My billionaire client hired me to be his fake fiancée for one week — then the contract ended.
Part 1
“Name your price,” Craig said, pacing his massive office like a caged animal.
“I have the worst week of my life beginning on Thursday, and I require a fiancée by then.”
I set down my coffee cup with the unhurried care of a woman accustomed to waiting on the wealthy.
I had spent nine years as a paid companion to querulous widows.
In all that time, nobody had ever asked me to be a billionaire’s fake bride.
“You must have me confused with someone else,” I said.
Craig stopped pacing.
He was tall, dark, and brooding in the way of men who expected the world to obey them.
“I haven’t mistaken anything,” he replied.
“My great-aunt is dying.”
“Her last and most fervent wish is to see me settled down before she goes.”
“There is also a woman named Heather, the niece of a business rival, who considers herself my future wife.”
“She is descending upon my estate this week with her mother, and both are armed and dangerous.”
“I need a convincing fiancée for exactly one week.”
“You are clever.”
“I watched you manage your dreadful former employer for three months without ever losing your temper.”
“You aren’t a fortune hunter, and you cannot refuse a sum of money that would change your life.”
“Name it.”
I considered him for a long moment.
He was right about my financial position.
My employer had passed away two weeks ago, leaving me with absolutely nothing.
The fact that Craig knew this meant he had investigated me.
“Three terms,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“First, you will treat me for the entirety of that week as a woman you deeply respect.”
“You will not treat me as a thing you have hired.”
“I have spent nine years being looked straight through by wealthy people.”
“I absolutely refuse to spend a week being looked through by you.”
“Second, when the week is done, you will write me a glowing reference letter.”
“And third, I want fifty thousand dollars.”
Craig looked at me silently.
Something resembling a smile disturbed the rigid line of his jaw.
“Done,” he said.
He pulled a small velvet box from his jacket pocket.
Inside sat a slender, vintage ring featuring a pale sapphire set in worn gold.
“It was my mother’s,” he said quietly.
“It is the only piece of jewelry I wouldn’t be ashamed to see on my fake bride’s hand.”
“Wear it for the week.”
“Of course,” I said.
I slid the borrowed ring onto my finger.
I was intensely annoyed to find that my hand was shaking.
Helen, his great-aunt, was dying exactly how those formidable women die.
She was fading slowly, sharply, and with her brilliant wits entirely intact.
She summoned me to her room on the very first evening.
She patted the edge of her quilt with a frail hand.
“Let me look at you,” she instructed.
Her dark eyes, just as clever as Craig’s, swept over my face.
“Craig is a man who has spent thirty-eight years building a massive wall around himself,” she noted dryly.
“I had begun to fear he would marry that frightening Heather creature out of sheer exhaustion.”
She closed her eyes softly.
“Make him laugh, child.”
“He used to laugh before he became so weighed down by his empire.”
“I would very much like to hear it one more time before I go.”
I found I couldn’t speak.
I had arrived fully prepared to deceive a sentimental old woman.
Instead, I had been seen straight through, forgiven instantly, and handed an impossible task.
I did end up making him laugh.
It happened on the third day entirely by accident.
Heather’s overbearing mother had cornered us to deliver a fifteen-minute lecture on drafty houses.
The second the woman finally walked away, I did a perfect impression of her complaining voice.
Craig let out a laugh that seemed startled completely out of him.
It was deep, warm, and entirely unlike his usual cold armor.
“You see,” I murmured.
“Helen will be pleased.”
“What did she charge you with?” he asked, recovering his composure.
“Just to make you laugh before she leaves us.”
His faint smile faded into something far heavier.
“She is dying,” he said softly.
“I keep forgetting that fact when you are standing next to me.”
“I haven’t forgotten it for a single waking hour in three months.”
“Then you arrived.”
“Now I find that whole afternoons have slipped by where I was simply content.”
I said absolutely nothing.
The borrowed sapphire was warm against my skin.
I realized, with a sinking feeling of pure terror, that I had stopped pretending to enjoy his company days ago.
The week did its quiet, dangerous work.
We walked the sprawling grounds for the benefit of the watching house guests.
Somewhere around the third mile of gravel paths, the audience completely ceased to matter.
He told me about the father who had been bitterly disappointed in him.
I told him secrets in return that I had never spoken to a living soul.
I told him because he actually asked, and he never once looked through me.
Twice our hands brushed by the design of our performance.
Twice, neither of us remembered to let go when the cue had passed.
On the sixth evening, Heather finally packed her bags in furious defeat and departed.
That same night, Helen took a sudden turn for the worse.
Craig sat by her bedside until the sun came up.
I sat right beside him because I couldn’t bear to walk away.
Near morning, the old woman woke up.
She looked between the two of us in the gray dawn light and smiled.
“I knew it the exact moment I saw you,” she whispered.
She turned her frail head toward Craig.
“You will not let her go when I am gone.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” Craig whispered back.
His voice wasn’t steady at all.
He didn’t look like a man who knew whether he was lying.
Helen died quietly two days later in the late afternoon.
She slipped away holding her great-nephew’s hand.
The week was officially over.
The house guests were all gone.
There was absolutely nothing left for me to do but pack my single suitcase.
It was time to collect my money and claim my freedom.
The week was over, the massive house was empty, and all I had left to do was give back his mother’s ring and walk away forever.
