Page 78 of The Billionaire Love Match

TWENTY-THREE

Casey sat in the samespace she had a few weeks before, but this time without chocolate or TV. She didn’t want to see what she had just lived through: Colt breaking her heart in front of a live audience. Her ugly crying in a limo all the way back to her apartment.

“Casey, I’m so sorry.” Amanda sat next to her, rubbing her back. “What can I do?”

“Just be here. I don’t know what else, honestly. How could I have been so wrong about him? How did he fool me?”

“I don’t know,” Amanda said. “Something happened between your dinner and today. Or else he was acting the whole time?”

Casey rubbed her eyes. “Something did happen between then and now. I signed a bonus contract. 50k if I said yes to his proposal.”

“What?”

“Oh yeah, and I found out that Colt and his mother were behind the show. He’s an executive producer.”

“No.”

“Yes. So as far as being real, I have to assume that the reality is that I just got totally manipulated and messed with in front of the whole world. You said yourself I was a lousy judge of character.”

“Casey—”

There was a sudden banging on the door. “Casey! Please! Open up.”

Casey stopped breathing for a second.

“Should I tell him where he can go?” Amanda whispered.

“I’ve got this,” Casey said.

She walked to the door, slowly despite his insistent pounding. She looked through the peep hole and could see him right there against the door. Just a few weeks before she stood here looking out at him, feeling hopeful. Now all the hope had squeezed out of her. She just felt her heart aching.

“What is it, Colt?”

She rested her forehead against the door, palms flat against it. Despite everything, she wanted nothing more than to open the door and fall into his arms. Which is precisely why the door needed to stay shut.

“Casey,” he breathed. “Can you talk? Will you open the door?”

“Talk,” she said. “But I’m not opening the door.”

Silence for a moment. “Casey, I’m so sorry about today and how things turned out.”

“Me too.”

More silence. “I’d like to explain. Please open the door. There are no cameras. It’s just me. I need to see you.”

“I don’t want to see you, Colt. You have five minutes. Then I’m putting the chain on the door and going to bed.”

“Okay. I understand.”

He sounded miserable. Such a great actor.

“Just before I went out to you today, my mother showed me the contract. Saying if you said yes to my proposal, you’d get fifty thousand dollars.”

Casey’s legs shook.

His voice was soft. “Casey? Why’d you sign that? Can you help me understand? All my life, women have been after me for money. Hearing that you signed a contract saying you’d say yes for money—I just freaked out.”

“I told your mom I was going to say yes no matter what if you proposed. That I didn’t need the money. But she made an excellent point- why not say yes and get the money too? I didn’t think it would matter. And I could use the money. She said it was win-win.”

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