Page 100 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“What kind of bar was it? A sports bar?”

“There was a TV, but it was no sports bar. It was the kind of bar that had a happy hour from nine to ten in the morning.”

I frown. I’ve never heard of a bar that has a morning happy hour.

“Just to save you the math,” he continues, “that equals a clientele of hard-core alcoholics, lots of fights, and a business with a lot of debt. I bought the thing and had it demolished when I made my first million.”

“Oh,” I say. “Really.”

“It had to go.”

“Did you put something better there?”

He sits up now and puts aside his phone. “No.”

My pulse races. “You just wanted it gone?”

“Yes. And now it is. The benefits of being boss of the world cannot be overrated.” I open my mouth to ask another question, but he swipes his thumb on my lower lip. “No more questions,” he says.

“One more,” I say.

In the grumbly voice that I so love, he asks, “Do you know what I do with girls like you?”

He’s trying to distract me. “One more,” I say.

He glowers. “Fine. One more.”

I run through possible questions. Did he put in something new in its place? Where did his parents go? But only one feels important in a deep-down way.

“Did you watch?” I ask.

He looks at me strangely. “Nobody’s ever asked me that.”

I smile. Nobody ever asked it, and I’d bet he never told.

The silence stretches out so long, I think he won’t give me an answer. But then he does—a lone word pronounced with extreme harshness: “Yes.”

Shivers go over me. I feel honored that he’s told me this true thing. It makes me feel closer to him. Dangerously close.

“Don’t worry, nobody was in it at the time,” he adds. “Probably not even a mouse. Or hamster.”

I nod. According to Google, Rex made his first big money a decade ago. I imagine his thirty-year-old self standing in the shadows of some dead-end street, watching as his past gets smashed away.

“Was it everything you hoped?”

“Is that more than one question?”

“Fine.” I give him a sassy look, because what am I doing? I’m trying to keep things light. This is a vacation fling—there’s no place for deep, dark reveals. “And newsflash—there aren’t other girls like me.”

“No?”

“No. And you’d do well to remember that,” I say haughtily.

And right then he smiles—a genuine, from-the-heart smile. I’ve seen his humorous smirk, his gotcha grin, his asshole face of superior pleasure in his own winning greatness, but a smile? Such a smile?

Rex’s genuine smile is gorgeous. It lights everything inside me, makes me want to press my palms to his sexy, beardy cheeks and curl my legs around him and kiss him and eat him up.

It’s like we’re having this weird moment—a secret, beautiful moment just for us.

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