Page 40 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“What are you saying? You don’t believe in genetic science now?”

“Oh, I believe in genetic science for sure. But a DNA test is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain from the DNA sample to the lab. A lot of people are handling that genetic material. A DNA test or two…please. A few well-placed bribes and you have yourself an instant relative.”

Rex gives me one of his trademark scowls, sooty brows drawn together over gray eyes. That scowl reaches clear through me, deep into my belly where it plucks a forbidden low note. “That’s not a thing people do,” he says in a stern and rumbly voice.

“I think some people do it.”

“You know of people faking their way into prominent families by fixing DNA tests?”

I shrug.

His eyes sharpen. “Who exactly are we talking about here? If anybody was faking their way into families like the Driscolls by fixing tests, I would’ve heard of it. I’ve worked with half the billionaires on the East Coast. Whospecificallyhas this happened to?”

“Uh…the Quartermaines…the Chandlers…” I mumble.

He looks confused, searching his memory for a moment, then, “Oh, Jesus Christ. Are you talking about your soap opera?”

“Well…” Soap operas, plural, but I don’t say that.

“Seriously!?” he whisper-barks.

“What? You asked. You can’t kill the messenger.”

“Actually, youcankill the messenger,” he says. “There’s a long tradition of messengers’ severed heads being sent right back to the sender of the message as a way of strongly rejecting that message.”

I sit there wishing I hadn’t mentioned the Quartermaines and the Chandlers, because in spite of everything, I want him to take me seriously. And I know for a fact there was a moment of weirdness between Marvin and me—I felt it right to my bones, and I want Rex to believe me. The facade came down between Marvin and me—just for a split second, but I really felt it.

“A soap opera,” he says with maximum derision.

“Just because something is on a soap opera it doesn’t mean it doesn’t also happen in the real world,” I say. Except maybeDark Shadows, but I’m hardly going to bring a vampire soap opera into the discussion at this point.

Rex switches gears to muttering and glaring darkly at the dockworkers, as if that might speed them along. You know he wishes so bad that he could yell at them.

“I’m just stating facts, Rex,” I say in my voice of calm reason. “Fact: tests can be fixed. Fact: bribes can get you anywhere. Fact: there was this moment of weirdness between Marvin and me where he was looking at me like,I see you seeing me.Like all his pretense fell away for a moment and I got this glimpse of his weird, creepy wrongness.”

I have Rex’s full attention now. “Are you telling me that Marvin washittingon you?”

“More like, giving me the fish eye.”

“Sounds like he was hitting on you,” Rex grates out. “That isnotacceptable.” He turns his dark gaze toward Marvin, who’s deep in conversation with a Driscoll.

My heart pounds, because Rex’s sudden anger is magnificent. Rex is a bird of prey unsheathing his claws, and those claws want to rip Marvin’s face off.

“It wasn’t sexual,” I say.

Rex looks unconvinced.

“Not everything is sexual,” I add. “It was Marvin momentarily dropping his mask, and showing me that he’s just…not on the up-and-up.”

Rex folds his arms. “He unwittingly revealed to you his criminal identity? Is that what you’re trying to tell me here?”

“Not revealing, but…” I feel so frustrated, because I know what I felt. “Marvin gave me a super-weird feeling.”

Darkly, Rex says, “If he’s hitting on you, he’s going to have to deal with me. And he won’t like it, I assure you.”

This pleasant little trill ripples through me. So wrong.

“I don’t care who he’s related to,” Rex continues. “This wouldn’t be much of a fake fiancée charade if I let some weasel hit on you.”

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