The Charade: A Billionaire/Fake Relationship Romance (Eden Falls Academy)
The Charade: Chapter 9

‘WE MISSED YOU DURING LUNCH,’ Mack said, finding me in the hall as I walked toward Mrs. Johnson’s room for my last class of the day. ‘Where were you?’

‘I took Ava to The Italian Amigos.’

‘What?’ Mack asked, his thick eyebrows knitting together. ‘And here I thought you said you weren’t interested in the Cohen twins.’

‘I’m not.’

He shot me a disbelieving look. ‘Then why take Ava to lunch?’

‘We had a math assignment we needed to work on.’ An assignment that we’d only made a small dent in since we’d spent too much time chatting and going over my tutoring contract.

When I’d pulled out the contract for her to sign and she’d questioned me about my no-dating rule, I had to think fast for an excuse as to why that last rule was there in the first place.

My experience with my older brother Ian had come in handy as I’d played the part of a self-absorbed player who thought he was king of the world.

And from how riled up Ava had gotten after I’d basically implied that I was up to my eyeballs in propositions from girls, I figured I’d played the part well enough.

Which was great. I hadn’t wanted to waste time with the female population this year, anyway. So even though I was pretty sure Nash must have hacked into my computer and changed my contract as some sort of prank, he had actually done me a favor.

At least, I’d stopped any chance of Ava ever being interested in me romantically. And if she did what I suspected she might and tell all the other girls about how full of myself I’d been during our lunch, it wouldn’t be long before I had my weekends all to myself.

‘Since when do you work on math assignments during lunch?’ Mack asked.

We met a roadblock in the hall where it came to an intersection. As students shuffled past us, most of their heads several inches below ours since we were so tall, I said, ‘Ever since I needed an excuse to avoid Sofia.’

‘Ah, gotcha,’ Mack said. ‘I guess I’d probably want to avoid that conversation too, if I were you.’

‘Hopefully, she got the message that she doesn’t have to try to be my friend just because she feels guilty.’

The roadblock full of beige and navy-blue jackets cleared so we continued toward the B hall.

Mrs. Johnson’s classroom for Adult Roles was at the end of the hall. She taught all of the family and consumer science classes so her classroom block was one of the biggest, with the cooking and sewing rooms attached just off of her instruction room.

When Mack and I walked inside, there were already quite a few seniors sitting at their tables. Scarlett and Hunter sat at the table that was front and center—Scarlett sitting up straight with her notebook and pen ready like she couldn’t wait to ace this class. She was my biggest competition for valedictorian, so her eagerness didn’t surprise me at all. Hunter, on the other hand, was slouched on his desk, his tie already loose around his neck like he just couldn’t wait to get the first day of classes over with.

Just behind them was Ava and her twin sister Elyse. I was pretty sure Elyse had been in my last class and knew she was the twin with her hair straight and down while Ava’s was curled with the top half pulled back and pinned with a sparkly barrette.

When our gazes met, Ava leaned over to her sister to whisper something. From the annoyed expression on her face, I figured she was probably informing Elyse about the stupid contract Nash had messed with and warned her about my jackhole tendencies.

And as she eyed me, I just shot her a smile so she’d know I knew she was talking about me.

That was what conceited people did, right? Assume the world revolved around them.

Maybe I should thank Ava for spreading the good word.

Sometimes you have to act like a jerk to keep away from unwanted drama.

‘Let’s sit there,’ Mack said from beside me, bringing my attention back to him. He pointed to the table behind the twins.

‘Sure,’ I said. I was about to take the seat behind Elyse when I noticed that Sofia and Nash were sitting at the table just to the left of it.

Yeah, I’m not going there.

Sofia was right next to the aisle and I wasn’t about to leave myself open to any sort of interaction.

Before Mack could take the spot behind Ava, I asked him if we could switch places.

Mack shrugged before shuffling around me to get to his seat.

I set my backpack on the floor, and before I could even scoot my chair in under the table, Ava was twisting around in her seat and saying, ‘Couldn’t stay away from me, could you?’

I maneuvered my chair in and leaned over my desk so our faces were only a foot apart, before sending her my best smoldering gaze and saying in a low voice, ‘Apparently, I have a weakness for goddesses.’

When her cheeks glowed a nice shade of pink at my flirtatious comment, I couldn’t help but shoot her a wink as well.

I expected her to turn around, but instead, she scooted her chair back until it rested against my table. And then, after shooting her gaze toward Sofia for a split second and then back at me again—in a way that told me she was trying to communicate something unspoken to me—she said, ‘Are we still on for after school?’ She bit her lip and looked at me like I was a chocolate tuxedo cake and she was a chocoholic.

And I had to give it to her, the girl had the sexy pout down to an art.

If she hadn’t been so annoyed at me during lunch, I’d almost believe she was interested in me.

Even though I knew she was only referring to the study session we’d already arranged to have in the library after school to finish our math assignment, I couldn’t help but wonder for a crazy second what it would be like to do exactly what her body language was telling Sofia and everyone around us that we might be doing after school.

I looked at her pink lips. They were just the right size and shape for her face. And yeah, kissing them would probably be a great way to spend an afternoon.

But before I could wonder too much about how soft they’d feel pressed against mine, I noticed that we now had several heads turned in our direction, watching us. So I went along with the production Ava had decided we should both star in and said, ‘I’m counting down the minutes to our study session.’ I emphasized the word study to imply to all the onlookers that we would be doing anything but studying.

Ava’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, like she couldn’t believe I was actually going along with whatever she was doing. But she quickly regained composure again, and without missing a beat, she took my hand in hers and turned it so my palm faced the ceiling. With the same purple felt tip pen that she’d used on my contract earlier, she wrote the words, Back corner of library. 3:00 pm.

Using her other hand, she folded my fingers over my palm to show me and everyone around us that what she’d just written there was of utmost importance.

Then, with the confidence of someone who knew exactly how to get what she wanted where guys were concerned, she gave my hand a long, meaningful squeeze before saying, ‘Don’t be late.’

Even though I knew this was all just a show, my arm lit up with electricity that seemed to shoot all the way to my cold, dead heart.

When her amber eyes looked coyly up at me, I was almost convinced that this was real.

Almost.

But fake or not, I knew one thing: Ava Cohen was trouble.

And tutoring her this year might just be a lot more fun than I’d originally thought.

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