Billionaires Dollar Series

Liam pretends to shiver. “Christ, but that got me hard.”

I laugh, looking around. No one is close enough to have overheard. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Learned from the best.” He tugs my hand more firmly into place and pulls me along richly decorated rooms and out to the patio. The early summer air is hovering between chilly and warm, like it can’t quite make up its mind.

Liam nods hello to a few people I don’t recognize, but we don’t stop moving, not until he’s found the bar.

I’m smiling over the glass of champagne he hands me. “This is where we were rushing to?”

“Never mingle without a glass in your hand,” he advises me. “I’ve learnt that the hard way.”

And I’ve learnt that he feels most comfortable with a glass in his hand, too, something I don’t point out as I watch his eyes scan the crowd. Liam the investor, Liam the mingler, Liam the playboy.

My eyes scan the crowd just the same. “I don’t see Albert Walker anywhere.”

“He’s here, somewhere.” Liam takes a sip of his champagne. “There’s Nick. We should go say hello.”

“Nick?” I shake my head in thanks to a waiter holding out a tray of bruschetta-bruschetta from Marco’s, a recipe I’ve made a million times over.

“One of the owners of Porter, Park and Carter. This is technically his wedding celebration.”

“It’s his what?” I hasten to keep up at his side. “This is a wedding party?”

“In the loosest sense of the word,” Liam says. He stops next to a man of similar height with darkly cropped hair and eyes that could only be described as striking. A few years older than us, perhaps.

“Liam,” the man says. “You managed to tear yourself away from the screens?”

“Couldn’t miss this celebration,” Liam replies, raising an eyebrow. “I take it this wasn’t your idea?”

The man-has to be Nicholas Park-groans. “No. Nor was it my wife’s, surprised as you might be. Cole is unstoppable when he has an excuse to throw a party.”

Liam snorts. “Do you think he has a Great Gatsby complex?”

Nick’s smile is all teeth. “I knew hiring you was a good move.”

“Happy to oblige.” Liam’s hand drifts to my lower back, to the spot that feels increasingly empty when his hand isn’t there. “Madison, this is Nick, Nick, Madison.”

I extend a hand to the man in front of me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

“Likewise.” The shake of his hand is firm, the glint in his eyes curious. “So this is the… arrangement I’ve heard so much about?”

“From Ethan?”

“And Cole,” Nick says, raising a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I don’t have a single word of reproach. You do what you have to.”

Reproach?

So Ethan hadn’t reacted well to our little ruse, then. A pang of guilt in my stomach, the same one I’d felt when Liam and I spoke about it last, floods through me.

“My thoughts exactly,” Liam says, raising his glass to Nick’s. The look they share is half-devil, half-wolf. United in the aim of profit and business.

I swallow against the dryness of my throat. Working in the kitchen is stressful. It makes my back and feet ache after long hours. But it’s damn easy in terms of morals, and I suddenly long for the simplicity of good produce and people to serve.

One last hurrah.

“There’s my wife now,” Nick says, nodding to a throng of people across the lawn. “Two weeks, and I still haven’t gotten used to the word.”

“She’s drawing a crowd,” Liam comments. My eyes narrow in on the blonde in the silver dress, her hands moving as she talks animatedly to those around her.

I’ve seen her before-that’s Cole’s sister Blair, who works in fashion. Alma showed me an outfit she wore once, telling me she was considering buying a similar-looking jacket.

My hand tightens on the champagne flute. Yeah, the kitchen might have knives and heat, but it’s much safer.

“A pleasure meeting you.” Nick nods to me before striding off, pausing only to grab a salmon puff from a tray.

Liam’s voice grows tight. “Incoming in five, four, three…”

I turn my head just in time to see a face, familiar in the square jaw and high cheekbones, an older version of the man I’m standing beside. “Ethan?”

His eyes narrow as he looks at me, piercing green. Then recognition floods through them. “Maddie?”

“It’s me. Gosh, it’s been years. How are you?”

“I’m excellent.” His gaze flickers to his brother’s above me, and that’s when I realize that Liam never told him his fake fiancée was me. “I wasn’t aware you’d be here tonight.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Liam says.

Ethan frowns, but the eyes that return to mine are the same I remember. Controlled, warm, stable. They might be the same color as Liam’s, but I’ve never seen them flash and deepen like his.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Maddie. How are your parents? They still live out in Fairfield?”

“They’re great. Really impressed by you, by the way. They mention it to me every time they’ve read something in the papers.”

His smile is crooked, genuine fondness there, even as his eyes flick back to his brother. “Tell them I said hi?”

“I will, absolutely.”

“I’m sorry my brother pulled you into this idiotic scheme of his.”

Liam snorts. “Idiotic? It’s worked, hasn’t it?”

“Not every action can be judged by its outcome.”

“You sound like a Jedi,” Liam says. “Or a book of motivational proverbs.”

“Albert Walker is here, at this very party, and you decided this would be a good time to tempt fate yet again?”

“Yes, I thought it a perfect opportunity. It’s the last he’ll see of us before we peacefully break up. Maybe we’ll even throw in a little lover’s quarrel.” Liam’s voice deepens. “And do you know what I don’t need? You, forgetting that I’m no longer twelve and intimidated by a lecture.”