Bad Engagement (Billionaire's Club #10) - Elise Faber Page 0,49

into a million shards.

And she caught every piece.

Eighteen

Kate

Her friends were glaring at her.

But she found she couldn’t find the energy to care. Not when she had the gloriousness of last night under her belt . . . or rather in her—

“Always the quiet ones,” Heidi said with a smirk.

Kate blushed and quickly shoved away all thoughts of how in Jaime had been.

Cora nudged Kelsey with her elbow. “Put down your phone and ignore Tanner’s lovey-dovey texts. I know he’s awesome and you guys are in luuuuv, but give us single girls a break, mm’kay?”

Kels rolled her eyes but shoved her phone into her pocket. “I was actually texting Angie. She was going to come tonight, but apparently her paper writing isn’t going well.”

Heidi made a face. “You know she likes those hockey girls better than us.”

Kelsey chuckled. “She likes us fine,” she said about their friend who was married to the professional hockey player Max Montgomery and who worked with Kels at RoboTech. Angie had gone back to school to get her master’s degree and while she didn’t hang out as often as the core group of the four of them, hadn’t gelled instantly like she and Heidi and Kels and Cora, Angie was fun and likable and popped in often enough that Kate considered her one of hers. “But it is probably easier for her to hang with the Gold hockey peeps. They’re all on the same schedule and”—Kels’s eyes narrowed onto Kate’s—“there are no fake engagements.”

Kate gulped. “It’s not like that.”

Heidi rolled her eyes. “It’s exactly like that.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “It’s like that a little bit.” She held her finger and thumb up just slightly.

“Are you or are you not engaged?” Kelsey pressed.

It was Kate’s turn to make a face. “I am not.”

“Why is this giving me Pride and Prejudice vibes?” Cora asked. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh comes in and demands to know the status of your engagement to the prideful Mr. Darcy.” Cora fluttered her eyelashes, pretending to swoon back onto the couch. “And our heroine lifts her chin, says in a firm voice, I am not.”

“Dork.” Heidi punched her lightly in the shoulder.

“Yup.” A shrug. “So, what?”

“Okay,” Kelsey said. “I would really like to get back to the whole reason why Kate felt the need to pretend to be engaged to . . .” Her brows drew together. “To who exactly?”

Kate bit her lip, not wanting to say.

Her friends wouldn’t judge her. Okay, they would, but it was out of love. Copious amounts of teasing and a smidge of judgment. But it came less from her friends’ being jerks and more from them wanting the best for her.

Which meant that she understood their reticence with the whole fake engagement thing.

Typically, perpetuating a giant lie to her family with some fantasy guy she’d been lusting over on Instagram wasn’t the most ideal start to a relationship.

But . . . it wasn’t like that.

Not that she had the chance to explain how exactly it wasn’t like that because Heidi took it upon herself to chime in.

“JaimeTheVet,” she chirped.

Cora gasped. “With the man bun?”

Kate shook her head. “He cut it off because he was worried my parents wouldn’t like it.” She shrugged, lips twitching when Kels and Cora gasped. “Then he said he’d been meaning to get around for a haircut but was too busy.”

Cora moaned. “But that hair.” She jokingly swooned again. “So many guys with long hair look gross, like the strands are greasy and tangled and—” She shuddered. “JaimeTheVet’s was . . .”

“Glorious,” Kels said, “and I hate everything about man buns simply on principle.”

Heidi nudged her. “Or maybe it’s because you’re hopeless at doing hair?”

Kels wrinkled her nose. “Maybe that, too.” She turned back, pinned Kate in place with a stern look. “But that doesn’t explain why. Why pretend? You’re a smart, capable woman who could easily date someone for real and—”

“My mom was going to set me up again.” Kate sighed. “And I tried to put her off, but you know about how well that works.” She rolled her eyes, shook her head. Her mom was a force unto herself, and while Kate loved her, of course, sometimes doing battle with her felt like standing in front of an oncoming train and trying to deviate it from its tracks.

A.K.A. it wouldn’t work, and she was going to get crushed.

“Doesn’t explain Mr. JaimeTheVet,” Cora pointed out.

Kate knew that. “I just . . . panicked and blurted I was engaged. My mom got excited. Like really