Page 106 of Railing the Billionaire

“A sparkling water sounds nice,” he said, following me inside.

I watched him look around my space again, and even though I couldn’t see it on him, I knew he had to be judging me. How could he not?

So when he opened his mouth to speak, I beat him to it.

“I know it’s not much,” I said. “I should use some of my new cash to get a real bed and some seating that is a separate piece of furniture.”

He furrowed his brows.

I plowed ahead. “But I don’t have to, and I’m not going to. This is enough for now. I’m keeping every bit of that dough until I’ve secured a new gig so I don’t end up having to beg Morgan if I can crash on her sofa, which she totally would let me do out of pity and love.”

He furrowed his brows further. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“It’s not?” I asked, confused and a bit embarrassed. “Well, fine. Tell me your thing then.”

“I was going to ask what you think we should do about the kissing photograph circulating the internet.”

“WhatIthinkweshould do?”

“Yes.”

I stared at him dumbfounded for a moment. This conversation was giving me whiplash.

“I think it’s cause for celebration. People are loving you.”

“But they’re turning on you.”

Were they? “No more than usual, I’m sure. People love to hate reality stars. It’ll blow over like it always does, and there’s always a cheering fan for every hater anyway. It’s just harder to feel that support through the noise. When haters yell, it’s best not to listen.”

“So you don’t think we need to make a joint statement declaring the photograph a misunderstanding?”

It was a nice surprise that he was deferring to me. It was not so nice that he thought we needed to lie about the kiss. Was he cool with people thinking we were friends, but thinking there could possibly be more between someone like him and someone like me, that was just too much for him to handle?

“Nope,” I said, testing the waters. “You don’t need to tell people they’re not seeing a kiss, when they’re clearly seeing a kiss. We could turn it into a fake fling if you want, pretend we’re actually dating.”

“I don’t like pretending with you, Layana.”

That actually hurt.Ithought as fake friendships went, we had a deeper connection than expected.Ithought pretending with him was exhilarating. I loved our fights, more than I had any right to. I loved the normalness of hanging out at his oma’s, doing chores and sipping lemonade.

But if he didn’t feel the same, I guessed there was no reason for me to worry he was reading too much into the whole drunken sexcapade, was there? He wasn’ttoointo me. He still didn’t like me at all.

My cheeks burned, and I couldn’t say why. Anger rose—never tears—up my throat.

I jabbed a finger into the center of his chest. “Take it back.”

“No.”

Heat radiated out from the pad of my finger where we touched. It wasn’t even his bare skin. It was his paint-stained t-shirt.

“Am I really that repulsive to you that you can’t stand the thought of people believing you could possibly like me?” I found myself gripping him, twisting his shirt in my fists.

“How can….”

He looked at me like I was from another planet, like our languages were so foreign to each other we had no chance of meaningful communication.

He breathed in, his chest rising against my fists.

I wanted to scream, then to pinch his nipple and twist. I wanted to shove him out of my apartment and slam the door in his face.

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