Page 37 of My Possessive Billionaire: Our Fake Marriage

“Jenna, since you’re working late, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything you want, sir,” she said.

“Just a little thing and you can punch out for the day, as it were. I need you to get me the list.”

She paused for a second.

“The list, sir?”

“The list of celebrities and influencers we had as potential wives for me. I need to look it over. Immediately.”

Chapter 14

Amanda

Iawoke with a start, suspicious at how bright the sunlight was as it wafted through my bedroom windows. It was late. Like, really late. I was late for the stupid breakfast appointment with my fake husband.

I rolled out of bed and stepped into the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror and grimaced. I looked a mess. I had done a poor job of removing my makeup from the night before, and some of it had smeared along my brow ridge. My hair looked like I’d rolled around in a briar patch and then took a long walk through a stiff breeze.

I just couldn’t summon up the gumption to make myself prettier. I washed off my face and pulled my hair back into a bun, but that was about it. Oh, and I rinsed with some mouthwash and spat it into the sink. No need to wilt the flowers on the dining room table with my breath.

I wrapped a robe around myself and belted it tight, then put my feet into my comfy slippers. They had been a wedding gift, one of hundreds. The interior was some kind of fleece, and it just sucked the tension right out of my feet when I wore them.

I walked out into the hallway, my disheveled appearance a stark contrast to the opulent and pristinely disciplined manor. I came around a corner and found a pair of maids struggling to move a big vase so they could dust behind it.

“Oh, hey Maria, Rebecca. Can I give you a hand there?”

They looked up worriedly.

“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Jones,” Maria said. “Nor would it be proper.”

“Proper-schmoper,” I said, grasping the glazed enameled rim of the vase. Those suckers were heavy as all get out, but with my added strength we managed to wobble it out of the way.

“There you go.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jones.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rebecca, call me Amanda. I don’t like the ring of Mrs. Jones.”

“Whatever you say, Mrs. J—that is, Amanda.”

I smiled and figured it was close enough for now. I continued on my way to the dining room, passing through a sun-dappled hallway with glass walls on the eastern side. The morning sun tinted the sculpted shrubbery animals holding court on the lawn. I liked the horse the best. The rabbits just made me think of Monty Python in all the wrong ways. Besides, there was no sense of scale. The artists had sculpted the rabbit to be the same size as a horse rearing back on its hind legs. What kind of monster rabbits did they have growing up? Did they go to Three-Mile Island High?

I nearly bumped into the head butler, Chavez. He was a portly man with close-cropped hair and an exquisitely sculpted pencil-thin mustache.

“Good morning, Mrs. Jones. Lovely day, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“For God’s sake, Chavez, please stop talking to me like I’m royalty, I waited tables a couple of years ago. And don’t call me Mrs. Jones. It’s Mandy, or if you must, Amanda.”

“Very well, Amanda. Will you be joining Mr. Jones in the dining room for breakfast this morning?”

“Sure. I’m surprised he’s still there.”

I had a sinking feeling in my gut. I hadn’t been expecting to run into him in the dining room so late. I was hoping he’d moved on with his day. I was expecting a lecture when I arrived at the dining room about being late, about the way I looked, pretty much about everything.

Plus, there was the fact that we’d damn near done it in the back of the limo the previous night. That was going to make for an awkward breakfast all on its own.

I passed the last arch to the dining room. The fact that I had to walk farther from my bedroom to the dining room than I used to walk to school was not lost on me. When I entered the palatial dining room, I was struck by the elegance all over again. The walls were covered with glazed walnut wood paneling, interspersed with Doric pillars of white marble.

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