The Billionaire's Fake Fiance
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The Billionaire’s Fake Fiance Preorder file
Annika Martin
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Most Eligible Billionaire sneak peek!
Also by Annika Martin (aka Carolyn Crane)
Acknowledgments
All the Annika deets!
Let’s have some fun!
xo
Hi!! I’m still writing the Billionaire’s Fake Fiance, so it’s not quite ready for a preview yet!
In the meantime, this is a preview of The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl. You may have read it already, but if you didn’t, you should!!
You’ll be able to see a preview of The Billionaire’s Fake Fiance in this space in early June. I can’t wait for you to meet Willow and her man!
If you got this file on release day, something has gone horribly wrong!
Please contact the ebook seller, or you can contact me at annika@annikamartinbooks.com and I’ll pass along instructions, or if need be, fight hoardes of hot heroes to make it right!!
One
Hi!! Annika here!
I’m still writing the Billionaire’s Fake Fiance, so it’s not quite ready for a preview yet!
In the meantime, this is a preview of The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl. You may have read it already, but if you didn’t, you should!!
You’ll be able to see a preview of The Billionaire’s Fake Fiance in this space in early June. I can’t wait for you to meet Willow and her man!
If you got this file on release day, something has gone horribly wrong!
Please contact the ebook seller, or you can contact me at annika@annikamartinbooks.com and I’ll pass along instructions, or if need be, fight hoardes of hot heroes to make it right!!
* * *
Lizzie
* * *
Looking back, maybe I should’ve noticed the red flags.
The unusually large sign-on bonus, for example—payable only after I lasted thirty days on the job.
Who can’t last in a job for thirty days? That was my thought when I applied for this position.
And then there were the strange looks my co-workers would give me when I went around introducing myself as Vossameer Inc.’s new social media manager. “I’m here to jazz up our online image,” I’d explain.
In the elevator, on the communications floor, down in the sleek and elegant lobby, just these strange looks. Uncertain smiles. One woman’s mouth formed into an alarmed “o” before she introduced herself back to me.
At first I chalked it up to company-wide cluelessness about social media. After all, Vossameer didn’t even have a Facebook page when I started three weeks ago.
But now as I watch my boss Sasha fret and frown over the PowerPoint report I created to show how perfectly I nailed my assignment, I’m starting to think a little bit harder about those red flags.
She clicks to a page that shows examples of my successful, industry-appropriate posts and a graph of my stunning engagement numbers.
She sucks in a breath. Winces.
What?
Trust me, Facebook engagement was no easy feat; Vossameer’s most exciting product is hemostatic gel for use in traumatic wound-care situations.
Another wince. A frown.
Was I the clueless one all along? Was I misreading the looks I was getting from my new co-workers?
Am I like the traveler in Transylvania who excitedly tells all the villagers about finding an awesome free castle to stay in? OMG, I have the whole place to myself because the owner only comes out at night. Isn’t that wonderful? Score! High five!
I hold my breath as she clicks from page to page.
Sasha has a severe blonde bob, a love of nautical-looking outfits, and a Cruella De Vil makeup style, though to be fair, it might be a poorly lit home mirror.
“Mmm…” she says finally. And it’s not a yum type of mmm. It’s an uh-oh type of mmmm.
“Is there a problem?” I ask.
She just shakes her head. As though the problem goes beyond words. Like she asked for an interim report and I gave her a handful of peanut shells with the salt licked off.
She clicks to another graph of positive results and again she furrows her dark and dramatically arched brows—I see it in the reflection on the screen.
“The engagement numbers are already better than most of Vossameer’s peers,” I point out.
Crickets.
Actually, not even crickets. “Crickets” suggests little beings are happily chirping away in a field. What I hear is more like the silent gloom of stones in a forgotten parking lot.
She clicks to the next page. My website mock-up.
“You wanted our site to come up on the first page on Google,” I remind her. “Now it does, but we’ll do even better once the new site is up. I think people will stay longer.”
Trust me, that’s a nice way of putting it. The current Vossameer site looks like it was made by depressed robots in 1998.
Of course, when you’re Vossameer, a billion-dollar unicorn of a company, you don’t need a nice site. Vossameer could have no site at all, and giant health groups would still pay zillions of dollars for their lifesaving medical gel.
But now they’re trying to partner with some high-profile charitable foundation—Locke Foundation, part of Locke Construction.
So they have to look shiny online.
Which is why they hired me. That was my assignment.
When you search Vossameer, the top hit is a Forbes article on mysterious CEO Theo Drummond that can be summed up in eight words: he’s an asshole, but his products save lives.
And it’s not the only one. Tons of articles paint Mr. Drummond as a reclusive genius. A gruff misanthrope. A surly asshole.
I’ve never met the notorious Mr. Drummond, but the asshole thing is not hard to believe. The evidence is all around.
The employees here are fearful, as though they’re expecting to be fired at any moment, or maybe beheaded. The environment is sleek gray marble and steel, like an elegant and slightly futuristic prison. No outside decorations are allowed, not even in the deepest recesses of your cubicle.
Even the outside of the building is unforgiving—a mod gray concrete bunker with rectangular windows arranged in straight rows. A study in harsh geometry.
Mr. Drummond doesn’t like decorations, Sasha told me once. Vossameer is about lifesaving solutions, not party streamers.
I’d brought a giant tub of home-baked frosted cookies to share my second day, and people nearly fell out of their chairs. It turns out we can’t bring treats to share. Ever.
This is a workplace, not a potluck, Sasha said.
I’ve gotten good at sensing the assholey DNA of Mr. Drummond’s statements, and I’m pret
ty sure that was one of them. Same with the party streamers comment. It’s something about the sheer jerkiness of it, and also, how Sasha changes her voice to sound breathless and intense.
Everyone here is obsessed with Mr. Drummond. They seem to regard him the way the ancients regarded the gods that controlled the weather and plagues. Angry and vengeful, yet glorious. Never to be spoken ill of.
Also, nobody talks about Mr. Drummond without using the word “amazing” at least once. Maybe that’s in the employee manual somewhere.
Sasha’s obsession goes way further—more into awestruck love territory.
She speaks his name like she’s whispering hallowed secrets to the Greek oracles atop Mount Olympus—Mr. Drummond this, Mr. Drummond that. Amazing Mr. Drummond.
“Mr. Drummond is not the most sociable person in the world,” Sasha breathlessly informed me the day I started. “He has extremely high standards—for himself and for his employees—but his amazing breakthroughs save lives every day. The work we do to support him makes that possible.” And then she’d looked me deeply in the eyes and said, This is the most important job you’ll ever have.
I’d just nodded while making a mental note to stay away from any brightly colored liquid.
I cross my arms. Wait for Sasha to click on through my doomed PowerPoint.
“On the next page are the website hits that come from Facebook,” I say nervously.
Sasha doesn’t want to see the next page. She levels a long red fingernail at the screen, like a blood-red rocket, and taps on the image of an old man holding hands with a baby. She then taps the faces of happy newlyweds. “Why am I seeing these people?”
“Well, our marketing materials tend to concentrate on the medical effects of our hemostatic gel, but that’s not what we’re selling, is it?” I say. “We’re selling more time with loved ones. We’re selling health providers the ability to grant more time to wounded patients. That’s our true product.”
She actually cranes her head around and looks up at me, like I’m saying something really radical. And not Marketing 101.
“Look at any hospital or pharma website,” I continue. “Right now, let’s go look. You’ll see pictures of happy people living life together. ”
Sasha pulls out her phone and enters the name of a large local hospital. Does she not believe me? I’m hugely relieved to see an image of a woman leaping in the air, trailing a silky scarf behind her.
Sasha looked surprised.
This place.
That jerk Mr. Drummond runs these people so hard, they have no life. Poor Sasha seems to be up to her neck in press releases and case studies. But seriously, do they not watch TV? Do they not mess around online?
“After all,” I say, “it’s not as if hospitals are going to fill their sites with pictures of bloody scalpels and ugly surgical scars. Right?” I try a smile.
Sasha doesn’t.
She’s back at my PowerPoint. A family at a picnic. Old people doing a puzzle. At one point, she sucks in a breath, like the images literally agonize her. “Mr. Drummond won’t like seeing all this,” she says in the most ominous tone possible. “He won’t like it at all.”
As if I’ve spent my three weeks filling people’s drawers with Ping-Pong balls instead of nailing my assignment.
“Why won’t he like it?” I hate how small my voice sounds.
She just shakes her head.
“The thing is, my assignment was to modernize and humanize Vossameer’s online presence…and people relate to people,” I say.
Cue the crushing gloom of stones.
If I were more mercenary, I’d give them the boring site they want and a sad Facebook feed shunned by all. I’d be long gone by the time they realized I screwed them over. But that’s not me. I may only be here for the bonus, but I intend to do a good job for them.
“No, you probably have a point. About the people,” she says. “It’s social media, after all.”
“Yeah, right?” I agree hopefully.
“Mr. Drummond does want this foundation partnership. But…” She gestures at a picture of a happy family. Makes a tiny little sound. A tiny little frightened sound.
Does Mr. Drummond just hate happy families? Will he start throwing chairs if he sees a little boy and his grandfather working on a train set?
And if so, why bother to invent lifesaving solutions?
“Welp!” Sasha straightens up. “Who knows, maybe he’ll like it.” Her tone is weird. Far too bright. “Mr. Drummond sees things we don’t, does things for reasons we don’t always understand. It’s amazing he’s as patient with us as he is.”
“Sure, okay,” I say.
“I’ll have you present with me,” she says. “We’ll head up after lunch.”
“Wait—what?” I nearly swallow my tongue.
I’m going up to the top? To the tyrant’s lair?
“You’ll help me explain.”
“I thought you liked to present…solo.” I’ve gotten the feeling that Sasha has been passing off my ideas as her own. Not that I care. Again, only here for the bonus.
“You’re the expert.” She smiles.
Translation: If all goes well, she’ll take the credit. If it goes poorly, I’ll take the fall.
She looks over my outfit, or more winces over it.
I straighten my blazer. I’m in a gray pantsuit with a white shirt under. It’s something a stylish female detective would wear, at least in my imagination. Even my dark blonde hair is contained in an un-fun bun.
Where did I go wrong?
Though to be fair, most maiden sacrifices happen with the helpless victim wearing a nightgown.
“It’s fine.” She waves me off. “See you at 1:45.”
I thank her and make my way down the row of non-visually-distracting cubicles.
I eat my turkey sandwich at my desk, feeling doomed. I open my bag of chips ever so quietly. That’s another rule—inmates of Gulag Vossameer must not make excessive non-work-related noise.
What’s more, they must never prepare foods that produce an excessive smell. Microwave popcorn is expressly banned.
I have this fantasy of popping popcorn in the microwave—Orville Redenbacher extra-buttery movie version—while dancing on my desk in a pink mini skirt to Britney Spears’s “Gimme More.”
But that would have to happen after the bonus is in my bank account. I desperately need that bonus. Beyond desperately.
I just need to last six more business days, not counting today. A person can handle anything for six days, right?
Two hours later, we’re waiting for the elevator. Sasha frowns at me for about the tenth time. “Do not speak unless spoken to. You understand?”
“Got it,” I say.
“Don’t elaborate needlessly,” she says. “You tend to elaborate…”
I swallow. “Got it. No elaboration.”
I don’t have an official marketing degree. I used to own a bakery, Cookie Madness, that got really popular thanks to my work on Facebook and Instagram. I even won some awards. Those awards got me this job—I could tell from the interview.
It still hurts to think about my stolen bakery. My stolen life. My stolen dream. Stolen and destroyed.
We get in. Sasha hits the button for the fifteenth floor. “Not everybody gets the chance to meet him,” she says.
Yay? I think. But I don’t say that. I just nod and smile.
I worked in restaurants all through culinary school, and I had a lot of jerky bosses. Jerky bosses can be fun because they give the employees a shared enemy to whisper about, to exchange mocking glances over, and that creates a sense of camaraderie, like a workplace version of the French Resistance.
Vossameer doesn’t have even that bit of joy. It’s sad.
We’re stalled at the tenth floor while people try to fit in a cart. Nervously, Sasha checks the time.
I’ll admit, I’m interested to meet the elusive and tyrannical Mr. Drummond on a purely WTF level. Because who runs a company like this?<
br />
In my quest to be the perfect leader of the five employees who worked at my cookie bakery, I used a lot of positive reinforcement. If somebody took a risk that backfired, I would still praise them, because I wanted them to feel empowered to try new things. I encouraged individuality and creativity, and it totally paid off—my employees came up with some great ideas.
We hit eleven. The cart leaves.
There aren’t many photos of Mr. Drummond out there. Most of them are him standing in large groups, or in a lab wearing protective goggles. I requested a picture for the site, and Sasha told me Mr. Drummond isn’t into it. The picture he makes his assistant provide for industry events is a black-and-white line drawing of a chemist’s beaker with two bubbles coming out of the top of it.
He doesn’t like to draw attention to himself, Bob from HR explained in hushed tones.
Hushed tones.
As though amazing Mr. Drummond might hear his words and feel displeased, and that might destroy his ultra-important lifesaving train of genius thought, and a swarm of locusts would descend from the sky to eat everybody’s smell-free lunches.
Here’s a hint for the inmates of Gulag Vossameer: you don’t have to talk in hushed tones when you discuss Mr. Drummond. He doesn’t have godlike omniscience. He doesn’t have bat-like hearing. He is not a wizard.
He is but a man!
When you pull aside the curtain, that’s what you’ll find. A controlling jerk of a man with a machine to make his voice sound loud and boomy. Just like in The Wizard of Oz.
Right before we hit floor fifteen, Sasha takes out a compact mirror and touches up her lipstick. She’s such a gorgeous and clever tiger of a woman, smart and aggressive. Sure, her aggression is turned on me half the time. Still. I feel bad for her.
I feel bad that this jerky man has made her feel like this. It’s not right!
I want to tell her not to waste her time on a control freak like Mr. Drummond. He’s just another man behind a curtain! I want to say. There’s more power in your awesome shoes!
But I don’t.
For the record, her shoes are awesome—shiny and sculptural high heels in severe black. Her dress is a formfitting knit, sexy in an understated way, with a smart wool blazer over it.