Cinderella for Hire

I looked up from my phone to glance at the man that was basically my boyfriend. Fake boyfriend that was. He exhaled heavily as he typed away on his phone, running his fingers through his hair. On further inspection, he looked really exhausted. When he realized my stare was on him, I looked back to my phone and typed the rest of my message to my best friend, Abby.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Texting," I replied. "Since you're not telling me anything and I'm in this car headed to God knows where, I might as well inform my friends that if they don't hear from me in the next 24 hours—"

He placed his hand over my phone to stop me from typing any further. "Please don't."

"And this is getting more and more suspicious and I'm getting more and more freaked out right now."

"Damn it, you're a stubborn girl, do you know that?" He said, sighing gloomily as he snatched away my phone when I had my guard down. "You really have no idea who I am, do you?"

"Are you that cocky to expect that every random stranger you'd meet would know you?"

"I'm Nicholas Fulton."

"I'm aware of that. Hi. I'm April Bennett, and your point is?"

"My father is Richard Fulton. He was an architect in New York, he still does a couple of freelance job here and there. His company has 51 chains around the world and a couple of small businesses here and there. He rakes in billions of dollars per year. Ever since I got out of college, he instantly gave me a job as one of his corporate executives. I was 23 at that time. I'm the youngest executive in his company."

I snorted. "I love how you're making this sound as if this is going to turn into a sob story, as if you're the victim."

"You wouldn't understand," he said, frowning.

"Of course," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm that he chose to ignore. "I still don't get why you need me," I continued, with a softer tone of voice. "I mean, with all that wealth, I assume you'd already have a girlfriend."

Or two.

"I don't do relationships," he said curtly. "That's where the problem lies. Now, they're telling my father that I'm not fit to be an executive because I'm an emotionless bastard who doesn't care the livelihood of the employees beneath me. It's all bullshit, I'm telling you, but it didn't actually help when at that moment I decided to tell them to shove a stick up their ass and shut the hell up because that's not my job, that we have a HR department for a reason."

Lovely.

"So you thought you'd overcome this by showing your utmost love for humanity by having a girlfriend?"

"Cheaper alternative. They're starting to talk about how bad it is to have the son of Richard Fulton to have one night stands every now and then. Plus, I've a huge family," he said that last sentence with reluctance. "It's easier to get out of awkward situations when you have a girlfriend around, or so I've heard from my friends."

"Okay. So, what do I need to do now?"

"I've an event tonight, at 8. I need to get you dressed and prepared for the night."

I honestly thought that at that moment, somehow everything went better than expected. That this was strictly business and nothing else. He was precise, straight to the point. Apart from that, this guy was actually paying me to be his pretend girlfriend.

And plus, I could eat meat again. So yay to that.