Page 38 of Fake Dating My Billionaire Boss

He narrows his eyes. “She ‘spooked’ you? What do you mean, she ‘spooked’ you? I thought you said she stopped in to talk about pie.”

“She shook her cane at me.”

“She only does that to reprimand people if she feels they’ve disrespected her. You didn’t do anything disrespectful, did you?”

“Nope. Me? No way.” I fumble with the car door and get it open just as the factory door behind Damian swings open. Minerva steps out into the sunlight.Get me out of here.

Once Bo leaps up into the car, I pile in. “I was sweet and perfectly polite. You can ask her.” I gesture to Minerva, who’s heading our way.

“I will,” Damian promises.

I can see him staring at me, a puzzled look on his handsome face, as I nose my car out of its parking spot.

The bulky envelope makes faint crinkling sounds each time I shift my weight. I tilt to the side, pull it free of my pocket, and set it on the dashboard. Then I turn and eye Bo.

He’s looking happy. The walk with Damian must have been fun, skateboards aside.

As I steer down the block, though, he utters a low whine. His tail stops wagging. He looks over his shoulder, trying to catch one last look at his new best friend, Damian Knight.

“Slow your roll, there, buddy,” I tell him. “It was one walk. You don’t have to get separation anxiety when we leave him.”

He whines again.

He doesn’t have to get separation anxiety, but he is. And, oddly enough,I get it. It’s hard to be in Damian’s presence, and have that giddy, warm feeling filling me head to toe, and then leave him behind.

But in this case, it had to be done.

“We’ll see him later, “ I promise Bo.

Damian might go back to ignoring me for the rest of today. But I know for a fact that I’ll get to experience my hair-trigger nerves firing off all over again tomorrow evening when he picks me up for dinner at his parent’s house.

Hopefully, Minerva willnotbe in attendance. Why was she so demanding, anyway?

I set that question aside as my eyes dart back to the envelope on the dashboard. As soon as I get home, I’m going to take photos of every page and send them over to Fizzy. Hopefully, he’ll decipher all the old-timey lawyer-speak and tell me what to do next—because I sure don’t have a clue.

Chapter 13

Damian

I’ve eaten dinner at my parents’ house many, many times, over the years. And yet, I never noticed how ritzy and upscale the whole charade tends to be until now.

This evening, as I eye the spread of appetizers my mother set out on the glass patio table on the deck, it occurs to me: Not everyone enjoys spreads like this on a regular basis.

I live a very privileged life, and, somewhere along the way I started to take that for granted.

The table is covered in platters of decadent foods: oysters on the half shell, gruyere, and crab palmiers, mini mushroom quiches, bacon-wrapped figs, and more types of cheese, crackers, and fruit than I could name.

Off to one side, a trio of champagne and white wine bottles poke up out of a silver carafe of ice. Beside it, there’s a galvanized tin bucket filled with more ice and a variety of Bubbly Springs sodas—a mainstay of all Knight gatherings, big or small. Cut crystal glasses form a line behind the drinks. Out beyond the deck, the sunset has painted the sky in peach, pink, and gold.

I think I’m doing this—looking at all this luxury with fresh eyes—because Bella’s at my side.

She makes me see things differently.

When we pulled up to my parent’s house, she swatted my arm when I started complaining about dinner.“Would you quit it so I can try to enjoy this moment? I have driven past this house so many times, and I never thought I’d actually get to go inside.”

And then, when she stepped inside, she kept gasping.

Each time she sucked in a sharp inhale, I tried to figure out what she was getting excited about. Was it the marble statue of an eagle in the foyer, or the fountain in the sitting room beyond that made her eyes light up?

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