The Fake Fiancée

Chapter 3

First thing I’d noticed about Estella Goldbloom at the gala hall? Her beautiful green moss eyes. She had very big, very brown-green-whatever eyes rimmed by brown and gold speckles.

The heart-wrenching look of the damsel in front of me tore my heart. After I saw the waitress dash down the hall, I could not resist following her. I searched the hall for her, but she was already gone. I left the commotion to search for her. I found her on the balcony. The balcony is a bit chilly. I hear her whimpers and lean in to console her. She feels my touch against her; she is startled and turns.

Her appearance is breathtaking. The slope of her neck was the way the moonlight made her medium-brown skin, and they simmered with moonbeams. Her hair had been tucked into a messy bun with several curly strands escaping to frame her face. And f**k me, that face.

Her eyes were wide, lifting at the corners and puffy. There were tears in her eyes. It was f*****g terrible to see. I wondered if she was fine. Asking her confirmed she was not even though she claimed she was fine. Further realization hits me that she doesn't have a job again.

I have the very perfect idea and solution to both our problems. I'm in a feat to please my father as he had dropped the worst news and bomb for us all in the family.

“I have a proposal for you.”

Estella looks taken aback and perplexed. Her mind wanders.

“I need you to be my fiancée.”

“Excuse me….” Estella replies livid

“Earlier this week, my father, James Prince, the current CEO of Lead Investments, called a meeting. Guess what, my father casually delivered the heart-wrenching news to the family - my mother, sister, and my cousin Richard, his father John, who is my father's brother. John and his wife died in a car crash while cruising around Blaze in Italy.

I have stage-four cancer. Prostate. It has spread to my bones. Kidneys. Blood. I wasn’t screened. Your mother has been begging me for years, but I didn’t want the discomfort, I guess. Needless to say, it is incurable. I have got three months to live.” He paused. “Generously speaking.”

James delivered the news flatly, keeping his face blank. His eyes were still on Delly, our dog who neglected the couch, spreading her legs at his feet, begging for a belly rub. He leaned down and scratched her stomach absentmindedly, waiting for me to absorb the news. His words soaked into me like poison, spreading slowly and lethally. They hit me somewhere deep, in that tight ball of angst I kept lodged in my belly.

My knees buckled, the air slamming against the back of my throat, refusing to make its way into my lungs. The whole family was worried and devastated. My family was a mess. Kathie, my sister, didn't show up for work; my mother didn’t leave her bed, and Dad ran back and forth, trying to comfort everyone instead of taking care of himself. It was, for lack of better words, a f*****g s**t show. And the show’s still going.

The one thing my father wanted to see me achieve was to get married. Marriage has never been the present goal but a later goal for me. The most subtle and happiest way to ease my family from worrying comes to my head.

Not that I would do it, of course. Men like me didn’t become involved in fake relationships, but blood is thicker than water…

“I am so sorry “the word stumbled out of Estella's mouth.

“I had to think on my feet. So I made an announcement of my own.” I continued. Quiet. My heart spun like a hamster on a wheel. The tips of my fingers tingle. Panic clogged my throat.

“I told them I had a girlfriend and was going to get engaged soon. Like that night.”

Estella didn’t answer.

Not at first, anyway.

“Why?” She asks.

“As it turned out, the engagement announcement was just what the doctor ordered. Family is a divine principle for the Prince's family. It gave Mom something to be excited about and took away Dad’s thoughts from the big C. And so it appears that if you agree, we are having an engagement party in the Hamptons next weekend.”

She digests my request, her eyes distant after a few minutes, she asks.

“You’ll have plenty of eligible women to choose from,” she said, realizing I was probably right. He was handsome and worldly and oozed big-d**k energy. Not everyone wanted to marry a walking, talking wallet.

“Why should I be of help to you?”

“Maybe because you need help, and I also need your help.

Maybe because we can both figure it out.

Maybe because you are the best for this

I don't know, but I need you.

If you can't do it for me, do it for you.”

After a pregnant pause

“I am going to pay you,” I state.

“Are you offering to pay me for companionship?” She asks, ignoring the pulse flicking in my eyelid. “Because there’s a word for that. Prostitution.”

“I’m not paying you to sleep with me.”

“That’s good news all around.” She replies.

“Is it? Because I think you just asked me to be your fiancée.”

“Fake fiancée. It is not your hand in marriage I am asking for.”

“What are you asking for?”

“The courtesy of not breaking my father’s heart.”

“Edward. . .”

“Because you are my last option? If you do not agree, all hope for my father is lost.” He dragged a shaky hand through his tresses.

“This’ll snowball.” I shook my head. My fingers were dancing; they quivered so badly.

“I don’t want my father leaving this world when it’s in chaos. All of us. It’s too much.

You can relate, can you not?”

Her face shifts, and she looks aghast. An inner battle goes on within her. After a few minutes,

“Okay……I will help.”