The Charade: A Billionaire/Fake Relationship Romance (Eden Falls Academy)
The Charade: Chapter 21

‘I GUESS I better let you go now,’ I said when Carter pulled up to the front of the school to drop me off after lunch. ‘I wouldn’t want to make you late for whatever you have scheduled next in that planner of yours.’

‘Is this your way of saying that having a routine makes life boring and predictable?’ Carter asked from the driver’s seat of his truck. ‘Because I don’t know how we’ll make it to our two-week anniversary if you’re going to make fun of my beloved bullet journal.’

‘I would never dare make fun of such a thing,’ I said sarcastically as I unbuckled my seatbelt.

‘Sure you wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘But the jokes on you because I actually let my wild side out on the weekends and try not to schedule anything. Hence the reason why I was able to fit in this spur-of-the-moment shopping trip.’

‘You wild thing,’ I said in a joking tone. ‘Who knew that my math tutor was so good at living life on the edge?’

Carter chuckled, and I liked the way it sounded—deep and throaty and not anything I would have expected after that first day I met him when I thought for sure he was a hoity-toity arrogant snob who couldn’t be bothered by mere mortals like myself.

But here we were, talking and laughing like we’d known each other for far longer than a week.

It was actually strange to think just how much things had changed in a matter of a few days. At the pizzeria, I’d briefly mentioned wanting to make the kind of friends that lasted a lifetime while I was at the academy. But the more time I spent with Carter, the more I was finding that he was getting higher and higher on my list of possible lifelong friends.

Sure we had that other thing going for us, where the slightest touch from him made my body feel like it’d just been touched by a livewire, and which would probably bother his future wife. But the more time I spent with him, the more time I wanted to spend with him.

This had never happened to me before with a guy or anyone, for that matter. I’d always assumed it was because Elyse and I had our whole twin thing going, and so no one could ever rival that connection. I knew it seemed strange, but what I had with Carter felt a lot like it. Like we had some sort of intangible connection that just clicked.

I’d thought it had to be a mostly physical attraction, since let’s face it, the guy was hot. But it was like our energy fields were the perfect match for each other, and once the initial connection was made, we couldn’t be satisfied with being mere acquaintances anymore. We needed more.

Or at least, I needed more. I guess I couldn’t really speak to how he felt about me since I couldn’t read his mind.

Though I couldn’t help but think that we were like Bella and Edward in Twilight —just less vampiresque. Where Bella was Edward’s exact blood type, Carter was my exact brand of human.

But that was weird, wasn’t it?

More likely I was just drawn to the guy because he’d given me the best first kiss of my life yesterday and my mind was trying to think of an explanation for why I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

‘So, are you going to get out?’ Carter said from beside me, and I realized I’d totally just zoned out for a moment.

‘Yes, sorry.’ I reached for the door handle. ‘I guess you mentioning how you don’t follow a strict schedule on the weekends just shocked me so bad that I forgot what I was doing.’

He chuckled. ‘Sure.’

He reached behind him to grab the shopping bags from the backseat, the movement causing his T-shirt to slip up at his side and give me a quick view of his tanned abs. And before I knew it, I was saying, ‘Actually, do you want to come in?’

‘What?’ He gave me a confused look. ‘You want me to walk you in?’

‘No…’ I tucked some hair behind my ear, suddenly worried I may have misread all our interactions from today. Were we not the kind of friends who hung out just for fun? But since I’d already started, I had to finish my invitation. ‘I, um, I just wondered—since you said you didn’t have plans for the rest of the day—if you might want to come scavenge the yearbooks with me.’ Then just to give him a way out, I added, ‘But I totally understand if that’s not your kind of thing. I’m sure you have better things to do at that mansion of yours.’

He handed the shopping bags to me and with a shrug, he said, ‘I guess I could help out for a little while.’

‘Yeah?’ My body flooded with relief and excitement at the same time.

He wanted to spend time with me.

His blue eyes studied mine for a second before he said, ‘I mean, it would probably help our little arrangement seem more believable if I spent most of the day with my girlfriend, right?’

Oh. So maybe he wasn’t agreeing to this because he wanted to spend time with me. Maybe it was just to help with the production we’d been putting on all week.

I tried not to feel too much disappointment with those thoughts.

He put his truck back in gear. ‘Let me just park this thing in the student parking lot and we can head inside.’

AFTER TAKING my shopping bags to my room, Carter helped me find the special collections area of the school’s library where Scarlett, Elyse, and Hunter were already perusing the yearbooks.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ I pulled out a chair next to my sister and sat down. ‘It took a while to convince Carter to show some school spirit and help us.’

Carter chuckled and took the seat beside me. ‘More like Ava’s late because she had to try on about twenty different outfits at the store before settling on the first ones she’d pulled off the racks.’

‘Sure.’ Scarlett nodded, a knowing smile on her face. ‘I’m sure you were just shopping. ‘

Hunter chuckled at her comment, and I had the feeling they may have been talking about Carter and me behind our backs.

They’d given us funny looks when Carter and I had come out of the gardens last night, but was it possible they believed Carter and I were dating for real?

I’d only told Elyse about the deal we’d made, and she knew all about the kiss and the reasons why it had happened in the first place since I’d gushed over it in our room while we got ready for bed last night. But had Carter not told anyone else about it?

He’d at least clue his friends in, wouldn’t he?

But since I wasn’t sure if we were letting the rest of our friends believe we were dating for real or not, I just said, ‘Yeah, shopping with Carter was better than I thought. Pretty sure we might need to do it again soon.’

I looked over at Carter to see his reaction—wondering if he would set the record straight. But he just put his arm around my shoulder, pressed a quick kiss to my cheek, and said, ‘We can go shopping anytime you want.’

Okaaaaaay. My face felt like it might catch on fire from how hot it became after his quick kiss.

Did he have any idea what he was doing to me?

He had to know. A guy like him had to know the effect he had on women.

I sat up a little straighter, hoping it would help me regain my composure. ‘We’ll save the shopping for later. Right now, we’re here to help Scarlett.’

‘If you insist, babe.’ Carter grabbed a yearbook from the stack that had been placed at the center of the table.

Had he just called me babe?

Eek!

I never thought I’d like that term of endearment before, but having it come from his lips and directed at me might just be the best thing I’d ever heard.

I scanned the yearbooks, checking the years on the sides for one that matched the time my mom had been at the academy. As I sifted through the pages for photos from my mom’s past, I couldn’t help but wonder if something was really happening between Carter and me and whether I should be reading into it.

Because let’s face it, I really, really wanted to read into it.

‘LOOK AT THIS,’ Elyse said to me a little while later. ‘I don’t remember Mom ever telling us she was in a school play. Do you?’

‘She was in a play?’ I leaned over to see and found a spread from the school’s production of Romeo and Juliet , with a photo of my mom as Juliet at the top. ‘She was the star?’

‘Crazy, right?’ Elyse said, as surprised as I was by this fact.

‘She looks so young there.’

‘I know,’ Elyse said. ‘She was our age. She looks just like us.’

‘She was so beautiful,’ I said, taking in our mom’s long, brown hair that cascaded down her back in curls.

I slid the yearbook away from Elyse toward Carter so I could show him. ‘Doesn’t she look just like Elyse and me?’

He studied the photo with narrowed eyes and then moved his gaze to my face, as if comparing the two of us. ‘You definitely look like you’re related. Is she as tall as you two?’

I shook my head. ‘No, she’s only five-foot. She never says much about our bio dad, but she has said that we got our height from him.’

‘I got my height from my dad, too,’ Carter said. ‘I don’t think my mom was very tall.’

He got a strange look on his face when he mentioned his mother, and I was reminded of what he’d said about how she’d left him at a childcare center when he was little and never returned.

He swallowed and resumed looking at the yearbook as if searching for a distraction. Then he pointed to a photo and said, ‘Looks like my dad played Romeo.’

‘He did?’ My jaw dropped at the coincidence. Sure enough, a guy with light hair who looked like a younger version of his dad was in a photo with my mom, doing the dramatic double suicide scene at the end. And while I didn’t have a thing for older guys, Mr. Hastings had actually been pretty cute in high school.

But I guess that shouldn’t surprise me since his son was gorgeous himself.

It made me wonder if my mom ever had a crush on Carter’s dad growing up.

‘Did you know your dad played Romeo in the school play?’ I asked Carter.

He shook his head. ‘I knew he did a lot of different things in high school—sports, clubs, and whatever interested him. But he never specifically mentioned being in a play.’

‘Apparently, neither of our parents considered starring in the school’s play worth bragging about to their kids.’

‘I guess not,’ he said. ‘But that must be where Nash got his flair for the dramatic from.’

‘And Elyse from my mom.’

It looked like he was going to say something about my acting skills too, but when he glanced over at Scarlett and Hunter who were immersed in yearbooks of their own, he seemed to think better of it. He probably didn’t want to clue them in to the fact that everything they’d been seeing from us this week had been an act.

‘Do you think this play was how our parents became friends?’ I asked Carter, referencing back to what his dad had said the day before about him and my mom going way back.

‘Probably.’ Carter shrugged.

I gave the yearbook back to Elyse and continued searching through the one I’d been working on. When I turned to a page with the title of Sweethearts Ball at the top, I saw a photo of Carter’s dad wearing the kind of sash girls wore in beauty pageants, with the words “Most Preferred” in thick black lettering across his chest.

‘This must have been from that story you told me, what Mack’s dad likes to tease your dad about.’

Carter leaned closer to look at the photo I was pointing to, his shoulder pressing against mine. ‘Yeah, that’s my dad.’ But then he seemed to notice something else, because he chuckled and pointed to another guy in the photo. ‘And that’s Mack’s dad.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘Looks like he took second place. Maybe that’s why he always brings that story up. Because he’s jealous he didn’t win.’

The man in the photo looked nothing like what I’d been imagining Mack’s dad to look like.

Since Mack was black, I’d assumed his dad must be black, too. The photo was black and white, so it didn’t show the exact skin tone, but it was obvious that his skin was closer to Mr. Hastings’s coloring than Mack’s. But he did have the height that Mack had. Mr. Hastings was probably close to Carter’s height, but in this photo, Mack’s dad stood a few inches taller than his friend.

‘Mack’s mom was originally from South Africa,’ Carter said, seeming to notice that I was trying to figure out how everything worked. ‘Or at least I think her family is from South Africa. I think she was born in the U.S. And I’m pretty sure she was in the same grade as my dad and Dr. Aarden.’

‘That’s cool,’ I said.

I was about to turn the page when my eyes caught on a photo at the bottom with the caption that read, Miriam Cohen and Joel Hastings dance the night away.

What the—?

I took a second look at the photo. Carter’s dad wore the ‘Most Preferred’ sash in the photo and my mom wore a sleeveless dress that while it was probably the height of fashion twenty something years ago, she probably wouldn’t be caught dead wearing today now that she was a fashion icon. But what I noticed most was the way they were dancing. It wasn’t the awkward, rigid pose where you could fit five Bibles in between their bodies and still have room. No, they were practically hugging and looked very content to be in each other’s arms.

I blinked my eyes, not used to seeing my mom being romantic with a guy—for as long as I could remember, she’d never really dated anyone. She’d always claimed she was too busy and that she didn’t want her attention taken from raising Elyse and me.

But the way she was resting her head against Mr. Hastings’s chest, and the way his chin rested on top of her head with his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, I couldn’t help but think they’d been more than the simple ‘friends’ that Mr. Hastings had called them yesterday.

‘Um, guys?’ I said, looking to my left and then to my right to make sure I had Carter and Elyse’s attention.

They looked up from their yearbooks. Scarlett and Hunter looked up as well. With their eyes on me, I pointed to the incriminating photo and said, ‘So, um…I’m pretty sure our mom and Carter’s dad dated back when they were in high school.’

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