The Billionaire's Fake Fiance Read online

  “Well, you still have a job, right? So I’d say it worked.” She shells a peanut. “It’s a very rare opportunity you have here. I hope you’re appreciating it, because you know I am. You’re a hero to everyone who’s ever had a jerky boss.”

  I sigh.

  When I look back over, she’s studying my face.

  “What?” she asks.

  “What what?” I say.

  “You have that look like there’s something more.”

  “Why would there be something more?”

  “Because of the look on your face. The wake-up call. What aren’t you telling me?” She studies me even more intensely, craning her neck forward.

  “Screw off!” I laugh.

  “Oh my god, there’s a what the size of the Chrysler Building. What happened on that wake-up call? You’re so gonna tell me.” She grabs the wine. “You have to tell me.”

  “Uhhhh.” I sink in my seat.

  She pours and nudges a glass my way. Our wineglasses aren’t the stem kind; they’re like petite drinking glasses with a pretty filigree design. We like to think of them as Parisian. “Spill. You made the mean call. Right?”

  “Yeah, I made the mean call.”

  “And?”

  “He was into it.” I was into it. I sip my wine.

  “What does that mean?”

  I brush off the question. “Here’s the thing—he’s become curious. He’s been trying to get ahold of the firm. He wants to contract with Operator Seven—that’s me—for…I don’t know. An exclusive contract.”

  Mia squints at me, like she’s trying to make out distant shapes through a thick haze.

  “He wants Operator Seven all to himself.” I take a swig.

  “That’s a bit odd. How many naps does that asshole take?”

  “It’s not the waking-up part that he’s interested in.” I pause and bite nearly the entirety of my lips into my mouth to keep from smiling. This is not a smiling occasion!

  “Does he want more…rude conversation?”

  My teeth are keeping my lips from smiling, but the problem is that I need my lips for talking. I release and contort them into their normal shape as best I can before I raise my gaze to her. “I wouldn’t say that it stayed rude exactly.”

  Her voice is a harsh whisper. “Tell me what that means.”

  I look at her straight on. Sometimes, between friends, a look communicates everything.

  Her eyes literally double in circumference. “Excuuuuuuse me?”

  I return to biting back my smile.

  “No. Freaking. Way.”

  I whisper, “Yes way.”

  “To clarify—are we talking phone sex here?”

  “It didn’t go quite that far.”

  “Quite that far? Sexy phone calls with your asshole boss is pretty far.” She gestures, seeming at a loss for words. “Did you get to third base?”

  “I don’t even know what that means. We were on the phone. Are there bases on the phone?”

  She downs her wine and pours another glass. “You have to re-enact it. Play both parts. You call. You’re lying in bed.”

  “I’m not doing a one-woman show of my almost-phone-sex wake-up call with my boss for you.”

  “A true friend would.”

  I toss a peanut shell at her.

  “You have to,” she says. “At least help me understand how it segued from ‘you’re such an asshole’ to…” She looks at me hard. She wants at least a line or two.

  I cross my arms and stare up at the cracked ceiling.

  “Come on!” she says.

  I’m not one to kiss and tell, but I can give her something tiny. “First of all,” I say, “he has this really rumbly voice. Like it wraps around you. Soft and gritty.” I’m suddenly imagining his whiskers sliding along my cheek, my chest.

  “Wet sandpaper.”

  “Yeah. Or else maybe extremely unforgiving velvet ribbon.”

  “Guh,” she says hoarsely. She gestures impatiently for more. “Dude, I had a hard day at work. I need this.”

  “One of the early highlights: I called him a jackalope.”

  She straightens up. “This is already delicious.”

  “Then he wants to know what I’m wearing.”

  “Ooh. A time-honored classic.”

  “I was like, seriously?”

  “I’m rolling with this completely. Did you tell him what you were wearing?”

  “He had guesses. And he was all stern and assholey, but in a good way. And suddenly…we’re all sexytimes. So there you go.”

  “Wait, that’s all I get? What are you wearing and then it’s all sexytimes and that’s that? No, no, no, no, no. I need details.”

  “Sorry, sister.”

  “Noooo!” She clutches my sleeve. “One fun highlight.”

  I sigh.

  “Please?”

  I fix her with a saucy stare. Mia appreciates a little drama. “‘You are such a pig!’ I say to him. And then he goes, ‘Oh, I am. An utter animal. Sex with me is a dirty, savage affair. Utterly uncivilized. It’s the opposite of civilized.’”

  She pantomimes falling off her chair, and then promptly begs for more.

  “That was your one and only snippet.” I fast-forward to the drama of the office and me putting up the Craigslist ad and linking it to a sea turtles charity through PayPal. How he emailed and I rebuffed him.

  “You’re like a secret agent.”

  “A secret agent who needs her sign-on bonus.”

  She rocks back in her chair. “And now he wants you all to himself. His sexy wake-up-call girl. Nobody else gets her! He will search the ends of the earth for her.”

  “Let’s hope not. It was totally entitled and pushy of him to be calling my wake-up agency. Sasha is looking for an excuse to fire me, but does he even consider that? If it was a real wake-up-call service, what would that look like? I mean, it would look utterly fishy. Yes, he’s hot, but he’s so oblivious to what other people are going through.”

  She nods. “Mmm.”

  “I don’t need another Mason, involving himself in my life because he wants something.”

  “Mason was trying to steal your business, doing shit behind your back,” Mia points out. “This guy…”

  “This guy is a control freak who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. You can’t trust a guy like that.”

  “They’re not all shitty, Lizzie.”

  “Three words. Microwave popcorn ban.”

  That shuts her up.

  I swirl the wine in my glass. “I’m keeping things short and sweet tomorrow morning. I’ll do the minimum to wake him up; then I’m out of there. No more extra activity.”

  “Extra activity? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  “This is serious,” I say. “I doubt he’ll fire the wake-up service at this point. Two more days, that’s all I need. I have to keep this job for two more days.”

  “You know he’s going to try to trace the call.”

  “Too bad it’s a burner. Who knew I’d ever be thankful to Mason for ruining my credit?”

  “’Sex with me is a dirty, savage affair. Utterly uncivilized,’” Mia says. “I want a boyfriend who says that. And he follows through. Would you be mad if I cross-stitched that for our wall?”

  I snort.

  “Operator Seven.” Her grin is huge. “He wants more of her but he shall never have it. He’ll have to live on tongue-lashings alone.”

  “Shut,” I say.

  Mia snickers. “Hot, hot tongue lashings.”

  “It,” I say.

  Mia smiles.

  “From now on, he gets me just waking him up and I’m out of there. He’ll see he can’t always have what he wants.”

  “I think Operator Seven is looking forward to not giving him what he wants.”

  She’s right. Just the thought of denying the great Theo Drummond sends a surge of energy through me.

  You and that smart mouth of yours need to be taught a less
on.

  Sixteen

  Lizzie

  * * *

  I barely sleep. When I do, my dreams are strange and way too full of Mr. Drummond sternly scowling in his lab coat. Mr. Drummond, discovering my secret.

  Or else they’re nightmares of angry Sasha and her angry eyebrows firing me. Because Mr. Drummond won’t leave it alone already! Nightmares of Lenny’s enforcer and his shiny gun. Nightmares of Mia being killed because of me.

  By the time my alarm rings at the evil hour of 4:20, I’m in a state—heart pounding, mind racing. It’s like I’ve lost the job already. Like the loan sharks are already beating down the door.

  Because of Mr. Drummond!

  He picks it up on the first ring.

  “Time to wake up, motherfucker,” I say. Before he can even say hello.

  “Hey,” he says. “Good morning.” There’s a smile in his voice. It softens something in me.

  “It’s not such a good morning over here. You totally and completely got me in trouble with my boss.” I’m referring to Sasha, but he doesn’t have to know that.

  “I got you in trouble?”

  “You have to stop researching Hello Morning. Stop trying to contact them. Why can’t you just leave it alone?”

  He lowers his voice. “I was interested in contracting for your time. I’d think it would show you’re doing a good job, if a client wants more of the service you provide. That’s typically the sign of a good employee…”

  “Oh please with your businessplaining. ‘I’d think it would show you’re doing a good job’… Well, it’s not helpful. You had to rush in there like a bull in a china shop…did you ever give a thought to another person’s situation?”

  “Tell me about your situation.”

  “I’m not going to tell you about my situation. I’m going to tell you about yours.” I lie back. “You sit there in your lofty office, and you are so oblivious, it blows my mind.”

  “Oblivious to what?”

  “The effects of your actions! Seriously. You don’t see what you do or what’s in front of you. That’s your problem.”

  It actually is his problem—in the entire way he runs his business. He’s clearly one of these idea guys you read about who can’t give up control of his company. New York is full of them.

  “Tell me what’s in front of me.” His voice is soft. It’s like he actually cares.

  Don’t fall for it.

  “I just don’t want attention drawn to me. How do you think it looks when a wake-up-call client is suddenly coming back with extra questions and requests for more time? You need to think a little harder about how your actions affect those around you. And I mean all your actions.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “Think?” I say.

  There’s a strange silence.

  And then he says the one thing that could surprise me. “I’m sorry.”

  I can’t believe Mr. Drummond would say this. It touches me—especially being that Mason never apologized to me. It’s like we’re doing some weird role-play, and he’s being Mason, finally apologizing to me.

  It stops me in my angry-tracks. “You’re sorry?”

  “Is that so hard to believe? I didn’t mean to make things hard for you.”

  “Well, I appreciate that,” I say.

  “Tell me your name.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” I say. I kind of wish I could give it, though. I feel strangely close to him.

  Still more silence. He’s not used to being bossed around. “Just a name.”

  “You’re paying me to wake you up. Not for my name.” I slide more deeply under the covers. I feel warm and good and a little wild. “You don’t need my name for what we do.”

  “What harm could a first name do?”

  “I don’t know. What if it’s really unusual? Like Sassafras or something.”

  He lets out a grumbly breath. He’s hot when he’s frustrated. I smile, picturing his lips. And the way he sets his hands on surfaces like he owns them.

  Well, he does own them.

  His voice gets that velvety rumble. “Tell me,” he says.

  Something shoots through me.

  “I can’t,” I say. I was supposed to be hanging up by now.

  “Tell me over dinner tonight.”

  My heart nearly leaps out of my ribs. “What?” He wants to take me out? I imagine him in a candlelit restaurant. His icy gray eyes. That short, thick hair, just the beginnings of curls that he must contain at all costs. And that lab coat.

  “Let me take you out. Tonight.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’m always serious.”

  I smile, because he really is always serious. “You don’t even know what I look like.”

  “I don’t have to know what you look like,” he says.

  “Risky.”

  “I always know what I want. I enjoy you. What do I care what you look like? I’m a chemist. I care about chemistry.”

  If I didn’t know him to be such a power-mad jerk, I’d think that was halfway cool. Then again, maybe he simply loves a challenge. Going for the unattainable. “Not gonna happen.”

  “Why? Is it because you aren’t single? Because you don’t like men?”

  “So those are the only two choices? I must be married or not into men if I won’t go out to dinner with you? Because otherwise, wild horses wouldn’t keep me away? Is that what you’re thinking? Because any single hetero woman would totally say yes?”

  “Pretty much.”

  I snort.

  “It’s just a fact.”

  Because you’re a handsome captain of industry, I’m about to say mockingly. And then I realize he is a handsome captain of industry, and most single hetero women probably would say yes.

  “Well, you’ll have to find one of those other legions of women to ask.”

  “I want it to be you. Think of a restaurant. Any restaurant in Manhattan. The best restaurant you’ve never gotten a chance to go to.”

  I twist in the covers, tempted for one reckless second. “Do you not have enough romantic challenges in your life? Is that it? So you have to see whether you can land the strangely resistant wake-up-call girl? Is this your version of the Iron Man or something?”

  “Anywhere. Anytime,” he adds. “Trust me, you’ll want to say yes to this.”

  “Arrogant much?”

  “Not arrogant. Just realistic.”

  I sigh dramatically. “You don’t quit, do you?” I shouldn’t be smiling. I shouldn’t be enjoying this.

  “Pick a night.”

  “Let’s see. Let me get out my social calendar.” I pause and wait. “Oh my god! I have the perfect spot for you. How about…nowhere and never. Would nowhere and never work for you?”

  “That won’t work for me, Operator Seven,” he says in the low voice that he seems to reserve for stern displeasure. “Try again.”

  Shivers prickle over me. “Not happening,” I say.

  A tortured sigh. “Eventually you’re going to say yes. We both know it.”

  I shouldn’t love how arrogant he is. “We’ll see, Mr. Drummond.”

  “Did you just call me Mr. Drummond?”

  Oops.

  I swallow. Probably the only people in his life who call him that are his unlucky underlings. “You’ve been demoted from Theo. And if you’re out of line one more time, you’ll be demoted further. To just Drummond.”

  “Give me one actually valid reason we can’t meet. You’ve been thinking about me. You pictured me while you got yourself off after our last phone call.”

  My body hums pleasantly with the memory. “Of course you would think that.”

  His voice lowers. “I don’t think that, I know it.”

  “Okay, I’m officially calling you Drummond now.”

  “If I’d been there in person, you’d’ve had a much better time.”

  “Right, I forgot. You could do me better than I could do myself.”

  “You wouldn’t forget that i
f you went out with me.”

  I picture his stern face. I picture his hands. I imagine him across a candlelit table in his lab coat. He probably doesn’t wear it to fancy restaurants, but in my fantasy, he does. And he leans over and kisses me. And he pulls me into the coatroom and pushes me against the wall and gets me off. Could he actually do me better than I can do myself?

  But suddenly I’m picturing Sasha’s I-love-Mr. Drummond face. Followed up by her glowering you’re-fired face. Followed by Lenny the Loan Shark’s enforcer’s where’s-my-money? face. And his gun’s I’m-all-lethal-n-stuff face.

  “We’re not going out to dinner,” I say. “It’s just impossible. There are crucial business reasons that prevent it.”

  “How about I buy the company and change those crucial business reasons?”

  Which means more research. “How about if you try to do that, you’ll never hear from me again?”

  “I’ll hear from you again. You’re my wake-up-call girl.”

  “You sure I’ll stay your wake-up-call girl? Your company ordered wake-up calls. Watch out, I might switch with operator number five.”

  “No, you won’t. You have to call me. You wouldn’t trade with anyone even if you could. You like what I do to you.”

  I lie back. “Do go on.”

  “You can’t get enough. And you know what else I think?”

  I suck in a deep breath, full of the crisp, good scent of my freshly washed pillow. I can see half the Hotel Royale sign. “I know you’re going to tell me.”

  “I think you don’t talk to anybody else the way you talk to me. I think I’m the only one.”

  I smile. “You so desperately hope.”

  He does his disapproving rumble-growl, but I can hear real frustration and desire woven through like delicate threads. There’s something so achingly human about him suddenly. Genuine.

  I set the phone against the pillow next to me. “Look, I’m going to be honest here, since that seems to be a thing with you,” I say. “You are the only one I ever talk to like this. I promise. But you have to stop poking at the company. You really do.”

  “I’m the only one you talk to like this?”

  “That’s right. Okay?”

  “Why? Why me?” he asks. “Why did you decide to wake me up like that the first day? Was it something you read?”