Page 6 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“Stayed with the quants.”

He stops in front of me, watching my face, assessing my mood. He’s been with me from the start, and he can read me like nobody else.

“What?” I say, taking the cup.

“It’s Driscoll.”

“WhataboutDriscoll?” I ask.

Driscoll is a family of brands that controls a huge portfolio of funds, including some massive private pension funds and investment funds that I’ve been working tirelessly to get my hands on.

We have a small part of their business, and we’ve given them an incredible return. I feel like I’m on the verge of getting all of their assets under management. If I could do that, I wouldn’t just be playing the markets; I’d be controlling the markets.

“I spoke with Gail,” Clark says.

“Good.” Gail is Gail Driscoll, matriarch of the Driscoll family of brands. “Is she ready?” Meaning, ready to give it all to me.

Silence.

“What?” I bark.

“She’s considering other suitors.”

“What?”

“Her board’s involved, and they’re conducting some sort of review now. It’s between you and Wydover.”

I nearly spit out my coffee. “You’re joking.” But his expression is wooden. He wouldn’t joke like that. Not to me, anyway. “This is coming from Gail?”

Clark nods.

“Has she lost her mind?”

No reply.

Gail’s known for good decisions; she’s a seventy-something woman with a sharp intellect and a spine of steel. Shrewd and tough in business, she comes out of a central Texas ranching family. I’ve always respected her, in spite of her ridiculously puritanical ways.

Then it comes to me. “Jesus Christ. Is it that Sunday feature article?”

Clark raises his eyebrows above his gold wire-rimmed glasses. He doesn’t have to say it. He thinks it could be.

“Did she specifically say it was the article?”

“She didn’t have to,” Clark says. “Everybody thinks you’re some kind of sex-addled emperor now. You’re Caligula up here, having orgies and bathing in the tears of virgins. Gail can’t be loving that image. You know how she is about image. She’s careful about who she ties her brand up with.”

The Sunday feature article from a few weeks ago was so far from the truth it’s crazy. Yes, I never sleep with the same woman twice. But I’m always up front about who I am—I’m the asshole who won’t call or text or come around for a second date. Ever. I go to great lengths to make that plain right up front with women.

“Such bullshit,” I growl. “And with this new algo, I’ve barely left this office for two months straight. Now I’m Caligula?”

Clark sips his coffee.

I want to kill somebody. I employed a team of people whose specific job it was to keep a lid on articles like that. Needless to say, I fired them when the article hit the presses.

“Making us compete against Wydover,” I say. “What is she thinking?”

Clark waits.

Pete Wydover of Wydover Asset Management is our biggest competitor. He’s a cheater and a liar, but unlike me, he comes from old money, which seems to buy him a squeaky-clean image no matter what he does.

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