Faking It: BBW Billionaire Romance (Fake Billionaire Series Book 1)

by Lexy Timms

  “Wait! What? I—”

  “Take advantage of my parents and my…feelings for you, then grab as much money as you can,” he said bitterly.

  “I don’t care about the money,” she insisted. “You have to believe that.”

  “But you do care.” His voice was cold, pitiless. “That’s why you lied and told your family we were together. You wanted to impress them. Wanted to show them you had a rich boyfriend, but when that wasn’t enough you decide cold hard cash was the better option.”

  His words ripped her wide open. How could he think that of her? Tears formed in her eyes. He didn’t trust her anymore. She had broken his trust with her original lie but, somehow, he’d kept on believing in her. A lie was one thing, but two lies… “I wasn’t going to go through with this, I swear.” She choked back a sob.

  “The minute my mother came up with this scheme, you should’ve told me,” he said. “But you didn’t. Instead, you were ready to take advantage.”

  A tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  “That’s why you wanted out of this, isn’t it?” he asked. “Last night you questioned whether we should keep up this charade, and I thought it was because you didn’t want to hurt my parents. Now it’s obvious that you were planning to pretend to dump me so my mother could pay you off. You were playing me and my parents.”

  Hot tears blurred her vision. Suddenly everything was crashing down around her. She was going to lose her job. Lose Dane. The thought of never seeing Dane again made her ache down to her soul. From the way he was glaring at her with cold glittering eyes, she knew she’d already lost him.

  It was all over, before it even began.

  The office door swung open and his mother walked inside. Liliana gasped. “What’s all this?”

  “I know about the check,” he spat out.

  Liliana’s eyes widened. “Dane, please—”

  Dane glared at Allyson. “You think you’ve got everything figured out, Mother, but you don’t. Because while you were scheming behind my back, Allyson was conspiring behind yours.”

  “Dane, don’t. Please,” Allyson whispered.

  He ignored her. “The truth is, none of this is real. We’re not really married. There was no wedding. All of it was fake.”

  Chapter 15

  “You lied?” his mother shrieked.

  Dane Prescott nearly cringed at his mother’s reaction. He hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth—if he had the choice. Not that it mattered now. Still, he didn’t want to tell her. Not like this. But Ms. Allyson Smith had forced his hand. His mother needed to know that his assistant was conning her. His blood boiled at the betrayal. Disappointment settled in his gut. What a fool he had been to trust her. Never had he allowed himself to feel such deep feelings for a woman, and it had come back to bite him in the ass. “Yes,” he replied. “I lied.”

  “No, I lied,” Allyson whispered, her voice wavering.

  He turned to her in surprise. Her beautiful face was streaked with tears. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort her, but he forced himself to harden his heart. For all he knew, her tears were fake. A trick to manipulate him.

  Still, her interruption was unexpected. Why was she coming to his defense?

  “Will someone please tell me what on earth is going on?” his mother snapped. Her hair was disheveled and her face was growing redder by the second. He’d never seen his mother look so out of control.

  “You might want to sit down,” he warned. He took the chair by his mother’s desk while Allyson and his mother resumed their seats on the pale blue sofas.

  Quickly, he filled his mother in on the details of the last several days. Allyson’s lie to her family that she was dating him. Him agreeing to help her keep up the lie by showing up as her date to her brother’s wedding. Her family discovering the truth. Then, worst of all, the tabloids getting the wrong impression, and thinking he and Allyson had been the ones to marry over the weekend.

  He kept the details about their sexual escapades to himself. Part of him wanted to keep those moments private because, damn it, he still had feelings for her. He’d never had sex with a woman he’d such a deep connection with, and he knew it was something he would never forget. Even if she didn’t feel anything for him. Besides, none of that was his mother’s business anyway.

  His mother sucked in her breath. A rather unladylike sound, and most unlike her. “Of all the irresponsible, stupid things!” She gripped the sofa’s armrest, shaking with fury.

  It was rare for her to lose control like this. His mother could be scheming and passive-aggressive, but she almost never outright lost her temper. Hell, she never outright showed any strong emotions. Not even in private.

  Which was so different from Allyson. At work, his assistant was the consummate professional who kept her emotions in check. But over the past several days, she had been so vulnerable and open with him. Revealed a side he had never seen. She was warm, and sweet, and surprisingly passionate.

  Hard to believe that this mess had only started last Thursday. It was Tuesday now, but the last five days felt like an age. A crazy, exhilarating whirlwind of an age with his sexy assistant. And now that had all come crashing down. All those confessed feelings. Getting into bed with her. Had any of it been real? Or had she pretended to play along so that she could get her hands on some money? It didn’t seem possible that she could have played pretend on top of a pretend relationship.

  “I thought you’d be happy about us being fake,” he said coolly. “I haven’t set myself up for life with a gold-digger.”

  Allyson’s shining eyes met his, her gaze full of utter devastation and sadness. He thought she might speak, but instead she averted her gaze to stare down at her hands, her shoulders slumped.

  The look that passed between them almost made him regret his words. Her sadness tore at him.

  “How could I be happy when the Handels think you two are married?” His mother stared daggers at him. “This sham of a marriage is supposed to be used to charm them into signing the merger deal.”

  The deal. He’d been so outraged over Allyson’s scheme that he’d forgotten about Prescott Global’s upcoming merger with Handel and Company. “We’re still negotiating the deal, so—”

  “Earlier today, John Handel promised me that the merger will be made official at the gala next week,” his mother interrupted. “I managed to smooth things over with him because of the marriage. If you two had merely been screwing, the scandal would have ruined the deal. Only a marriage could have saved us, and now we haven’t got one, have we?”

  “I know you’re angry, but I had to tell the truth,” Dane said. “I couldn’t let Allyson con you and take your money.”

  His mother rolled her eyes. “As much I don’t trust the little conniver, she wasn’t the least bit interested in the money. I have no idea what her game is, but it’s not money.”

  He paused. Processed his mother’s words. Stunned, he turned to Allyson. As he stared, he willed her to look at him. Willed her to see the regret he was now grappling with.

  But she merely glanced at him, shifted her gaze, and asked his mother, “Why are you defending me? You could just lie and throw me under the bus.”

  “I’m not defending you. I have a plan, and it won’t work if you two don’t cooperate,” his mother answered. “If I lie and let my son think you’re a gold-digger he’ll cut you out of his life, and we can’t have that because Prescott would be ruined.”

  “What plan?” Dane asked.

  “The plan where you keep pretending to be married until we get that merger deal at the gala next week,” his mother said.

  He scoffed. “You’re kidding.”

  “I never kid, dear.” His mother rose to her feet in one elegant movement. “You two sit tight until I get back. I’m going to go make a few phone calls to make sure the press keeps this quiet. And whatever you do, don’t tell your father.”

  With that his mother swep
t out of the room, leaving them alone together.

  An uncomfortable silence settled.

  Dane looked down at his hand, suddenly realizing he was still holding the check his mother had written. With anger at his impulsive assumptions and regret roiling through him, he crushed the paper in his hands. When he lifted his gaze, he found her staring at his hand, her green eyes huge and shining.

  “I would never take the money,” she whispered hoarsely. “How could you think I’d do such a thing?”

  How could he tell her that somehow, over the years, his mother’s beliefs had become a poison? Wealth didn’t matter to him. He didn’t care that Allyson wasn’t rich. But, somehow, he’d allowed himself to believe that, like the heiresses who had come before her, she had some angle to play. That she wanted to be seen on his arm because it benefitted her. Advanced her career. Made her famous for fifteen minutes. Got her rich. The heiresses were good for business. And so were Prescotts. That’s all relationships had always been. Transactional. Business arrangements. Feelings were inconsequential. Even his parents had started off that way. That they fell in love was nothing short of miraculous.

  “I jumped to conclusions,” he muttered stiffly.

  “That’s the closest a man like you is going to get to apologizing, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve apologized before.” He frowned. “And what do you mean a man like me?”

  She shrugged. “You know. Powerful. Cutthroat. Ruthless.”

  “I do what needs to be done,” he said. “But all this scheming and lying—”

  “It’s my fault,” she murmured. “I know how you work. You might be ruthless, but you don’t backstab. You don’t lie. You’re transparent. But my lies have turned you into…”

  “A Prescott,” he finished for her.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she insisted.

  “But it’s what I am. When I do business, I’m upfront. But when it comes to my dating life, my parents’ values take over. They believe in befriending, dating, and marrying as a way to get ahead. You’re the first woman I’ve ever been with just because I wanted to be with her.” He hadn’t meant to confess so much. But they needed the truth now more than ever. Somehow his personal life with Allyson had collided with business. It had gotten them into this mess with Handel and Company. There had been too many lies. Too many cut corners. And it sure as hell wasn’t all her fault.

  She wiped the tears from her face and the motion did something to his heart. He’d doubted her. Thought her capable of the most unforgiveable betrayal. He had heard the pain in her voice. Watched her cry. And believed that her raw emotion had been nothing more than an act. Seeing her try to compose herself now filled him with regret. Dane should have known better. Known that Allyson was a good-hearted, open person, with morals. She might have told little white lies to protect the people she cared about, but she wasn’t a master manipulator.

  “I guess we’re both tied up in what our parents want.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Apparently we have something in common after all.”

  She blinked in surprise. “You say that like you think we’ve got nothing in common.”

  “I’m not the only one who thinks that,” he said pointedly. “You’ve been very eager to remind me of how different we are.”

  “We are,” she said. “We come from two completely different worlds.”

  “And I’ve gone and tossed you into mine.” Regret laced his every word. “I didn’t prepare you for any of this.”

  “You couldn’t have known your mother would try to buy me off.”

  He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen it. Hadn’t suspected what his mother was capable of. To his mother, everything was about appearances. Which meant the family businesses and the wealth had to be secured. Protected from outsiders. He had watched her meddle in his personal life with a mixture of annoyance, resignation, and amusement. But he had never seen her act in such a cutthroat manner. Never seen her as rattled as she had been when he confessed the truth about him and Allyson’s fake marriage.

  Part of him wondered what it all meant. Had the prospect of such a lucrative merger with Handel and Company set her on edge? Or had something about Allyson so terrified his mother that she had thrown caution and good sense out the window?

  He was a grown man; it was time to start acting like one. “I think my mother feels threatened by you.”

  Allyson gasped. “Why?”

  His mother had admitted that Allyson didn’t care about money. Yet, she was unwilling to let her suspicions about his assistant go. Which meant that his mother either believed a middle-class woman like Allyson wasn’t good enough, or it was something even deeper than that. “My mother’s afraid that your motives are genuine.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said with a laugh. “Why would someone be threatened by that?”

  “She doesn’t trust it,” he replied. “With trustworthy people, she waits for the other shoe to drop. Waits for the betrayal, and she won’t be satisfied until the betrayal comes so she can be vindicated. It looks like she was trying to push you into that betrayal. She thinks that everyone has some ulterior motives for getting close to people like us.”

  Allyson tilted her head. “People like you…you mean rich people?”

  His mother would cringe at someone putting it in such stark terms, but he nodded. Discussing money in such a direct way was, for his parents, the height of vulgarity. The fact that his mother had tried to buy Allyson off drove home just how desperate she must have been. “It isn’t easy for her to accept that some people are actually decent people.”

  “That’s terrible,” she murmured. “Do you feel the same way?”

  He sighed. “I didn’t realize it, but some of that stuff has gotten to me. I don’t think that of every single person I meet, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the distrust crosses my mind sometimes.”

  “It’s sad, but understandable,” she said softly.

  “But it’s still toxic. Still, I didn’t know my mother had gotten this suspicious and out of control.” His mother had been willing to put his happiness in jeopardy in a misguided attempt to protect the family. Resentment coursed through him. If she was willing to buy off a woman she thought was his wife, then his mother was capable of anything. She had schemed behind his back. Tried to get rid of the only woman he’d ever considered choosing for himself.

  That thought punched through his gut. Choosing to be with Allyson thrilled him in a way nothing else ever had. For years he had fantasized about it in some form. But he’d never given it serious thought until they’d had sex in the hotel.

  “I know it’s hard to trust, but I meant all those things that I said in the music room.” Her cheeks flushed pink. It must have taken every ounce of emotional strength for her to admit that after how he’d treated her.

  He wanted to say the words that she wanted to hear. Wanted to tell her she made him feel things he had never felt. Things a man like him wasn’t supposed to feel. Not as her boss. Not as the scion of a family that demanded loyalty and commitment to appearances in equal measure.

  Dane couldn’t let his powerful family get in the way of Allyson’s happiness and wellbeing no matter how desperate he was to have her. In less than a day his mother had managed to practically tear her apart. He would never forgive himself if he ever saw that stricken look he’d seen on Allyson’s face, when she tried to plead her innocence to him, again.

  “I know you meant it,” he said stiffly, “but you have to put those feelings aside. Allyson, we can’t be together.”

  Chapter 16

  We can’t be together.

  Before he’d barely finishing uttering those words, tears stung the back of Allyson’s eyes. Her breath caught in her chest and she had to force herself to exhale. Force herself to think. To not let the overwhelming swirl of emotions take over. “What do you mean?” She hoped he didn’t hear the catch in her voice.

  “I know we’ve said a lot of things over the last several
days, but we’ve let circumstances get the best of us.” He gave her a pointed look, his piercing blue eyes fixing her in place.

  “The things you said at the hotel. And then in the music room. You didn’t mean any of it?” Pain and confusion clouded her mind. After they’d first had sex at the Greenville Lodge over the weekend, he’d been reluctant to end things. Then, in the mansion’s music room, he’d confessed that he cared about her. She’d let herself believe when she should’ve been guarding herself.

  He paused. “Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, things are said. Things that shouldn’t be.”

  The even tone of his voice weighed on her heart. His voice was so calm. Like he was dictating a task to her. There was no emotion. No regret.

  She gazed at him, searching his eyes for some hint that he still cared. Still wanted to see where their feelings for each other might lead.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing in those gorgeous blue eyes of his.

  The air in the office seemed to grow heavier. Choking off the oxygen. “Why are you doing this? At the Lodge, you were upset when I wanted to end things. Now you don’t care?”

  “I can’t care,” he replied harshly. Those three words were as cold and sharp as a razor.

  “What does that mean?” she demanded.

  “My family has already tried to ruin you. My mother almost succeeded in less than twenty-four hours.” He shook his head. “This was a mistake. It’s my fault for tossing you into the deep end of all this. But I’m going to fix it. There isn’t going to be any more lying or sneaking around.”

  Of course he doesn’t want you, a voice inside her head cruelly reminded her. Monica’s mocking laugh sounded in the back of her mind. Monica had warned her that Dane would never want his assistant. Maybe in the harsh light of his mother’s actions he realized what a mistake he was making. Not that it mattered. She and Dane weren’t even dating. No promises had been made. Nothing declared. They had agreed to take things slowly because of all the craziness with their fake relationship, fake lies, fake marriage. She couldn’t even be angry with him for breaking up with her, because they weren’t really together to begin with. It was as if all her feelings and hopes had been as fragile and empty as the air they’d waltzed on. And from that thin air she had allowed herself to fantasize. When she had taken a walk on the beach she daydreamed about what they might become. What a complete fool she had been.