The Billionaire's Fake Fiancee - Lauren Wood Page 0,31

her number.

“Hey!” she answered almost immediately. “Thanks so much for getting back to me.”

I ignored the wash of happiness I felt from hearing her voice. “Yeah, I am kind of in the middle of something. What’s up?”

“Of course, I won’t keep you long. The thing is … I kind of have another favor to ask of you,” she explained. “I hate to even have to ask, but there are some benefits in it this time. At least there are for Olivia.”

“Kate … ” I replied slowly. “I know how desperate you are to pull this thing off with your job, but … I really can’t keep … ”

“No, I know,” she cut me off. “I know you’ve done more than enough. So have Joey and Angel for going along with this whole thing. But there’s this toy testing group we’re conducting as research for our pitches to Nesters Toy Company. Greg asked us to bring our own kids to participate because he thought we could better gauge reactions with kids we actually know. I would have made up some excuse to get out of it, but the thing is … Olivia would get to spend the afternoon playing with all of these fun toys and then at the end she gets to keep her favorite ones. I just thought … well, I thought it sounded like a lot of fun for her, and I really want to be able to give something back to all of you for helping. Especially her,” she laughed softly. “Even though she’s had no clue what’s been going on this whole time.”

I quietly considered it for a moment, weighing the pros and cons, when she chimed in again. “Please, Ben. Would you bring Olivia? If not, I can say she’s sick or something. But I really want to do this for her. And since I have spent some time around her, it really would be some interesting feedback for the products.”

“Free toys, huh?” I responded finally. “I guess I’d hate to be the grouch that denied free toys to my favorite little girl.”

“So you’ll do it!?”

“I’ll talk to Joey and Angel about it. Text me the details, okay? I gotta run.”

She was letting out a long string of frantic ‘thank you’s’ as I hung up the phone. As I returned to the party, I kept reminding myself … this was entirely about getting some free swag for Olivia, and had absolutely nothing to do with seeing Kate again. I was completely indifferent to all things Kate.

13

Kate

Work had turned into a welcome distraction from any lingering icky feelings about everything that had happened with Ben and I. And I really was prepared to never see him again. But I couldn’t deny the swell of excitement I felt with the excuse to see him again, even if that wasn’t my main motivation in inviting them along.

I was buzzing through the building to get everything ready for the toy testing group when I passed Chuck in the hallway. I tried to bolt right past him, but of course he wasn’t going to let me off that easily.

“Kate! Is everything all set up in the playroom?” he asked.

Even though Chuck and Greg were supposed to be some kind of kid experts since they had families of their own, somehow I still got roped into fixing up the room for the kids and the new line of toys that Nesters had sent over.

“Yep! It’s all ready to go,” I replied, trying to breeze right past him. “I’m just on my way out to meet Ben and Olivia now and show them in. Is Diane already here with your kiddos?”

A strange look washed over his face. “Oh yeah. My wife and kids are here and ready to play. So Ben’s really here?”

I wrinkled my brow. “Yeah, he’s really here. Why wouldn’t he be?”

He flashed an arrogant grin. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe because it’s obvious this whole thing is something you’ve concocted to get the promotion.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Kate. Drop the act,” he scoffed. “You might have Greg and everyone else fooled, but I’m onto you. In all the years you’ve been working at this firm, you’ve hardly even dated. Now you so conveniently pop up with a fiancé and a kid that none of us heard about before.”

“I’m a private person,” I defended. “Just because I don’t sit around the break room rambling on about my personal life doesn’t mean I don’t have one.”

“Riiight,” he said slowly. “You can lie up one way and down the other. But I know there’s something fishy about