Page 22 of Fake Marriage with the Billionaire

“Just in case you feel hungry again,” was all he said.

“Hmm,” she said as she sat down on the couch. “I’ll pass, but I could use a drink.”

He nodded and set about making drinks for the both of them. She wanted a glass of wine, so he opened a bottle of port and handed it over. He made himself his regular scotch. After, he picked up the binder he’d been preparing from the end table in the corner and dropped it in front of her.

“I’ll need you to study from that over the course of the next few weeks,” he said, sitting down in the chair across from her on the other couch. “We’ll meet every evening to go over what you’ve learned.”

“I’m sorry,” she said as she stared at the thick binder. “Did you sayeveryevening?”

He blinked at her as if maybe he hadn’t been clear. “Yes. That won’t be a problem, I trust, since you’re unemployed.”

“It might be,” she said. “Just because I don’t have a job doesn’t mean I don’t have a life. I might have a date or something tomorrow night.”

He flushed, a flash of jealousy coming up from within him. “Cancel it.”

She looked up at him, scowling. “Excuse me?”

“I said cancel it. All we need is for you to be seen out with somebody else when we’re supposed to be together. We don’t need the aggravation.”

She adjusted herself in her seat uncomfortably. “I don’t have a date, anyway. I was just saying that I might. You know, I’m not going to be tethered to you this whole time.”

“Listen, we don’t have a lot of time to play games,” he said. “Publicly, you are my fiancée. You can’t be seen out with any other man any more than I can be seen with any other woman. This doesn’t work if my stepmother goes running to the estate lawyers with pictures of you canoodling with some guy.”

She laughed a little and shook her head. “Green is not a good color on you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not jealous. I’m being practical. What would you do if you came in here and found me with another woman?”

Her face turned a little pink as she looked up at him. She started to speak, then thought better of it. “I wouldn’t think anything about it. It’s not like this is a real engagement.”

“You’d be pissed that I was being careless,” he pressed. “Stella, before we go to see the lawyers and before Rebecca’s party, I’ll might expect you to make short appearances around the people in my life to introduce you as being with me. Do I need to remind you that this entire thing won’t work unless everyone believes?”

“Oh, my god, fine,” she said, opening the binder. “I get it. Keep your panties on. I’ll stay out of the dating pool and so will you. Satisfied.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do you mind if I read through this real quick, then?”

He shrugged. “Go ahead.”

She opened the binder and started reading silently. The longer she went, the more she sipped from her glass. After about thirty minutes, she even started taking bites from the hors d'oeuvres on the plates next to the binder, her eyes scanning the words on the paper below her.

She got about midway through before she looked up at him and said, “Boy, do we have a lot to talk about.” She looked at her empty glass and smirked at him. “Fill ‘er up, please.”

He sighed and poured her a new glass.

Stella

Itdidn’ttakeStellalong to find issues in the binder that he’d given her. She kept reading, however, going through as much as she could before commenting on it.

“What?” he asked her.

“Who did you have compile all this? You couldn’t have done it. There’s nothing in here so far that couldn’t be found about you on the internet.”

He grumbled a little. “That was carefully put together by our research department. They worked most of the day on it.”

She cleared her throat, looking page by page and sipping her whiskey. “Well, okay, we’ll be able to use a lot of this, but if I’m supposed to be your fiance for the last…” She paused, flipping back a few pages. “Eleven months. Eleven months? We’ve been engaged foreleven months? What the hell are we waiting for?”

He frowned. “What are you talking about? Eleven months is a respectable amount of time.”

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