Page 137 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

Laughter bellows over the intercom. “Now I’m the one doing you a favor. You’re not buying that building. The answer is no. And trust me, no pussy is worth that amount of money.”

“I want the building,” I say simply.

There’s a silence on his end. It was a forceful statement, possibly too forceful. This whole thing with Tabitha has me twisted in knots.

“I know who you are,” Blackberg says. “And I know how you operate out there. Here’s my message to you: If you try to exert financial pressure on me of any kind, I’ll figure out who yourfriendis and I’ll throw her out on the street with all of her shit so fast her head will spin. If you come at me in any way, I’ll throw her out on her ass. And if you bribe my people again, I will throw her out on her ass for that, too.” There’s a click on the other end.

Gretchen pushes the pile of money back toward me with a smile.

“So should I take that as a maybe?” I say. “I heard maybe.”

She doesn’t find my comment funny. “He’ll never change his mind. Especially not after this.”

Of course I investigate Malcolm Blackberg. When a man doesn’t want you to come at him, he usually has something he doesn’t want you to find. I set my PI on it with instructions to dig around very discreetly for anything I can turn into leverage.

Every man has his price, and when he doesn’t have a price, he has a vulnerability. It’s Monday, and Tabitha’s birthday is Friday.

Not a lot of time.

I imagine myself sitting down at the table and showing her a purchase agreement, telling her that she’ll never have to worry about being evicted—not ever. I’ll write up a contract guaranteeing it. Even if she refuses to speak to me ever again, her home is safe. She’ll see that she can count on a man to come through with something.

My PI is still empty-handed on Wednesday. He warns me that going any deeper might alert Malcolm Blackberg.

Reluctantly, I admit defeat on the building and tell him to cut the investigation.

But I need something!

I make a new list—things Tabitha loves—and task a few of my own assistants to come up with alternative birthday presents. I can’t go to her empty-handed. I won’t.

As if to add insult to injury, Friday midnight is the deadline for my firm to relinquish all accounts associated with Driscoll. Will I lose the only two things I care about on the same day?

My assistants come to me Friday morning with their list of ideas. There’s expensive sparkly jewelry, a paid mentorship from a fashion mogul, a custom hamster habitrail…all of it’s bullshit except maybe the first-class trip for five to the Hello Kitty theme park, but even that feels like throwing money at her. Tabitha can’t be bought.

For once I don’t know what to do. The entire exercise of forcing her to go out for her birthday was based on having this building under contract, on being the guy who shows up for her with something so incredible that she has at least one happy birthday to remember.

Clark stops in with coffee. He thinks I should hire a marching band to march around outside her window and proclaim my affection.

I hate it. Nothing’s right. Nothing’s enough.

I tell myself that if I don’t come up with something that will absolutely delight her by lunchtime, I’ll let her out of the whole birthday fiasco. That’s the thing she’d want most.

But it’s after lunch and I still haven’t found anything or brought myself to let her off the hook. Putting off the inevitable, I distractedly shuffle through the stack of mail one of my assistants deemed important enough to merit my attention. Few of these things will actually be worth my attention, but I’m procrastinating now, gut churning with dread.

I grab a FedEx envelope marked “confidential” and frown. What business do I have with a lab in Queens? Are they trying to sell me drug testing services or something? And why would this get through to me in the first place? I nearly throw it into thefigure-it-the-fuck-out!pile, but something makes me pause.

It’s the way it’s addressed: “Rex O’Rourke Capital, Confidential, Attn: Rex O’Rourke,” followed by my PI’s name.

Are these Gail and Marvin’s results? My PI would’ve had the results sent to me and probably duplicate results to himself.

I shut my eyes, remembering that day on the island when we sent off the package. Her little stack of postcards. Her delight at shoving her toes into the sand.

I think back further, to the salon, to that mischievous sparkle in her fox-brown eyes when Marvin appeared outside the salon door. The look we shared, and the way her breath sped with excitement and wonder, and how much of a brat she was with the squirrel bullshit, and how I had to fucking have her.

And for one small moment, she let down that jokey façade and let me see the real her—gritty and real and raw and wounded, and so alive.

God, I miss her.

I slide my finger over the address. The shadier Marvin acted, the more fun it was with her. Like we were a team.

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