Beauty and the Billionaire

Phillip laughed but it was short and harsh. "No. I'm sick of gold-diggers. Maybe I'll take your route and pretend I'm poor until some nice girl actually falls for my bullshit."

"Not fair," I said, but punished myself with another burning gulp. "Besides, I think Corsica might be a gold-digger. The subtle, smart kind, but still the same species."

"Or are you just paranoid? You think she's finally figured out who you are and how much you’re worth?"

I shook my head. "She's more interested in outlining her little, multi-million dollar ideas."

Phillip snorted. "Sounds like the perfect match for you. Until she finds out you lied. That's how I got dumped. She found out I lied about remembering her birthday. She wasn't impressed by how good my personal assistant is, even less so when she found out how much I pay him."

"My problem is that Corsica will probably be over the moon when she finds out my lie. She'll think she's Cinderella and I'm Prince Charming."

Phillip hiccupped and sipped his whiskey. "No one's going to make that mistake with you, my friend."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "So, what do you think will happen when she finds out I'm loaded?"

"She'll be mad. Probably throw something. See this cut on my forehead? It was a vase. Ugly damn thing and I'm glad it's gone, but it hurt like hell."

Phillip swirled the last dregs of his whiskey. "But then I bet Corsica will relax. You said she's scrambling to take care of herself; maybe she'll relax when she realizes you can take care of her millions of times over."

The thought of Corsica letting me foot every bill made me laugh. "She won't go for that. I bet she'll storm out and not come back until she's worth more than double what I am."

She really wasn’t a gold-digger like I had said. Emotions had just overtaken me.

Phillip's eyes swam. "How's that a bad thing?"

"Come on," I sighed. "You're drunk, and I'm calling your driver."

"Just admit it, Penn," Phillip said as we wove our way outside. "You can't predict what Corsica will do, and that just proves she's not like all the others. You should give her the benefit of the doubt."

That sage advice from my drunk friend kept my spirits up. The whiskey didn't hurt, either. I trotted up the front steps in the mood to make up and hoped to find her singing over the piano. Instead, I found her on the phone and the first words I heard out of her mouth made me cringe.

"The best part of the day was the dress. You should see it, Ginny. It even made Kara jealous. Yeah, Versace, can you believe it?" Corsica sat on an armchair facing the ocean and didn't hear me come in.

"That was the best part of your day?" I snapped.

Corsica jumped and swiveled around in the armchair. "Gotta go, Ginny. Yes, and thank you!"

I didn't wait until she hung up her phone. "Sounds like you’re more excited about some blue dress with a fancy name than you are about your singing gig. And who got you that audition? Doesn't matter unless it costs money, huh, Corsica?"

"I only tried on the dress because you made fun of me for looking at it in the window." Corsica jumped up from her chair and marched to the kitchen. "I didn't ask you to buy it for me, so don't come whining to me about your depleted bank account."

I stopped myself just before I told her the astronomical state of my accounts. The whiskey was pumping hot through my body and into my brain. "That's why it's so easy for you to pretend with me, isn't it? You couldn't possibly be interested in someone as poor as me."

"Poor? For someone who keeps trying to cry poor, you look like you're doing just fine to me." Corsica gestured to the wall of custom-made windows with ocean views. "I bet this has nothing to do with money; you're just feeling guilty for using me for sex."

I had to hold onto the kitchen island for support. "What?"

Corsica grabbed a soda out of the refrigerator and slammed the door. Then, she cracked open the can so it sprayed across the kitchen island at me. "You heard me. This whole thing was just an easy way for you to get sex without the complications of a real relationship. And you call me shallow."

The warm effects of the whiskey fled, and I was stone-cold sober. "You think I'm using you for sex?"

"Oh, are you going to try to tell me it was just the magic of the solstice or the influence of the starlight?" Corsica slammed the soda can down on the counter. "I thought it was really something. I thought we were done pretending. Then we got back here, and you've been jumping on everything little thing I do and accusing me of things like using you, of all people, for your money."

"I'm not accusing you-"

"Then I am," Corsica snapped.

I held onto the counter and shook my head to clear it. I marched around the kitchen island and grabbed Corsica by the shoulders. "I wasn't using you for sex. I was trying to get you out of my system. You're all I can think about. This is all I can think about."