The Billionaire Prince’s Fake Girlfriend by Leslie North

2

In the dusty, rarely used records room, Jane huffed out a breath. Prince Ben of Reinia might be gorgeous, with a head of dark, curly hair (even if it was currently pulled back in an “inconspicuous” man-bun), a stubble-covered jawline that people would write odes to (also part of his masquerade, as he was usually clean-shaven), and dark eyes that could make a woman shiver (which no fake glasses could hide.) But after two weeks of working on this “secret project” with the man, Jane was perilously close to throttling him. He had a moral code that a nun would envy, and she didn’t know how he could exist with a worldview so starkly black and white.

That, plus the flagpole he appeared to have up his butt, were quickly wearing on her nerves.

He’d shown her the sonogram photo that he’d found in his father’s paperwork. “I figured out how to get here from that,” he said. “That is, I found the medical practice, here in London, where they took the sonogram.”

“Then they’d have the records!” she’d crowed. He’d looked at her, a mix of irritation and frustration.

“I know they’d have the records, but I can’t get access. It’s private, personal. Protected.”

She frowned.

“I know that look,” he had added. “And no. We are not breaking and entering a doctor’s office.”

She’d known that was a long shot. Still, a part of her briefly considered trying to get a temporary job at the doctor’s office. She’d be truly undercover... a modern-day Nellie Bly, the famous reporter, as it were. It would be her getting the temp job, of course, since if it were him, they’d probably be caught in an hour. She smirked at the thought.

Still, she’d been able to use the date on the sonogram and the projected date of birth to reverse-calculate the approximate time of conception. Rather than going through a year’s worth of news, at least they’d narrowed it down to a month or so. It had not proven as helpful as expected.

Ben rubbed at his eyes. Going through hours and hours of newsprint was a strain. “If I never read about another party, royal ball, or socialite extravaganza,” he groaned, “it will be too bloody soon.”

She grinned. “You could never be a journalist,” she pointed out.

“How are you still so enthused?” he remarked, studying her curiously. “We’ve been at this for hours, and this on top of you already putting in a full day of work. Doesn’t it get tedious?”

She shrugged. “I like solving puzzles. I like finding out the truth of things. I wouldn’t be as good at my job if I didn’t.”

He seemed to contemplate that, even as he reached for more records. Then he started reading again without another word.

After an hour, he called out, “I think I might have found something!”

She let herself have a little burst of adrenaline. A lead! Just what they needed.

She rushed to his side, then stopped, momentarily stunned by his brilliant, triumphant smile. She’d gotten so used to his scowl, seeing him smile at her was like seeing the sun after months of cloudy weather. She swallowed hard, surprised at how hard her heart raced in response to such an unexpectedly sexy expression.

Focus on the article! She scolded herself. Not a hot prince who is nothing but trouble.

“King David of Reinia attended the star-studded social event of the season,” she read, frowning. “This time without his recent bride. Has the arranged marriage proven problematic?” She winced. “God, they weren’t pulling punches, were they?”

Ben was tight-lipped. It had to hurt, to read about your parents in that context, and knowing that his father cheated... she quickly pushed forward.

“He seemed to enjoy the company of the various women who attended... God, look at that list,” she grumbled. “That’s not a bad lead, but that gives us a lot of suspects.”

Ben groaned. “How the hell are we supposed to narrow it down from...”

“Shh!” Jane covered his mouth quickly, her ears straining. The records room was in the basement, at the end of a cold tiled floor. She could hear the harsh click-clack of stiletto heels, headed their way.

The thing was, nobody used the damned records room—hence all the dust. The idea that someone was coming was suspicious. The fact that she recognized the harsh clacking sounds of the heels told her just one thing: the newsroom’s busiest busybody, Emily Parker, was coming to find them.

Damn it.

“What is it?” Ben whispered when she removed her hand. The clacking sound was getting closer. She could just make out the silhouette of Emily through the Records Room door’s frosted glass.

“Someone’s coming,” she hissed. “Someone who’s going to ask questions about why we’re here. We need to come up with a diversion. Can I kiss you?”

Ben blinked. “Kiss? Uh, sure, but why—”

“It’s easiest.” Then Jane tugged him down and planted one on his shocked face.

Under any other circumstances, she would never just kiss somebody for a number of reasons. First of all, consent was a thing she vehemently supported, ideally discussed beyond a hasty question. Second, she preferred men made the move... put in the effort. She liked to think she was worth it, and she wanted to weed out any man who might not agree. She liked the coyness, the chase, the whole dance.

This was a special circumstance, though.

Special circumstance or not, she was momentarily taken off guard. He had a strong, firm mouth, with a full lower lip. And once he got over the millisecond of shock, he was moving his mouth over hers like a man who was well accustomed to the activity, and really, really enjoyed it. If she were being honest, he was more skilled at kissing than most men she’d been with had been in bed.

Her mouth opened in a soft, surprised gasp, and he swept his tongue inside for the briefest flick against hers. Her knees went weak.

“So this is where you’ve been disappearing off to!”

Ben yanked away, and Jane couldn’t help it... she blinked mindlessly for a second, bowled over. Then she turned.

Emily studied them with a smug smirk and her arms crossed. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said, purring like a cat who’d just eaten a flock of canaries. “I wanted to see if you had turned in your article. Deadline’s coming up for the evening edition.”

Which was bullshit, and they both knew it. Still, Jane made a big show of straightening her clothing and was grateful that she was blushing. “Um... we just... ah...”

“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t say a word,” Emily promised, with saccharine sweetness. “And good job choosing down here! Good lord, nobody comes to the basement.” She winked at them. “See you upstairs, then?” And with that, she quickly click-clacked her way out.

Jane let out a long huff of breath, slumping into a chair. “That was a close one.” Then she looked over to see Ben staring at her intensely… baffled, but with a hint of smolder. “What?”

“You kissed me,” he pointed out.

Her cheeks heated with what had to be a blush. She’d just meant the kiss as a distraction. How was she supposed to know the guy could kiss like that? “I know. I was there.” She tried to laugh it off. “I knew it was Emily. She is the nosiest woman in the building, and you can hear those shoes of hers from a mile off. If she’d found out we were looking at records, she’d want to know why, and she’d be a royal pain in the ass.”

“But you kissed me,” he repeated.

She sighed. “It’s simply redirection,” she explained. “Like a magic trick, something to divert attention from what’s truly going on. She’d never believe we were doing nothing down here. And she’s a gossip. I gave her something to talk about, and now whenever we go down here, she’ll just think we’re snogging.”

He tilted his head, as if weighing her words.

“Listen, would you rather she knows what we’re really researching?” Jane said impatiently.

“Well... no,” he replied.

“Then I’m sorry I kissed you, but it had to be done,” she said, her tone hopefully as business-like as possible. Too bad her pulse was still doing a rumba in her throat.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, slowly, he shot her a smile that made her toes curl.

“Well, if it had to be done,” he conceded with a drawl. His eyes were low-lidded and his expression was… oh, ugh. The guy was so ridiculously, unfairly hot.

All of a sudden, her mouth went dry. It seemed like he was over his surprise.

Too bad she wasn’t.

“How about we have some dinner?” he said, his rough-velvet voice sounding like he was teasing her. “Eating has to be done too, right?”

“Right,” she said, and to her intense humiliation, it came out as a squeak. She quickly cleared her throat. “Right,” she repeated.

His grin was sinful as he opened the records room door. “After you,” he said with a flourish. She kept her head high, even as she chastised herself. It was a fake kiss. In a few weeks, at most, he’d be gone, and she’d be well on her way to being an investigative journalist. She just had to focus on that—and not on that wicked smile, or worse, that scorching make-believe kiss.

* * *

Just half an hour later, Jane and Ben were tucking into some delicious curry at a nearby Indian place. “At least we’ve got a jumping off point,” she reassured Ben.

“There are a lot of names,” he countered, still being sulky.

She shook her head. “You would really, really never make it in journalism,” she said with a laugh, tearing off a piece of naan. “It’s all about a sense of dogged determination and attention to detail. And, of course, just a smidge of luck.”

“You talk about being a reporter the way people talk about religious callings,” Ben said, his eyes warm with amusement and... was that admiration? “How did you get started, anyway?”

She laughed. “My granddad. My father’s father, that is. He was a private investigator, and he got all these cases. He could find out or figure out anything. Used to think I’d be a P.I., myself.”

“Then what changed your mind?”

Her laughter ceased as unwanted memories crept in. It must have shown on her face, because he reached over, as if he wasn’t even thinking about it, and took her hand. His skin was warm against hers, solid and strong and supportive.

“If it upsets you,” he said, “you don’t have to tell me.”

She swallowed against the sudden knot in her throat. Who would have known that Mr. Uptight Prince would be so perceptive—and kind?

“No, it’s fine,” she said, forcing herself to keep her expression calm and voice steady. “Strange story, actually. I grew up in Sussex, to two of the best parents anyone could ever have. My father might be a little gruff, and not the most emotional man, but he genuinely loved me. And my mother adored me.”

Ben’s smile was wistful. “That sounds good.”

“Doesn’t it? And it was like that until I turned eight.” She took a sip of water as if to cool her throat. “And suddenly, one day, my mother disappeared.”

Ben’s surprised inhalation was barely audible. “What happened?”

“That was the thing. I didn’t know,” she said. She kept her voice calm, dispassionate, as if she were telling a story about someone else. “My father said that she had to go, and that she wouldn’t be back, and that I wasn’t to ask any more questions.”

“And did you?” Ben sounded shocked. “Because... I’m sorry, but based on what I’ve learned about you in the past two weeks, not asking questions doesn’t sound like you at all.”

She chuckled sadly. “No, you’re too right there. I kept asking. It was worse because the day before she disappeared, we’d had the best day. She took me to my favorite museum, and we’d had big ice cream sundaes, and she’d made my favorite dinner. Then she just... vanished.”

She could see him visibly swallow, and he squeezed her hand. She was surprised at how much comfort the warmth of his fingers squeezing around hers produced. “Did you ever find out what happened to her?”

“When I was ten, my father said that if I asked what happened to my mother one more time, he’d punish me. Take all my toys. He said that one day I’d understand, but for now, don’t ask.” She shook her head. “He might as well have waved red in front of a bull. I was more determined than ever to find out what happened to her—I just knew that he wasn’t a source anymore. I had to find out some other way. I looked in newspapers. I called the police, asking about a missing person... my father was furious.”

Ben’s eyes went wide.

“Then, when I turned twelve and I’d been teased by too many kids about how my mother had abandoned me,” she continued, the words picking up speed as she rushed to finish the story, “I remembered some advice my granddad had given me. He’d died by then, but I asked, what would he do? And his first bit of advice was the old chestnut: follow the money.” She smirked, a bit lopsided. “So I hacked into my father’s bank account.”

Ben’s mouth dropped open.

“To be honest, it’s not like I’m some great computer hacker genius,” she said. “I just logged on; he had all his passwords saved on the computer itself. But I looked at where he was spending money. And I discovered something.” She sighed. “He had been making payments to a fancy medical care facility a few towns over. It was a lot of money, and it was monthly. It was an anomaly, new information, and an established pattern.”

“What did you do?”

“All of twelve years old, I took a bus to the facility,” she said. “And asked for my mother. To my surprise, I found her. And she had no idea who I was. Turns out that she had early-onset Alzheimer’s. She’d known, and she hadn’t wanted me to see her like that, so she’d begged my father to put her in a care facility. By that time, she had no memory of me at all.”

This time, she squeezed his hand, almost without thinking of it. He looked sad on her behalf. “That sounds incredibly hard.”

She shrugged. “After that, I realized that I wouldn’t have been as upset if I had only known. I confronted my father, and he said that he was just sparing me, that it was what my mother wanted. That he would’ve told me when I got older. But the truth would’ve helped, and I was so angry at him for keeping it from me. I learned that people keeping secrets ultimately hurt rather than helped.”

Ben nodded. “Exactly. The truth. That’s what matters.”

“And that’s why I became a journalist,” she finished, tugging her hand from his. “Because I want to help people. I want to bring injustices to light, and share stories, and help people by telling them the truth.”

Ben stared at her.

“Sorry,” she finally tacked on, pushing food around her plate. “I guess that turned into a bit of a soapbox, huh?”

“I think,” he said, in a low voice that made her shiver, “that you’re pretty incredible, and I’m lucky that you’re helping me.”

She swallowed hard against the sudden thirst that she felt—not for her water or soda, but for him.

“Yes, you are,” she said, attempting a laugh. “Now come on. We’ve got work to do.”