“Blade is not a polygamist.” I huffed, taking off my coat and throwing it on the top bunk. “In fact, he’s probably the exact opposite. He never even looks at the half-dressed girls who throw themselves at him.”
“Maybe I should come by and see the billionaire in his natural habitat,” Edward said, stretching. “You never know—he could play for the other team.”
“Doubtful,” I said, kicking off my shoes and feeding Cesario an olive I’d stolen from Cassie’s condo. “Besides, even if he did, I wouldn’t let you around him.”
“You’re oddly protective!”
“It’s a matter of spite at this point,” I said primly.
“Just like with your father.”
“How was old Mr. Cheater?” Shirley asked.
“Scheming about how he and Cassie are going to use the mansion,” I said, filling my friends in on the evening.
“That little bitch!” Shirley exclaimed.
“Just cut them off,” Edward said. “I cut off my homophobic parents, and look at me now!”
“You rent a bed in a room in a communal house where the oven doesn’t work,” I said. “Hardly a life to aspire to.”
“Yes, but it’smylife. I do a little Twitch streaming, dumpster-dive, collect my Marine Corps reserve check, and wait for us to start our wedding-planning business.”
“That’s never going to happen if I don’t win that house,” I said, pacing between the beds in the tiny room.
“We have to find you a man,” Shirley said. “You need that mansion and that wedding-planning business. Correction,weneed it. That’s my meal ticket out of Manhattan. I swear, if I never see another pigeon, it will be a blessed day. Besides, Cesario doesn’t like the city. It makes him anxious.”
“Considering Avery found him in a vacant lot gnawing on a chicken bone, that seems a little bit like projection,” Edward said with a snort.
“I already had a Pinterest board of how we were going to decorate the house for fancy weddings and turn it into a bed and breakfast. We were finally going to put our hospitality degrees to good use!” Shirley reminded me.
“I know,” I moaned, sinking onto the thin twin mattress. “What am I going to do?”
“Don’t just find a man on Tinder,” Edward warned. “This is a lot of money. The Harrogate real estate market is booming, what with the Svenssons and all those tech firms relocating there. If you just scrape up some wannabe novelist, he’s going to take the house in a divorce. You would still lose, even if you won.”
“I need a man who wouldn’t even look twice at that house. I need a man with so much money that an eight-million-dollar property is nothing,” I said slowly.
Shirley nodded. “You need a billionaire.”
Edward grinned evilly. “And I think you know one.”
“Absolutely not!” I jumped up. “I cannot ask Blade. That’s just—” I sputtered.
“Genius? Perfect? Foolproof?” Edward offered.
“It will get me fired.”
“You don’t have any other options,” Edward reminded me. “You were the one who said you could make a fake relationship work like no one’s business. You’ve had what, almost a hundred fake relationships?”
“Yes, but sometimes they turn into disasters,” I prattled. “Remember, Shirley, in middle school, I promised that gangly, nerdy kid I would give him a GameStop gift card in exchange for going with me to a school dance. I had wanted to shut up the mean girls who were spreading rumors that I was a future cat lady.”
“But it worked,” Shirley cajoled. “Instead of teasing you about being a spinster, the mean girls teased you for not being able to land a better man.”
“You aren’t trying to fall in love here,” Edward reminded me. “You just need the mansion.”
I blew out a breath. “Yes, but usually I have something to offer. What could Blade possibly want from me that he doesn’t already have?”
“Maybe he’ll do it because he likes you?” Shirley said hopefully.
