew up with. I’ll help you hang on to it.”

  2

  Michael

  M

  ichael adjusted his tie before examining it in the mirror. Wrinkling his nose at it, he quickly undid the knot and tossed the tie onto the back of his chair before walking to his closet to pick out another. They were mostly the same, silk and plain. There were a couple of gag gifts mixed in from his fiancé and an ugly brown one from his partner that he couldn’t bring himself to wear. But otherwise, it was a wash of blues, reds, and blacks.

  “Is it too much to ask that you take a day off from work?”

  Michael had to resist the sigh that began to bubble up within his throat. They’d been at it since breakfast where Tiffani had settled onto his lap and attempted to entice him back to bed. He’d almost gone for that – until she asked him to spend the day with her.

  Shopping.

  For shoes.

  Again.

  “We’ve been over this,” he told her, reaching for a deep blue tie. He slipped it around his neck and walked out of his closet so that he could examine the tie in the mirror. Doing up the knot at his throat, he spared a glance for Tiffani in the mirror.

  She was incredibly beautiful, there was no doubt of that. Her curls were tight, fully, and silky to the touch. Her eyes were sharp, deepened by the careful makeup she applied. And that was nothing of her figure. She was beautiful enough to be a model – and had even tried her hand at it, though she’d gotten bored in her youth. The life-sized photo of her in nothing by feathery light silk was all that remained of that failed career.