Page 60 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“Since he was working out of the studio he slept in. And the weirdness of this feels like that to me. It feels as though somebody’s got their thumb on the scale. Nothing about this review makes sense.”

“Is a review like a stock market guy competition or something?”

“Sort of. Rex and his competitor, Wydover, each have a small bit of Driscoll funds under management,” Clark says. “Kind of like a test.”

“Wydover’s the asshole.”

“Right—total asshole,” Clark says. “But connected. Anyway, Gail and her board will be comparing Rex and Wydover’s performance over a specific frame of time—we don’t know what, but Rex usually does better than Wydover. Though Wydover can be erratic. He does risky, quasilegal things. Anyway, we think Rex will also have to present something to her and her board, which is ridiculous. The whole thing is driving Rex up the wall. I don’t love seeing it. He’s stressed out enough.”

I nod. Over the two years I’ve been working with Rex, this is the most stressed I’ve ever seen him. “It’s not good for him,” I say. “He needs to go in the hot tub.”

“Good luck getting him to do that,” Clark says. “There are exactly zero business reasons to go into the hot tub.”

“It would relax him, and he’d be better at thinking. Relaxed people are better at thinking.”

“Hey, I’m not arguing. It would be the best thing in the world for him to sit in the hot tub or lounge in one of those cabanas,” Clark says. “And there is exactly zero chance that it will happen.”

“I’m going to make it happen,” I say. “I’ll find a way to make him relax.”

I make him have head massages, right? Sure, he doesn’t know they’re massages. But still.

Clark laughs. “Rex doesn’t give in to the best negotiators in the world when he doesn’t want something. A hot tub? A cabana? Not in this life.”

Chapter 9

Tabitha

I’m excitedfor my midmorning salon date with Gail the next day. I follow the yacht map to the spa area, just one door down from where their massage person will never ever set their hands on Rex.

Gail is already there when I arrive. The place is beautiful, with chairs and mirrors arranged around massive tropical plants, soaking up the softly muted sunshine that’s coming through skylights.

One of the stewardesses is setting out tea and fruit and candles that smell like jasmine.

We chitchat a bit, and I look through drawer after drawer of stuff. The place is amazing. It has every hairstyling implement known to humankind. “It’s like Oscar Blandi himself stocked it,” I say. I pull out a beautiful pair of shears and give them a couple of snaps. My wrist feels okay. One haircut won’t set me back, and I’m happy to do this thing for Gail. I like her.

“We never really use this area,” Gail says.

“I suppose it would be handy if there was an onboard wedding or something.” I drape a cape over her pretty yachting shirt. The rich have actual shipboard clothes the way that baseball players have specific types of uniforms. A lot of linen fabrics in solid, bold colors. Flowy construction. Stripes and boat shoes.

I comb Gail’s hair out. Diamond white.

“This really is a beautiful color,” I say. “A lot of women pay good money and spend hours a month maintaining this kind of color.”

“How do you know it’s real?” Gail asks.

I smile at her in the mirror. “I have my ways.”

“It grows really fast, though,” she says. “Which was good when I was a girl getting crazy hairstyles, but not so much when I used to color it, so I let it go natural.”

Carefully I begin to snip away. This is definitely a high-stakes haircut; Rex would kill me if I screwed up Gail’s hair. But really, every cut is high stakes.

“How are you enjoying the trip so far?” she asks.

“Loving it,” I say. I hate the idea of lying to Gail, but this, at least, is true. Except when I’m stuck in my room too long. “Rex is not a man who relaxes much, so this is really amazing for him.”

“A man like Rex doesn’t get to where he got by taking it easy,” Gail says. “My late husband never stopped working—not until the day he keeled over of a heart attack.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry, Gail,” I say.

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