: Chapter 20

My fake boyfriend’s house has a helipad and looks like a museum from the outside—and I assume on the inside too—and I’m trying to embrace someday, I’ll tell my great-nieces and nephews about the time I had an adventure pretending to date a billionaire and sleeping in his mansion, but I might be hitting overwhelm for one day.

So when Nikolay opens the sixteen-foot-tall front door and gestures us into the marble-floored, crystal-chandeliered entryway after our short limo drive from the helipad to the circle drive and portico, and voices well up somewhere deeper in the house, beyond the curved staircase, I whimper.

Hayes looks as exhausted as I feel. There are bags under his eyes that I won’t be pointing out, and his shoulders are drooping, which I also won’t be pointing out. But he pulls them back, glances in the direction of the voices, and then nods to Nikolay. “Take Begonia to my quarters, please.”

“This is all your house?” I whisper to Hayes.

“I needed someplace large enough to breathe whenever my mother decided to drop by.”

I snicker-snort. It echoes in the massive foyer, and the sound of my own snicker-snort echoing makes me involuntarily do it again, until I’m at risk of laughing until I’m crying.

Have I ever been this tired in my life?

If Hyacinth were here, she’d tell me I’d hit the dangerous side of slap-happy and needed a cheeseburger, a vodka chaser, and bed immediately.

But Hyacinth isn’t here, which means I’m leaning on Hayes’s arm and trying to telegraph to him that that’s exactly what I need when there’s a squeal, then a flash of sparkly red, and the next thing I know, a literal rock star is shoving me out of the way and leaping on him.

“Hayes! You’re back!”

Keisha Kourtney is decked out in a red sequin bodysuit and cape, her platform red sequin boots hooked behind Hayes’s back as she presses a resounding kiss to his cheek, which he tolerates with a level of affection that quite honestly pisses me off. Her short, jet-black hair is shaved on one side and dangles to her chin on the other, and sparkly diamond earrings lined with ruby chips dangle from her ears.

“Quit being a showboat,” he tells her as he pulls her off of him and sets her back on her feet. “What are you wearing? Can you be a little more ridiculous?”

She grins widely and turns to me, instantly smothering me in a massive hug. In her platform boots, she barely comes up to my chin. There’s more superstar per square inch in this woman than should be possible, and I want to adore her for it, but I can’t quite get there, because she just jumped my boyfriend.

An actual damn rock star. Molesting my boyfriend in front of me.

My fake boyfriend, but she doesn’t know that.

And I feel like the sludge leftover in the pan after everyone else has eaten all of the grits—dried up and leftover and ready to be washed down the drain and put out of my misery—while her olive skin is glowing and her makeup is flawless and her eyes are bright and clear, unlike the rest of us.

“Oh my god, you must be Begonia! We are going to be best friends. Do you like kale smoothies? Say no. Please say no. If Mildred makes me eat one more kale smoothie, I’m divorcing her, and the only thing that ever works to get me off the hook is I don’t want to make other people watch me drink that shit.”

“Begonia, meet my cousin, Keisha,” Hayes says. “Keisha, let Begonia go. She’s in desperate need of a nap and a shower and dinner away from you.”

“Cousin?” I echo faintly.

I’m still getting squeezed to death by the tiny rock star. A rock star who’s married, apparently. This is what I get for not reading the gossip pages.

“I’m the black sheep,” Keisha whispers dramatically. “Can you imagine the Rutherfords being related to a lesbian?”

A smile plays at Hayes’s lips. “Stop it. We claim you in public. Sometimes in private too.”

“It’s scandalous,” Keisha assures me, like she likes the idea of being scandalous.

“Hyacinth would adore you,” I blurt.

“Oh my god, is she secretly your wife and you’re using Hayes as your beard? Begonia and Hyacinth! That’s adorable! Mildred? Millie? Honey, you need to change your name to Neesha so we can be as cute as Begonia and Hyacinth, mm-kay?”

“Stop making me out to be a shrew, you drama queen,” an affectionate voice calls back. “If anyone’s changing their name, it’s you, to Kildred, Killie for short, because that’s what you’re doing to all of us. You’re killie us.”

“Keisha.” Hayes has pulled out the Boss Voice. “Let Begonia go. You can interrogate her later. Possibly next year. Or next decade.”

“He is such an old maid,” Keisha whispers to me. “Come join us. Dad’s here, and he whipped up some of his famous guacamole, and Millie made her famous sangria, and Aunt G asked the chef to actually make a real meal, so we’re having picanha and pão de queijo.”

“Brazilian steak and cheese bread,” Hayes murmurs to me.

Keisha rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t be so boring. Which would you rather eat, Begonia, steak and cheese bread, or picanha and pão de queijo? And wait until you try the fried bananas. Oh. My. God.”

“The guacamole?” I say.

She laughs, then beams at Hayes. “Someone I don’t claim to be related to at this exact moment invited Liliane Sussex-Williams. She’s here too.”

“Begonia and I are both eating in my quarters. If you’re still here in the morning, I’ll see you then. Don’t be here in the morning.”

Hayes nudges me to the stairs.

Marshmallow sticks to his side.

Nikolay gives me a hurry up look, and so I do.

But first, I smile at Keisha. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Oh my god, same. We’re going to be—”

“Hello, Hayes.”

Holy. Mother. Forking. Cannonballs.

I have no idea who the woman swinging her hips as she strolls into the foyer is, but she owns this place. She’s tall and slender, white, with thick chestnut hair, symmetrical features, bright green eyes, and her clothes fit her as though the entire reason pantsuits were invented was so that this woman could one day wear them.

She’s what you’d get if Bella Hadid had a love child with Marilyn Monroe, except instead of being carried in a uterus, she was incubated inside the rarest rose and infused with the essence of phoenix wings and golden unicorn horns.

And she’s holding a hand out to Hayes as if she expects him to kiss it.

He could have this, and I asked him to have sex with me purely for the sake of helping me get back in the saddle.

No wonder he turned me down and has been avoiding talking to me about it ever since, except to kiss me when we have an audience to make it look like he wants to tear my clothes off.

And despite knowing he doesn’t actually want me, a very large, very angry green beast roars to life inside me.

“Hi!” I leap in front of him, take the goddess’s hand—and yes, I have to reach about as high as my nose to grab it—and jerk it down to waist-level to pump it. “I’m Begonia, and oh my god, I can’t believe I’m meeting Angelina Jolie. Hayes. Why didn’t you tell me Angie would be here? Can I call you Angie? Oh my god. Can we get a selfie?”

The woman extracts her hand from mine and glares down at me with a look that could melt a diamond.

Actually, I wonder if it has.

Someone should call the scientists.

“Did you just call me old?” she demands.

“What? No! Oh my gosh, Angie, you’re not old. You’re gorgeous. You’re timeless. Don’t let what any of those awful paparazzi say about you bother you. You’re above all that.” This woman, however, will never be on my good list for implying that Angelina Jolie will get old.

None of us are perfect, but Angie really is timeless to me.

“Begonia,” Hayes says gently, his voice slightly strangled, “this is my old friend Liliane Sussex-Williams. Liliane, this is Begonia. I quite adore her, and I marvel every day that she puts up with me.”

Keisha has disappeared, but there are strangled noises coming from a nearby room that I’d call muffled laughter if I wanted to take the time to analyze it, which I don’t, because Hayes claiming me is making me feel warm and fuzzy and a little horny, despite the fact that I know it’s for appearances only.

I have yet to actually see Mildred. Nikolay is showing the first signs of discomfort I’ve seen on him all day, and based on how his stomach sounded after lunch, I know it’s not the first time he’s actually been uncomfortable.

“Hayes and I are engaged,” Liliane informs me.

I clap my hands. “Oh my gosh, first I get to meet his second-grade wife, and now his fiancée! Is this like a rich people betrothed-at-birth sort of thing? That is adorable. Or are we testing out the next Razzle Dazzle plotline? Do you do that? Play-act plotlines to see which ones the unsuspecting guests don’t realize are plotlines?”

Superman has nothing on this woman. I’m pretty sure she’s slicing and dicing my spleen with that look.

And in the words of my dear sister after a particularly craptastic day, I have zero fucks left to give.

Hayes isn’t a freaking piece of meat, and I’d feel that way even if he hadn’t threatened to sue me if I didn’t pretend to be his doting girlfriend.

“We are not engaged,” Hayes murmurs.

She eyeballs me, makes a very obvious decision to not say whatever it is that would prove they’re engaged—ha! It’s totally an our parents want us to get married thing, I knew it—and instead turns to Hayes. “You should have her examined by the family doctor.”

She gives me one last look, her attention lingering on my mid-section, though I have no idea if she’s calling me chubby or if she’s trying to determine if I’m carrying his love child, before turning to sashay deeper into the house again, with a casual, “We know where this is going in the end, Hayes, and I’m a patient woman, but only so patient, and you’d best remember that,” tossed over her shoulder.

Marshmallow growls.

“Quiet,” Hayes orders. “For now.”

Marshmallow harumphs, but he sits back on his haunches.

These two.

It is utterly unfair that Hayes is allergic. They’re soulmates.

“Do you ever consider changing your name and moving to a cabin in the Alps where no one can find you?” I whisper to him.

“Every. Damn. Day.” He puts a hand to the small of my back again and gives a gentle push, but unlike every other time he’s steered me somewhere this past week, he keeps his hand on me as we make our way up the grand staircase.

And I do mean grand.

The stairs are marble. The banister is sleek polished wood, and the balusters are decorative cast iron, and the whole staircase sweeps a circle around the low-hanging crystal chandelier so that I can see that every bauble on the damn thing is free of dust as we reach the next floor.

I’m pretty sure a dust-free crystal—or diamond?—chandelier beneath an arched foyer ceiling is the ultimate sign of wealth.

If I had one like that, I wouldn’t even notice it needed dusting until the light couldn’t make it through the dirty crystals anymore, but there’s no mistaking that this one is spotless.

“Does everyone in your family follow you from house to house like this all the time?” I’m still whispering. I don’t know if the walls have ears, or what the acoustics are like here.

“Not usually. Exceptional times.” He pauses. “Except for Uncle Antonio. He adores me. Would’ve been in Maine except he hates seagulls.”

Nikolay coughs in the foyer below.

“You weren’t trying to make her like you,” Hayes murmurs to me before I can ask questions about this seagull aversion.

He’s on to me. There are very few people in this world that I dislike on sight, or who I’m not motivated to win over on sight, and this Liliane person just got added to the very short list of two, with the collectiveness of Chad and his circle now being the other one. “Who? Your fiancée?”

“She is not my fiancée, despite what her mother would like to believe.”

“Figures. You’re not good enough for Angie anyway. No offense.”

A full smile curves his lips. He barks out a laugh, and someone hand me a parachute.

I’m falling.

I’m falling hard, and fast, and it is a long way down.