Page 17 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“Why not?” Jada says. “A marble cake is kind of swirly, you know?”

“Rex is more of a ‘talk softly and carry a big stick’ guy. He goes understated. Like, he has this insane control over himself, but inside he’s a raging volcano.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I say. “Growling is like half of his communication. That’s what he’d do. A growl and a simple command.”

Jada lowers her voice to a loud whisper. “You think he growls during sex?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation.

“I’m getting goose bumps,” Jada says. “So we’ve established that he growls. A simple command and a growl.”

“True enough,” I say. “And my sniveling Tinder date is immediately alarmed—he is alarmed on a primal level, deep in his lizard brain. He senses danger. Yet he’s a douche, so still he has to impress me, and he’s all, ‘what the F?’”

Jada snorts out her drink. “Tabitha, you definitely have to have the Tinder date say ‘what the F.’ That is too priceless.”

“Done!” I scream, but it might be the Bellini screaming. “Why did I say yes to this Tinder douche? I don’t even know! And then Rex is like, ‘if you touch her again without her express permission…’” I’m pointing at Jada, doing the Rex growl.

Jada grabs my finger. “I will rearrange your face like a freaking marble cake!”

“Okay!” I say. “Why not? I’ll run it by Rex. If nothing else, it’ll spur him to say what he’d really say in that kind of circumstance. It’s a way to start collaborating.”

“And then you’ll immediately text me,” Jada says.

“I will let you know his answer at my earliest convenience,” I assure her.

“And the Tinder douche runs off. And you’re sitting there, trembling.”

“And Rex comes to me, and he cups my cheeks in his confident hands. His touch is kind of harsh, yet gentle. He’s being as gentle as he can possibly be while trembling with dark and explosive angst.”

“He’s like King Kong,” Jada says, “so hot and powerful and overcome with emotion that he’s frightened he’ll hurt you, but he can’t resist kissing you. He takes your lips in his. It’s a trembling and forceful kiss, my friend, and you’re on a high barstool. And he moves in on you and you wrap your legs around him and feel his shaft. Like steel!”

“Okay, that part might not go in our couples origin story,” I say. “I’m gonna stay with just the first part.”

We go on to concoct our first date (at Primo’s in Tribeca) and our first kiss (at the Central Park Pinetum). By the time we go home, Rex and I have a full-blown imaginary relationship.

It’s incredibly hardto not tell my girlfriends about my fake fiancée gig, because they’ve all been incredibly worried about my wrist and my livelihood. My solution is to totally avoid them, but it’s not easy.

I run into Noelle from down the hall, just getting back from her mail route, looking cute in her blue jacket. She makes me wait while she quick changes and drags me out to the Cookie Madness down the street for coffee and cookies. She peppers me with questions about my wrist, and suggests remedies that her fellow mail carriers swear by. “And if worse comes to worst, we won’t let you be homeless,” she says, meaning the gang in the building. “We’ll figure something out.”

It means everything.

“Unless we’re all homeless,” she adds unhelpfully. She updates me on the rumors of the new owner of the building kicking us all out. She insinuates he’s been corresponding with the zoning office.

“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” I say, biting into a National Pig Day cookie.

She shrugs. “Best that you don’t.” Noelle’s a shy small-town girl but she’s all alone in the world—our building is her only family. “And I’ll tell you this—if he decides to tear it down, I will be flipping a few tables at Malcolm Blackberg’s office!”

I smile. She’s such a waifish little pixie—I love to imagine her flipping tables.

Mia from upstairshas her yearly clothes swap on Saturday—it’s a fun party where we lug bags of unwanted shoes and clothes to her place—stuff that either no longer fits or stuff that falls into theWTF was I thinking?category—and we swap them around.

So we’re all sitting around with our drinks and piles of clothes. Our friend Lizzie is holding up a vintage maxi sundress with giant red flowers. “It’s so beautiful, in a kind of throwback Sonny and Cher way, but seriously? The halter-style top with my weird shoulders? Just saygod, no. But if anyone needs something for a glam occasion…”

And Jada, who has consumed twice as much pink bubbly as the rest of us, screams, “Tabitha! Cocktail hour on the Flying Fox megayacht!”

And all eyes turn to me. Becausecocktail hour on the Flying Fox megayachtis not a phrase that would generally appear in a sentence with my name.

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