Page 42 of My Possessive Billionaire: Our Fake Marriage

Before she could answer, the doors to the café burst open. I half expected a jealous tirade from Evan, because that’s what happened last time. Instead, three figures came through. The rotund bowling pin shape of Jake, the sauntering easy glide of Ramone, and of all people Jenna, my fake husband’s personal assistant. They were all talking and joking together like oldfriends.

When they saw us, they made a beeline for the table.

“Oh, here you are,” Jennifer said, “almost on time.”

“Hey, Amanda. I hope you’re enjoying yourself, sitting around and sipping lattes while Jake and I are busting our balls.”

I chuckled. “Nice to see you too, Ramone.”

“Well, much as I don’t like his salty language so early in the morning,” Jake said, “we really are working harder without you around, Amanda. I can’t wait until you come back.”

“Yeah,” Ramone said. “If you don’t come back soon, we might just quit and go back to work in a restaurant. Or maybe even go to work in this café.”

He looked around and nodded to himself. “I’m sure they could use an experienced line order cook.”

While the two of them bantered about, I noticed that Jenna had unsnapped her briefcase on an adjacent table. She took out several folders, each one color-coded and labeled with a typed, printed sticker.

One of the documents bore a title page called Project Next Level. I wondered what it was. I’d never even heard of that, and Evan was pretty consistent in telling me about his various business ventures. He wanted to make sure I could field questions about them from the press and sound halfway intelligent.

“Say, Jenna?”

“Yes?” she asked without looking up.

“What’s Project Next Level all about? It sounds rather intense.”

Jenna snatched the file off the table and stowed it back into her briefcase so quickly I felt like if I’d blinked, I’d have missed it.

“It’s nothing,” she said nervously. “It’s just a work in progress, more of an idea than a project, really.”

She looked up at me with a smile that seemed strained.

“It’s going to be quite a surprise for you when I’m finished preparing it, though.”

Chapter 16

Amanda

Ihad my shoes off, and sat on the edge of his desk, my legs crossed demurely because I wore a skirt. My laptop was open beside me, and I worked on it while he typed on his own a short distance away, sitting in an actual chair. I had a seat available to me, but I kind of liked sitting on the desk.

Besides, it felt good to be so near to him.

“So,” I said, staring at my screen even though I was addressing him. I noticed Evan perked up in my peripheral vision. “Are you sure that you can get Steve MartinandMartin Short to show up for this charity ball I’m throwing? Because I really don’t want to even mention it to anyone until it’s a done deal.”

He looked up at me, his brows climbing high on his face.

“It’s a done deal. When Martin lost his savings in the great financial crash a few years back, I helped him rebuild it to even higher levels than before. And my mother is Martin’s number one fan. She bakes him a pecan pie every time he comes to one of my shindigs.”

“Shut up,” I said, laughing. I punched a few keys on my laptop and then rubbed my hand across my eyes. I’d been staring at a screen for far too long.

I shut down the computer and folded up the laptop. At almost the same time, my fake husband did so as well. We kind of lookedover at each other and realized we were both done for the day at the same time.

That didn’t happen all that often.

I didn’t want to leave his presence. I wanted to stay near him longer. Without really thinking about it, I spoke.

“Would you like to join me for a late dinner?”

He perked right up.

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