Husband For Hire (A Billionaire Fake Marriage Romance)

by Caitlin Daire

  “Apparently it’s perfectly legal,” I said with a deep sigh. “At least they aren’t making us do those stupid challenges anymore.”

  “Or the useless group therapy sessions,” Amy added.

  “Yeah, it’s so much better that they’re following us around with cameras and watching us jump at our own shadows instead,” Donna said sarcastically. Then she sighed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to snap. I’m just nearly at the end of my rope.”

  “So is everyone else,” I said with a nod. “Did you see what happened to the Connellys? They decided to break up, and now they’re in separate rooms. Their marriage wasn’t exactly stellar, but I bet all this extra stress didn’t help.”

  Addison and David Connelly had gotten into a massive blowout fight two nights ago, and David had wound up demanding a divorce, which Addison agreed to give him as soon as they could get off the island along with the rest of us. I hadn’t really bonded with either of them in our time here, but still, it was very sad that their marriage was totally over.

  “No shit.” Donna rolled her eyes. “Even Keenan and I have been fighting way more lately, and I thought we’d actually make it after the first week or so. We were doing so well until all of this happened. The stress is getting to us.”

  “Same,” Amy said. “It’s like everything is just falling apart.”

  It seemed as if Blake and I were one of the only couples who weren’t on the verge of splitting at the moment. When the Ramirezs and Ashworths found out that they’d been eliminated from the running a week and a half ago, they’d ended up getting into big fights, and the same had happened between the Connellys when they were announced as the most recent eliminated couple. That, along with the fear and stress over recent events, had been the catalyst for their complete separation two days ago.

  No wonder the network didn’t want to cancel ‘I Do Or Die’ yet. They were capturing so much drama for their weekly viewers with all of the couples’ fights being recorded over the last week—drama that stemmed from our collective fear after Yuri’s horrible passing.

  It was sick. In my opinion, Ed Kramer and every last one of the Channel Nine network heads needed to be heavily medicated for their obvious psychopathic personality disorders.

  And speaking of medication…

  I looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was time for me to take my daily birth control pill. I’d been prescribed the pills years ago due to my painful, heavy periods, and I’d stayed on them ever since because for me, they had the nice little side effect of making me only have my period three times a year, even during the monthly sugar pill week when most women got a period.

  “I’ll be back in a minute, ladies,” I said, standing up and smoothing down the skirt of my dress.

  I stepped into the dim bathroom, turned the light on, and opened the cabinet to fish out the segmented plastic medication carrier I’d put all the pills into before coming to the island. Now that Blake and I were sleeping together, I needed to be extra careful to remember to take them. Before that, it wasn’t a huge deal if I accidentally missed one. I hardly ever slept with anyone due to my almost-perpetual single status, so there was barely any chance of unwanted pregnancy.

  Now, things were different. If I missed a pill and a condom broke, I could wind up pregnant, and I would never want Blake to think I did it on purpose to trap him now that I knew about his wealth.

  I squinted at today’s pill before I took it. I wasn’t sure exactly what made me do it. Something just seemed… off. I looked back down at the separate daily pill compartments, checking out all of them. Everything seemed fine.

  Unless…

  I turned the bathroom light off and looked at the pills in natural light only. Then my eyes widened.

  “Donna! Amy!” I shouted.

  They came rushing into the bathroom. “What’s wrong?”

  I held up the pill container. “Someone’s been messing with my birth control!”

  Amy’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”

  “Because the regular pills are a really pale yellow, and the sugar ones are white. There’s crappy lighting in here that kinda makes everything look yellowish,” I said, gesturing toward the ancient bathroom light fixture. “So I guess that’s why I didn’t notice this before. But my pills are all white now. They’re all sugar pills. Someone replaced the rest!”

  A lot of other women might notice that their birth control was either wrong or screwing up when they got an early period out of the blue, but like I said earlier, I hardly ever got mine, even when I only took the sugar pills for a week once a month. Even if I did get it, I still probably wouldn’t suspect anything—I’d just think it was random breakthrough bleeding. Every woman knew that could happen on the Pill occasionally, no matter where they were in the cycle.

  “God!” Donna said. “Why the hell would anyone do that? As if we need any more shit right now!”

  “I can think of a pretty good reason why,” I said grimly. “Obviously no one thought the show would turn out like this, with all the death, fear and obvious possibility of cancellation once the network gets their shit together.”

  Donna wrinkled her brows in confusion. “So?”

  “So it was originally meant to go for a couple of months—plus with mid-season filming break we’d be here for nearly three months unless we got voted out. Maybe some asshole sneaked in here near the start and swapped out all my BC pills. Maybe even swapped all of the female contestants’ pills, if they’re on it, in the hopes that at least one couple might get pregnant and leave the show because of that. I remember our contracts saying we’re allowed to leave for medical reasons.”

  “Jeez, that’s horrible, but it makes sense. Some assholes would do anything to win, even if it means getting others eliminated in the slimiest ways,” Donna replied. “I should go check my own pills.”

  “We’ll come with you,” I said. Amy nodded. “None of us should be walking around alone right now.”

  “True.”

  “Would you mind if we made a quick stop first, though?” I asked. My face was so hot with anger now that I felt like my entire head was about to explode. “I think I might know who’s behind this.”

  Donna held out her hand. “Sure. Lead the way.”

  I’d only met one person on the show so far who seemed vile enough to want to sabotage other women. Vanessa, that Category 5 Whore-icane who thought it was acceptable to cheat on her husband and attempt to seduce unavailable men.

  I strode up to the second floor of the inn, where I knew she and Jay were staying. Donna and Amy trailed behind me, and I told them my theory on the way, along with the story of how Vanessa had tried to seduce Blake.

  When we arrived, I sharply rapped on the door. Vanessa answered, pulling her face into a bored expression when she realized it was us. “What?” she said, pulling her black satin robe tighter around her waist.

  “Hoping it was someone else? Another married man you could try to sleep with?” Amy said from my left.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes at her, then sneered at me. “Get over it, honey. Stop bitching to everyone.”

  I narrowed my eyes and held up my pill case, fuming. “I know you’re sabotaging me, Vanessa. And I bet you’re doing it to every other woman on the show who’s on birth control. Hoping we’ll get pregnant and drop out? It’s ridiculous. And for the record, I still can’t believe you even care about winning the show anymore. A man died! You might have no soul, but the rest of us just want to go home.”

  Somehow she managed to look even more bored despite my scathing words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’re talking about the fact that you’re the only person we can think of who’s nasty enough to try something like that,” Donna cut in.

  “Am I?” Vanessa arched an eyebrow. “How do you know it isn’t Little Miss Infertile here? Maybe she’s just so crazy about not being able to have a baby that she thought she’d make everyone else do it instead.”

  She s
neered at Amy, whose face immediately dropped.

  “How dare you,” I hissed. We all knew how sensitive Amy was about not being able to conceive a child with Dean. “You’re awful.”

  Vanessa shrugged. “Maybe. But you’re just plain stupid. Sure, I wanted to win the show, but why would I do it that way? I mean, you know I wanted to hook up with your man as well. So why would I fuck with your birth control?” she asked. “That could result in you falling pregnant to Blake, and the joyful news might fix whatever’s wrong with your marriage. Why would I want that if I want him? Do you think a woman ever managed to convince a guy to leave his wife by ensuring the wife got pregnant?”

  She gave me a sickeningly sweet fake smile as I thought about what she said, taken aback. She was right. I’d jumped to conclusions in assuming she was the saboteur. It wasn’t her; it didn’t make sense. I just assumed it was her and wanted it to be her, because I couldn’t stand the woman.

  “Oh,” I mumbled. “Right.”

  “Why don’t you look at your friends? Whoever switched your pills was obviously in your room,” Vanessa said, looking at Donna and Amy in turn. “Or better yet, look even closer to home.” She smirked before delivering her final words. “Ask your husband...”

  Then she slammed the door in our faces.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Blake

  “Yes, it was me. I’m trying to get you pregnant.”

  I looked Indi in the eye as I spoke, and then I grinned as her eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “I’m kidding. Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood,” I said, immediately regretting the decision to try and joke about something so serious. “Really, I’m sorry. It’s no laughing matter. You just look so stressed and upset, and I wanted to calm you down.”

  Indi sighed. “I know. It’s not your fault. I just don’t understand who would do this to me. To us.”

  “We’ll figure it out. Until then, don’t worry—we’ve used condoms every time for the last week and a half. Just to be sure, I’m gonna ask to borrow a car from the crew and take you to the medical center in town, okay? We’ll see if we can get you Plan B and a new prescription for your medication.”

  Indi smiled gratefully. “You’d really do that for me?”

  “Of course.” I hesitated, then went on. “Probably too early to be having this conversation, but I do want kids one day. Having said that, it should be something two people plan for and agree on. Not something a woman gets forced into because some asshole fucked with her meds.”

  “I really don’t know what they did with the old Blake Marsden,” Indi said jokingly, looking around and pretending to search high and low.

  I grinned and gave her a hug, then headed down to a lounge room in the inn where the crew always hung out when there was no filming going on.

  After I explained the situation to Neil Kingston, the head of the lighting department, he handed me a set of keys to a van and made me promise to have it back in an hour. “We’re really not supposed to let you go outside the Candle Cove estate without a crew member present,” he said in a furtive whisper. “But Ed’s not around, and I can’t be fucked going anywhere. Just bring the van back in one piece and don’t do anything you’re not supposed to, okay? Straight to the medical center, then straight back. If you’re gone longer than an hour, I’m sending someone out to look for you. Got it?”

  “Sure.” I nodded and pocketed the keys before heading back to the room to get Indi.

  As we headed outside a couple of minutes later, she looked at me with furrowed brows. “So there’s still a killer running around somewhere, and a crew guy just gives you car keys like that? We could go anywhere.”

  “I’m not complaining. We do need to get you a new prescription.”

  “I know. Not complaining either. I just think it’s strange how they don’t seem to be particularly worried about keeping us coddled and safe when there’s a maniac on the loose.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” I said. “It’s daytime, anyway. Whoever the ax-wielding maniac is, I don’t think he or she will try to strike in full daylight.”

  She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. “I suppose not. Plus we’ll be safe in the van.”

  As I steered our vehicle down the winding, hilly roads toward the island’s little town, Indi and I tried to figure out who might’ve messed with her medication.

  “The only people who’ve been in our room are you, me, Donna, and Amy. And Vanessa if you count the time she tried to seduce you,” she mused. “But it’s not Vanessa. She’s a selfish, skanky bitch, but she’s not an insane bitch.”

  “Yeah. She barely even got in the room, let alone the bathroom. And I don’t think Donna or Amy would do it.”

  “Neither do I,” Indi replied, her nose wrinkling. “Hey, what about the writing on the mirror the other week?”

  “What about it?”

  “You said you thought Ed told a crew member to enter our room and do it, because they’d probably have spare keys to our rooms. So what if it was one of the crew messing with my meds as well?”

  I shook my head. “What would they gain from doing it? Also, you could easily sue the show if they did that. It had to be another contestant, in my opinion.”

  Her face fell. “Oh, yeah. You’re right.”

  We lapsed into silence for the rest of the drive. When we arrived at the medical center, we were greeted with suspicious glances from a few locals who passed us on their way out of the building. I said hello, but they didn’t say anything back.

  Weird.

  The receptionist in the center seemed surprised when I told her we were from the show, but she fixed us up with an emergency appointment anyway. “You can go right through to Exam Room B,” she said to Indi with a kind smile.

  Indi headed off through a corridor, and I turned back to the receptionist. “How’s Elise Tilden going?” I asked.

  She raised her brows. “Sorry, who?”

  “One of the show contestants. She’s here being treated for head injuries, right?”

  The receptionist slowly shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry.”

  A nurse who’d just come in to grab a file leaned down and whispered something to the receptionist. Her face brightened. “Oh, sorry. That Elise. Yes, she’s here, but unfortunately I can’t discuss any of her medical records with you. Unless you’re family. But you’re not.”

  “I understand,” I said with a sigh.

  “Your wife will probably be about ten minutes or so. Feel free to take a seat,” she replied, gesturing to the small waiting room.

  I sat down in a chair which faced the street outside. The blinds were open, so I could see all the locals walking around and going about their business. One person in particular caught my eye, and I frowned as I had a sudden brainwave. My conversation with Indi about spare keys earlier must’ve shaken something loose in my head.

  I knew exactly who messed with Indi’s meds, and it wasn’t Vanessa, Donna, Amy, or any of the show crew. No, it was someone else entirely. And the best part?

  He’d just walked right by me.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Blake

  “Mike!” I called out as I exited the medical center. Cold wind slapped against my cheeks as I ran to catch up. The sun was well and truly gone now, and grey clouds were rolling in. “Hey, Mike!”

  Mike turned around with a frown. When he realized it was me, he smiled. “Hey, man. What’s up?”

  “What’s up is that we need to have a chat,” I said firmly, narrowing my eyes.

  His smile vanished. “Er…okay. What about?”

  There was another man with him—a guy I recognized as one of the crew members. I was pretty sure his name was Tim.

  “Hold on, what are you even doing here in town?” I asked, confused.

  “Meredith and I found some weird shit written on our bedroom wall last night after dinner. She got all freaked out, so we told Ed, and he said I should come down
and make a report at the police station.” He gestured to Tim. “So he brought me here to film the interview. What about you? Why are you here?”

  I smiled thinly. “I had to come here with Indi so she could see a doctor. Someone’s been tampering with her birth control pills.”

  Tim seemed to sense impending drama, because he quickly whipped out a handheld camera from a black bag and started recording. “Seriously, man?” I said with a grimace.

  Tim shrugged. “Sorry. You know I have to record anything that happens between contestants. And something tells me you two are about to throw down.”

  I was sick to death of this reality show shit, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue. I had to pick my battles right now.

  I turned my attention back to Mike. “I know it was you. You switched Indi’s meds with sugar pills, didn’t you?”

  He arranged his face in an innocent expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yeah, you do. You told me ages ago that you got pretty close to the inn owner shortly after we arrived. You managed to wrangle some spare room keys out of her during one of your little chats about the history of the island, didn’t you?”

  He bristled. “I don’t know why you’d think that.”

  “Because I know you have a key! It didn’t even occur to me till now, but just a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned that you went into my room to look for me before we went fishing. How’d you get in if you didn’t somehow already have a key?”

  “Uh… Indi let me in.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I specifically remember you saying you ran into her when you were leaving the room. Christ, I can’t believe it took me this long to realize this. You had a key to our room the entire time. You got it right at the start, and you used it to get into our bathroom cabinet sometime during the first week, didn’t you?”