Page 28 of Fake Marriage with the Billionaire

She chuckled and he looked down at her. “What?”

“So, the whole cradle-robbing thing is genetic, then?”

He took a deep breath, choosing to ignore the comment. “Anyway, we pretty much stayed out of each other’s way for the most part. That is until I was made CEO of the company when she really wanted the job. I’ll never know why. She has no experience whatsoever. Maybe it’s a power grab.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s why she’s giving you such a hard time. She wants your job.”

“It appears so,” he said. “I’ll be damned if I let her break down what my father worked so hard to build up, though. That’s why this is so important.”

She paused again and he felt another question coming. He didn’t want to answer anything more personal than what she’d just asked. “Mind if I ask you a question,” he said to deflect.

“Sure.”

“Who’s older? You or Stoney?”

He looked at her and she narrowed her eyes. “I am,” she said, “by about two minutes. Are you changing the subject?”

“Maybe.”

She sighed, then stopped, something up the path catching her eye. “Oh. Look!”

He looked and didn’t see anything. She let go of his hand and jogged ahead. Going off the path slightly until she got to something shiny in the grass. She knelt down, a smile on her face as she reached into the grass. Richard walked up to her, frowning at her as she stood up. She held a small glass ball up to the light. It had a swirl of what looked like paint in the center.

“What is that?”

She looked over at him and chuckled. “It’s a marble, Richard. Haven’t you ever seen a marble before?”

She handed it to him. He held it in the palm of his hand and rolled it around. “It’s just a little glass ball. I’ve seen these things in decorative vases.”

Stella scrunched her nose at him. “Seriously?” She took the marble from him and huffed. “This is a toy,” she said. “Oh, I used to love these things. I had a nice little collection when I was a kid. I mean, until Stoney got a hold of them one day and spilled them all over the sidewalk. God, it took me ages to find most of them. A lot of them ended up down the sewer drain in front of our house.”

Richard was fascinated with this. He couldn’t imagine collecting a bunch of little glass balls. It sounded like a strange thing to collect. She went on.

“I used to have some really pretty ones, too,” she said. “My favorite was my Cat’s Eye. It was so pretty. I used to just sit and stare at it all day.”

“So, what did you do with these marbles? Just…collect them?”

She paused and looked up at him. “What?”

“You’re older than me. Weren’t marbles more of a thing when you were a kid?”

Richard felt himself getting a little flushed. “I didn’t have many toys when I was a kid,” he said. “My parents wanted me to be invested in other things. Things that could secure my future.”

The smile on her face faded a little. “Really?” she asked.

Richard nodded. “I had a paddle ball when I was young,” he said. “And I happened to get that one at school during recess. A girl…one of my classmates gave it to me. I had to hide it from my parents when I got home.”

Her smile returned and it was like the sun that had come out from a cloud. “That’s sweet.”

Richard nodded. The memory of the paddle ball came through in his mind. He played with it late at night when everyone was awake. It took him weeks to learn how to hit the ball to the paddle, but it was the greatest thing he ever learned to do in his life because it was the first thing he’d ever learned on his own.

“And a little sad,” she added. “No offense, Richard, but your parents should have done more to foster your life as a kid. You should have had a better childhood than that.”

He shrugged. “Maybe that’s true. I’m a whiz in the business world now, though. I was able to run my father’s business by the time I was eighteen. It became my life because it always was my life. I had a leg up on everyone I ever came in contact with because they focused on my future. That has to count for something, right?”

She looked at him a little sadly, but she didn’t say anything to that. She handed him the marble. “You should have this.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, I don’t think so. It means more to you.”

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