Fake Married to My Billionaire CEO novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Couch

The chapel vows go through with her guests clapping, and her new husband sleeps on her couch with a made-up job. Dean texts an invitation to the hotel where she works.

We got married at 7:40 that night, in the same chapel, with the same plastic roses.

The officiant was a retired Elvis with a bad knee, and he did not ask a single question.

My mother cried into three tissues.

My cousins held up their phones.

Rafferty said his vows in a low, even voice.

"I promise to show up. I promise to fix your sink. I promise not to take what isn't mine."

I looked at him hard after that last line.

Whatever he was hiding, he meant that part.

I said mine without thinking.

"I promise to never let you pay for a watch I'm going to hate."

The room laughed, and Rafferty's mouth moved at one corner.

Then the Elvis told him to kiss his bride.

It was supposed to be a peck for the guests.

He put one hand under my jaw, slowly.

I didn't leave.

His mouth was warm and certain, and for three seconds I forgot there were thirty-eight people in the pews.

When we pulled apart, my mother was fanning herself with the program.

"Well," she said. "He's better than the last one."

We ate the cake in the reception room, all of it, because I had paid for it.

Dean did not come back.

At ten o'clock my mother hugged Rafferty for a long time and whispered something in his ear.

I never found out what, but he nodded gravely.

My apartment is in Henderson, on the second floor, with a balcony that faces a parking lot.

I live on a hotel front desk salary, so it is small and very clean.

Rafferty stood in the doorway holding a duffel bag.

"Nice place," he said.

"It's a one-bedroom. You're on the couch."

"I figured."

"Don't look so relieved."

"I'm not relieved," he said. "I'm polite."

I took a blanket out of the hall closet and threw it at him.

He caught it one-handed.

I sat on the arm of the sofa in my wedding dress, barefoot, with a hairpin stuck in my scalp.

"Okay," I said. "Explain."

He sat down and rubbed his eyebrow with the scar.

"I drive a catering van. I'm between jobs. I've been staying on a friend's couch."

It was a good lie, plain and small.

His hands were too clean for a van, and his jacket had a Swiss tailor's tag stitched inside the collar.

I had worked a hotel desk for four years.

I knew what a man's shoes cost when he walked past me.

"And why did you stand up in that chapel?"

"My aunt wants me married by Sunday."

I blinked.

"To someone she picked. A woman with the right father. I've been dodging her for a year."

"So I'm your excuse."

"You're my excuse," he said. "And I'm the only person who laughed at that man's watch."

"I'm not a mark," I said, before I could stop myself.

He leaned back at once.

"I know that. I'll pay you for Sunday. Whatever you want."

"I don't want money."

"Everybody wants money."

"I want forty-one thousand, two hundred dollars," I said.

"It's mine already. And I want Dean to say what he did, out loud, in front of people who know me."

For a moment he just looked at me.

Then he nodded, once.

"That's a better price than I expected."

"It's not a price. It's a debt."

"Then I'll help you collect."

"You drive a catering van."

"I know a guy," he said.

He had no idea how badly I wanted to laugh.

I got up before I did and went to the bedroom to peel off the dress.

I got stuck in the zipper, naturally.

I stood in the dark with my arms behind my back and my face hot.

"Rafferty?"

He was in the doorway in under a second.

He did not turn on the light.

His fingers worked the zipper down inch by careful inch, and I felt every one of them at the bottom of my spine.

"Thank you," I said.

"Good night, Mrs. Wexley," he said.

Then he stopped.

"Mrs. Dvorak," he said. "Whatever you want to be called."

I had never in my life been given the choice.

I lay awake listening to him settle on my couch.

At two in the morning I heard the faucet in my kitchen go quiet.

The sink had been dripping for eight months, and I'd never reported it to the landlord.

At six, my phone buzzed on the pillow.

It was a message from an unknown number.

"Congrats on the husband, Lace. Come to the Wexley at noon. I'll give you something back."

I sat up and read it again.

Dean was staying at my hotel.

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