Page 131 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

Second-guessing yourself is hell.

Over the days following our return, Rex sends me texts that I shouldn’t read and leaves me voice messages that I shouldn’t listen to, but totally do.

He tells me about all of the little things that make him think of me through his days—a fun fact about jasmine in ancient Egypt, Clark’s efforts to get him to smile more. He texts me a picture of actual Hello Kitty graffiti he noticed on a walk along the waterfront, which I kind of love, and then an image of a famous painting of an ocean horizon with the caption:you know what I think about this!

I force myself to delete them after I check them—especially the voicemails—it’s too dangerous to keep them there. Unfortunately, there’s no way to delete my heart, no way to stop myself from playing the memories of us together over and over.

I hate being a coward.

But I know what happens when you give a man the keys to your heart and happiness. Especially a confirmed playboy who hates being trapped.

I remind myself that men like him always want what they can’t have. I remind myself that my refusal to date him is half of my charm. Maybe most of it.

I’m already miserable without him. It was only eleven days on that yacht.

Though that’s not exactly right. It was two years of Fridays. Two years of saving up fun things to talk about with him. Of taking my time with his hair. The two of us sparring in our weird way in his lonely office above the city while everyone else in the world was doing Friday night stuff.

Two years of replaying his words in my mind the rest of the week. Picking out my best outfits—or more like, my most reaction-provoking outfits.

A few days later actual things start coming. He sends me a basket of mangoes, yogurt, and spiced nuts—that was the breakfast food I went crazy for on the yacht. Another day he sends a coffee mug with a cartoon of a maraschino cherry on it, with the words “best fruit ever!” underneath. Inside is a little necklace of a silver squirrel. I bring the mango and treats basket and mug to Noelle down the hall, but I tuck the necklace in the bottom drawer of my jewelry box.

He comes and sees me a week and a half after we get back. He buzzes from the entryway. I don’t know why I answer—I should’ve just pretended I wasn’t home, but I hit the intercom button, and it’s him, just like I knew it would be. It’s as if I felt him down there.

I tell him I’m coming down.

I head down through the lobby.

He’s standing out there on the stoop in the cool spring air, scowly and gothic in a long, black coat, hair mussed. People rush up and down the sidewalk behind him. Horns blare up and down 45th. It’s rush hour, but everything seems to still when we come face to face.

There are soft lines around his gray eyes—weariness, I think. “You look like you’ve been up for a week,” I say.

He shoves his hands into his pockets, and I want to kiss him with everything in me.

“Two, actually,” he says, and then his eyes crinkle with so much warmth, my heart nearly breaks. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” I say. It’s not a lie.

He grins. “So did you give all of the boringly tedious yachting clothes to a needy but boringly tedious friend?”

I look down at my pink leggings and bright vintage Spice Girls shirt, also pink. “I gave them to a friend with a boringly tedious job with a boringly tedious dress code. She was very grateful.”

“That works,” he says.

I know I should cut this off, but I can’t bring myself to yet. “How goes the battle?”

“Not so bad. You’ll be happy to know that my precious Tokyo is coming through.” He leans on the stone façade that surrounds the security door.

“Good for Tokyo.” I’m happy for him.

“Come out for a cocktail,” he says. “My car’s around the corner.”

Butterflies whirl in my belly.A cocktail with Rex!The butterflies want to go for it. They want to snuggle up next to him in a dark corner booth and share confessions and suck in his warm, spicy scent and kiss him. But then again, butterflies have brains the size of pinheads.

I close my eyes and force myself to remember my mom, broken and abandoned by Dad. To remember crying in that hospital bed, crying at the TipTop, like my own personal mantra of doom.

It’s not that I think happy relationships can’t exist, but this is the pattern of my family and my life; maybe it’s even in my genes.

I say, “I came down so you could see my eyes when I tell you nothing’s changed. So that you get that I meant it when I said we can’t date.”

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