Page 13 of My Possessive Billionaire: Our Fake Marriage

“Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. I mean, it’s got to be bad karma to try and make up a fake wedding for publicity, right?”

Obviously, I hadn’t told them about my having sex with Evan on the plane ride to his meeting.

“Lots of people do the fake wedding thing. Do you really think that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian married each other for love?”

Jake shook his head and took a lingering sip of his beer, pointedly not looking at me. I gave him a glare.

“Something you want to say to me, Jake?”

“Just that you sound rather cynical about this whole love thing,that’s all.”

I rolled my eyes.

“It’s not called being cynical, Jake. It’s called being a realist. I am a realist, whereas you are an optimist who sees everything through rose-colored glasses.”

I sounded a little bitter, even to my own ears. I guess it had to do with Evan’s change in attitude after we had sex on the plane. He’d been so loving, so intensely passionate and into me during the sex. And then, he’d turned into a cold-blooded businessman again.

I mean, he hadn’t texted me or anything since, except to inquire about practical things about my plans for his fake wedding.

“Still, won’t people be mad if it turns out he had a fake wedding?” Ramone shook his head. “It just seems like you’re inviting disaster into your life if you take this job on.”

“You’re being overdramatic, Ramone.” Jennifer sipped on her—virgin—mimosa and frowned at him. “No one’s likely to find out. Not with NDAs floating around, making everyone tight-lipped out of legal necessity.”

Jennifer looked over at me.

“Don’t listen to him, Amanda. There are many, many things more unethical than a fake wedding. You have to ask yourself, who’s really being hurt?”

Jake opened his mouth to object, then closed it. I saw the wheels turning in his gaze. Then he looked up hopefully.

“What if one of the people in the fake wedding catches feels?”

“Feels?” Ramone looked worried. “Is that some kind of new social disease or something? Should I be investing in condom manufacturers?”

“Feels, man,” Jake said, running a hand down his face. “Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘catching feels’ before?”

“Jake means, what if one of the people in the fake wedding winds up falling in love for real.” I gave Jake a look. “Is that what you’re driving at, big man?”

Jake nodded sagely.

“Well, while I agree that you have a point, more or less…” I took a long sip of my appletini. “…the fact of the matter is, it’s not my problem if one of them falls in love. Evan’s not going to anyway, and I’m sure that whatever supermodel or movie starlet he entices into his scheme will be going in with her eyes wide open.”

“Getting back to my original point,” Jennifer said wryly, “before I was so rudely interrupted. It seems to me that no one is really going to get hurt, except maybe the participants, and that’s their fault for participating in the fake wedding in the first place.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Frankly, I don’t see the harm in it. It’s a nice distraction for people.”

“Not to mention that at the wedding ceremony, I’ve gotten Evan to agree to make a speech about the rainforest. Plus, I’m going to have a lot of Amazon themes to help drive the point home and gain more publicity for the charity. I’m totally down with this plan, guys. Like Jennifer said, nobody’s going to get hurt.”

“So,” Ramone said, “how does one go about planning a fake wedding?”

“The same way one plans a real wedding, I guess.” I shrugged. “I mean, that’s how I’m handling it. You’ll still have to get all the usual trappings. A venue, flowers, tablescaping, a caterer, so on and so forth.”

My brow scrunched up with worry.

“Of course, right now there’s only so much I can do in terms of planning.”

“Why is that?” Jake asked, finally scraping the last bit of label offof his beer.

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