Page 33 of The Fake Family Deal

My mouth drops open again, my lips wavering as I tried to figure out what to say next. I can’t think of anything, so I just take my bowl of pasta and start forking it into my mouth. The creamy sauce coats my tongue, filling me with warm satisfaction.

“This is great,” I sigh. “Did your chef make this?”

“Yeah, I get pretty much all my meals prepped for me. Tom’s a good guy, and a great cook.”

I smile. “I can see that. It must be nice to have someone to cook for you.”

“You should try it sometime,” he says casually, like having a chef is something a normal person can have at all.

“Yeah, right. It’s easy when you’re a billionaire.”

He grins wryly, very nearly in embarrassment, and then I remember that, technically, I’m now a multimillionaire myself.

“You have no idea how much this means to me,” I say. “We weren’t exactly struggling before — sure, things were tight but I could make rent and eat just fine — but this? Millions? This is going to makesucha difference to us. This is more money than I could ever have dreamed of having.”

“It’s nothing to me.” He shrugs.

“Do you ever think about how crazy that is? That a million dollars is nothing to you?”

Ellis’s face has flushed slightly, the sharp lines of his cheekbones pink under my interrogation. I guess he doesn’t often get made to think about how lucky he is. “My family were always rich. We always had indulgences. I guess I never really thought about it.”

“Your parents are gone, aren’t they?” I ask, then quickly throw my hands up. “I’m sorry if that’s too personal. You don’t have to answer.”

“No, it’s okay,” he says, his face falling. “You’re right. They’re both passed, and we weren’t that close anyway.”

“Still, it’s never easy to lose a parent,” I say, reaching out for his hand.

He takes it for a second, squeezes, then pulls away. “I guess not.”

I get the sense that the conversation is over, so I decide not to push it any further despite my burning curiosity.

To change the subject, Ellis flicks on the TV, channel-hopping until he stops on a baseball game.

“Sports? Really?” I say.

“I like sports,” he says defensively.

“If we have to watch sports, can’t we watch hockey?”

“You like hockey?”

I jut out my chin. “I like a lot of things. I just don’t like baseball. It’s too long, too boring.”

“All right, all right. Let’s see what they’ve got.”

I smile as he changes the channel. It’s not often that he lets me win the argument so easily. Not that it really was an argument. It wasn’t heated or upsetting enough to be called that.

“Are we becoming friends?” I ask impulsively.

Ellis just grunts in response. I think that tells me everything I need to hear.

CHAPTER 17

ELLIS

Are we becoming friends?

What kind of question is that? There’s no answer I can give that would satisfy either of us. There’s nothing I can say that doesn’t make me feel like I’m standing at the top of a cliff.

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