Page 24 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“The Japan thing was a joke,” she says, focusing on her tablet. “I never actually said I was going.”

“So, why the vacation?” Was she taking a break from me?

She holds up her right hand, wriggling her fingers. “My wrist needed a break.”

“What happened? Is it injured?” I ask, just a little too forcefully.

“I’m trying to be smart about not overusing my wrist. It’s no big.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It just needs a break from use,” she says. “Come on, do you have the questions or not?”

I sit on the couch next to her and pull up my email. “It is a woman,” I say. “The person on the yacht who we have to fool.”

“Eep,” she says.

“Her name is Gail Driscoll. We need to convince her two daughters, her sons-in-law, and the cousins, but Gail’s the decision maker we care about. She’s very shrewd. An excellent businesswoman.”

“How old?”

“Seventy-something?”

Tabitha winces. “A woman that age is so done with people’s shit. And she’s not trying to impress people, which makes her more observant. She’s going to be hard to fool. But—” She puts up calming hands, as though I might break into a rage at any moment. “We got this. Tabitha Evans is on the job.”

I nod, feeling this strange sense of…surprise, I suppose. Surprise at her and at her powers of observation. She’s right, of course. People who don’t give a shitaremore observant. Gail Driscoll is particularly observant. Is there something more than cotton candy between Tabitha’s ears?

She pulls out her phone. The case is new. Black with a brown design.

“Where’s the flower and jewel explosion?” I ask.

“I know, right? My pretty case was broken. Your personal shopper and I had to crack it off to get this one on. It goes with the luggage.Sigh. Your personal shopper has quite the…uh…classic taste, I guess you would call it.”

I lean in. “What did you really want to say? Instead of classic taste?”

She says, “I don’t want to insult her. I’m playing a role, right?”

“Tell me,” I coax. For some perverse reason, I want Tabitha to give her opinion. I don’t know why—I already know it will be utterly Tabitha-ish.

She sinks her teeth into her plump lower lip, as if that might conceal her smile, but her dimples give her away. Tabitha has lots of feelings about her new wardrobe. “I’m playing a role, and this is my costume,” she says.

“But how would you describe your costume? Be honest.”

“Um, drab and completely boring? Zero sense of style? But hey, I can work with it.”

I roll my eyes. Naturally, Tabitha needs a jewel and color explosion on every article of everything that she wears. “We’ll get you a brand-new jeweled case when this is all over.”

“I think I can buy my own jeweled case with what you’re paying me.”

“No, you’ll charge it to the account,” I say. “Casualty of the job. No reason for you to have to replace it. Now let’s go over this thing. I have work to do.”

“Okay. Let’s go over the questionnaire you guys made first.”

I click on the Google Docs link she sent me. She’s been busy, color coding the answers—mine in blue and hers in pink. “It’s your birthday next month,” I say. “You’ll be thirty-one.”

“And you’re forty,” she says. “Pushin’ forty-one.”

I give her a look.

---