Dating the Duke (The Aristocrat Diaries 2)

“You didn’t like him. You can use me to get out of it.”

“You didn’t like him?” Eva exclaimed. “I thought you did!”

“That’s not the point!” I hugged myself. “He’s going to know it’s fake, too. This is messy.”

“Well…” Alex looked around and threw his hands up. “Why don’t we just ignore it? Everyone is aware that you’re living with me and tutoring Olympia. We can allow everyone to draw their own conclusions from there. We won’t confirm or deny anything. Leave it ambiguous.”

“And my parents? What then? What about when my mother calls me and demands to know if it’s true? What about Olympia, Alex? She’s old enough to listen to the news. Do you really want to have to explain this to her?”

Nobody answered.

Alex looked away.

“Exactly. It’s so simple until it’s laid out. Give me your room key,” I said to Gabi, holding out my hand. “I need ten minutes to myself.”

She handed it over without argument, and I wrapped my cardigan even tighter around myself and left, shutting the door behind me with a louder bang than I’d intended.

This was insane.

It wasn’t just me, was it? The whole idea was crazy. Avoidance, denying, admitting, lying… what kind of whacko pretended to be in a relationship?

Not me, that was who.

I let myself into their room and sat on the bed that was made up. It was clearly Eva’s, and had I known she was really spending the entire night with Matt, I’d have crashed Gabi’s room and taken this bed rather than sleep next to Alexander all night.

I didn’t have to explain those particular dreams, did I?

The only saving grace was that I hadn’t woken up in a hot sweat.

I buried my head in my hands. This was all a disaster. This was all supposed to be simple.

Fuck Charlotte and her need for attention.

She’d literally messed up my life.

I crawled under the covers and pulled the duvet up to my chin. The windows gave me a gorgeous view of the old architecture of Bath, and I could just about see the old Roman baths from here.

I didn’t know what to do.

Stupid Adelaide.

Stupid past Adelaide for offering to come here.

Nothing good ever came of messing with things you shouldn’t mess with.

For me, being someone’s plus one had never been a good thing. There’d been the time that his ex-girlfriend had shown up and they’d fought, there was another time a different guy had gotten back together with his ex, and then the time I found that someone else’s ex was pregnant.

Now, I was facing being someone’s fake girlfriend.

This was not how my life was supposed to go.

I just wanted to tutor Olympia, write my book, and go home at the end of the month without anything untoward happening.

The dirty dreams about Alexander screwing me against a bookshelf were really quite enough drama, thank you very much.

The room door opened, and I glanced in its direction.

Eva.

Of course.

She blew out a long breath and sat down next to where my legs were. “This was unexpected.”

“No shit,” I muttered.

“Addy—”

“How can you think this is a good idea? I’m the worst actress in the world, Eva. I was fired from being Mary in the school Christmas play, for goodness’s sake!”

She turned and rested her hand on my leg. “I know.”

“Then why? Why do you think this could possibly be a good thing?”

She sighed. “Mum’s going to kill me for telling you this.”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “Telling me what?”

Eva swallowed. “The hotel is struggling, Addy. Dad says we have six months of trading without a cash injection, if we’re lucky.”

“That doesn’t make sense. The hotel is always full.”

“Running costs have skyrocketed. Mum and Dad don’t want to raise the prices anymore than they have to. Country hotels aren’t the niche things they once were. They’re all over the place. There’s a huge wedding on the cards that could buy more time, but it’s not secured yet. They’re looking between us and two other places.”

My heart clenched. We’d run that hotel my entire life—they couldn’t lose it. Not now. Not after everything we’d all put into it, especially my parents. “And the media attention for me and Alex in a relationship would equal more interest in me. And by default…”

“More interest in the hotel,” Eva confirmed. “You and I are on the fringes of this society. We’re relatively unknown, but we’re still quite interesting to the society pages. The reporters will go digging for information on you and pull up the hotel.”

I stared at the pristine, white sheets. “That’s a huge assumption, Eva.”

She shook her head. “It’s not. I knew about those articles, Addy. Mum already texted me a link to one.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you pretend like you didn’t know?”

“I don’t want anyone to know about the hotel. Neither do Mum or Dad, so you have to keep this secret.” She squeezed my leg through the sheets. “You can tell Alex if you must, but nobody else. It won’t save the hotel, but it could buy us some time.”