The Last Eligible Billionaire(29)

I stare at her without blinking, completely still. I’ve been asked to sleep with a woman so that she can add a billionaire to her body count. I’ve been asked to sleep with a woman because she claims she finds me sexy and desirable. I’ve been asked to sleep with a woman when we’ve both been drunk. I’ve been asked to sleep with a woman because I’m into the weird ones and she believed all the rumors that started about me when I was in college.

But I’ve never been asked to be a woman’s first post-divorce romp, where we’re pretending we’re not actually fucking each other, just because I’m convenient.

And while my brain is horrified, my body—well.

My body still remembers what her hands felt like on my scalp last night, and what it felt like to kiss her when my mother arrived, and how easy it was to grip her hips not ten minutes ago while putting on the show for Amelia and my security detail, and it’s eager to see this through.

Even in the dark.

Calling each other by different names.

She shakes her hand out of mine and keeps walking. The dog attempts to push the bike to keep up. I make a noise at it, and it shrinks back on its haunches and gives me the same wounded look Begonia’s worn more than once in the past twenty-four hours.

“Begonia.”

“I know, I know. We have to get back to the house together and look like everything’s fine. Just—I need a minute, okay?”

“Begonia.”

“What?” She spins and glares at me. Her cheeks are flaming red, nearly as bright as her hair, and her bright eyes are clouded over.

I swallow hard. I don’t know which one of us is right and which is wrong here, which is unfortunately standard in my world.

It happens when you trust exactly no one. “I’ll be finished with work by four, so we can take the sunset cruise for dinner. If you don’t have a dress you’d like to wear, I’ll have Charlotte take you into town to go shopping. My treat.”

“I don’t want your money, Hayes.”

“You can’t fake-date a billionaire without taking advantage of it, bluebell. It’s just money.”

She’s sad.

I’m offering her Paris and shopping and romantic dinners, and ignoring her off-the-table offer to let her save face, and she’s sad.

Confounding woman.

“Thank you for your generosity,” she finally says stiffly. “I’m sure I have a dress in my luggage that will work, but if I have to be in something new to be seen in public with you, I’ll clear my calendar for this afternoon and go shopping with your mother’s personal assistant. I’m sure it’ll be a wonderful time to get to know her better.”

At least I’m getting one thing right about this fake relationship.

We’ve mastered the art of irritating the shit out of each other.





12





Begonia



Giovanna Rutherford is good.

When Hayes and I get back to the house, me feeling like an open book with one cover flap caught in a shredder, him quiet and grumpy and probably about to throw me out of the house, his mother is in the kitchen, wearing an apron that makes her look like Donna Reed, chopping vegetables with a gorgeous hand-thrown pottery mug sitting beside the thick wood cutting board.

Whether it’s my coffee or something stronger inside that mug is anyone’s guess.

“Good morning, dear.” She sets the knife aside to go up on her tiptoes and peck Hayes on the cheek, then greets me with a cheek peck too, like we’re not swimming in this aura of oh my god, I asked him to have sex with me and call me another woman’s name horror.

Which she doesn’t know, of course, but she probably has ten billion reasons of her own to not like me, which makes her warm greeting suspicious in a way I wish it didn’t have to be.

“Begonia,” she says pleasantly, just like Donna Reed all over again. “You’re looking fresh and lovely this morning.”

I dig deep, deep, deep into my joy well and find a smile that almost feels genuine. “Thank you, Mrs. Rutherford. You look like you belong in a movie.”

And then I cringe to myself. Is that like calling my pretend boyfriend’s mother a total faker?

“She’s had a lot of practice,” Hayes says, earning himself an eye roll.

It’s a patient, amused eye roll, and once again, I don’t know if it’s real, or if I should look around for cameras. I hope Hayes and I were pictured together out in town, because I want to talk to Hyacinth, and I don’t know if I should or shouldn’t until it’s public knowledge that we’re dating.

The point is for this to be public knowledge though, right?

Unless we’re done dating, because I’m that level of awkward and embarrassing and disappointing as a fake girlfriend.

But if we were photographed together and we make the news, then the only thing I can’t tell Hyacinth is that it’s fake. If her twinstinct is working at all, she’s probably trying to call or email me right now. And since downloading my email again yesterday to show Hayes my contract for the house meant seeing three new emails from my mother with You should get back together with Chad as the effective subject line of each, I’m avoiding email.

Again.

Even though one simple message—Mom, I’m dating a billionaire now—would solve almost all of my issues with my mom.