Page 26 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“My answers are already there in red, and we’ll put yours in blue.”

“Side of bed?” I say. “Nobody is going to ask that. It’s ridiculous.”

“Why not establish it? And favorite food. We’ll be eating with these people. Food always comes up.”

“Steak. Medium rare. Sushi.”

“I hate wasabi,” she says, pointing to the next question, about which foods we hate. “When we go out for sushi, I’m all, get that green stuff off my plate! But as you see, I do love shellfish and all kinds of fish. I think we love going to Japanese restaurants. What do you think?”

I sigh.

“Well, then it’s decided. We are sushi fans. Let’s make our favorite restaurant be Sushi of Gari.”

“Fine. We’ll say I’m taking you there for your birthday,” I say, eyeing the pocket door, wishing this could be over already.

“I don’t do birthdays. Important to know about me.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Just because. Next up, as you may recall, I have a hamster named Seymour. He has a little black dot on his right front paw.”

“Yes, I seem to recall you mentioning him once or twice,” I say sarcastically, because she talks about him all the time. “And there are those songs.”

She bites back a smile. “Do you have any pets?”

“Take a guess.”

She types in “NO PETS” after that item. “You were not enthusiastic about Seymour at first, but I believe you will learn to love him as much as you love me, though hopefully not in the same vigorous manner.” She looks up, eyes sparkling.

When I don’t respond to her ridiculous joke, she presses her lips together, like it’s funny that I’m not responding.

“Moving on,” I say.

She gazes out the window at the clouds and I study the curve of her cheek. I rarely get a chance to really look at her when she’s cutting my hair; either she’s behind me or in front of me looking right at me, and it’s not as if I can sit there and stare at her.

“The other day you took Seymour out of his little cage and you were holding him so nicely. You always call him little guy.Hey, little guy. It’s sweet. And when you look at him, you kind of soften…”

She rambles on about me and Seymour, and I can suddenly see her as that only child, making up stories about invisible friends, wishing she had a sister. It would’ve been nice for a girl like her.

“I’m kind of glad you don’t have pets,” she continues. “What if you had a cat? Seymour wouldn’t like that.”

“There’s no way I’d have a cat,” I say.

“Okay, but are you comfortable with me riffing about us like that? With that level of detail? That was pretty convincing, right? That thing I said about you and Seymour? A few details go a long way, don’t you think?”

“I think this is going to take all week.” I scroll down. “Christ, you have over seventy questions! Look, I’m not a sharer. I don’t need to know all of this. I won’t be at cocktail parties talking about our favorite sushi restaurant. I’m going to have Clark fill this out, okay? Clark can tell you everything about me, and the rest doesn’t matter.”

“What about my answers?” she asks.

“I know all that I need to know.”

“Wait a minute, lemme get this straight. I need to know extra details about you, but you don’t need to know extra details about me?”

“Our relationship is unbalanced that way. It’s not uncommon in the billionaire set.”

“What? Am I just breeding stock for you?”

“I don’t have a lot of interest in children,” I say. “That part’s up to you. If you want children, it’s fine, but you have to deal with them.”

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