I’d overestimated the number of straight, single men in my life.
After vetting my contacts, I found three who could potentially fulfill the role of my fake boyfriend, and after two disastrous test dates, that number had dwindled to one.
My first date kept trying to sell me on crypto while the second asked me for a bathroom blowjob in between the entree and dessert.
By the time my third date rolled around, my optimism had dwindled into a dying ember, but I clung to that flickering flame like it was my last hope.
Which it was.
No one knew when Delamonte would make their decision, but it had to be soon. I had a limited time to find a fake boyfriend, throw some couple photos up, and pray it would drag my account out of its slump. When it came to landing competitive brand deals, every little bit helped.
It wasn’t the world’s best or most well-thought-out plan, but it was a plan. No matter how ludicrous it was, it made me feel like I was taking control of my life, and that knowledge—that I wasn’t completely helpless and still had the power to shape my future—was the only thing keeping me afloat at the moment.
“Third time’s the charm.” The words rang with equal parts hope, weariness, and a touch of self-loathing.
I’d thrown myself into the Boyfriend Plan, as Brady called it, because I had no choice, but a part of me flinched every time I thought about what a successful plan would entail.
Deception. Lying. Pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
I’d cultivated close relationships with my followers over the years. Some of them had been with me since I was a college freshman posting grainy photos of my campus looks online.
The thought of betraying that trust made my stomach turn.
However, I couldn’t let Maura down. And, if I was being honest, I really wanted a million followers.
It was the big milestone. The door that would open a thousand more opportunities and prove that I wasn’t the disappointment my parents thought I was.
My friends thought I had the perfect family, and I’d never told them the truth because it seemed like such a trivial problem. Judgmental families were a dime a dozen.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t sting.
My parents didn’t always voice it, but I saw the disappointment in their eyes every time they looked at me.
I took a deep breath, smoothed a hand over the front of my dress, and checked my reflection in the hallway mirror one last time.
Hair twisted into an elegant knot, earrings that added a touch of glamour, and lipstick that brightened my winter-dulled skin.
Perfect.
I took the elevator downstairs and spent the ride checking my emails for Delamonte updates or responses from the dozen jobs I’d applied to over the past week.
Nothing.
No news was good news, right? Maybe not for the jobs, but at least for Delamonte.
Until I received an email or a press release announcing their next brand ambassador from them, I wouldn’t dwell on negativity. I didn’t want to accidentally manifest losing out on the campaign.
The elevator doors pinged open. I stepped out and ran a thumb over the crystals dangling from my necklace. Rose quartz for luck in love, citrine for general good vibrations.
Here’s hoping they work.
“Hi, Stella!” The eager voice pulled my attention to the front desk, where the concierge beamed at me, all shiny teeth and puppy dog eyes from behind the marble counter.
I released my necklace and smiled back. “Hi, Lance. Stuck on the graveyard shift again?”
“That’s what happens when you’re the youngest member on the team.” He heaved an exaggerated sigh before examining me. “You’re all dressed up tonight. Hot date?”
Part of me briefly entertained the idea of asking him to be my fake boyfriend before I dismissed it. That would be too messy for a multitude of reasons, the least of which was the fact he worked in my building.
“Hopefully.” I gave a playful spin, my metallic skirt flaring around my knees. I’d paired it with a fitted black sweater and boots for an elegant but simple first date look. “How do I look?”
“You look beautiful.” There was a wistful note in his voice. “You always—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish before I slammed into a brick wall. I stumbled and I instinctively reached up to steady myself.
Soft wool and masculine heat touched my fingers.
Not a wall, my dazed mind noted.
My eyes traveled up past the peaked lapels of a black suit, the open collar of a crisp white shirt, and the tanned column of a strong, masculine throat before they rested on a beautifully carved face, shadowed with disapproval.
“Ms. Alonso.” Christian’s cool voice sent goosebumps skittering across my skin. There was no trace of the semi-playful dinner partner from New York. “Distracting my staff from their job again?”
Again? I’d never distracted anyone from anything, except maybe the time Lance helped me carry a package to the elevators and the resident behind me in line had to wait an extra two minutes.
I removed my hand from Christian’s chest. His heat seared so deep I felt it in my bones even when I stepped back and upped the wattage of my smile.
Calm, cool, collected.
“I was making conversation. I wanted Lance’s opinion on something, but since you’re here, I might as well ask you.” I spun again. “What do you think? Is this outfit date-worthy?”
I didn’t even complete my first spin before Christian’s hand closed around my arm.
When I looked up, the shadow of disapproval had morphed into something darker. More dangerous.
Then I blinked and the darkness was gone, replaced by his usual polite impassiveness.
Somehow, that unsettled me even more.
“You’re going on a date.”
Christian had a talent for turning every question into…well, not a question.
“Yes.” An uncharacteristic burst of mischief bloomed inside me. “That’s where you take someone out for dinner, drinks, maybe some hand-holding. It might sound like a foreign concept, but you should try it sometime, Mr. Harper. It’ll do you some good.”
Maybe it would loosen him up a little.
For all his charm and wealth, he was wound tighter than the spring of his Audemars Piguet watch. It was evident in the precision of his walk, the set of his shoulders, and the unnatural flawlessness of his appearance.
Not a hair out of place, not a speck of lint on his clothes.
Christian Harper was a man who thrived on controlling everything, including his feelings.
He stared down at me, his jaw so tense I could practically hear his teeth grind. “I don’t hold hands.”
“Fine, no hand-holding. Cuddling then, on a bench overlooking the river, followed by some whispered sweet nothings and a goodnight kiss. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
I swallowed a laugh at the way his lip curled. Judging by his expression, my suggestion sounded as nice as being thrown into a vat of bubbling acid.
“You don’t usually date.”
My amusement faded, replaced with a pinprick of annoyance. “You don’t know that. I could’ve gone on a hundred dates since I moved in and you wouldn’t have known.”
“Have you?”
Dammit. I couldn’t lie, not even when every cell in my body urged me to wipe the knowing look from his eyes.
“That’s not the point,” I said. “Maybe it hasn’t been a hundred, but it’s been a few.”
Two, and they were test dates that reminded me why I hated dating. But he didn’t need to know that.
“And where is your date tonight?”
It was an innocent question, but intuition told me to keep the exact location to myself. “A bar.”
“How specific.”
“How none of your business.” I gave him a pointed stare.
Christian’s smile didn’t soften the smooth, bladed edge of his voice. “Have fun on your date, Stella.”
The conversation was over, which was just as well. I was already running late.
But as I left for my date, I couldn’t focus on the man I was about to see.
I was too busy thinking about whiskey eyes and black suits.
Half an hour later, I wished I’d stayed in the lobby with Christian because my date was going as well as expected, which was to say, not at all.
Klaus was one of the few male fashion bloggers who lived in D.C., and I’d liked him well enough the few times we chatted at events.
Unfortunately, those chats had been too short for me to realize what became obvious after an extended conversation.
Klaus was a massive, raging douchebag.
“I told them I don’t work for free. I understand it’s a charity, but I am a luxury blogger.” Klaus adjusted his secondhand Rolex. “What part of me screams free posts for cancer awareness? Of course, it’s a great cause,” he added hastily. “But it takes time for me to shoot and post, you know? I even gave them a ten percent discount off my usual fee, but they said no.”
“There’s a reason it’s called charity.” I finished my drink. Two glasses of wine in twenty minutes. A record for me, and a testament to how much I didn’t want to be here. But Klaus was my last hope, and I gave him more leeway than usual. Maybe he meant well but couldn’t express it in the right manner. “They can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for every post.”
“I didn’t ask them to pay for every post. I asked them to pay me.”
Dear Lord, give me strength.
“I did that campaign for free. It took me less than an hour, and I didn’t die,” I pointed out.
I had a soft spot for charities, and I accepted almost all of those collaborations if the organization was legit. Brady hated it, mainly because they were always unpaid, and he earned nothing from those deals.
Klaus laughed. “Yes, well, that’s the difference between men and women, isn’t it?”
My spine stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means most men ask for what they’re worth and most women don’t.” Klaus’s casual shrug made my eye twitch. “It’s not an insult, merely an observation. But someone’s gotta make less money, right?”
My fingers tightened around the stem of my wineglass.
I suddenly wished it weren’t empty. I’d never been more tempted to throw a drink in someone’s face.
He wasn’t wrong about the whole ask for what they’re worth thing, but his tone was so condescending it overshadowed everything else. Plus, he’d nickel and dimed a cancer charity, of all things.
“Klaus.” My even voice betrayed none of the anger simmering in my blood. “Thank you for the drinks, but we’ve reached the end of our date.”
He stopped fiddling with a stray lock of hair to stare at me. “Excuse me?”
“We’re not compatible, and I don’t want to waste either of our times.”
I would also rather stab my eye out with a Christian Louboutin heel than spend another minute with you, I added silently.
Klaus’s face flushed an angry, mottled red.
“Whatever.” He stood and yanked his coat off the back of his chair. “I only stayed out of pity, anyway. You’re nowhere near as hot as everyone says you are.”
Says the guy who buys followers and uses a fake account to comment how hot he is under his own posts. The retort tingled on the tip of my tongue until my aversion to confrontation squashed it.
If I had a penny for every comeback I kept to myself, I wouldn’t need the Delamonte deal. I would already be a millionaire.
I waited until Klaus stormed out in a cloud of overpowering cologne and indignation before I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
Now that Klaus was off the table, I officially had zero prospects for a decent fake boyfriend.
No fake boyfriend, no follower growth, no Delamonte deal, no money, no care for Maura…
My thoughts ran together in a jumbled stream.
Was there another way to grow my account besides getting a fake boyfriend? Maybe.
Would growing my account fast enough guarantee I get the Delamonte deal? No.
But once my brain latched onto an idea, trying to pry it off was like trying to crack a vault with a toothpick. Plus, with no job and no bites on my resume, I was getting desperate.
The boyfriend idea might’ve made me uneasy, but it’d also offered a glimmer of hope. Now, that glimmer had dulled into an ugly, tarnished brown.
I drained my water, hoping it would alleviate the dryness in my throat. All it did was send me into a small coughing fit when it went down the wrong pipe.
“I assume the whispered sweet nothings and goodnight kiss are off the table.”
My skin grew hot at the familiar drawl behind me.
Cool, calm, collected.
I waited for my lungs to fill with air before I responded.
“Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern.” I turned my head. “What’s three times, Mr. Harper?”
First, the car ride home. Second, the Delamonte dinner. I didn’t count our lobby run-in earlier that night since we lived in the same building, but overall, I’d bumped into Christian a suspicious number of times over the past two weeks.
“Fate.” He slid onto the stool next to mine and nodded at the bartender, who greeted him with a deferential nod of his own and returned less than a minute later with a glass of rich amber liquid. “Or that D.C. is a small city and we have overlapping social circles.”
“You might be able to convince me you believe in coincidence, but you’ll never convince me you believe in fate.”
It was a notion for romantics and dreamers. Christian was neither.
Romantics didn’t look at someone like they wanted to devour them until there was nothing left except ashes and ecstasy. Darkness and submission.
Something hot and unfamiliar coiled in my stomach before the bells above the front door jangled and broke the spell.
“How long have you been here?” I hadn’t noticed his arrival.
“Long enough to see you eyeing those cocktail picks with longing while your date was talking.”
“It wasn’t a bad date. He just had to leave early for…an emergency.” It was a blatant lie, but I didn’t want to admit it’d failed. Not to Christian.
“Yes, it looked positively scintillating.” His voice was drier than a gin martini. “I could tell by the way your eyes glazed over and strayed to your phone every five seconds. The true signs of a woman infatuated.”
Annoyance squeezed my lungs.
Between Klaus and Christian, the nunnery was looking better by the second.
“People say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”
“But it’s the highest form of intelligence.” Christian’s mouth tugged up at my raised eyebrows. “Oscar Wilde. I know the full quote well.”
Why was I not surprised?
“Don’t let me keep you,” I said pointedly. “I’m sure you have better things to do with your Friday night than drink with the girl who takes care of your plants.”
“I’ll leave after you explain why you looked so unhappy after he left.” Christian settled onto his stool, the picture of relaxed elegance, but his eyes were sharp as he waited for my response. “Somehow, I doubt you were disappointed by his exit.”
I rubbed my thumb over the condensation on my water glass, debating how much to tell him.
“I needed his help with something.” Shame crept into my chest.
“With what?” He was a cobra in a king’s suit, with no patience in sight.
Just say it. “I need a fake boyfriend.”
There. I said it and didn’t die, though embarrassment warmed my neck.
But to his credit, Christian didn’t laugh or chastise me. “Explain.”
Alcohol and desperation had loosened my tongue, so I did. I explained everything—Maura, Delamonte, D.C. Style. I even told him I got fired.
A part of me worried he’d evict me since I no longer had a steady income, but I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out.
The pressure inside me had found a temporary release valve, and I was taking full advantage.
Although my friends knew I’d been fired, they didn’t know I was paying for Maura’s care. No one did except for the Greenfield staff…and now, Christian.
For some reason, telling him felt natural, almost easy. Perhaps because it was easier to share secrets with someone who didn’t know me well and, therefore, would hold less judgment.
When I finished, Christian stared at me with a long, assessing gaze.
The silence stretched so long I worried I’d broken him with the sheer absurdity of my idea.
I tucked a loose curl that had fallen out of my updo behind my ear. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it could work. Potentially?” Doubt turned my statement into a question.
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous.” Christian set his now-empty glass down. The bartender reappeared in a flash and refilled it. After a weighted glance from Christian, he topped off my drink as well. “In fact, I have a mutually beneficial proposal.”
“I’m not interested in sleeping with you.”
I was desperate, but I wasn’t that desperate. It was one thing to get a fake boyfriend. It was another to sleep with someone for money, even if that someone was rich and gorgeous.
Annoyance passed through Christian’s eyes. “That’s not my proposal,” he said, his voice edged with irritation. “You need money, and I need a…companion who can accompany me to functions. They’re a necessary and, unfortunately, frequent part of my business.”
“So you want arm candy.” Something akin to disappointment settled in my stomach. “I’m sure you could find a date with a snap of your fingers. You don’t need me for that.”
Even now, all the women in the bar were staring at Christian with dazed, dreamy expressions.
“Not just a date, Stella. I want someone who I can have an actual conversation with. Who puts people at ease and who can work a room with me. Someone who doesn’t want more after the date is over.”
I tapped my fingers on the table. “And if I do that…”
Christian smiled. “Let’s make a deal, Ms. Alonso. You agree to be my companion when needed, and I’ll pay for the entirety of Maura’s care.”
My tapping stopped.
Pay for the entirety of Maura’s care?
My first instinct was an enthusiastic, resounding yes. Not having to worry about Greenfield’s bills would take a load off my shoulders.
But the exhilaration lasted only a minute before warning bells clanged between my ears.
If something sounded too good to be true, it probably was.
“Thank you, but I can’t.” The words were painful to say, but they were for the best. “Paying all of Maura’s fees…it’s too much.”
Was it stupid of me to turn down his payment offer when I so desperately needed it? Maybe. Especially when I knew paying for her care wouldn’t put a dent in his wallet? Probably.
If he were anyone else, I might’ve accepted, considering my circumstances. But between the initial lowered rent and our laughable deal for even lower rent after Jules moved out—taking care of his plants did not equate to the thousands of dollars he let slide every month—I already owed him too much.
And my gut told me that when it came to men like Christian Harper, the less one owed them, the better.
Because eventually, the payment would come due, and it would cost more than all the money in the world.
Christian took the refusal in stride. “I understand. Then let’s amend the deal. If you act as my companion, I’ll act as your boyfriend.”
My heart leapt. Now that was a more balanced arrangement.
Still, I shouldn’t.
It was wild and absurd and utterly ridiculous if I thought too hard about it, but…Christian Harper as my (fake) boyfriend. If that didn’t explode my follower count, nothing would.
“With a stipulation, of course,” he added.
Of course.
“What stipulation?”
“You are not, under any circumstances, to show my face on social media.”
My excitement fizzled faster than a firework in water. “That defeats the whole purpose of what I’m trying to do.”
Christian’s face could sell out stadiums and theaters. Not showing it off online would be a monumental waste.
“Based on what you told me, it’s the perceived relationship that matters, not who the other person is.” He tapped a finger on my phone. “Social media is a form of voyeurism, and couples are more interesting than individuals. It’s the unfortunate truth. But people also love a little mystery. You can show my hand, my back, any part of me except my face. It won’t diminish what you’re trying to do. It might even help.”
“But…” Your face is so pretty. “People will know it’s you if we attend events together, so what’s the point of not showing your face?”
“I have no problem with people knowing we’re together.” The smoothness of his words wrapped around me like a silken scarf. “However, I keep the details of my personal life private and my digital footprint as clean as possible.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. Christian was a cybersecurity expert, so his aversion to social media and sharing data online made sense.
Still, I found it hard to believe anyone in this day and age could keep all photos of themselves off the internet.
“Huh.” It was too late for me. My digital footprint was so large it could qualify for its own zip code. “Can’t relate.”
A smile flickered over his mouth. “Do we have a deal, then?”
“As long as you agree to my conditions as well.” This time, I was the one who smiled at his flash of surprise. “You didn’t think you were the only one who got to make the rules, did you?”
“Of course not.” Lazy amusement surfaced in his eyes. “What are your terms?”
I ticked them off on my fingers. The bartender was serving customers at the other end of the bar and no one was sitting near us, so I wasn’t worried about eavesdroppers.
“One, we engage in physical contact only when necessary. Handholding is okay. Kissing is permitted on a case-by-case status. No sex.” I peeked at Christian to see if that would be a dealbreaker. His expression remained impassive, so I continued.
“Two, we continue the arrangement as long as it’s beneficial to both of us. If either of us wants to end it for whatever reason, we give the other two weeks’ notice. And finally…” I took a deep breath. “We remember what this is. A fake relationship. That means no catching feelings and no falling in love with each other.”
I didn’t think Christian would fall in love with me, and I doubted I would fall in love with him, but it was good to set the right expectations. It kept things from getting ugly down the road.
A soft laugh rumbled from his throat. “I accept those terms. I’ll draw up the contract tonight.”
“A written contract seems like overkill.”
“I never make a deal without one.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a dealbreaker?”
Part of me wasn’t comfortable with a formal contract for something so fluid, but another part agreed it was the smart thing to do. It would lay out the ground rules in clear terms and protect both of us.
Just in case.
“No. A contract is fine.”
“Good. And don’t worry, Ms. Alonso.” Laughter remained in Christian’s voice as he lifted his glass to his lips. “I don’t believe in love.”
