Page 34 of Wrong Room, Right Billionaire

“Nobody?” he asks, taking his phone back and studying it. “Well, nobody is leaving your suite. And nobody looks a little walk-of-shame-ish if you know what I’m sayin’.”

“Like everyone else, you should mind your own damn business,” I tell him.

“Morgan Bale blowing off steam in all the best ways. Morgan Bale goes to new lengths to make sure guest satisfaction is a five out of five. Morgan Bale hasn’t lost his touch after all,” Conrad is literally reading the headlines back to me. “I don’t know if you know how family business works, brother, but this is kind of my business. Because it’s going to affect our business.”

Conrad is pissed, obviously. And yet he is smirking. Of course he is. Because this fiasco works directly in his favor.

“My lawyer is going to eat this for breakfast. No leftovers,” he chuckles. “Who knew my angsty big brother was a fuckboy?”

“I am not a fuckboy,” I grit out every word.

“Then who is she?” he asks.

Why I say the words that come out of my mouth next, I couldn’t tell you. But I do. And like everything else that’s happened in the last month, I can’t take any of it back.

“She’s my girlfriend,” I state, and I swear I hear Donovan’s jaw hit the floor. But I hold face.

“Girlfriend?” Conrad scoffs. “You don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, and he studies me. My stone face jacks his arrogance down a notch, and I swear to God he looks a little bit nervous. “Since when?”

“A while now. I’ve kept it private. But it is serious. She and I are serious.”

“How serious?” he asks.

And since I am already in over my head, I say, “I’m planning on proposing.”

Conrad’s jaw goes slack. Then he glares at me before storming out. And the tension in the room deflates like a balloon.

“What the hell are you doing?” Donovan asks before sinking into a chair.

“Relationship clause,” I tell him. “In our parents’ will. While they hoped we would run Bale Resorts together, with neither of us dominating over the other, there is a relationship clause. If either of us were to be married…”

“You’d unofficially have the CEO position,” he says, and I nod.

“And while that doesn’t necessarily mean a lawsuit can’t change any of that, it does give me an edge.”

“True. True.” He nods, standing back up again. “Except now you have two hurdles to bound. Making sure Scarlett actually accepts the job and convincing her to play along with this charade.”

Right.

I have thought about that…in the thirty seconds I’ve had to think about it. It’s a sticky situation for sure. And yet. I have a gut feeling it’s going to work in my favor.

Chapter 11

Scarlett

I walked away.

I walked away without accepting what could be the most life-changing job I have ever been offered. And why? Because I’m stubborn. Because Morgan Bale challenged every sliver of dignity I have. And I am not about men like that.

Even if they are capable of altering the very state of my soul in the sack.

“Which is also why I walked out!” I say to myself as I compare the cost of apples at the grocery store later that day. I am back to playing Russian Roulette with my groceries. I should have just thanked him for the offer and taken it. And yet. I couldn’t bring myself to sink that low.

“He doesn’t even know who you are,” I mutter as I shove five apples into a bag and toss them into my cart. In a word, I’m butthurt because I have never let someone in like that. I have never talked to anyone the way we talked that night at the hotel, not a man, anyways. And I’ve certainly never had sex like that.

I sigh and continue my lap around the grocery store, playing a fun little game of how to get a week’s worth of groceries for under twenty dollars. Because that’s all I’ve got. After paying my phone bill and the minimum on my one credit card (which is getting a little scary balance-wise and something I said I’d never allow) that is what I will have left. And that’s if I can get Jaque to give me a little breathing room on my rent. Again. For the third time.

“It’ll work out,” I say as I push my grocery cart through the store. I got one of the small ones because God knows there’s nothing I could buy with twenty dollars that would fill the big cart. Not unless I got a hundred packages of ramen…which I could do. Of course, I’d need a bottle of MiraLAX too.