“Oh yeah,” she said, shining a spotlight on my nerves. “I saw the show outside the window. Why don’t you fill me in on the gorgeous hunk you’re secretly dating? Because he sure looks a lot like the billionaire, Marcus Taylor, to me.”
“I’m not dating Marcus Taylor. I took the job he offered me,” I said. “He’s giving me twenty thousand dollars.”
“That’s awesome!”
“I knew I needed the money. I’ll take care of the rent.”
Her jaw dropped. “Thanks, girl.”
“It’s a great acting gig. And I couldn’t say no.”
“You get paid to pucker up to a gorgeous guy like Marcus? Wow! Great perks come along with your job package.” She cocked her head. “But that lip-lock out there, it didn’t look like acting.”
&nb
sp; I winked. “Now you know what a damn good actress I truly am.”
“Damn straight!”
Chapter 14
“Marcus…fucking…billionaire…Taylor.”
I shook my head as Amanda said the words for the hundredth time. It was now the early hours of the morning. The initial “scary” part of the interrogation had passed some hours ago, and we were well into the aftershocks. We’d pulled out my comforter and were lying on our backs, a bag of popcorn between us, with our heads sticking out onto the balcony—listening to the sounds of the city as we gazed up at the fading moon.
All at once, Amanda collapsed into a fit of giggles, her voice barely audible through the sound. “Marcus…I’m-fucking-a-billionaire…Taylor.”
“Would you stop?” I demanded, smacking her in the arm. “We’re not having sex.”
“…yet.”
“Ever.”
She shook her head, gazing lovestruck up at the stars. It truly didn’t matter what I said to her at this point; she was too far gone.
“It’s like a movie—or some show we’d watch on Lifetime.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is nothing more than a job. There’s no romance fantasy here. When are you going to get that? Besides, even if we did fuck the entire time, he’d just dump me when this was all over. Because that’s what players do. They conquer, and then move on to the next pretty thing. And I don’t want to be his latest conquest. And I don’t want to fall for the biggest player on the planet.”
I opened a magazine and looked at all the girls Marcus had dated. The article showed all his love interests. He had dated models, a surgeon, singers, heiresses to massive fortunes, and even a famous actress and author. He was definitely out of my league, that was for sure.
“No, this could be a movie.” Amanda ignored me completely, lost in her daydream. “The kind of movie where the guy comes to his senses and falls for the much more relatable, much prettier best friend. You know,” she shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth, “that kind of movie.”
“They already made that movie. I think it’s called The Craft. Everybody dies.”
“What?” She buried her head in a pillow and giggled furiously. “That’s not a thing.” She resurfaced a moment later, pink-faced and pleased. “But I guess it would never work out between me and the billionaire. What would I tell Barry?”
“Barry?” I began with confusion. “I thought we didn’t like Barry?”
She looked shocked. “Why wouldn’t we like Barry?”
“He came over for breakfast; he fucked with your sleep cycle?”
Men had been dismissed for far less.
“We love him.” Her whole face seemed to warm as she said it, and for the first time, I brought myself to attention and took note.
“Really?” Someone who got the popcorn-under-the-stars love description? I would have to keep track of him. “Okay…Barry.”