Page 38 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

Rex is staring at me strangely. Was that too quirky to say? I thought it was nice, and also, it’s true.

Gail beams at us.

Encouraged, I reach up and brush the side of his beard with the back of my hand. “He’s the most focused person I’ve ever met. He’s just amazing.”

He looks bewildered for a moment, a deer caught in headlights, then he takes my hand and kisses my knuckle; the hot shock of contact knocks the breath out of me. He turns to Gail. “We really are grateful, Gail.”

“Glad to have you aboard,” she drawls, and starts introducing us around. There’s Gail’s daughter Wanda and Wanda’s husband, Mike, and a few of the cousins—I recognize most of them before Gail even says their names. I was never good in school; I always hated memorizing things, but I know how to work hard. Rex is paying me well and I plan to be an amazing partner.

Wanda Driscoll and the Driscoll cousins all have wide moon faces—all the people in the Driscoll bloodline seem to have them, which is something that didn’t come through in the photos on Clark’s cheat sheet. I can’t tell if their heads are really large, or if their faces take up more area on their heads. Or is it that their hair takes up less area?

I really want to talk to Rex about it and see what he thinks.

The members of the Driscoll bloodline also seem to have brows that slant down at the outer edges, like the opposite of villain eyebrows. On some of them, like Wanda, it’s a cute look—there’s even a certain sweetness. But on the guys, it’s more of a hangdog look.

Gail, being a Driscoll by marriage, doesn’t have that Driscoll moon face or the Driscoll brows.

Eventually we’re introduced to a blond man named Marvin, who wasn’t on the cheat sheet of people that Clark gave me, but Gail seems to regard him as important. Who is he?

Marvin looks to be in his thirties. He’s not a Driscoll by blood, judging from his normal-sized face. In fact, he has Gail’s stocky build and button nose. He also has a fake tan and wears his sunglasses perched on top of his head. My hairdresser’s sixth sense tells me that the sunglasses on his head are a central part of his hairstyle strategy.

Gail beams at him. “Marvin’s my nephew. My sister’s son.”

We say hi, and introductions continue around from there, but I can’t get past Marvin. Something feels off about him. He shakes Rex’s hand and then mine, meeting my gaze with a smile as fake as his tan and an expression that I would describe as assessing. Like he’s on guard, somehow.

“We didn’t even know Marvin existed until this past August,” Gail says. She goes on to tell this tale about her wild-child sister, Dana. Dana took off after high school to lead a carefree life of boozing it up on beaches while Gail stayed at the ranch. Dana cut off all contact with the family and died in her thirties. It was only when Marvin made contact last year that they learned she’d given birth.

I try to make my expression blank and not at all suspicious, but seriously? The ol’ secret-baby-coming-out-of-the-woodwork story? Related to billionaire Gail Driscoll? Nobody finds it surprising?

It’s like if your friend got a bunch of money from a Nigerian prince, like, literally got the money, wouldn’t you laugh and be surprised, and maybe say something like,who would ever think such a thing could actually happen in real life? Crazy, right?People would acknowledge the weirdness of it. It’s so clichéd!

I look around, checking if anybody else seems to find the secret-baby thing unusual. Do these people not watch soap operas?

Then I look over at Marvin, and he’s totally frowning at me.

Shivers go over me—not the good kind of shivers, either. I turn my attention back to Gail, who’s going on about wild Dana giving little Marvin up for adoption and not telling the family.

People are saying nice things now.

“That is…reallyamazing,” I say, struggling to sound like it’s so believable. I furrow my brow, like I’m so convinced. “So amazing that you found each other.”

“So amazing,” Gail says, smiling at Marvin. “He’s the spitting image of Dana. To think we never knew. All alone in the world.”

“I wasn’t exactly alone. My adoptive parents were very kind,” Marvin says, no traces of his weird frown that he apparently had just for me.

“Still,” Gail says. “All the time we missed. The birthdays. The small steps.”

“I’m just grateful I got it in my head to do the search,” Marvin says. “I wasn’t sure if it was a wise thing to do, but I had to know, so I gathered up my courage.”

People smile, like that is so sweet.

“You hear of those searches going poorly so often,” Marvin continues. “Turning out devastating in some way. I was heartbroken to hear my mother was deceased, but then I found my aunt, and it meant the world.”

I tend to observe people closely in my job, and I can usually tell when they’re lying—it’s one of those skills a hairdresser develops. His words just don’t ring true—deep down I feel it!

Rex asks when they first got in contact with each other. Gail describes their first meeting and the way she recognized Marvin from across the coffee shop. Saw her beloved sister in him.

But a lot of people look like other people. And it drives me crazy that nobody seems to think there’s anything strange about a secret baby who’s closely related to a billionaire turning up.

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