“It doesn’t matter. I’m not playing this game.”
He went quiet for a moment, then sighed.
“Okay.”
I frowned, suspicious.
“Okay? Just like that?”
He shrugged.
“Only thing is, I still have an important event next weekend. A business trip. And now, everyone expects my fiancée to be with me.”
“I’m sorry, but…”
“You could come with me, just to see how this dynamic works.”
“Christian, no.”
“Just a few days.”
“No!”
He looked me straight in the eyes and said exactly what I didn’t want to hear.
“I’ll pay you.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times before a disbelieving laugh escaped me. It came out weaker than I wanted.
“You think you can buy me?!”
The irony of my outrage didn’t escape me. I had done exactly the same thing when I hired a gigolo to be my fake fiancé. But this was different. I wasn’t a call girl.
“Your father…” he began, and my spine stiffened.
“What about my father?”
Christian sighed, like he already knew I wasn’t going to like what came next.
“He has a large debt. Very large.”
My hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms.
“I know that.”
My family had been struggling with it for months. The late bills, the cutbacks, the hushed conversations my parents thought we couldn’t hear. I still remembered the defeated look on my dad’s face coming home late at night after yet another failed attempt to fix things.
So what the hell did Christian Kensington have to do with it?
“The real question is: how do you know that?” I asked, my voice sharp.
He looked at me, calm. Too calm for someone about to drop a bomb in my lap.
“I investigated.”
My head spun.
“You WHAT?!”
“Zoey, do you really think I’d propose marriage without knowing exactly who I was dealing with?” He crossed his arms. “When your name exploded in the media, people started digging. Your family’s past, your jobs, your finances. And I had to know exactly what they could find.”
My stomach turned. I felt exposed, vulnerable, like he’d stripped me bare against my will.
“You hired someone to investigate my family?!”
He gave a half-smile.
“Technically, I just requested a report. But long story short… your father is caught up in a messy lawsuit. If he loses, your family could lose the house too.”
For a moment, my vision darkened. My knees buckled, and I had to grip the kitchen counter to steady myself. I knew things were bad. I knew they were getting worse. But I didn’t know we were one step away from losing everything.
Christian just watched me, waiting for reality to sink in. And it did. My stomach plummeted, taking my pride, my dignity, my strength with it.
“You’re saying if I agree to this trip, you’ll fix it?”
He didn’t blink.
“Exactly.”
I stayed silent.
Anger, frustration, panic-all tangled up inside me. I didn’t want to be part of this madness. But the thought of watching my parents lose their house, after everything they’d already been through, was worse.
Christian stepped closer, his eyes locked on mine, like he already knew he’d won. And then, he spoke the final words that pushed me right over the edge, “So… what do you say?”
Christian gazed at me intensely, his eyes full of confidence. Like he already knew the answer. Like he’d calculated every single move in this bizarre game that, somehow, we were both playing.
But before I could respond, there was something I needed to know.
“Why did you leave?” I asked, my voice lower than I intended.
He frowned, clearly confused.
“What?”
“That morning. At the hotel. You…” I swallowed hard, hating the vulnerability bleeding into my words. “You just left. Didn’t even say goodbye.”
Something flickered in his gaze. Guilt? Regret? Whatever it was, it disappeared so fast I couldn’t pin it down.
“I had a meeting,” he said, evasive.
“At seven in the morning. On a Saturday?” I arched a brow.
“It wasn’t personal, Zoey.”
Three simple words. But they hit me like a slap. Not personal. Of course it wasn’t. Why would it be? What happened between us was just fun for him, a way to kill time. And I’d been stupid enough to feel something more.
Elise’s voice echoed in my head, “You’ve never had anything special.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I really was just a side character in other people’s lives.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.