The Billionaire's Fake Fiance

by Annika Martin

  “Shit,” Willow says. “He killed it.”

  I smile stupidly as he fits the mic back into the holder, as he comes off the stage and shakes a lot of hands. His gaze never leaves mine.

  Because in the end, we’re the only people in the room.

  I finally get to him, or maybe he gets to me. “You came.” He cups my cheeks, looking at me like he can’t believe it.

  “Theo—” There are too many words. So I kiss him. He groans and pulls me closer, kisses me back.

  “I was wrong,” I say, pulling away. “Wrong to just leave.”

  “No, I was wrong. I know I was wrong.”

  “But I was wrong to not believe in our power to get past it. We can figure this out. I feel like we can figure anything out. I love that we can figure anything out.”

  His eyes shine. “You can’t even imagine what it was like to see you out there. I wanted to yell.”

  “Probably good you didn’t.” I grab hold of his lapels. They feel cool and silky. “I’m home. I don’t want to leave this.” Ever, I think.

  “You’re staying? In the city?”

  “Yes.”

  He wraps his arms around me, wraps me into a hug. There are no words.

  And then we have to separate, because it’s picture time. Henry Locke, who runs the Locke empire, wants a picture with Theo. Then they bring the little dog into the picture. Then it’s Theo and some other people.

  I have to figure out what to do about the subletter. Figure out about a job. Theo may have rented the awesome space, but those are all details. I catch Theo’s eye as the press takes a few pictures of him with his award. The main thing is that I’m staying.

  Willow hands me a glass of champagne. “He made an omelet for me this morning,” she says.

  “He did?”

  “It was terrible.”

  After a lot of mingling, the party breaks up, but the night’s not over—Henry and Vicky invite Willow and Theo and me out for drinks and desserts. Henry wants to toast the partnership.

  We end up in a cozy, candlelit bar in one of the famous Locke boutique hotels. The five of us commandeer a big, comfy booth and drink to the partnership with champagne that I don’t dare ask the price of.

  We talk about the goat videos, and Willow explains a data initiative her company is doing. Vicky’s excited that I’m the Cookie Madness person. It turns out she makes jewelry, and we have fun bonding over crafty stuff while we pet the little dog, who might just be the cutest dog in the universe.

  Henry Locke can’t say enough about how much he loved Theo’s speech; he’s excited about the partnership. He compliments him on the firm’s engaging online presence, too.

  “That’s mostly Lizzie,” Theo says.

  “So that’s where you two fell for each other?” Vicky asks. “When you worked at Vossameer?”

  Theo and I exchange glances.

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  Willow snorts.

  Playfully, Vicky narrows her eyes. “Okay, you don’t have to tell. Now…”

  I have a feeling she’s going to extract every detail someday. And I wouldn’t mind it. I like her. Mia would like her, too.

  I go home with Theo after the party breaks up. We kiss in the limo and then later in the elevator. Theo slides his hands over my hips. “I just want to rip this off you.”

  “Don’t you dare! It’s my favorite dress ever!”

  He chuckles.

  In the end, he doesn’t rip it off. He carries me to his bedroom and he undoes the zipper for me, kissing my back every few inches.

  We make love in his big bed with the moon shining in the arch-top windows. Afterward I tell him about going over the bridge, and thinking about what he said, and we dream together of how we want things to be with us.

  “We’re talking about our relationship,” I say. “It seems so weird. But in a good way.”

  “A very good way.” He touches his finger to the tip of my nose. “And you know what I’m going to do tomorrow morning?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “I’m going to make us omelets!”

  “Hmm!” I say, trying to sound excited.

  The next morning, we collaborate on the omelets, thankfully. He’s surprised at the things he was doing wrong.

  I put in a call to my parents. It’s a hard call—they’re crushed I’m not coming but they’re thrilled I might have a space. Theo told me it’s still empty. It’s something else we’ll work out. I promise to come visit soon for a nice long time. A late Three Musketeers celebration. I’ll bring special cookies.

  Later that morning, we head to my old place. With the help of Derek and Mia and a few other guys Theo rounded up, we make quick work of unloading my carefully packed truck and putting all my stuff back in my room. The subletter hasn’t moved in yet, luckily, and Theo has a place to offer her—apparently, Vossameer owns a few apartments to put up overseas visitors, and one of them will be open for a couple of months.

  After everybody leaves, Theo and I drink lemonade on our couch. Mia comes out in her outrageous delivery girl uniform. “Don’t you dare laugh. Don’t even.” She thanks Theo again for offering the subletter a temporary free apartment.

  “Everything’s perfect,” I say.

  “Except the conundrum window,” Mia says. “Beware, it’s almost summer.”

  We explain the horrible dilemma of the window to Theo—too hot when it’s closed, too stinky when it’s open.

  He goes over, but he doesn’t seem to be looking out the window. He’s looking at the part of the wall next to the window, studying one of Mia’s cross-stitches, hanging right next to it. “What is this?” He takes it off the hook.

  Mia turns to me, jaw hanging open. It’s here I realize—that’s the Sex with me is a dirty, savage affair. Utterly uncivilized cross-stitch.

  He turns, holding the thing up. “Care to explain?”

  “Um, no?” I squeak.

  He smiles his sexy, stern smile.

  “Gotta go,” Mia says, getting out of there.

  I lock up behind her, and Theo presses me to the door. “You are a totally impudent wake-up-call girl who needs to be taught a lesson,” he rumbles.

  “Am I?” I start unbuttoning his shirt. “Am I, really?”

  In fact, I am. All afternoon I am.

  Epilogue

  Theo

  New Year’s Day; eight months later

  Fargo, North Dakota

  * * *

  I stand at the front of the tiny prairie church, adjusting my cuff links. There’s a fiddler, a friend of the Cooper family, playing wedding songs in the corner.

  I adjust my sleeve, trying to get it even with the other sleeve.

  Willow pokes me in the back. “They’re fine! You’re perfect!”

  I turn to face her.

  Per-fect, she mouths.

  She’s standing up with me as my best woman, in a blue gown that matches Mia’s, who’s over on the bride’s side. Lizzie’s side.

  Lots of our Manhattan friends came out for this. Henry Locke provided the Locke jet and pilot as a kind of wedding gift, so that everybody could ride here together. He and I have become quite friendly, and the four of us hang out all the time.

  Over the summer, my PI figured out exactly where in St. Thomas Lizzie’s ex was living, and we tipped off the cops. The guy was extradited to the United States to stand trial, and while Lizzie didn’t get all her money back, she got some. Enough to take over the space I found for her and stand on her own with the bakery.

  Lizzie’s mother, Fredericka, sits in the front. I catch her eye and she smiles. We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past few weeks of my being here, celebrating Christmas and doing wedding prep.

  The way the Coopers have brought me into the family—this feeling of being part of her generous family—is something I never dreamed of for myself. Something I never expected when I fell in love with Lizzie.

  I can’t remember the last time I had a real C
hristmas. To me, Christmas was always a pain in the ass, with extra obligations and most of my favorite restaurants being annoyingly closed. Something to get through.

  But an actual Christmas? The Coopers do every dorky thing there is—the mistletoe, the singing, the whole nine yards. There have been dinners and presents. There have been long, snowy walks and even skating on the river, with hot apple cider breaks. And caroling.

  And I’ve loved it all.

  The Coopers were sad Lizzie didn’t move back home, but they were thrilled she found a place for Cookie Madness.

  And really, they’re fine. Lizzie’s parents are a hugely romantic pair with a rich, fun life full of friends. And they never stop learning and growing. This spring they’ll be taking a month-long trip to a French chateau to learn some kind of foodie technique. Food is definitely a family passion.

  Sometimes I secretly study Lizzie’s parents for clues of how to have a good marriage—out at dinner, sitting around the fire, when we drop by the pizzeria. Lizzie laughed when I told her that, but I never saw a successful marriage up close, and that’s what I want for us.

  There are dark pink flowers all around the church—peonies. That’s Lizzie’s favorite flower, as it turns out. She told me once that they make her happy—the color, the shape, the size, the scent. So I’m thinking flowers might not be so useless after all.

  The music changes and I straighten. Everybody twists around, waiting for Lizzie to appear with her father, Joe, who will be walking her down the aisle.

  My pulse races. I have the urge to adjust my cufflinks again.

  But then the doors open and there’s Lizzie, madly gorgeous in a white dress and elegant hairdo, smiling brightly, clutching a riot of peonies. My nervousness goes, and everything’s right. Because she’s with me. Whatever happens, we’re in it together.

  I love you, she mouths.

  I whisper it back. I love you.

  Because we’re two dragon fighters, traipsing through life together. Falling off the map together.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading Theo and Lizzie’s story! I hope you love them as much as I do.

  * * *

  OMG - the cute little dog I adopted turns out to be a billionaire! That's right, my tiny Maltese inherited a huge corporation!

  But now the sexy CEO thinks I'm a scammer…

  Are you ready for more romantic comedy? Don’t miss Most Eligible Billionaire!

  “I can't remember the last time a book sucked me in like this…the experience of reading this book - transcendent! There aren't words.”

  ~Book Girl

  * * *

  Want more fun and romance? And news, freebies, prizes, early reads and more?

  It’s all in the newsletter, my friend!

  SIGN UP-> http://www.annikamartinbooks.com/newletter/

  * * *

  Turn the page for a peek at Most Eligible Billionaire!

  Most Eligible Billionaire sneak peek!

  Vicky

  * * *

  I’m smuggling a tiny white dog named Smuckers into a Manhattan hospital to see his owner, Bernadette Locke. Thanks to a standing appointment at a chandelier-draped dog salon on Fifth Avenue owned by a woman who ostensibly loves dogs but might secretly hate them, Smuckers’s facial fur is blow-dried into such an intense puff of white that his eager black eyes and wee raisin of a nose seem to float in a cloud.

  There are three things to know about Bernadette: She’s the meanest woman I ever met. She believes I’m some kind of dog whisperer who can read Smuckers’s mind. (I can’t.) And she’s dying. Alone.

  The people in her condo building will probably be glad to hear of her passing. I don’t know what she did to earn their hatred. That’s probably for the best.

  Bernadette has a son out there somewhere, but even he seems to have washed his hands of her. There is a photo of the son on Bernadette’s cracked fireplace mantel, a toddler with a scowly little dent between fierce blue eyes. Surrounded by people, the little boy manages somehow to look utterly alone.

  Back when Bernadette got her terminal diagnosis, I asked her if she’d told her son and whether he might finally come to visit. She brushed off the question with a contemptuous wave of her hand—Bernadette’s favorite way of responding to pretty much anything you say is a contemptuous hand wave. He won’t be coming, I assure you.

  I can’t believe he wouldn’t visit her, even now. It’s the ultimate dick move. Your mother is dying alone, jackass!

  Anyway, put all of that in a pot and stir it and you have the strange soup of me clicking past a guard, smiling brightly—and hopefully dazzlingly—enough that he doesn’t notice the squirmy bulge in my oversized purse.

  Smuckers is a Maltese, which is a toy dog that’s outrageously cute. And Smuckers is the cutest of the cute.

  Smuckers and Bernadette Locke made a notorious pair out on the sidewalk in the Upper West Side neighborhood where my little sister and I have our very sweet apartment-sitting gig.

  I remember them well. Smuckers would attract people with his insane fluff-ball cuteness, but as the hapless victim drew near Bernadette would say something insulting. Kind of like the human equivalent of a Venus flytrap, where the fly is attracted to the beauty of the flower only to be mercilessly crushed.

  Locals learned to stay away from the two of them. I tried—I really did.

  Yet here I am, slipping down another chillingly bright hospital hallway, smuggling the little dog in for the third time in two weeks. It’s not on my top ten list of things I want to do with my day. Not even on my top hundred, but Smuckers is Bernadette’s only true friend. And I know what it’s like to be hated and alone.

  I know that when you’re hated, you sometimes act like you don’t care as a survival method.

  And that makes people hate you more, because they feel like you should look at least a little beaten down.

  Bernadette’s hatred was real-life neighborhood hatred; mine was real life plus a fun national online component, but it works the same way, and heaven forbid you should have a cute dog. Or that a picture of you smiling should ever appear on Facebook or Huffpo or People.com.

  I know, too, how being hated can build on itself, how sometimes you do things to make people hate you more because it’s better in a certain perverse way. I think only people who have been hated in their life can truly understand that.

  I push into the room. “We’re here,” I say brightly, relieved no medical personnel are around. While Smuckers enjoys being in a purse, he prefers to ride with his head out, like the fierce captain of a pleather airship. Needless to say, he’s achieved maximum squirminess. I take him out. “Look, Smuckers—your mom!”

  Bernadette is half propped up on pillows. Her skin is sallow and her hair sparse, but what hair she has is energetically white. Her eyes flutter open. “Finally.”

  She has a tube in her arm, but that’s all. They’ve taken Bernadette off everything except morphine. They’ve given up on her.

  “Smuckers is so excited to see you.” I go over to her bed and set Smuckers next to her. Smuckers licks Bernadette’s fingers, and the love that comes over Bernadette’s face makes her look soft for a moment. Like a nice woman.

  “Smuckers,” she whispers. She moves her lips, talking to him. I can’t hear, but I know from past conversations that she’s saying she loves him. Sometimes she confesses she doesn’t want to leave him, doesn’t want to be alone. She’s frightened about being alone.

  Feebly she scratches Smuckers’s fur, but she’s focusing hard on me, whispering something fervently. I draw near. Eggplant, she seems to be saying.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Eggplant…” she says, voice weak.

  “Yes, Bernadette?”

  “Eggplant makes your complexion…” she winces hard, “…wormlike.” She manages to infuse the word wormlike with incredulous contempt, as though I’ve performed such a feat of fashion monstrosity that she needs to muster all her strength to let me know.


  “Damn. I was going for slug-like,” I joke as I adjust Smuckers so that he’s not on her tube.

  She sniffs and turns back to Smuckers.

  Over the three years I’ve known her, Bernadette has always been judgmental about my fashion choices. Did you get that out of a 1969 catalog for librarians, Vicky? Did JCPenney have a sale on drab pencil skirts? At times I literally seem to hurt her eyes, what with my uninspired ponytails and glasses and whatnot.

  I have this suspicion that Bernadette came from money but that her fortune dwindled over the years. Clue one: her apartment is in an expensive neighborhood, but it’s really shabby inside, like it was once grand and went to ruin. Also, her clothes are worn versions of what was expensive maybe fifteen years back. Really, she seems to spend nothing on herself. But Smuckers? Nothing is too good for Smuckers. No expense spared.

  I take her hand and put it where Smuckers most likes it so Smuckers will settle down.

  “Smuckers,” she breathes.

  I have this impulse to set a comforting hand on her arm, but human contact is not something Bernadette would ever want from me.

  I’m really only around as an extension of Smuckers, a conduit for Smuckers’s important communications. Other than that, I’m chopped liver. If Bernadette could somehow automate me or keep me in a sardine tin with just the corner rolled up so my voice can escape, she would.

  She looks up at me expectantly. I know what she wants. What does Smuckers have to say?

  I’m at a loss for what to say, or rather, what Smuckers might say. I never signed up for this pet whisperer thing with her, and what with her being on her deathbed, it seems especially wrong.

  But she’s waiting. Glaring. It’s Smuckers or nothing.