Page 49 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“I’mintrigued,” Marvin says. “What could be in the box that’s so incredibly secret?”

I grit my teeth.

Serena comes up now. “What’s going on?”

“Something hush-hush in Tabitha’s box,” Marvin tells her conspiratorially. What the hell? Does Marvin sense Tabitha’s hesitation? Why push it? Does he want to make her look bad?

“It’s nothing,” Tabitha says.

“Do tell,” Serena says.

“Now y’all got me curious,” Gail says. “We can’t get a sneak peek?”

Marvin’s smiling at Tabitha. “You know you can’t keep us in suspense.”

Tabitha glances apologetically at me. There’s no getting around it now, that’s for sure. I pull her close and kiss the top of her head. “Show them.” I look up. “It’s just a little something we thought would be fun.”We, because Marvin needs to see that if he messes with Tabitha, he’s messing with me.

Tabitha sets the box down on a side table. It has a little Cookie Madness sticker that glints in the light. She undoes the bright ribbon, opens the top, takes out a cookie, and shows it to Gail.

Gail gasps. “Will you look at that!”

I blink. The cookie is in the shape of a Flying Fox megayacht, frosted in white with the decks indicated with slashes of chocolate.

“This is incredible,” Gail says. “Well, this is my boat to a T. My god…” She looks up, glancing between us. “This is the most thoughtful thing anybody…” She looks down at the cookie in her hand. “It’s so intricate…I can’t even imagine.”

“My friend has a cookie shop,” Tabitha says.

“Very nice,” Marvin says, but what he really seems to be saying is that it’s not nice at all. Now I’m glad the cookies got opened.

“Nice?! These are wonderful!” Gail corrects him. “Thank you! What on earth made you think these weren’t something we’d want to be seeing tonight?”

“We didn’t want to upstage your chef,” I tell her. “We realized a bit late that they probably had a specific vision and wouldn’t like an addition.”

“Honey, if I got a chef who’ll pitch a fit over something like these cookies, that’s what I call a diva, and divas don’t tend to last long in my employ. I mean, it’s not like you brought in a pig on a spit.”

Tabitha does her smile-wince. Without missing a beat, she says, “There goes our breakfast surprise!”

“Don’t you dare!” Gail says, laughing. She grabs Tabitha’s arm and leans in with a twinkle. “Don’t you dare, little missy.”

“That’s a no?” Tabitha says. They go back and forth, keeping the joke rolling, laughing it up.

Marvin’s frowning, which pleases me greatly.

Gail sends the cookies back to the prep area. She wants them out with the coffee and cake round. “Wrong night for them indeed. Tonight’s the perfect night. This is the launch dinner, honey!”

Tabitha gives me a wide-eyed smile. Anybody else looking at her might see an adoring fiancée gazing at her beloved—even Clark might mistake it as that. But I see her. I know what that look is all about. It’s the look ofoh, snap!

That little vixen is gloating. I grit my teeth against the strange feeling bubbling up in my chest.

I raise one eyebrow.Don’t get too cocky—that’s what my look says to her.

She turns to sparkle and laugh at something her new friend Gail says.

Soon enough it’s time to sit. We find our place cards at a center table, right next to each other, thankfully.

“Well, I guess frosted cookies are the way to Gail’s heart after all,” I say. I really want to tell her that she’s doing a good job. I should say it.

“Right? I was kind of worried.” She leans in close. “Gail is totally hilarious.”

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