The Billionaire's Secretly Fake Bride (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 3) Read online

  “No, but I think if you’ve still got his number then maybe you should call the guy and check it out. I mean, really… what could it hurt? If he’s being straight with you, then a short and fast marriage for a million bucks isn’t a terrible idea, you know.” Marie sounded as if she was being serious and it surprised Regina.

  “You must be kidding.” Regina told her, wondering if her best friend had lost her mind.

  “No, I’m not kidding. Think about this. If he’s really rich and he’s really looking for someone to marry him for money; just a quick marriage, it might not be a bad thing to actually consider. I mean, people get divorced when they say they’ve gotten married for love and they aren’t planning the end of it when they tie the knot. If he’s serious and you two tie the knot for money with every intention of getting divorced, then it’s really more like a business plan, isn’t it?

  You might as well look at this like a job and think about taking him up on it if he’s serious. You’d certainly never have to worry about money again. You should at least look into it and give it a try.” Marie definitely sounded as if she meant every word that she was saying.

  “Wow… you’re serious.” Regina was surprised. “Well, if I looked at it like a legitimate offer then I guess it would be something like a business arrangement.” She began to wonder what it would be like if the guy had been serious. What if he was truly a billionaire and he was looking for someone to hire as a stand-in wife and marry him just so that he could get his inheritance. She would just be there long enough to marry him, make sure he got whatever he had coming to him, and then she’d be free to leave, and she’d have a million dollars. If it was true, but she was fairly sure that it wasn’t.

  “I think it might be at least worth looking into. I mean… what if he’s really serious about it? Could you actually turn down a million dollars if it was real? I wouldn’t want to lose that chance if it was me, and you could definitely use the money. Think about that,” Marie told her earnestly.

  With a sigh, Regina acquiesced. “You know what, you’re right. I at least owe it to myself to see if he was actually serious. I’m sure he’s not, because it’s honestly the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but truth is stranger than fiction, and you’re right. I’m in no position to be turning down money right now. At least, not if it’s legitimate and real. I guess I should find his number and call him. Maybe give him a chance and see what happens.”

  “I think that’s a smart move. You’re probably right, and he’s probably just some nut case who wants to get you into bed and is trying to come up with a seriously unique and weird way to do it, but if he’s not, you can’t take the risk that for this one time, truth is stranger than fiction and you could get a million dollars.” Marie giggled a little.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Regina agreed with her. “I’d better at least try. I’d be no worse off than I am right now and at best I would be a millionaire for the easiest job ever.”

  “If you become a millionaire, I expect you to buy me dinner for talking you into this job in the first place.” Marie laughed out loud.

  Lightness crept into Regina’s heart where despair and darkness had been. “Dinner? Marie, if I become a millionaire we’re going to Hawaii, and I’m buying.”

  Marie laughed again. “That’s a deal!”

  “I’m going to see if I can find his number and give him a call. I’ll let you know what happens,” Regina told her with a genuine smile forming on her lips. “And Marie, thank you so much. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “You would have failed at becoming a millionaire. I’m always going to be here for you, sister, no matter how much money you have. Now go poke that guy and see what’s really going on.” Marie

  “I’m on it.” They told each other good night and ended their call. Regina felt a million times better than she had when she’d first dialed the number. Maybe there was a miracle in her future and she wouldn’t be facing the nightmare that lay between her elbows on the table.

  Reaching down to her bag, she unzipped the inside pocket and pulled out the small wad of cash tips she had made the night before and a few pieces of paper with phone numbers on them. She nearly always went home with a few men’s phone numbers each night she worked, and they all ended up in the trash can, every single time.

  She sorted through them and pushed the other numbers away, leaving only the possible one before her. His name was printed on a card in bold letters. Ryder Carrington. Beneath it was his phone number.

  Holding her breath, without even really thinking about it as her nerves danced wildly, she slid her fingertip over the screen of her cell phone and prayed that she was about to be granted a miracle.

  Chapter5

  The phone rang five times and she began to feel silly for calling him. She was just about to hang up when he answered and her breath caught as her heart practically stopped in her chest before it began to pound hard.

  “Hello?” he asked lightly. She could tell he had no idea who was calling, and she realized that he couldn’t have known because she hadn’t given him her number.

  “Hi.” she began nervously. She was uncertain of what to say, but she did her best to sound more confident than she felt. “This is Regina. I was looking for Ryder Carrington, please.” She asked, though fairly certain that it was him on the other end of the line.

  “This is Ryder.”

  “Oh…” She felt stumped again. “You gave me your phone number last night. I was working at the club. You and your friend talked with me about a business offer. I thought I would talk with you a little more about the offer if you are still looking for help.” Her heart was thumping so loudly that she was sure there was no way he couldn’t hear it.

  Silence answered her for a long uncomfortable moment that felt as if it was stretching out into eternity. She was just beginning to wonder if she should say anything else as the silence was becoming awkward when he finally spoke.

  Ryder hadn’t been expecting her to call him. She had sounded so absolutely positive about turning him down that he had been thinking of other women to talk with about Taylor’s crazy scheme. He was more than a little shocked to hear her voice on the other end of the line. Blinking in surprise, he was suddenly awash with mixed feelings.

  The first was a wave of elation that she had called; much to his amazement, he was genuinely happy to hear from her, and happy that she had called him. Right on the heels of that happiness came a rush of panic that made his heart pound like an anvil, and the panic transformed into sheer dread.

  If she was calling to talk with him about his offer, it meant that she was seriously considering it, and if she was considering it, that meant that there was a very real possibility that he might be getting married in the immediate future. The very notion of his getting married to anyone, paid employee or not, was enough to momentarily paralyze him with horror.

  The silence between them on the phone call grew heavy and something in the back of his mind clicked and he realized that he needed to speak with her and say something.

  “Uh… Regina! Right… I’m… I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting your call. You caught me a little off guard.” He realized that he was fumbling horribly and his mind scrambled trying to come up with intelligent conversation.

  “I’m glad you called, don’t misunderstand me, but I just wasn’t expecting it.” He took a deep breath in and tried to focus his mind a little better.

  “Oh!” She was relieved to hear that he was only surprised and not unhappy to hear from her. “Is this a good time to talk?” she asked, wondering if he was busy.

  “Yes, it’s fine.” He answered, feeling a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He was going to have to find some kind of peace with the fact that if he wanted to get his father off of his back and be given his inheritance, he was going to have to find someone to marry, and it may very well be the woman at the other end of the phone call.

  He was sorting through his thoughts as quickly as he could, a
nd he came up with the best idea possible for him at that moment. “I would like to talk with you about this idea. What would you say to dinner? We could meet and discuss it all.” He felt his chest tighten and his nerve endings tingle as he asked her out, and it seemed completely foreign and strange to him that he was nervous about taking anyone out on a date, even a business date, and particularly a woman.

  He knew that he shouldn’t have been nervous at all. She was a woman. All women loved him and adored him. It was a simple fact, a reality in his life. He was beautiful and charming and they gushed over him. He had never felt nervous asking any of them to spend time with him, yet there he was, feeling palpitations and a little anxiety, just over the mere mention of meeting Regina for a meal to discuss a business concept with her.

  A business concept that involved the two of them getting married. He told himself that it was no wonder at all that he was nervous, and he tried to force himself to let go of it and find some calm and peace.

  She was feeling just as nervous as he was. To begin with, she couldn’t even believe that she was on the phone call with him. She wondered more than once if she had lost her mind and if it was even real at all, but every time she doubted herself, she looked down at the eviction notice on her table and the big stack of overdue bills beside it and she told herself that she at least owed it to herself to see if he was serious and if she really could make any money at all.

  “I think that would be fine except that I don’t have time to meet you for dinner. I have to be at work.” She heard courage in her voice that she did not feel in herself and wondering where in the world it had come from.

  Blinking again, he stroked his fingers over his chin thoughtfully. “I could come by the bar.” He offered, sure that it would be a viable solution.

  She sighed in frustration but tried to hide it from him as best she could. “I can’t talk with you while I’m working,” she said in an even tone. He had to be realistic, there was no way she could stop working to talk with him about it in detail. She couldn’t even believe she’d had the time to listen to him tell her about the offer to begin with, when he had been at the bar with Taylor.

  “Hmm.” He began thinking it through some more. “Is there any other time this week that you have to visit? I could try to change my schedule around.”

  “No.” She felt as if the weight of failure was beginning to press down upon her again.

  “Well, we’re going to need to figure something out. We can’t really talk about it on the telephone. This is definitely something we should discuss in person.” He thought over his schedule again and again trying to think of a time when they could meet, but he kept running into the same mental road blocks.

  She sighed deeply and shook her head, pressing her palm down on her leg. “You know what, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even called. This sounds like it just isn’t going to work at all. I just don’t have the time to meet with you to even talk about it. Thank you for the offer, though. Best of luck with it. Goodbye.”

  Regina ended the call and set her phone on the table, dropping her face into her hands. She realized that there wasn’t going to be a way out of it. She had no time to meet with him. She had no time to meet with anyone. She was working and she couldn’t talk with him about it at work, and she was going to school and she definitely couldn’t talk with him about it there. She was at a total loss for time. It had crossed her mind to ask for time off, but she knew that she couldn’t even get that. There was no way around it; no feasible possibility. She felt silly knowing she had even called him to begin with, wasting his time and her own.

  She pushed herself away from the table and headed to her little bathroom to get ready for work. A little while later she was praying hard behind the steering wheel of her car, determined to make it get her to her job.

  Regina walked through the back door of the strip club in her mini skirt and fitted half tank top. She had been told by her boss to show some skin but not too much as the dancers were there to show their bodies, and she was there to serve drinks and keep the customers happy. He wanted her to be appealing to them without taking attention away from the dancers.

  He had offered to get her up on the stage and he told her that she could be making a good deal more money if she danced and peeled her clothes off for all of the men and sometimes women who came in to drink and gape, but she just couldn’t make herself do it.

  She told herself over and over that she wasn’t there for that kind of a job; she was getting an education in college so that she could work in business, and while she had no problem with the strippers who did dance around her, she didn’t want to become one. She didn’t want to get caught up in their world and begin making a career out of dancing. She wanted to earn her tips as a cocktail waitress and get herself through school, and at some point, leaving her cocktail waitressing days behind her.

  She saw that business was slow when she came out of the back and headed to the bar where Garrett was cleaning glasses. He looked up at her and gave her a big smile as well as an affectionate hug when she reached him. She pulled up a stool, crossing her arms and resting them on the bar.

  “How’s my girl today?” he asked, looking her over from the chin up. “You look tired. Don’t tell me, you didn’t get any sleep last night, right?”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t really get much sleep last night, but that’s my own fault. I’m trying to do too much.”

  He studied her face and her eyes carefully. “What else is it?” he asked, probing a little deeper as he gazed at her.

  She never could seem to hide anything from him. Regina climbed up on a bar stool and sat across from Garrett, looking at him as she spoke. “Well, remember the guy who wanted to pay me to marry him?”

  Garrett chuckled. “Yes. Carrington, the Manhattan billionaire who wants his inheritance.” He picked up a glass tumbler and began to wipe it out with a white towel as he did dishes behind the bar.

  “I guess that’s him. Well, things are a little tough for me right now and I got to thinking about the offer that he made. It would be a really good offer for me. If it’s legitimate. I was going to meet with him and see if he was serious and if it’s really a genuine thing that I could do. I called him and we tried to work it out, but we’re both busy and I just don’t have the time to do it.

  Between work and school, it was just too much and there’s no free time for me to even meet with him to find out if it’s actually the real deal. It’s bothering me so much. I’m under a huge amount of stress right now. My bills are piling up and I can’t seem to get ahead enough to pay them, and on top of all of that, I just got an eviction notice. I have to be out of my place or pay my back rent and the back rent is seventeen hundred dollars.

  There’s just no way I can do that. It seemed like this was the best way that I could come up with some money fast, but if I can’t even find the time to meet with him to make it work, then it’s not a viable solution, if it’s even a real solution.” She rolled her eyes and dropped her head down into her arms.

  Garrett offered her a genuinely sympathetic frown. “I am sorry to hear that. That’s tough news. I would give you more time here, but you just asked for an extra night off a week. I’m guessing that one night doesn’t make much of a difference if your bills are stacking up and your rent is that far past due.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t really make that much of a difference, no. Unfortunately. I wish it did. I’d do the extra night a week and try to figure out the homework, but it’s just far too much and not nearly enough. I hate being caught in the middle of that. It feels like there’s no way out of it. It’s a never-ending cycle of failure. There has to be some kind of relief somehow, doesn’t there? Some light at the end of this dark tunnel?”

  He sighed. “I wish there was, pumpkin, but you know what, I’m not even sure of that myself and I’m not going to stand here and blow sunshine up your skirt and tell you that the road ahead is going to be better and sunnier and that you’ll
make it through this somehow. That’s just a bunch of crap unless there’s a plan and some serious action, and if what you’re doing right now isn’t working, then you need to change it and find a way to make it work. There has to be a solution somehow, someway.”

  Regina groaned and nodded. “I’m sure there is. I just have to find it. I should have known that anything like a billionaire offering me a million dollars for a crazy job like being his wife was just too good to be true. It is, and I shouldn’t have thought that I could do it. I feel silly for even calling him.”

  “Don’t feel silly. It was a try, and that’s a good thing. At least you tried.” Garrett gave her a smile.

  “Thank you, Garrett.” She smiled back at him. “I better get back to work. These guys aren’t going to tip me anything if I don’t bring their drinks to them.”

  She got back onto her feet and got to work. It grew busier during the night and she did alright with her tips; about average for what she usually made, and though she normally would have felt a little better about it, she was dejected inside all night and the tips did nothing to lighten it. She was weighed down by the burden of her debts and by the sinking feeling that it just wasn’t going to get any better and that there was no way out of her hole in the foreseeable future.