Page 110 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“Coconut rum, Sprite, and three kinds of fruit juice. Not one. Not two.Three.”

“Do you have an opinion you want to share with the class?”

“I grew up in a bar; I have an opinion on all alcoholic drinks. What it says about a specific person.”

“So what does scotch without ice say?”

I look down at my drink. “Scotch is no nonsense. It’s about taking a straight line between two points. A bit of a power drink.”

“You definitely have the no-nonsense part nailed,” she says.

“Not necessarily. I’m entertaining your soap opera theory.”

“Entertaining might be a strong word for it,” she says. “More like, jerkishly tolerating it.”

I shrug, enjoying the way she isn’t afraid to razz me.

“And Hot Pink Barbie?” she asks. “What does that say about me?”

“You’re a unicorn.”

She grins. “Come on. What if somebody walked into your parents’ bar and ordered it?”

“It has three kinds of fruit juices and coconut rum and Sprite. That would never have happened. I think we maybe had one dusty old bottle of coconut rum in a dusty old corner. You wouldn’t have made sense in there.”

“What did your parents say when you demolished the place?”

“They were long gone. I couldn’t break them out of there fast enough.”

“You say it like it’s a prison. Couldn’t they have sold it?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?” I say.

She slides nearer to me. “But couldn’t they have? They owned it.”

“No, the bar owned them,” I say. “Not the other way around.”

She reaches up and touches my cheek, runs a finger down the thickest part of my beard. It’s something I always enjoyed, even when we were just client and hairdresser. “How does a place own people?” she asks.

A lot of people dig at my past, and it’s usually about them. About satisfying their curiosity about why I’m an asshole, confirming a theory needed to wrap up a feature story in a neat bow. Tabitha’s questioning feels different. Like she cares.

“They were in debt?” she guesses.

“Debt is a small word for it. They owed taxes, they owed back rent, they owed money lenders, they owed the neighborhood shakedown guys—too much ever to dig out or get free.”

“Just no amount of money could free them?”

“No,” I say. “It’s hard to explain. It was the emotional entanglement, too,” I say. “Their debt to each other, this spider’s web of hate and blame and resentment. The worse things got, the more trapped they’d become. It was a dark, unhappy place they couldn’t walk away from. I’d lie in bed at night listening to them fight, wishing I could give them the money to free them from that sad little place that reeked of alcohol and dreams gone to shit. And then I’d flatten it.”

She’s watching my eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“I’m not.” The words emerge with a fierceness that surprises even me. “I’ve had a lot of teachers in my life, but none like that place. It taught me never to let myself be trapped or poor.” I shift and pull her onto my lap. Holding her feels satisfying in a way I can’t process.

She loops her arm around my neck. “Is it fake fiancée go time?” She’s so careful to define our relationship as fake. Fake fiancée. Vacation fling. I’ve never been with a woman so eager to keep her distance from me.

“Not yet, kitten.”

“You gave them something you’d wanted for them all your life. It’s amazingly kind,” she says.

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