Page 59 of Fake Dark Vows
Pause.
I can almost hear Jess’s thoughts chugging around and trying to unpack what I just said. “Let’s backtrack a little here, Rose. Because it sounded like you just told me you’re going to marry the billionaire asshole who fired your dad.”
I sigh and then snort on the intake—not my finest look.
“I did. It’s not real. He came to my house earlier with a proposition. He’ll buy me a diamond ring—which I get to keep—if I pretend to be his fiancée.”
Silence.
“He said he’d transfer a million dollars into my dad’s bank account.”
Silence.
“Say something, Jess.”
I hear her clearing her throat. She’s stalling.
“Let me get this straight. You get a diamond ring, your dad gets a million bucks, and you have this fake engagement thing going on for … how long? What happens then? Do you have a fake tiff and call off the fake wedding? Or do you see it through and move into Mr. Billionaire’s penthouse suite for a while?”
We’re both silent now. People stroll past me, but I don’t even see them. I didn’t even think of these questions when I agreed to the fake engagement, but I’ll need to create a list and get Brandon to sign a contract or something. And I know Jess is still brewing more.
“Why?” she asks now.
“He’s trying to save his reputation.”
“At your expense.” The shock is wearing off, and practical Jess is back. “What’s wrong with his reputation, or don’t I want to know?”
Deep breath. “Someone sold pictures of him to the tabloids.”
“Pictures? Of the pornographic variety? I mean, no one’s interested in seeing him with his clothes on, are they?”
“Jess!” I squeal, but already I feel lighter, like the rain clouds have moved on and settled above someone else’s head.
After Brandon left, I searched for the images on the Internet—they weren’t hard to find. I tried looking at them objectively and without sympathy. He knew what he was doing when he screwed that woman all over her apartment, but I couldn’t stop the anger from crawling into my veins anyway.
I wasn’t even angry at Brandon, at least until my dad came home with his uneaten packed lunch and his framed photograph of Mum in his backpack. I was angry at the world, at the kind of people who seek their pleasure from destroying the lives of others more fortunate than themselves. I was angry at today’s culture of technology and cyber-bullying for making this even possible.
Maybe I did feel a pang of sympathy for him when I agreed to his proposition because I was thinking about the man on the beach with the head wound and the soon-to-materialize hangover from hell. He needed me then, and he needs me now.
“Rose, are you still there?”
“Yes, sorry, I was miles away.”
“Oh, I can imagine. I’m looking at the pictures right now.”
“You are?” Course she is. Did I honestly think that Jess wouldn’t want to see them for herself?
“I asked why you? Of all the women he must know—the one in these images excluded—why did he ask you to marry him? I mean…” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m not in the same league as him?”
“That’s not what I was trying to say, and you know it. I simply meant that you don’t move in the same circles. You never attended a deb ball or dressed up for a red-carpet event. You don’t know these people.”
I swallow as fresh tears spill over my lashes.
“What are you not telling me, Rose? What happened on Ruby Island?”
“I-I might’ve done something else stupid too.”