The Billionaire’s Fake Fiancée

Chapter 3

3

Jace

Later that evening

"Fuck." Jace swears as the barbell almost slips from his hands. His muscles are tired after an hour of intense exercise. Yet, the workout session has not cleared his mind. Gleaming amber eyes haunt him, along with images of lush auburn hair rippling down her back, making him want to curl the thick strands around his palm.

The photographs the PI had shown Jace had not done Sienna justice.

For one thing, they hadn't hinted at that black coffee and vanilla scent of her. Or that curvy waist, or the hips that flared so seductively that his attention had gone right there and stayed. Part angry, part innocent, she was all liquid fire. An intense urge to lean in and taste the skin at the hollow of her neck had gripped him. The force of his desire taking him by surprise.

And when his eyes had traveled back to her face, he'd found her cheeks flushed. The rapid rise and fall of her chest showing that he'd been affecting her, too.

The force of the attraction was so strong; he'd almost withdrawn his proposition. If he spent time with her, he'd end up sleeping with her. It's inevitable. Perhaps that's all it is. Lust. He must take her to bed and get it over with. Jace plans to do that at the first possible opportunity.

His mind made up, Jace places the barbell with the weights back on the rack, and then sits up.

Reaching for the towel, he wipes away the sweat running down his forehead. As he glugs down water from his bottle, his eyes take in the men around him in the small, sweaty gym not far from The 99.

A few blocks away from his penthouse and it's a different reality. A slightly rundown area of the city. Jace had specifically chosen this gym for its no-frills feel. An honest-to-goodness workout space, with a boxing ring at the center where two of his friends are going a few rounds. He winces when Eric gets in a punch at Damian.

Damian's upper body snaps back from the force of the blow. He springs right back, holding up his fists to guard his face. Damian takes the hammering, but Jace knows it's unwise to underestimate him. Damian's as mean in the ring as on stage, able to hold his own against his fighting opponent as ably as he holds the attention of crowds at his concert.

"Ouch, that must hurt."

Jace looks up as his friend Arpad walks up to him, wearing a cut off T-shirt with blotches of sweat on the chest.

"Nice color," Jace smirks. "Brings out the blue of your eyes."

"Oh." Arpad looks down at the light blue of his shirt. "One of my team-members may have gifted it to me."

"Do they always do that? Give you little tokens in the hope of winning your affection?"

Arpad's name had recently appeared on the top 40-under-40 list of bankers in the country. He's no less famous than Damian in his own field.

"Girls," Arpad cuts the air with the underside of his palm. The gesture's elegant, and would have looked feminine coming from anyone else. From Arpad it seems eloquent, and as European as the country he comes from.

“Those two don't like each other, do they?" asks a husky voice as Karina swaggers over to join them.

She wears stretch pants and a low cut sports-bra that shows off her sculpted abs. The sweat on her forehead makes her skin glow.

"Au contraire." Arpad grins. "Eric and Damian are best buddies. Trust each other enough to go at it whenever they meet in the ring. Eric and Jace here have more fights as business partners and ones far more vicious than what you see there."

Jace stiffens at the description of his and Eric's business relationship. It's true they often have differing points of view on how to expand the business. That's also the reason Jace had taken Eric on as his business partner, hoping their opinions would balance each other out.

Now Jace wonders if he had miscalculated. Perhaps he and Eric are too different to work together.

"Men!" Karina snorts. Her almond shaped eyes narrowed at the edges, lending an air of exotica to her face.

"But what would you do without us, darling?" Arpad slips his arm around Karina, in a 'we are just friends' fashion, only to have her raise an eyebrow at him.

"Your banker-wanker charms don’t work on me." Her voice is casual. Too casual.

"Careful, Arpad," Jace chuckles. "She's the most lethal of all of us and you know that."

It's true, Jace realizes, even as he says it. Karina had trained with her father in the martial arts since she was five. At eighteen, she'd started her own security business. Now she provided bodyguards for some of the biggest names in Hollywood and in the corporate world.

"Hey." Arpad rubs the place over his heart, in mock pain, widening his eyes, "I wasn't flirting, honest."

"Yeah." Karina snorts again. "You can't help but pounce on anything in a skirt. At least Jace here is more discerning."

"Am I?" Jace asks, surprised.

Is that why he's never been in a long-term relationship even though he's almost thirty? All the more reason Jace's reaction to Sienna is so surprising. The intensity of the attraction has shaken him more than he'll care to admit.

"Hey, you." Jace starts as Karina ruffles his hair, her gesture affectionate. "Where did you go to?"

"Not fair," Arpad protests. "He gets his hair fluffed, and I don't even get a hello."

"You, Mr. Money Bags, are an out-and-out shark. You should be grateful that, despite being a banker, you still have friends," Karina replies.

"Ouch." Jace laughs aloud as he gets to his feet.

"You don't laugh." She turns on him. "You, Mr. Angel Investor like control too much. You think you can control your destiny and the people in your life, you think wrong. You never know when fate has a surprise right around the corner."

Jace blinks, puts up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "You're right, of course."

"Ha," Karina snorts. "You charmer, you."

Sliding an arm around Karina, Jace slaps Arpad on the back. "We men have to stick together sometimes too." Jace tells Arpad. "We're here for you, you know that."

When Karina speaks next, her tone is serious, "In this town where only money speaks, here in this gym, we're all equal. It’s why we hang out here, right?"

Jace nods, his features solemn, remembering how they'd met. A few years ago, it had been only the five of them working out late one night at this gym.

A loud argument from the gym-manager's office had attracted Arpad and Jace.

Turned out Bosco, who ran the gym, didn't have money to meet his rent. His landlord had arrived with his team, threatened to evict him.

On the spot, Arpad had offered to pay off his dues.

But even that had no effect. The landlord wanted Bosco out so he could sell up to a developer.

Things had gotten ugly when the landlord's man attacked the two of them. Eric, Damian and Karina had helped fight the thugs off.

The five had pooled in money, helped Bosco buy the gym outright, making them all part-owners.

Now they hung out here, a close friendship having sprung up between them.

Karina's right. In this gym, it doesn't matter who they are, or how much money they have. Here it's about working out. Honest sweat that strips each of them of the veneer they often have to present to the world.

In the boxing ring, Eric throws a final punch and Damian hits the floor with a thud. Stays still.

Too still.

Eric strips off his gloves and his head guard, dropping down to check on his friend.

At the same time, Karina breaks out in a run toward the ring, followed closely by Jace.

Ahead, Arpad has already reached the ring, leaping up. He and Eric turn Damian over.

Silence.

"f**k, is he okay?" Eric asks, worry lacing his voice.

"Dammit, he's bleeding," Karina snarls.

The worry in her voice pushes Jace to clamber up into the raised platform of the ring, hauling Karina up after him. By that time Damian's shoulders are shaking.

"What the f**k—?" Jace exclaims, wondering if Damian is going into cardiac arrest.

Eyes springing open, Damian sits up. "Just checking what you guys would have done if I'd actually been really hurt." He grins, the lazy Texas drawl evident in his laughing voice.

"What the—"

"Bastard."

Eric and Arpad leap on Damian, the three going down in a tangle of arms and legs. Jace folds his hands over his chest, his gaze meeting Karina's in a shared look of amusement. She raises her eyebrows, taps her finger to her forehead, an indication of exactly how ridiculous she thought the men on the ground were.

Skirting the men still play-fighting, she walks over to Jace. "How is the start-up investment business these days?" She asks.

Jace stays silent, his expression non-committal. While he's close to all four of the group, Karina and he had bonded almost instantly. She regards him as a sibling, a younger brother. She's the only one of the group to whom he's hinted a little about his financial setbacks.

"Have you and Eric agreed to a plan on what to do next?" Karina asks.