The Billionaire’s Fake Wedding: Crystal Beach Resort Standalone Series- Book 3

by Hart, Hanna

  He looked down at the dry, smudged gray paper to see a photo of him on page six, stumbling out of a bar with some girl he couldn’t even remember.

  “This is the fourth time this month,” his mother said strictly. “You end up in these horrible columns and guess who this comes down on?”

  “I’m guessing it’s you and dad,” Beckett answered evenly. He rubbed his hand across his forehead as his eyes skimmed down the page to see what the write-up had to say.

  “My agent is having a fit!” his father piped in again, and it was all Beckett could do not to tell him to get lost. Go have another drink. Head back to his precious restaurant.

  “Why?” Beckett snapped, throwing the paper down on his gray comforter. “What do I have to do with you and your agent?”

  “Because you work at the restaurant!” his father shouted. A vein began to bulge in his father’s forehead, and that’s when Beckett knew he’d really made him mad.

  His father, Colton, had gotten a television deal at thirty and had become America’s most beloved celebrity chef. He was known for his outlandish behavior in the kitchen, his seafood recipes, and the strange, underground restaurants he would tour in his follow-up show, aptly named ‘Underground with Colton D.’

  Since Beckett was born, his father had been on television. He’d since opened a number of restaurants. One in Vegas, one in Paris, and one on the famous private island largely inhabited by billionaires—Nani Makai. Home of Crystal Beach Romance Resorts.

  “You represent your mother and me!” his hot-headed father continued to yell. “Do you think this is fun for us? To have built up successful careers only to have you tearing them down? Your sister is getting married next August, Beckett! Don’t you care what this is doing to her?”

  “We’re worried about you, dear,” his mother said, resting a hand on the edge of the bed next to her leg.

  “Yeah, sure sounds like you’re worried about me and not your careers,” he scoffed and went to lay back down, but his mother’s eyes froze him in place.

  She held eye contact with him for some time before picking the paper back up and, without even looking at the fine print, she read the newspaper headline from memory.

  “Cats have bells, Beckett Davenport has ice,” she said evenly. “Son of renowned celebrity chef Carlton Davenport seen stumbling out of WICKED bar with whisky glass in hand.”

  “I don’t need a recap,” Beckett said, averting his eyes from his mother’s stare.

  “You were pulled over by the police,” she said sternly, whipping the paper back down on the bed and standing up. “Do you remember that?”

  “Well, that explains the stamp,” he said with some sarcasm as he looked down at the purple stamp on his hand that read ‘D.T.,’ or drunk tank.

  “I’m through with this!” his mother said at his lack of reaction to the whole ordeal. “I’m through with this behavior!”

  “I’m not fifteen!” he finally yelled back as he got out from his bed. “You can’t just come into my home and—”

  “Your home?” his father interrupted, absolutely fuming now. “Your home? Who pays for this home? Not you!”

  “Oh, Colton,” his mother waved his father away. “Beckett,” she focused. “We have been through this and through this, and you won’t get any help. You won’t talk to me; you won’t talk to Shooter; you won’t talk to a therapist.”

  Beckett swallowed.

  “You’ve talked to Shooter about me?” he asked of his best friend. “What is this, an intervention?”

  “You’re destroying yourself!” his mother insisted.

  “You mean I’m destroying your brand,” he scoffed.

  Bebe stared at him with intense, sincere green eyes and then she said the four words he had been dreading the most.

  “We’re cutting you off.”

  Beckett felt his face go white and hot all at the same time.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That’s it!” he father added. “We’re done. I’m not standing around watching you ruin yourself. I’m not enabling this behavior.”

  “You can’t do that!” he argued, looking to his mother for backup and finding nothing in return. “I have a restaurant to run!”

  “No,” his father said, calmer now. “I have a restaurant to run. You have only one job now, and that's to get your life together. No more floozies, no more drinking, no more papers!”

  “What are you…” Beckett paused and had to catch his breath. “What are you doing, disowning me?”

  “Honey,” his mother said, and his stomach nearly churned as he saw the way her face twisted with grief. He knew she was going to say it. “We all loved Lynne and Micha—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” he shouted, throwing his hands into the air.

  “You’re hurting. We all are!” she insisted, and tears became to stream down her face. “But it’s time to start rebuilding. That’s what she would want for you.”

  “She doesn’t want anything!” he had remembered yelling. “She’s not here! Neither of them are!”

  Their conversation only continued to go down after that.

  His parents were, in fact, cutting him off. Disowning him from the family fortune indefinitely—or until he could settle down with the right girl.

  This was their backward, old-school way of controlling his love life. They believed if he could just meet the right girl, he would go back to being their respectable, polite, optimistic son. But he hadn't been that way for a year and a half.

  Now, six months later, he was ready to start again. Start work, start island life, start the social scene all over again with a fresh set of eyes.

  Beckett stared down at an old photo he kept of Lynne. It was during their college years. In his whole life, she was the only person who ever really knew him. She was the only one who didn't care about his father's celebrity or his mother's success.

  His family name meant nothing to her, in the best way possible.

  She was just Lynne. The girl next door. The reason to live on Nani Makai, the famous private island outfitted with billionaire homes and a stunning upscale resort.

  The photo was the two of them the day of college graduation. Lynne had her hand on her slim, almost non-existent hip and her head cocked playfully to the side. She looked perfect.

  They both met at the Culinary Institute of America, and she always loved to tell people she was with the "CIA." Which she was, he supposed. But the kind who served French cuisine, not the kind who carried national secrets.

  Lynne, and his son Michael, died a year and a half ago.

  Since then, life had been nothing short of a mess.

  He had no intention of getting a little wife by his side in earnest. Lynne was his choice. He chose her, and there wouldn't be another woman on the planet who could replace what they shared.

  But he wasn't about to lose his inheritance or his business, either.

  He'd been trying to find a way around his parents’ stipulations for months now, until one night after a glass of bourbon and a marathon of bad reality television, he had finally found a way around their strange rules.

  He would hire a wife.

  When the idea came to him, he thought it was brilliant.

  He would hire a woman to marry him for two years. He would give her a handsome sum of money, some up-front after the contracts were signed, and the rest after the two years were up.

  This way he would have someone to appease his parents without having to give in to their pleas for him to… what? Start dating again?

  Every time they said it, it made him want to scream.

  They had been married for almost forty years. They never had to experience the loss of their partner. They didn’t know what it felt like to choose to be with someone forever only to have them, and your child, ripped out of your life without a moment’s notice.

  And if they handled themselves any better than he had, well, he would have been utterly impressed.

  He’d put up
the online ad for a wife for hire a week ago and was going to meet some of the women who replied tomorrow.

  He tried to make the ad as formal as possible. He made simple requests:

  She must submit her age and a photo

  She must not be married or have children

  She must be willing to move to Nani Makai for a minimum of two years and be his legal wife.

  Of course, she shouldn’t have a police record or any other charges that might put the glorious family name under a bad light.

  And if she happened to be pleasant to be around, that would be a plus for him.

  Considering he was asking a woman to give up her life for two years, marry a stranger, and sign a non-disclosure agreement that she would never talk about their arrangement, he was willing to dole out a four million dollars to the lucky applicant.

  She would receive two million dollars up front once they were married and the remaining two once they were divorced.

  The post was on an official job board online that was maintained by the city, so everything had to be verified. This would put the girls who applied at ease, knowing that this was a legitimate job—not some white-van murderer looking for his next victim.

  If all went well, he would be leaving Savannah and be heading back to Nani Makai before the week was up.

  He would be back in his parents’ good graces, and wealth, before he knew it.

  Chapter Three

  Fiona

  Wife for hire!

  Fiona stared down at the job title on her phone for what felt like hours, reading the description over and over again.

  She had applied to the strange opportunity nearly two weeks ago and was called just hours ago by the poster to say he was very interested in meeting her.

  “Please don’t be a creep, please don’t be a creep,” Fiona chanted in whispers as she primped in the mirror, fixing her long red hair into beachy waves and coating her ginger lashes with several clumpy layers of dark mascara.

  With the ninety-one-degree August weather, Fiona was having trouble finding something ‘job interview appropriate’ that kept her free from the nearly unbearable heat.

  She decided on a white and beige polka-dotted dress that hit her knees. It had button detailing up the front, lace trim around the bust, and capped sleeves.

  It reminded her of a vintage piece, which she decided was the only outfit she had that would fit the occasion.

  The ad said that the job was a two-year contract that would involve moving away from Savannah. It also required her to be unmarried, free of police charges, and not to have any children.

  Two out of three wasn’t so bad.

  Fiona had asked if Kathleen would be able to watch Ruby while she was gone and, thankfully, she agreed. Since she lied about not having children, it wasn’t like she could cart Ruby around with her.

  The ad also said that the payment was astronomical. And for someone facing death, lying to a potential employer for a six-figure payout wasn’t something she would hold against herself.

  She and her potential employer had agreed to meet at a café called CABOOSE.

  Fiona had been sitting at one of the high-top tables for ten minutes now waiting for someone to approach her.

  The wood and glass door jangled a bell as it opened and Fiona’s eyes wandered toward the customer who had just walked in.

  The man looked to be around thirty and was undeniably attractive. He had curly blond hair, tan skin, and vibrant green eyes that were so alluring they looked like they should have been on some statue of a Greek god.

  “You must be my date,” he said as he walked up to her table.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise, shaking and spilling her coffee as he spoke. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry about that,” he said with a polite laugh. He grabbed one of the paper napkins off the condiment stand and wiped up some of the coffee. “Sometimes I forget how frightening I am.”

  It was a joke, obviously. The only thing frightening about him was how ridiculously attracted she was to him.

  In fact, Fiona was even more taken aback by how incredibly handsome he was the closer he came. She wasn’t the type of girl to describe a man as ‘hot,’ but if she did, her potential employer would certainly fit the profile.

  “Fiona Miller,” she said, reaching her hand out to greet him.

  “I recognize you from your photo. I’m Beckett,” he said, omitting his last name as if he were a celebrity.

  Beckett took her hand into his and then brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed it gingerly.

  Come to think of it, there was something she recognized about him too, but she couldn’t put her finger on what.

  “A pleasure,” he said and then took a seat across from her. With a raise of his hand, he signaled the waitress to the table and ordered an Americano. He eyed Fiona’s glass and without asking, picked it up and took a sip.

  Fiona’s eyes went wide, and she gave Beckett a sheepish grin, raising her eyebrows as if to ask, ‘You like?’

  “Wow, that’s strong!” he exclaimed with a laugh.

  “It’s just a double espresso,” she murmured shyly.

  Beckett laughed again. “Just a double, she says!”

  “You ordered an Americano,” she said in mild defense of her order. “That’s espresso, as well.”

  “Yeah, but mine is going to be watered down with water and cream,” he winked.

  “Who takes cream in their Americano?” she teased.

  “I’m sensing problems in our relationship already,” Beckett said, obviously kidding.

  “Right, right,” she nodded. “If we can’t agree on coffee, what else is there?”

  Beckett gave a solemn nod and made as if he were about to stand and leave but then broke character and they both smiled in amusement at themselves.

  “So, Fiona,” he began somewhat formally. “Obviously, I’ve made a very,” he paused, “unique offer in my ad. Be my wife for two years. What drew you to that ad? Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”

  “Oh, okay,” Fiona began unsurely, and a long hesitation followed. “So, are we conducting this like an interview or a date?”

  Beckett blinked quickly. “I guess I hadn’t thought about doing it like a date.”

  “Just, if we’re supposed to be a couple and all,” Fiona shrugged.

  “Don’t I feel like a jerk,” he said before sipping at his drink. “Okay. How about we do it this way. Ladies’ choice?”

  She immediately felt her chest grow warm and she cocked her head to the side and offered, “I’m going to go ahead and say… date!”

  Beckett looked caught off-guard. He licked his lips and then slowly began to now. “Alright, Fiona, you’ve got yourself a date. Let’s go.”

  They took their coffees to go, and Fiona got into Beckett’s black SUV. For a moment she wondered if she should be more careful. After all, getting into a stranger’s vehicle—especially a stranger she had met online through one of the strangest job-offers she had ever seen—probably wasn’t the safest idea.

  But, at this point, getting close to Beckett was her only option for survival. If he was truly willing to offer up a six-figure payment for her commitment to being his temporary wife, she had to go along with whatever he wanted.

  Beckett didn’t say where he was taking her, but she had assumed they were going to end up somewhere like Forsyth Park—a thirty-acre park with a historic fountain and beautiful walking paths.

  She loved it there, if not for anything more than the way the moss-draped trees curved across the pathways like a canopy of purple.

  It was certainly one of the more romantic spots they could have chosen.

  But, to her surprise, they went outside the city toward Old Fort Jackson.

  Beckett pulled into the parking lot and exited the vehicle. He came around to her side and opened the door for her, stretching his hand down to meet hers.

  She stepped out of the vehicle, and the two of them began
walking toward the entrance of the historic fort.

  “We’re going to the fort?” she asked in surprise.

  “You wanted an outing. Why not go big?” he said. “I wanted to show you outside the city.”

  “I’ve seen it before,” she laughed.

  “Not like this,” he cautioned with a rising brow.

  Fiona brushed her hand up her forehead and through her ginger locks, pushing her hair back and away from her face.

  Not like this? She wanted to narrow her brows and scoff at the remark and how very male it was. Of course, he would be the only one who could truly show her the town she had lived in for most of her life.

  Was he even from here?

  “Unless you can show it to me submerged underwater, I'm pretty sure I've seen it every way there is to see it,” she said wryly.

  Beckett let out a breath of laughter and met her eyes. “Look, you're very beautiful and I know I'm supposed to be out to impress you, but I’m sorry, I can't sink a city for you.”

  “Rats,” she snapped her fingers. “I’m not sure if this is going to work out then.”

  “Wow!” Beckett mused, “That’s strike two. First the coffee and now the city. I'm really blowing it. Alright, alright, I'll summon a tidal wave!”

  “Tsunami,” she added.

  “Okay. This conversation is getting sick,” he laughed, shaking his head.

  “Welcome to life with me,” she said, knowing the true irony would be lost to Beckett.

  She was sick.

  The word echoed in Fiona’s mind, and she was suddenly brought back to reality. She wasn’t really on a date with a fantastic guy, was she? No. She was in a job interview fighting to save her own life.

  “I love it when it’s empty like this,” Beckett said, gesturing out to the empty pathways of the fort. “No kids. It’s perfect.”

  “Not a kid fan?” she asked and nearly gritted her teeth when he widened his eyes and shook his head.

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “So you wouldn’t take a wife with who had a child?” she asked, feeling her pulse begin to race.