Page 30 of Mr. Aster
Bingo. It didn’t take long for me to get this conversation where I wanted it. Now, she was agitated, flustered, overly confident, and about to be blindsided about her stupid plan.
“Oh? What did you come up with? You act like you’ve set some plan into action, and my father and Mr. Mitchell have adopted it.”
“You mean to sit here and tell me that you know nothing about it?” she questioned with confusion.
“Perhaps we now know your reason for accepting my offer to join me for breakfast?”
“Huh?” she said with irritation, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You came to see how upset and concerned I was about this little business planyouproposed to Jim and my father?” I said with a roll of my eyes.
Her smile returned, “It seems you’re not too thrilled about it?”
“Oh, when you learn my plans,youwill be the one who isnot too thrilledabout it.”
“There’s no way you’ll be able to back out of this. You know this winery needs money, and you know?—”
I cut her off before she could finish her sentence. I was done hearing about me being the grand prize at this obnoxious bachelor benefit.
“I know thebachelor,Maxwell Barbison, won’t fetch as much money as you’ve pitched to Jim and my father.”
“I wasn’t expecting him to. I knew thatyouwould, though.”
“Well, I’d have to be aneligiblebachelor to participate,” I said, “and I’m not.”
“Oh God,” she rolled her eyes. “What, did you snag Steph as a girlfriend to avoid this while I was gone?”
“No. You are my new girlfriend, whether you want to be or not.”
“Never going to happen,” she laughed as if I were joking.
“Never say never, sweetheart,” I smiled.
“Never.”
“Perhaps you’ll reconsider when I tell you that I’m willing to give you any details you’d like about me and my personal life for your cute little gossip column?”
The color drained from her face.
“What?”
“You see, it’s as simple as this. The thing those vultures want most, even more than to date me, is to know every detail about me. I’m sure you already knew this in your line of work?”
“Yeah,” she said unconvincingly.
“Well, by allowing you to write a tell-all article about me, you will bring in an insurmountable revenue to your magazine and that spying billionaire chump you unfortunately work for, and it will also bring in peak interest to this estate, far more than auctioning me off ever would.”
She paused for a long time, probably weighing pros and cons like no one ever had.
“All I have to do is pretend that I’m your girlfriend to keep you from getting auctioned off?” she said, as if this deal was worse for me than I would make it for her once we startedfake dating.
“Correct. You stand in as my girlfriend, who I fell head-over-heels for soon after I arrived here, and I’ll give you everything you need to know for your column. It’s a win-win.”
“I’m no fool,” she said. “You’re a businessman, and you will always be the one to come out on top.”
“No,” I simply stated. “But it needs to be believable, so if I see that you’renotplaying your role for everyone to see, the deal is off.”
“What if I insist the deal is off?”
