The Charade: A Billionaire/Fake Relationship Romance (Eden Falls Academy)
The Charade: Chapter 20

AVA and I arranged to go shopping the next day. So after doing my Sunday morning yoga and meditation session with my family—a tradition my dad and Dawn had started after a trip to India a few years back—I showered, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then headed toward the garage with my jacket in hand.

I was just walking past my dad’s office when I overheard his voice coming from inside. He didn’t usually take business calls on Sundays since he said if the good Lord got to take one day off a week, he deserved to take a day off, too. So it was rare to hear him on a call at this time, instead of doing his weekly planning sessions with Dawn in the sunroom.

‘You tell me not to worry but I did the math,’ my dad’s voice cut through the air as he spoke to the person on the other end of the line. ‘And I can’t help but suspect that you made up the story about the miscarriage.’

The what?

I frowned and stopped in my tracks, not used to hearing the word miscarriage in my dad’s every-day conversation.

My dad paused for a moment, as if listening to whoever he was talking to. Then he said, ‘Yes, I understand.’ Another short pause. ‘Okay, we’ll talk about it when you come to town.’ He sighed, and I could imagine him running his fingers through his hair. ‘I know. Things were crazy back then, but you…’ His words trailed off like he was flustered and trying to think of how to finish his thought. ‘I just don’t understand how you could keep this to yourself for eighteen years. I mean, do the girls even know?’

The girls?

Who was he talking to?

I inched closer to the door, hoping it would help me figure out what my dad was talking about. But he must have sensed my presence or something because his footsteps came closer and then he shut the door to block me from hearing any more of his conversation.

Weird.

He’d said things had been crazy eighteen years ago—which was about the same time he and Dawn had been separated and I’d been conceived. Was it possible my dad had gotten another woman pregnant at the same time and had assumed until now that it had ended in miscarriage?

He said something about girls knowing something. Did I have sisters I’d never met out there somewhere?

For my dad and Dawn’s sake, I really hoped he was talking about something completely different. They’d barely survived the last time he came home with a random child—me—and I didn’t know what would happen if history repeated itself.

AVA WAS WAITING in the school’s lobby when I made it to the academy. She’d told me to text when I arrived so she could just walk out. But since I had a part to play and I’d always gone inside the school whenever I would pick up Sofia for our dates in the past, I decided to do the same for Ava. For all anyone else knew, I was just taking my girlfriend out for a day date, and so I intended to make it look exactly like that.

‘Such a gentleman,’ Ava commented when I opened the passenger door of my truck to let her in.

She wore a fitted teal V-neck that looked amazing next to her tanned skin and a denim mini skirt that hugged her hips in just the right way.

As she stepped up into my truck, I allowed myself to take her in a little more. I didn’t know how she did it, but she seemed to get prettier and prettier every day.

I pushed the thoughts away though, because getting a crush on my fake girlfriend was not part of the plan. And even if I’d relived our kiss in the woods about a million times since last night, it didn’t mean that anything would ever happen between us.

Because I didn’t have time to date anyone for real this year, and she also deserved to have a math tutor who was more concerned with helping her pass her tests instead of trying to make passes at her.

That would be so unprofessional.

Plus, who was I to assume she’d even be interested in dating me for real, anyway?

I shook my head to push the nonsensical thoughts away. Once she was seated comfortably and reaching for the seatbelt, I shut the passenger door and walked around to climb in on my side of the truck.

We ended up at a clothing boutique across the street from The Italian Amigos, and it didn’t take too long for Ava to find an outfit and boots that she liked enough for me to plop my money down on.

‘Isn’t my boyfriend the best?’ Ava said to the cashier as she rang up the items. ‘I tried to tell him that he didn’t need to get me anything for our one-week anniversary, but he insisted. Didn’t you, sweetie?’

I should probably be worried about how easily Ava could spin a story and make it sound authentic, but when the cashier gave me the total, I tapped my debit card against the card reader and said, ‘Anything for my girl.’

If the cashier thought it was strange for me to spend a hundred dollars on my girlfriend after being together for only a week, she didn’t mention it. She simply handed Ava her bags and me the receipt and told us to have a fantastic anniversary.

When we made it out of the store and back to my truck, I asked Ava, ‘So do you usually celebrate each week of your relationship with a guy?’

‘No,’ she said, eyeing me with a mischievous smile on her lips. ‘But if you want to make it a habit, I think I saw a few more things I wouldn’t mind you buying for me next week.’

‘Nice try,’ I said, pushing the button to turn on my truck. ‘But if we’re still doing this thing next week, I’ll let you take me shopping for our two-week anniversary. It can be a trade-off.’

‘I don’t know if I can afford this relationship.’ Ava chuckled. ‘You know, since my mom is the one who’s rich and not me.’ She glanced sideways at me and winked, referring to our conversation the day before when I’d told her my dad and Dawn were the ones who were rich.

We ate lunch at my favorite wood fire pizza place called La Piazza since I remembered from our interview session that pizza was Ava’s favorite food—yes, I was basically the perfect fake boyfriend to remember such things.

As we ate our pizzas—a pepper jack for me, a margherita pizza for her—we chatted about what she had planned for the rest of the day.

‘Scarlett is working on some project for homecoming week and asked if Elyse and I would help her find some photos from the old yearbooks that she can use for it.’

‘And you couldn’t think of a nice way to turn her down?’ I asked, folding my slice of pizza in half to take a bite.

‘It doesn’t sound too bad.’ She shrugged. ‘Plus, I thought it might be a chance for me to see if they have yearbooks from the time my mom was here. She never really told Elyse and me very much about going to school here, so it would be interesting to see what clubs or sports she did. Maybe see if she had any old boyfriends she never talked about.’

‘I guess that could be interesting if you’re into that kind of thing,’ I allowed. ‘My dad and Mack’s dad both graduated together, so I’ve heard stories here and there. Mostly about how Mack’s dad always dominated on the basketball court while my dad was the ladies’ man who got voted Most Preferred.’

‘That’s fun.’ Ava’s eyes lit up. ‘I didn’t know Mack’s dad was friends with your dad, too.’

I leaned back against the booth seat. ‘They’ve been best friends since they were kids. Been with each other through everything.’

‘And they’re neighbors now, right?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘Yep. My dad sold Mack’s dad a few acres when he moved back after medical school and he built the house next door.’

Ava seemed thoughtful as she sipped her water. When she set the cup back down on the table, she said, ‘I think that’s cool that they’ve stayed so close through all these years.’ She picked up the piece of pizza she’d been working on. ‘I have Elyse who’s been like that for me, but I always think it’s such a cool thing when I hear about adults who have been friends for decades and have all sorts of shared memories together. My mom wasn’t like that. She kind of said something before about having a close-knit group of friends in high school, but it sounds like something happened after high school that caused her to lose touch with them all.’

‘Didn’t my dad say he was good friends with your mom back in the day?’ I asked, remembering what my dad had said when he met the twins on Saturday.

‘I think so.’

‘Maybe they just lost touch when they went off to college?’ I shrugged. ‘Or when my dad got married to Dawn. I think it’s harder to maintain friendships with the opposite sex when you have to worry about a wife getting jealous of the friendship.’

‘Are you saying that if I want to have a lifelong friend from Eden Falls, I should probably stick with Scarlett or Cambrielle since your future wives—yours and Mack’s, Hunter’s, and Nash’s—wouldn’t be able to handle you guys being close friends with someone as alluring as me?’

So she wanted to be friends now?

I didn’t know whether to be happy that she enjoyed my company enough to want to be friends or worried that I might be on my way to the friend zone.

My subconscious must have been trying to figure out how to get the best of both worlds because I found myself saying, ‘Or you could just do like Mack’s parents. They were friends in high school and managed to stay friends.’

‘I would hope they were still friends since it sounds like they’re married and all,’ Ava said, a smile in her eyes.

I laughed. ‘Yes, well, I guess that does make a difference.’

‘Is this your way of proposing to me, Carter?’ Ava raised a teasing eyebrow. ‘Because we’ve only been pretending to date for less than a week. I think I might need to get past the two-week anniversary mark before I’m ready to make that kind of commitment.’

My cheeks heated with her flirtatious comment, because while I obviously hadn’t been proposing anything, the thought of having a relationship for real with Ava wasn’t as objectionable to me now as it’d been just a few days ago.

Which couldn’t be good because it would complicate everything.

Wouldn’t it?

But since acting all flustered and uncomfortable at her assumptions would only make it obvious that I might be getting the tiniest crush on her, I put on my most unaffected expression and said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to hold off on the ring shopping for a little longer then.’

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