Page 76 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“You got this,” I whisper to myself, but it seems just trite. I tell myself that I’ll do this job well over the next six days and then get away forever. And no way am I cutting his hair ever again. And Amanda won’t have to, either. He can hire a new service. After this caper, I’ll be through with him for good.

I hate how sad the thought makes me.

I huddle down on the corrugated metal surface, back pressed to the warm hull of the ship, feeling so lonely and really just unlovable. Or more accurately, hateable.

So much for the stupidly positive attitude.

And I can’t believe I let him touch me the way I did. And all the while, he thinks I’m this bubble-headed idiot?

There’s that saying—when somebody tells you what they are, you should listen.I definitely didn’t listen to Rex when he told me that he was a jackass over the two years I knew him. And all the papers and magazines told me that, but did I manage to listen?

No.

I saw him as thoughtful and passionate and achingly human behind that gruff façade. I’d imagined we had a connection. There was playful banter, or at least, that’s what I thought it was. And those lingering looks—maybe it was annoyance the whole time.

After more self-berating, I turn my mind to food. I’m thinking of having a lot of desserts, because food therapy definitely works on me. I sit there imagining the desserts I’m going to have and the ways I’ll spend the new double bonus when I hear a male voice on the landing below me.

It’s Marvin. Even if I didn’t recognize his voice, I’d know the top of his head with those sunglasses anywhere.

Grrrrreat.

If he turned and bent backwards, he could see me, I suppose. Or if he decided to come all the way up. I could rush away to the fifth-floor deck from here, but I don’t want to draw his attention.

Anyway, he seems to have stopped moving, so I hunch down into the shadows, hugging my knees. Of all the people I don’t want to see.

He’s involved in some heated conversation, something about funds.

I will him to move on—because the longer it goes on, the more awkward I feel, because it really will seem like I am eavesdropping, and I’m so not. I don’t give a shit what happens to all these people and their stupid intrigues. I’m just doing a job.

“She’s not giving us a timetable,” Marvin says. “I can’t ask her again. I don’t even know if she’s serious about conducting this review or she’s just leading me on. We need a little stimulus to get her off her bony ass.”

I stiffen because I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Gail. I mean, who else?

I listen in earnest now, though it’s hard to know what he’s talking about. Hard to follow his conversation because it’s fast and there are a lot of terms that I don’t understand, but one thing he keeps repeating is something about the review numbers and also Bellcore or Bellcorps maybe. “It’s time to pull the trigger on Bellcore,” he says. “It needs to go down while he’s bullish on Bellcore.”

Is he talking about Rex?

There’s a breeze going, and I don’t hear some things, but he’s really being intense. And I may be a babbling, soap-opera-obsessed, blue-streaked-hair girl, but even I know when somebody’s up to something.

I huddle down even lower, because now I really, really don’t want him to know I’m listening.

Anger and triumph heat my body like a righteous fuck-you furnace. Marvin is scheming—full-on scheming!

He’s scheming on Gail, and he’s quite possibly scheming on Rex. I’m not sure until I hear the phrase “kissing up to her with his fiancée.”

My heart pounds a million miles a minute. Iknewit wasn’t a horndog thing! It would serve Rex right for me to not tell him. Better yet, I would tell him, and of course he wouldn’t believe me, and then later he would realize his mistake in not believing me.

That would definitely be satisfying, even if I couldn’t see his face for the reveal.

But then I think of Gail. Gail has been kind to me. So kind and so supportive, and it has meant a lot. Gail doesn’t deserve to be screwed. I sit there considering telling Gail, but would she believe me? She really seems to adore Marvin. Marvin is family.

Or is he?

With a jolt, I remember that my phone is on loud. What if Jada calls back? I reach for it, accidentally scraping my foot along the corrugated metal surface.

I freeze.

Marvin stops talking.

---