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I nodded, lips pursed. When Ezra had given me the card, I hadn’t really known what to think about it. “It does.”
Sure, I’d taken money from him already— a quite large amount. And he’d made sure to explain to me how much I would be getting at the end of all of this, but it still felt odd to take a credit card from him.
“This is a black card,” she said. “These have no spending limit.”
I nodded. A year ago, I had the same card in my old name. Even then, I rarely used it for anything other than clothing since I rarely left the house.
“It has your name on it.”
I nodded. “No clue. I’m assuming that he’s a priority customer at the bank.” I’d had money for most of my life, and I knew how that made people treat you.
“How does this make you feel?”
I took the card that Julia had laid back on the bed and flipped it back and forth between my fingers. The weight of it was heavier than I remembered. Right now, even though I’d taken money from Ezra and signed a contract agreeing to all of this, I hadn’t really had to give him anything in return. Now that I had this card, it felt like he would be expecting more from me.
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “He said that he wants me to get some new clothing. There’s an event on Friday that he wants me to go to.”
A slow smile unfurled on Julia’s face. “Well,” she said, “I say we take a little trip.”
“I can’t do that,” I said, knowing that Julia was suggesting exactly what Ezra had wanted–for me to buy a whole new wardrobe. It wasn’t that I thought my clothing was amazing. Hell, a year ago, I wouldn’t have worn any of the things that I currently owned, but it felt odd to just change everything about myself.
“You can,” Julia said, sitting up. “He gave you the credit card for just that reason.”
I rolled my eyes. Julia might not love what I’d agreed to, but she was the type of person who was going to see the best in this. “Maybe he should have askedyouto be his fake girlfriend.”
Julia snorted. “I would have jumped at the opportunity. I lack those pesky morals that you seem to have.”
I laughed. I didn’t agree with Julia. She would never have agreed to Ezra’s insane idea.
“Look,” Julia said, leaning forward on the bed. “This is probably the most insane thing that I’ve ever heard, but if you are going to do it, you can’t be half-assed about it. You need to commit. Ezra didn’t give you that card out of the goodness of his heart. He’s getting something out of it.”
“He’s getting something I already agreed to,” I reminded her. “And I don’t like the idea of changing myself completely to fit into this fantasy that he wants to create. I’m already doing enough.”
That was the thing that upset me the most. The idea that I wasn’t really good enough for Ezra. I hadn’t missed the way that his nose had turned up when he walked into the house. A day ago, he’d told me that I was perfect, and now, he was asking me what my hair color was.
It hurt my ego and reminded me of my father. He’d never been satisfied with me, even when Nikolai had been.
“You are beautiful,” Julia said. “And he knows that. It’s why he chose you. The two of you are going to be a classic couple.”
I sighed and ignored the way that my stomach flopped at the thought. “Am I making a mistake?” I asked. “Is this just going to lead me somewhere terrible?”
There was pity in Julia’s eyes, and it made that pain in my stomach ratchet up several notches. I closed my eyes and tried my best to slow my breathing.
“Honestly,” Julia said. “I don’t know.”
I sighed. I didn’t know what I expected her to say. Julia was brutally honest. It was something that I liked most about her. She wasn’t going to bullshit me, not at all.
“What I do know is that people enter into relationships for all different types of reasons, and even when it’s for love, it doesn’t always work out the way that we think it will.” There was a sadness in Julia’s voice, and I knew that she was thinking about Mark.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you and Mark?” I asked.
Julia shook her head before looking out of the window. My heart ached as I watched a tear slide down her cheek. “I don’t want to get into it right now,” she said.
I wanted to push, but I didn’t. Whatever had happened between the two of them was clearly a lot, and I knew Julia would talk to me when she was ready.
“Do you want to come with me to Saks?” I asked.
Julia immediately perked up and turned to me, wiping the tears from her eyes. “What?”
