Page 17 of His Christmas Gift

The thought of sleeping next to Autumn every night for the next week and a half made my heart stop briefly. I didn’t expect that, but I didn’t feel upset about it. There were worse situations to be in.

“Well, we are engaged,” I said as I placed my suitcase next to the bed. As she got her things situated, I dug around in my suitcase until I found a black box. I grabbed it and turned toward Autumn, lowering myself down to one knee and popping open the box to reveal a diamond ring.

“What the hell are you doing?” Autumn asked, looking like a deer in headlights as she stared down at me.

“Well, you’re engaged to me. You need a ring,” I smirked. If I was going to play the part of fiancé, I was going all out. I didn’t half-ass anything, and I also didn’t want to let her down. I couldn’t imagine the grudge she would have against me if I did that.

“Is this a real diamond?” Autumn asked as she leaned closer to inspect it.

“Of course. I’m a billionaire. Why would I get you something cheap?” I replied. I didn’t want anyone commenting that I didn’t put enough effort into getting the perfect ring. That would blow our cover.

“You bought a real engagement ring?” Autumn said, giving me a shocked look. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy in love,” I chuckled. “Now, will you be my fake fiancée?”

Autumn rolled her eyes at me, but a faint smile quirked up on her lips as she shook her head. She held her hand out for me to slip the ring onto her finger. It actually looked really good on her. I did a good job picking that one out.

“Yes,” she said.

I kissed the top of her hand before standing, flashing her an amused grin. I knew this week and a half was going to be one to remember, and I was going to make the best fiancé. How could her parents not be proud of her for getting with a billionaire?

“So, when are we seeing your parents?” I asked her.

Autumn checked her phone and sighed.

“We should probably go over there now. They’ll be upset if they find out I didn’t come by immediately to see them,” she told me, not looking excited about having to go.

I would rather lounge in the hotel room for a while with her after our long flight, but we might as well kick this party off. I put my hands on her shoulders, drawing her eyes to mine.

“We went over the details of our fake dating history on the plane. If you forget something, just say something vague,” I told her. I didn’t know how good of a liar she was, but she had to put on the performance of a lifetime this week. I wasn’t going to drop the ball, but I couldn’t say the same for her.

“Okay,” Autumn said, looking nervous as she nodded.

“We’re ridiculously in love. We can’t wait to be married. It was love at first sight,” I recited to her, needing her to get these details down so that we could act them out. We couldn’t be stiff. We couldn’t be weird. We had to be natural. People like her parents were good at reading people.

“You’re making me more nervous,” Autumn told me.

I gave her a gentle smile and squeezed her shoulders in a comforting manner. If she followed my lead, I was sure she would be just fine. We just had to take the dive.

“Let’s do this, sweetheart,” I told her before offering my hand to her. We might as well start playing our parts now. Once we committed, we couldn’t back out. We had to be damn near perfect to be believable since her parents analyzed her life so much.

Autumn looked at my hand in an unsure manner for a moment before finally taking my hand, twining her fingers through mine in an intimate embrace. She gave me a nod as a determined look appeared on her face.

“Let’s do this.”

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