Page 125 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“Open it,” Marvin says.

Gail opens it. Her fingertips fly to her lips. “I lost mine,” she says. “I can’t believe Dana kept hers. It’s so unlike her. I was the one who kept things, and she’d be the one to lose them. She never could find her keys.”

“She didn’t lose this,” Marvin says. “She wanted to keep this. She wanted me to have it, and I want you to have it.”

“Oh no,” Gail says. “It was for you.”

Marvin smiles and kneels next to Gail, pinning it onto her jacket. “I tried it on, but it didn’t look right on a three-piece suit.”

Gail sniffle-laughs; she looks so happy. There’s all kinds of buzz around them suddenly as people get a look. Rex and I exchange sheepish glances. Eventually I take my turn at admiring the little pin. It’s a filigree silver horse inside a circle. It has a blue jewel for the eye and pearls for the hooves. It looks very 1970s.

I grasp Gail’s arm. “I’m so happy for you,” I say, and I mean it—I really do.

Eventually, Rex and I drift over to the far side of the deck and lean over the railing, watching a freighter in the distance.

“Okay, it’s a pretty random thing to be able to produce out of thin air,” I say.

“It’s very tiny and detailed,” Rex says. “Not the kind of thing you can produce from a photo.”

“No,” I say. “Gail would know if it wasn’t real.”

“The nephew produces an heirloom,” Rex says. “An actual heirloom.”

“I feel like a complete asshole,” I confess. “All of my fake nephew intrigue. Our investigation. What was I thinking?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I feel like an asshole, too.”

“You do?” I turn to him. “I’m the one who thought of it.”

“I got into it with you. Breaking and entering? I think we’re both assholes.”

Warmth blooms in my chest. We’re a team, even in this. “Thanks for saying that.”

He kisses the top of my head.

“Gail’s relationship with Marvin makes her happy. I shouldn’t have made light of it.”

“You? Making light of something serious?” he teases. “So impossible to believe!”

“It’s wrong,” I say. “I don’t take things seriously for myself, but I shouldn’t do it with others.”

Tenderly, he brushes the hair off my forehead. “I think you take things plenty seriously,” he says. “I think not taking things seriously is the way you take things seriously.”

“Not taking things seriously is how I take things seriously?” I say. “Mind blown.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You feel deeply. It’s something I admire about you.”

I try a smile and we fit our hands together.

“I really am glad Marvin’s real—for her sake, I mean,” I say. “He’s obviously shady—Gail deserves better, but this relationship is important to her. It gives her solace about her sister.”

“Gail won’t be the first person to have a shady relative.”

“Things don’t have to make sense, do they?” I say. “Maybe that’s the moral of this story. Sometimes the creepy guy reallyisup to something. And sometimes he is also really and truly the long-lost nephew.”

“Yeah. And sometimes the bad guys win.” He brings our joined hands to his lips and kisses my knuckles one after another. “Do things make sense in soap operas?” he asks.

“Definitely,” I say. “Eventually.”

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