Chapter 12: Founders' Night

The Wexley Ballroom held four hundred people on Saturday night, and all of them turned to look when we walked in.

I wore the green gown I'd paid for myself.

Rafferty wore a black tuxedo and his mother's wedding band on a chain inside his collar, where only I could see it.

He held my hand at the top of the stairs.

"Last chance to run," he said.

"I don't run in heels."

The room was gold and white, with a stage at one end and a screen taller than a house.

On the stage stood a brass plaque on a velvet stand, a copy of the one in the lobby.

FOUNDED BY THE WEXLEY FAMILY, it said, in the same raised letters I polished every morning.

I walked down the stairs with my chin up.

Odessa met us at the bottom in black silk and pearls.

"You came," she said.

"You asked for proof."

"I did." She looked at the green gown, at the way I held my husband's arm. "I don't see any yet."

"Give it an hour," Rafferty said.

For forty minutes it went well.

Sinead found me at the bar and pressed a champagne flute into my hand without a word.

"Your husband's been trying not to look at you all night," she said. "It's embarrassing for the rest of us."

"You don't mind?"

"Mind? I've been seated next to him for eleven years. He talks about hotel carpets." She sipped. "He talks about you like a person."

Rafferty danced with her once, because Odessa made him.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Fake Married to My Billionaire CEO from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.