The Billionaire’s Fake Marriage: (Crystal Beach Resort Standalone Series)

by Hart, Hanna

  No. He had to plan a trip around the world.

  Riley rolled her eyes, and Gabriella gave a reciprocating look of agreement for how ridiculous her brother was.

  “I know, I know,” Gabriella said with a sigh. “Look, I think if you went over there he would cancel the trip. I can set it up and pretend it’s a farewell dinner or something. Then you show up?”

  “What?” Riley laughed and shook her head. “No!”

  “Please,” she said in a voice that was so sincere and sweet it sent a white pain through Riley’s stomach.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Riley said, setting her jaw stubbornly. “But it’s plain to see we were star-crossed from the start.”

  “That’s dramatic.”

  “It’s true! Be serious, Gabby! He's sleeping on a bazillion thread count sheets; I was sleeping in the storage room of Mugs! He's traveled around the world; I've never left the mainland except to go to your island! And I guess for our ‘honeymoon,’” she said with air-quotes. “And even then, it was only because he took me. I mean, he’s—”

  “—I get it,” Gabriella said slowly, tossing her long brown hair behind her shoulders. “We've been privileged." Then a curious look overcame her face, and she asked, "But... did you ever think I was rich? Back at the restaurant?"

  "What do you mean?" Riley asked, drawing her brows together. "I thought maybe you were a little loose with your money but... rich?" She shrugged. "No."

  "And we've been friends for years, haven't we? I met Joshua. We drank our faces off the night you signed your divorce papers.”

  “Right.”

  “And did my financial background ever make you feel like I couldn't relate to you?"

  Riley's eyes filled with tears just at the mention of the memories with her friend. She shook her head and felt her lip begin to tremble. "Of course not. But, it's not the same. You aren't Logan."

  "Can't you just do me this one, itty-bitty favor?"

  "It's not itty-bitty," Riley said, taking the last sip of wine out of her plastic cup. "And no. He hurt me. If he wants to make things right, he’ll do it himself.”

  “He does want to make things right.”

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  “Oh, because he’s a stupid boy!” Gabriella said with an irritated laugh. “He’s smart and successful, but he’s also a bit of a coward, especially when it comes to love.”

  “Forget it,” Riley said, crossing her arms. “I’m done with his charades.”

  Finally, Gabriella looked defeated. And even though Riley had won, she felt disappointed.

  “Okay,” her friend said with a quick nod and a friendly smile. “I get it. I’m sorry for butting in.” She widened her eyes. “It’s what I do. But look,” she continued, grabbing her purse and slinging it across her shoulder before heading toward the door. “I want to have you and Zoe over sometime next week, okay? Girls only, I promise.”

  “Sounds good,” Riley said, following the brunette toward the hollow apartment door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logan

  Logan stared down the runway in a blur, the dawning night melding together with the silhouette of his private plane and the sharp black tarmac below. He used to relish going away: a trip for one. It gave him a thrill to walk to his personal aircraft, to cross the line that most others only ever dreamt of.

  He used to consider it a badge of honor to be able to travel alone. He used to scoff at those who would bring children along, roll his eyes at the vast amount of luggage needed to cart around a family unit.

  Logan liked being single. To spend his money as he wished, to plan his own itinerary. Not to have to compromise with anyone else.

  He was going to New Zealand. See the mountains, get some perspective, maybe meet someone new. Someone simpler.

  These travel plans didn't go over well with Gabriella, who had thrown a fit when he told her he was leaving. She urged him to think on it and not be so hasty about leaving, but he couldn’t think of a single thing worth staying on the island for.

  “You're leaving?” she'd said, whipping a slip of crisp paper on the hall table by the door as she blew into his house.

  No knock.

  All rage.

  The painting of Riley's, the True Love, had been taken down. He spun it around and leaned it up against the wall, too sick to look at it but not yet ready yet to dispose of it.

  Logan’s eyes flicked toward the document, his travel itinerary, then back up at Gabriella.

  He licked his lips and deadpanned, “What of it?”

  “Don't pull that with me,” she cautioned, cocking her head to the side to show him how truly pissed she was. “You're running away.”

  “No, sister, I am traveling. There's a difference.”

  “You're really going to leave her, just like that?”

  Logan stifled a laugh. “I already left her, Gabby. And I didn't even leave her because there's nothing to leave! It was a fake marriage.”

  “Yeah, and it's going to have a real divorce.”

  “Annulment. And it meant nothing.”

  “That's not what Riley said.”

  “You talked to her?” He was incensed.

  Gabriella shrugged. “I went over there today.”

  He was torn. His stomach fell sick, and he set his jaw, trying his best not to portray any emotion to his sister, but desperately wanting to ask what Riley may have said about him.

  “Don't you want to know how she is?”

  He rolled his shoulder and continued to look down at his phone.

  “What you had was real, otherwise you wouldn't have freaked out like you did.”

  Logan sighed and showed her his palms, explaining, “I told her I didn't want kids. That wasn't part of the deal.”

  “You are so scared, it's ridiculous,” Gabriella said with a strong roll of the eye, still planted firmly in his hallway.

  “Yeah, scared of losing my fortune when she tries to take it.”

  “Think about what you're saying! Does Riley even seem remotely like she would do that?

  Logan tilted his head back and closed his eyes in frustration. “I'm sick of being yelled at by lying women,” he mumbled.

  “Oh, stop it.”

  “No, Gabby. I'm done.”

  “Don't be an idiot,” she scoffed.

  “In corner number one,” he said, springing up from the couch and taking a wrestler’s stance, doing his best, nasally announcer's voice. “Stephania! Pregnant an engaged to me, only, whoops! It's not my child—”

  “—Which you're choosing to let scar you for life,” Gabriella argued.

  “In... coooorner number two! Riley! My new girlfriend!”

  “Except that she wasn't. She was your ‘hired’ wife. What, exactly, were you expecting? She needed the money. Do you know she was living in the back of the coffee shop in a storage room when you hired her? She was desperate.”

  “And a liar no less.”

  “She was only playing the role you cast her in.”

  “And then my sister!” he continued, “Who knew her all along!”

  “What was I supposed to say, Logan? You wanted the money. You wanted her a secret. So, I played along!”

  “Why didn't you just confront me about it?” he said, drawing in a deep breath; his emotions threatening to betray him now.

  “You're scolding me for playing along like you wanted me to?” Gabriella argued, setting her palm against the textured hallway wall in a huff. “Typical. Just the same as you did to Riley.”

  He could feel his exasperation welling up in his throat and without meaning to, all of his emotions came bubbling up his throat. “She lied about having a kid!” he screamed, turning to look at her, heat radiating through his skin as he exhaled. “If she can lie about that, what else could she be lying about?”

  His sister’s expression was hard. It was nearly unreadable: a reaction that surprised him.

  “Well you'd better find out,” she snapped, stampin
g her foot against the marble floor. “Because like it or not, she is your wife. By law.”

  “Why didn't you talk to me?” Logan said, quieter now as he brought his fingers up to the bridge of his nose and bowing his head.

  “Because she was my friend, and I thought you would be good for each other if—”

  “—If I could get past her having a child.”

  Gabriella stared at him; he couldn’t see it, but he could feel her scolding eyes on him. “To be perfectly honest, Logan, if you just met Zoe…”

  “Don't say her name,” he whined.

  “If you met Zoe,” she enunciated loudly, “and you still didn't like her… then frankly, you don't deserve Riley in the first place.”

  “Then we're in agreement,” he scoffed. “We shouldn’t be together.”

  Gabriella sighed deeply through her nose and spun on her heel, turning to leave. She stopped at the doorway, in typical female fashion, and said, “If you love her, you'd better do something about it, Logan. because she loves you.”

  He lowered his brows and said, “That's too bad. Because I'm going to New Zealand.”

  “To live the single life,” she said flatly.

  “To get away,” he said, putting emphasis on each word.

  “I think you've had enough fun,” she snarled. “It's time to grow up, Logan. And if you can't see a life with Riley, then I feel really sorry for you.”

  “So you've said,” he snapped. “Are we done here?”

  And with a single slam of the door, their conversation was over, and three hours later he found himself on the tarmac, ready to take off for as long as he wished.

  The whole way over, he told himself that Gabriella didn't know what she was talking about. But as it turned out… sometimes his sister knew exactly when to step in.

  He looked across the tarmac at a boarding plane and cutting right through the night, he caught sight of her.

  Stephania.

  She was hooked arm in arm with a man he'd never seen before, her bright yellow and black striped luggage immediately catching his eye.

  His heart sank when he saw her, but not because he missed her or wished for the past. But because he realized then that she was a liar.

  Not Riley.

  Stephania had betrayed him. Broken his trust purposely.

  Riley was protecting her family.

  And suddenly he felt sick to his stomach, a rushing wave of hot pain that seemed to grow in his core.

  The truth was... he needed Riley. He'd been absolutely miserable without her. She made him a better person and far beyond that, she was too special not to have in his life.

  He called Gabriella and asked for Riley's address, and after much arguing, she finally gave it to him. He'd taken his boat to the mainland and docked it for an outrageous price before cabbing it to her neighborhood.

  The apartments were quaint builds with six to eight apartments in each. The neighborhood seemed clean enough, but inside he couldn’t wait to whisk her back to the private Crystal Beach.

  He made his way up the staircase to the third floor and found his way to the bright red door.

  "That's how you'll know which one it is," Gabriella had said when she refused to give him the actual apartment number. Probably because she couldn't remember it. "You can't miss it."

  He stepped up to the door with a small bouquet of ten daisies. With a sharp inhale, he knocked on the red door and waited to hear any noise on the other end.

  Footsteps pitter-pattered on the other end: the footsteps of a little girl. He felt his heart race at that thought.

  Could he be a father?

  Could he be a good husband?

  Would Riley even give him the time of day after how horrible he'd been to her?

  He didn't know the answer to any of these questions, but he knew that for Riley, anything was worth getting to be with her. He knew that now.

  He could feel his hands shake as the door swung open and there was Riley, dressed in black leggings and a pale orange tank top, hair up in a messy bun. His heart lilted at the sight of her, and he smiled, but she didn’t return the expression.

  She looked down at the flowers and then back up at him with a ‘You’re kidding, right?’ expression.

  “Eh-em,” he cleared his throat, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she deadpanned, leaning against her doorframe and holding the door only slightly ajar.

  “Did you know that bananas are curved because they grow toward the sun?” he asked, reliving their trivia game from so many months ago now.

  “It’s called negative geotropism,” she snapped, brows shot up and eyes looking down.

  “Oh, she’s a smart one. I nearly forgot,” he said, and the awkward silence resumed.

  He couldn’t get over how beautiful she was.

  “Did you know that billy goats pee on themselves to attract females?”

  Riley smirked then, entirely against her will. He smiled along with her, hoping he was winning her over. “That’s one way to do it,” she nipped.

  “I prefer giving flowers, but,” he shrugged, “I’ll do as the lady wishes.”

  She looked up at him then and sighed begrudgingly. “Did you know that creator of the frisbee, Walter Frederick Morrison, was cremated into a frisbee when he died?”

  “Geez,” he breathed, “imagine losing that one at the family picnic.”

  She let out a humored breath. “What are you doing here, Logan?”

  “Just playing my favorite game of trivia with my favorite girl,” he said, his eyes pleading with her. “And also, I came to say… how sorry I am.”

  She swallowed and opened the door just a little bit more.

  “And how miserable I’ve been without you.”

  She looked him over, smirking. “Keep going.”

  “My heart is broken.”

  And as soon as the words came out, she had raced into his arms and pressed her lips against his. He held her tightly, his body nearly shaking, and he closed his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Logan,” she said, burying her face into his chest. “I shouldn’t have lied to you.”

  “Just wait,” he said, putting a finger up. “I want to do this right. There was just… one more thing,” he said, pulling away from her.

  “What is it?”

  “I was wondering if Zoe was home,” he asked and felt like he was a five-year-old boy asking someone’s mom if his friend could come out to play.

  Riley’s eyes filled with tears and she swallowed nervously, nodding at him.

  “Zoe!” she called to the next room, and he peered in through the door at the pudgy little girl with the blonde-mop as she wandered toward the door.

  “Hi!” she said with a big, goofy smile that reminded him of Riley.

  He grinned at her and knelt down, handing her the bouquet of flowers. “Hi,” he said back. “I’m Logan.”

  “I-I’m Zoe.”

  “Do you want to play a game?” he asked, looking up at Riley. She gave him a nod of approval.

  “’Kay,” Zoe said, her eyes lost in the many white petals of her flowers.

  “Do you like animals?” he asked, and she nodded along. “Well, did you know that when sea otters sleep, they hold hands with each other so they don’t drift away?”

  Zoe blinked in surprise and gave a bashful smile, obviously smitten with the idea of it. “Did you know thata—” she inhaled a big, adorable breath and widened her eyes at him, “thata baby octopus is… is as big as a flea when it’s born?”

  “Wow,” he said with a gasp. “Did you know that a little baby, even smaller than you, could swim through a blue whale’s vein?”

  “That’s big!” she announced with wide eyes. “An-an did you know that slugs have four noses?”

  Logan smiled at the girl: a genuine, bemused smile. To his absolute surprise, she wasn’t so bad at all.

  In fact, he kind of liked her. A lot.

  He looked up at Riley approvingly, and with a wink in his tone he said, “
I think we’re all going to get along just fine.”

  The End

  About the Author

  Hanna Hart is a passionate sweet clean contemporary romance author who has found the love for writing since the age of 6.

  Hanna lives in the beautiful Santa Cruz California with her loving husband, two children and dog Milo. Other then dreaming up of extremely sweet & romantic stories, Hanna enjoys spending time with her family, going to the beach, cooking great food, traveling the world, and getting a lot of exercise.

  Hanna’s purpose is to delivery very sweet romantic stories to her readers that will touch their hearts in a very meaningful taking them to another place that will positively impact their life.

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