Page 24 of Billionaire's Fake Bride
Chapter Eight
Tammy
Like most other responsible adults, I went to the doctor for checkups every once and awhile. Also, like many adults, I didn’t particularly enjoy these visits. I routinely had to remind myself that I didn’t need to enjoy something for it to be highly necessary and important, and I had my mother to thank for instilling that value into me throughout my life. Doctor’s visits and dentist’s appointments were not an option. Like learning to drive, paying the bills and eating, I needed to do them for my health and happiness.
Today, though, I didn’t mind the fact that appointments always ran behind schedule. I had promised a certain someone I would think about the strangest proposal I ever received, and this wait gave me the chance to do just that. So, I sat in my comfortable chair in the waiting room, idly watching the news headlines scroll across the bottom of the television playing quietly in the top-left corner of the room, honoring my promise.
The more I thought about it, the more I leaned toward accepting the offer. The party Nate had thrown had been a fantastic opportunity to market myself, but it wasn’t enough - I needed more connections and notoriety, and this was the perfect chance to get myself out there to the rich clientele I wanted once and for all. Once I made it into the right circles, I wouldn’t have to work hard to stay there.
That said, the risks still weighed on my mind. Not a terribly heavy weight, because as Nate had said, risk versus reward was always in the back of my mind, and this sounded like far more reward than risk. But there was something else, too - something I hadn’t been able to talk about with Nate.
This wasn’t just business. It was a little personal too, and that differed from most of the decisions I made in the past as a businesswoman. Usually, I had a purely success-oriented view on the choices that would affect my business, but in this case, I genuinely wanted to help Nate out. Yes, he got himself into this mess on his own, but I understood why, and I knew that he still regretted the end of his football career. If I agreed, I would be helping Nate secure his future.
The large wooden door to the examination rooms opened enough for a woman with a name tag to lean through and grab a clipboard next to the door. “Tammy Burke?”
I shoved my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, grabbed my purse from the table and headed toward the door as the woman held it wide open.
“How are you today, Tammy?” she asked half her attention on the clipboard.
As we exchanged mundane pleasantries, I followed where her extended finger was pointing and headed to the door marked Exam Room B.
I wasn’t here for much - just a flu shot and a general checkup. I only had one specific question to ask, and I did so after the general checkup was completed, and the nurse was preparing to give me the shot. “Is it normal for the Nexplanon to be a little sideways in my arm?” I asked, referring to the birth control implant I got about a year ago. “I know it’s normal for it to move a little bit, but it seems more angled than I’ve ever seen it before, and I just want to make sure that’s fine since I’m already here.”
“Let’s just take a look,” the nurse said agreeably. I held up my arm so she could feel the little rod implanted under the skin. “Don’t worry about it. We definitely don’t want it to rotate fully, but this won’t cause you any trouble. This happens sometimes.”
Heart light with the knowledge that everything was just fine with my body, I rubbed the spot a bit touchy from the flu shot and left the doctor’s office about fifteen minutes later.Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Nate, fake marriage, business deal. You know, the usual.As I had told Nate, though, if I agreed to this idea and planned this wedding, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’d done. People got married for all sorts of reasons and posing as a family man to get a good job didn’t even rank amongst the top ten.
This isn’t a real marriage, though,I reminded myself. This was the one part of the plan I still struggled to accept. To all eyes, Nate and I would be married. Those eyes would be on Nate for the most part, not me, and I didn’t plan to jump into a relationship anytime soon. But I would have to be careful if something changed, and I somehow met the love of my life before that year or two of fake marriage was up.
The love of my life. My dream wedding.Those were two things I always knew I would find eventually. Except, it seemed like I might not be getting them at the same time. After our breakfast, I looked up the mansion Nate had specified for our fake wedding and me to offer to clients, and… wow. It was a beautiful, historic and stately building that displayed only the most wonderful aspects of old age. Nate hadn’t been kidding when he said it was recently restored - there were even local news articles about the restoration online, complete with plenty of before and after pictures that showed the efforts made to preserve the integrity of the old mansion. It was absolutely a place I would love to get married.
“It’s not arealdream wedding,” I told myself aloud, hoping verbal exasperation would help me move past this little detail. “It’s like… a practice dream wedding.” That helped a little, but I still had my reservations. It just felt like if I accepted Nate’s proposal, I would be agreeing to do something casually to protect a lie that I wanted to be very personal when the right time came. And I was coming to realize that was what upset me the most when Nate explained his plan.
But itwaspersonal. Hadn’t I just told myself that? It was personal because I wanted to help Nate… and possibly a little because I still liked Nate. There had been a time in my life where I could look into my future and see my likable, cocky, football-playing boyfriend standing before me at the altar. Had I been seeing this fake wedding in those sneak peeks?
I had to shrug that one thought away because I didn’t have an answer. I did know that I liked Nate, I missed him when we couldn’t spend time together, and I wanted to help him out if I could, but our past had left me with something to overcome if we had a chance at anything more - trust issues.
My nose wrinkled at that phrasing, and my first instinct was to deny it. But Claudia and I had talked about this at length, and it was the truth. If Nate sent a response to my letter, I didn’t see it, and that left me with a broken heart and shattered trust for years. The saying “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” seemed particularly apt here. Trusting Nate with my heart a second time was just asking for trouble.
I sighed. My hands kept my car on a straight path home, but it was clear that my mind would continue wandering in endless circles ofyes-no-yes-nofor as long as I allowed. I needed a second opinion from someone with the inside track on all this drama and an eye for business to rival my own.
Luckily, this person happened to still be in the Hamptons. Claudia and Zeke had decided to extend their stay in the Hamptons yet again, this time for six days, because they decided to have the photo shoot for their new line of fall clothes in their hometown. I knew she had been busy managing things all week. But today was Thursday and they were heading back to Paris tomorrow, which meant that they should be wrapping up the photo shoot if they hadn’t already, and Zeke wouldn’t be home.
Remembering how Claudia had walked to the guest house to ask me about Nate’s party without calling first, I decided it was safe to do the same. After a relaxing afternoon spent working from home, I noticed baby Jaxon’s stroller was on the back porch and knocked on the back door of the main house around 5 PM.
“Hi Tammy!” Claudia’s mother greeted me. Eilene had been a friend and second mother to me while Claudia and I roomed together during our four years at New York University, and she was a wonderful landlord now. An issue with the plumbing came up about a month after I moved into the guest house, and Eilene had it taken care of immediately and paid for the plumber - a huge blessing as I was still getting my business on its feet at that time. I knew I could go next door and talk to her about anything, and she knew that I would take care of the newly-repaired guest house. “Are you here to see Claudia?” Eilene asked.
“I am,” I confirmed. “But it’s good to see you too! Is she here?”
“She is! Come on in.” Eilene welcomed me inside, and Claudia appeared behind her with a piece of sandwich sticking comically out of the corner of her mouth.
“Actually, Claudia, do you want to come sit outside with me for a bit? I wanted to talk to you about something and it’s so nice out.” Due to the recent rain, the air felt like spring again, even though it was the first days of July. I wanted to enjoy every bit of this weather while I could.
“Sure, one sec.” Claudia grabbed the rest of her sandwich and a paper towel from the kitchen and came outside. “Hey, have you seen the gazebo?”
“The old wooden one way back by those trees in the backyard?” I asked.
“Yeah, that one, but it isn’t old anymore. Zeke and I had it repaired around the time when we got all the landscaping done. Have you seen it?” Claudia urged.
