The Fake Fiancé

I paced the lavish, gold-trimmed anteroom of The Royal Grand's ballroom, my high heels sinking deep into the plush, crimson carpet as I seriously questioned my own sanity. Every reflection in the towering mirrored walls surrounding me seemed to mock my desperate state. The woman staring back at me looked polished, wrapped in a stunning evening gown, but beneath the surface, she was a frantic, vibrating mess of nerves.

I had actually done it. I had reached the absolute peak of desperation and hired a professional gigolo to play the role of my insanely rich, deeply devoted fiancé.

My stomach churned violently, twisting with a nauseating mix of high-stakes anxiety and bitter, unyielding resolve. Just beyond those massive, intricately carved oak doors, my ex-boyfriend, Chase, was preparing to marry my ex-best friend, Sloane. It was the ultimate, soul-crushing double-betrayal package deal, and I was the punchline of the century.

I had wanted to ignore the wedding entirely. I had wanted to crawl into a dark hole and pretend none of these people existed. But Sloane hadn’t just sent an invitation; she had personally called me. Her voice had dripped with a venomous, artificial sweetness over the phone, so clearly eager to parade her victory and humiliate me in front of our entire shared social circle. Refusing to let her win, refusing to let her see me broken and pathetic, I had lied through my teeth. I told her I was bringing my new fiancé—a millionaire heir who swept me off my feet.

Now, the entire friend group was sitting inside that ballroom, expecting a spectacular show. They were waiting to see if poor, boring Tessa really pulled a billionaire out of thin air, or if I was going to show up alone and humiliated.

Pretending had become my absolute specialty over the last few years. As I paced another frantic lap around the anteroom, my mind violently dragged me back to the heavy, suffocating silence of the day my world ended. The muffled sound of rain against the windows. The way my heart had pounded as I pushed open the half-closed door to Sloane's apartment without warning.

The image was forever burned into my brain, searing through my pride like acid. I had walked right into the living room and found Chase completely tangled between her legs on the couch.

Neither of them had felt a single ounce of remorse when they realized I was standing right there. Chase had just sighed, letting out a dismissive, nasal laugh as if I were nothing more than a minor inconvenience interrupting their afternoon.

*"Tessa, honestly… you've always been so boring,"* Sloane had sneered at me. I could still see her casually twisting a strand of her perfectly highlighted blonde hair with utter disdain while I stood there, totally shattered, my entire future crumbling at my feet. *"You've always tried so hard to be perfect. The perfect girlfriend, the perfect friend... But let's face it. You were never anything special."*

She hadn't stopped there. She wanted to make sure I bled out completely. *"No one's ever going to choose someone like you, Tessa. You're only good for playing a supporting role in other people's lives."*

Her cruel, merciless words had become the fiery engine of my current madness. They echoed in my skull every single night. If I couldn't win at life—if I was doomed to be the boring supporting character everyone discarded—I was fiercely determined to win at appearances today. I would not let them look down on me. Not tonight.

I paused my pacing and checked my phone frantically, my thumb swiping across the screen. There was a new text message from the escort agency's portal.

*I'm running late, but I'm on my way.*

"You have got to be kidding me," I hissed to the empty room, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. For the exorbitant amount of money I was paying him, he really shouldn't be making rookie mistakes like running late to a high-society wedding.

Before I could type out an angry, threatening reply to hurry up, my screen glitched, flashed a low-battery warning, and instantly went pitch black.

The battery had died.

A wave of mild, breathless panic plunged straight through my chest. I tapped the screen repeatedly, pressing the power button with growing desperation, but it was completely dead. I had been working all day and hadn't found a single second to charge it. Now, I was entirely cut off, standing outside the ballroom doors like an abandoned fool, completely at the mercy of a stranger who couldn't even show up on time.

Minutes agonized by. Every time I heard a muffled cheer or the clinking of glasses from inside the ballroom, my anxiety spiked higher. I was just about to cut my losses, turn around, and run out of the hotel entirely, when the anteroom doors finally opened.

He arrived.

And the moment I saw him, my breath physically hitched in my throat. My brain wiped clean of every single frantic thought I had been hoarding for the past twenty minutes.

The man was absolute sin walking on two legs. He stood easily six-foot-three, his incredibly broad shoulders and muscular frame wrapped in a perfectly tailored, sharp black suit that screamed old money and raw, unapologetic power. The fabric hugged his body in a way that suggested danger just beneath the surface. His dark brown hair was slightly tousled—that intentional, effortless kind of mess that only insanely attractive men could pull off.

But it was his face that truly froze me in place. His features were sharp, commanding, and heavily aristocratic, framed by a neatly trimmed jawline. And his eyes—piercing, intense gray-blue eyes that immediately locked onto mine, making the very air in the room feel like it was trembling. He looked exponentially better than his agency photos. If those pictures had been a nine out of ten, the living, breathing reality of him was an off-the-charts hazard to my health.

Before he could even open his incredibly sculpted mouth to speak, my sheer survival instinct kicked in. I couldn't afford to be mesmerized.

I lunged forward, closing the distance between us in two rapid strides. I grabbed his muscular arm tight—feeling the solid, unyielding heat of his bicep through the expensive fabric of his suit jacket—and pulled him flush against me.

*"You're late!"* I snapped in a harsh, desperate whisper, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs like a trapped bird.

He frowned, looking down at me. The close proximity didn't seem to faze him, but he was clearly confused by the aggressive, borderline unhinged welcome. *"Excuse me?"* he said, his voice a deep, resonant rumble that sent an unexpected shiver straight down my spine.

*"No time!"* I pressed on, entirely ignoring his reaction and the sheer physical dominance of the man I was manhandling. I launched into a rapid-fire, breathless recap of the disastrous situation. "Quick recap: my name is Tessa Thorne. I'm twenty-six, and my betraying ex-fiancé and my backstabbing ex-best friend are getting married just beyond those heavy oak doors right now. I desperately need an absurdly hot man to play my insanely rich heir fiancé by my side tonight so I don't look like a total, pathetic failure in front of everyone who expects me to crash and burn."

He blinked down at me, the initial confusion slowly melting into something else as he processed my manic word vomit. The hard lines of his face softened just a fraction as he clearly fought a laugh.

*"Right…"* he drawled slowly, his piercing gray-blue eyes dropping to where my hand was still clamped in a death-grip on his arm. *"And this hot, rich man would be…?"*

*"You, obviously,"* I huffed, exasperated by his slow uptake. I didn't have time for him to play dumb. *"That's what I'm paying you for. And paying you very well, by the way."*

He tilted his head slightly to the side. His gaze swept over my flushed face, his amusement visibly growing with every second that passed. The corner of his mouth twitched. *"So… I'm getting paid?"*

I waved off the absurd question with my free hand, forcefully laying down the ground rules. "Are you crazy or what? Forget it, I don't need you to be smart, and I don't need you to ask questions. I just need you to be hot, smile nicely, and pretend to be madly in love with me for a few hours. I need you to handle a few believable kisses, a little touching for the audience, and nothing major. Just act like you can't breathe without me."

The corners of his mouth slowly curved upward into a wicked, dangerously mischievous grin that completely transformed his face.

*"That, I can do."*

I ignored the sudden, treacherous skip of my heart at the dark, velvet tone of his deep voice. I couldn't let myself get distracted by how thoroughly devastating this man was. I adjusted my grip, slipping my hand down to intertwine my fingers with his, and aggressively tugged his arm toward the heavy ballroom doors.

*"By the way, we need to settle on your name,"* I told him urgently as we walked. I hastily used my free hand to dig into my small clutch, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a carefully curated list of Elyria's top elite surnames I had meticulously researched. I needed him to sound authentically wealthy to Sloane's snobby, social-climbing friends.

He looked down at the crumpled paper I shoved into his view, and a deep, genuinely attractive laugh rumbled in his chest. The sound was rich and dangerously intoxicating.

*"Go on then, pick one,"* I insisted, my anxiety peaking again. I shoved the list closer to his chest. "You need an heir-worthy name before we walk in there."

He didn't even look at the paper. He paused for a single second, shifting his gaze back to me, that playful, deeply knowing smile returning to his perfectly sculpted lips.

*"Gideon Vandermere."*

Before I could even process the weight of the choice, before I could open my mouth to agree or question it, the heavy oak doors of the ballroom abruptly swung open from the inside.

The loud, classical music from the reception poured out into the anteroom, and standing right there in the doorway, practically glowing in her lavish, custom-designed bridal gown, was Sloane.

Her arrogant, victorious smirk was already fully formed, ready to greet whatever pathetic sight she expected to find. But the moment her gaze shifted from me to the towering, devastatingly handsome man standing rigidly by my side, her smirk instantly faltered. Her eyes widened slightly, sweeping over his impeccable suit and commanding presence, before all the color drained from her perfectly contoured face.

She took a sharp step back, her chest heaving as she let out a loud, genuine gasp…

*"Vandermere… from Vandermere Estates?"*