The Billionaire's Fake Girlfriend: Part 3 (The Billionaire Saga 3)
H
e dropped the bags in surprise and flushed guiltily beneath his glasses, peering behind me at Marcus for support. Marcus shook his head a fraction of an inch but dropped his eyes when he saw me looking.
“I should have known you were behind this!” I exclaimed, jabbing my finger into Barry’s chest. “It was probably your plan all along. You see two girls living in a happy home, in a delightful neighborhood”—a cockroach skittered across the wall, making the boys jump, though I was determined to ignore it—“and what does Barry do? Barry decides to rip it in half!”
“What the hell is going on here!”
Amanda stuck her head over the landing and then flew down the stairs when she saw what was happening. The boys backed discreetly against the wall as the two of us faced off in front of old Mr. Taft’s apartment.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Bex?”
My face flamed. “I found this one”—angry pointy jab at Barry—“smuggling your Jimmy Choos out to freedom! Anything you’d like to tell me?”
She flushed as red as I felt. “Well, I was…I was about to…you got pregnant!”
I pulled in a noisy gasp as she put her hands on her hips. “How dare you blame my unborn baby!”
“Well, what did you think was going to happen?” she fumed. “It was just going to be me, you, and the baby—all living together in this dump? You’d basically moved out already anyway, Rebecca! I was only taking the next step!”
“So had you! And how dare you call me by my Christian name!”
Barry made the ridiculous mistake of taking a small step forward. “I’m just going to bring these down to the car,” he murmured frightfully, eying his escape.
The two of us turned on him as one.
“Not now, Barry!”
Still panting, we turned to each other with sudden tears in our eyes.
“I didn’t know how to tell you I was moving out,” she sobbed. “I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, and then you got pregnant, so I thought—why not blame the baby?”
“No, that makes sense,” I wept. “I would have done the same thing. And in fact, I was calling you this morning to tell you that…well that I was moving out as well.”
Her face flooded with tears. “You were?”
“Yeah…”
We came together in the middle of the floor in a watery hug, sobbing without restraint into each other’s arms.
“I just didn’t want to say goodbye;” she hiccupped, “it’s like the end of an era!”
I pulled back with sudden passion. “No, it’s not—it’s just an upgrade! Fewer cockroaches and more sex! But we’ll still see each other all the time. Just like we have been doing!”
She sniffed and wiped her face. “You think?”
“Absolutely!”
Now that our emotional crisis had been effectively resolved, Amanda and I gazed up at the apartment with fresh conviction.
“You know,” she said suddenly, “it really was a piece of shit apartment.”
“Oh my gosh—and we won’t have to deal with Hamberg anymore!” I cried excitedly.
She flashed a wicked grin. “It will break his heart.”
Without another word, we hooked arms and skipped merrily up the stairs to start packing. The boys flashed each other a look and followed cautiously behind while poor Mr. Taft collapsed against his door in silent relief.
Chapter 11