Page 87 of The Billionaire's Fake Wife

27

Summer

"He gave you his credit card, right?" Karma hops up and down on her heels. My sister is excited. And she's also right.

I hold up the black piece of plastic he’d slipped into my palm. Yeah, hadn’t expected that. Not sure what I am going to do about it either.

"I vote we put it to good use." Amelie snatches the card from my hand.

I reach for it and she holds it out of reach. "Oh, no, Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes, I am not going to allow you to spoil this fun."

I tuck my elbows into my sides, "Christ, Amelie, this is seriously not on. I am not going to spend time being indebted to him."

"You already are," Karma drawls from the comfortable leather armchair in the corner, a glass of wine held between her fingertips. She looks at home in the living room, which overlooks the beautiful garden behind the house. The doors are thrown open to allow the warm summer breeze to waft into the house. Large pink and yellow roses bloom to the side; a meadow of wildflowers stretches out on the other side. A path stretches out, leading to the pond in the center of the garden, and beyond that, tall trees overlook a waterfall that gushes down from the wall that brackets the property on three sides. Idyllic. Beautiful. And so wrong.

I don’t deserve to be here, soaking in the rightness of the moment, when everything else about this picture is wrong. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong groom. What had I been thinking, agreeing with him? Oh! Wait, I didn’t have a choice. If I had refused, I’d have been on the streets, scrambling to save my life and that of my sister’s. The very sister who, right now, pours out wine from the, no-doubt, obscenely expensive bottle, and raises it in my direction. "Salut."

I frown. "You’re not supposed to be drinking. It neutralizes the impact of the medications you are taking."

"Not what the doctor said," she mutters.

"Oh, yeah?" I march up to her. "Why didn’t you call me when you went to see him, huh?"

"Does it matter?" She chugs down the wine. "They’re all the same—not able to diagnose what’s wrong with me, only to start me on a different medication, then tell me to be careful about my diet, exercise… As if I were eighty instead of eighteen."

"It’s a good thing drinking in this country is, at least, legal at your age."

"Which really takes the edge off this rebelliousness." She takes another mouthful of wine, then hiccoughs.

"You’ve had enough."

"And you haven’t had any yet." She offers me her glass.

I stare at it, then purse my lips.

"Aww, come on, Sis, indulge me. It’s a time for happiness. Time to celebrate."

"You sound strange."

"I know, right?" She stares into the glass, "Must be the alcohol, or the rather pleasant surroundings we find ourselves in. It’s certainly not your temperament, which as usual, leaves much to be desired."

She raises the glass to her lips and I snatch it from her.

"Hey!" She protests.

I drain the glass. Then blink.

"Yummy, huh?" She smacks her lips.

"So that’s how wine’s supposed to taste?"

"It’s certainly a step up from my last drink, which came out of a cardboard box." Amelie walks up to us, a freshly-opened bottle in hand, and tops me off. Then reaches for a new glass, fills it up and hands it to Karma.

"I think she’s had enough," I mutter weakly.

Amelie grins. "Come on, we need the liquor to brainstorm."

"Besides the wine is sooo good," Karma giggles.