Page 48 of Dr. Billionaire's Fake Marriage

I don't have an answer to her question, but I am sure she knows that Henry and Amelia are not in love.

I hate to break it to her, but one day Amelia will discover that Henry is in love with someone else… someone he can't marry. Till then, I am ready to take the secret to my grave.

I kiss her on the cheek and motion to her to get off the bed. Camile holds me back as I turn to her. "Yesterday," she starts, "you said you love me." I look around, knowing she will ask if I meant the words when I said them.

I mean those words, Camile, every word I say to you.

I don't tell her what I think. Instead, I tell her she must have heard me wrong. She is disappointed, but at the same time, she doesn't expect me to love her after a few days of living together.

I can see the relief in her expression; she doesn't have to tell me she loves me back. It hits me that I fear hearing the words from her more than I fear saying them to her.

My phone rings when I return from the bathroom. Camile tells me my phone has been ringing for a while now. Mother is calling for God-knows-what.

I wonder why she is calling if I will be seeing her at the family get-together today.

Mother doesn't stop even when I ignore her call for the second time. So, I pick up and hear nothing but terror in her voice.

"Troy!" she screams. "We have a big issue."

“What is it, Mom?” Mother heaves heavily on the other end of the line, and I try to calm her down.

"I looked into Camile Howard's background, and you won't believe what I found out." Mother sounds terrified, as if Camile is some sort of monster I should run from.

“Camile is George Howard’s daughter,” she says. “Your father’s best friend.”

I feel my spine weaken as I hear Mother's words. Camile is George Howard's daughter? From the story I heard, George was my father's good friend. He founded the hospital with my father.

But my father had stabbed him in the back, takingALLthe hospital's shares, leaving George with nothing. I look over at Camile as she smiles, and fear envelops me.

Does she know that she has a rightful place at this hospital? Did she plan all this to get back at my family for betraying her father? Now, I fear the answer to my question because I am helplessly in love with the woman in this room.

Chapter sixteen

Trouble

Camile

Troy seems cold this morning. He doesn't seem like the person I was intimate with last night…like the man who told me he loved, even if he denies it this morning.

I notice that these changes came after his call with his mother. I wonder what she told him: if she has successfully made him change his mind and he is dissolving our fake marriage sooner than we had planned.

Troy doesn't look at me throughout the drive to his mother's mansion, and now, I am beginning to worry.

I lurk at Mrs. Robinson's party, hoping to see Amelia soon so being here would stop feeling awkward. Mrs. Robinson doesn't take her eyes off me.

She looks at me with the same look I saw on Troy's face this morning as if she is scared of what I might do. I look away and see Amelia with the hired girls. She looks exhausted from the fake friendship she has to put up with, and I wonder if their service hasn't expired.

Amelia runs to meet me, sliding her arm into mine and taking me away from the crowd. “Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

"We have no plans for one," she replies, "although my parents think we should go off the grid to make the public think we are on an actual honeymoon." I pull her close, realizing that Amelia's life may be even more pathetic than mine.

She is a rich girl who can't do anything she loves.

“I am sorry, honey,” I say, “honeymoons are one of those things that every woman dreams of having.”

Amelia scoffs; she puts up a show that she doesn't mind if she has a honeymoon or not. I know deep down that she craves the romance that comes with being with the man she loves. Someone comes to take Amelia away from me, and I am left alone, looking at Mrs. Robinson's art collection.

I hear stilettos clicking near me, and I look up when the footsteps stop dead.

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