Page 77 of A Billion Dollar Romance

“I have to,” she snapped. “It’s aboutme. Give it to me. I need to know what people are saying. By the way you’re all looking at me I assume it’s not that they’re looking forward to the romance of the century–”

I’d thought my stomach couldn’t sink any lower, but her words sent it oozing out my toes and onto the floor.

This wasn’t supposed to be about Edie and I, my pride, her career.

The romance of the century.

This was supposed to be marketing. Before I’d gotten it all tangled up with how I felt about Edie–my cock and now myheart–this was supposed to bemarketing.

Just when I was feeling good, I’d gone and fucked it up.

I closed my eyes, but lifted my hand from the magazine.

Because this was about Verity. Braces, and college tuition. Whatever happened, this wasn’t about us. It couldn’t be.

The rush of blood through my ears was deafening.

CHAPTER37

Edie

This isn’t right,I thought,againandagainas I read through the article.

“Why would they do this?” I asked, to nobody in particular.

“To sell magazines,” Bridget said. “And they will. We’ll put out a statement through the PR team ASAP, but–”

“The damage is done,” James said. “The only thing for us to do is–”

“No!” I said. My heart beat against my chest like a caged bird. “James, you know this isn’t true!”

They say the only thing to do with an English degree is teach… Taylor’s taken that one step further and done the teacher.

His eyes were hard when he stared at me.

“Isn’t it, Edie?”

“No, it’s not,” I said, feeling the back of my neck prickle. I looked back at the article.Miss Taylor seems eager to publish work of her own–and her billionaire fiancé has apparently never been able to say no to her, from bedding her as an undergraduate to bestowing upon her a position at his company.“You know it’s not!”

“Sweetheart, who will believe us? It’s true, Iwasyour professor, Iamyour boss, everyoneknowswe’re engaged, if the timeline is off slightly, well, people will believe what they want to, no matter what we tell them. My reputation…” he cringed, but shrugged. “It’s already been printed.”

“What are you saying, James? That we should just–just ignore this?”

He took the magazine out of my limp grasp and tossed it into the trash can. “We’ll have the lawyers take care of it, send a cease and desist, they’ll print a retraction. But… yes. The less attention we bring to it, the faster it will go away. Ignore it. It’s not you they’re interested in, anyway, it’s me.”

James Martin, playboy heir to the Martin fortune,the article had called him.His escapades between the sheets are perhaps better known than what’s between the covers of the books coming out of his late grandfather’s publishing house.

A plan, sketchy and half-formed, burbled up from my throat and out of my desperate mouth.

“No, it’s not true. It was a fake relationship. We can tell them we didn’t sleep together–not when I was a student, not now. It’s all for marketing, and–”

“And what, Edie? You know what that would mean.”

“It would mean the reporter was wrong. She was lying about us being together, she would be lying about us sleeping together as a student…”

“It would mean we were lying to our readers. Our customers.”

“But we were!” I said, desperation leaching into my voice. “Wewerelying, and–and we can lie now, and tell them–”