Bad Engagement (Billionaire's Club #10) - Elise Faber Page 0,3

her shoulders, she tugged open the door and stepped out onto the porch.

Jaime the Vet.

She hoped he came with animals.

He did not, in fact, come with animals.

He did not, in fact, come at all.

And as she sat at the table by herself, having long ago consumed the entire breadbasket, her heart sinking, her inner critic grew exponentially in volume because . . . of course he wouldn’t come. She was a strange woman who’d asked via freaking direct message to pretend to be her fiancé for a week.

That was a special brand of psycho.

Men like Jaime the Vet did not voluntarily sign up for that particular brand of cray cray.

Would it have just been nicer for him to ignore her message?

Or to just say no?

Fuck yes, it would have been.

But alas, not all on the Instagram was real, and then there was her superpower—the one that turned nice men into assholes.

It was probably some compulsion she’d woven through the airwaves, a subliminal message hidden in between the letters saying, “Turn into a lying, evil bastard upon reading this message.”

Or . . . there could be something in the bread.

Or it could be the third glass of wine.

“Did you want to order?” the nice waitress, who’d been patiently refilling the breadbasket all evening, asked.

Kate sighed, part of her wanting to slink home and feel sorry for herself. The rest of her figured she’d done her hair, put on a dress and heels, was wearing her fancy red lipstick, so yes, she should just order a plate of expensive pasta, another glass of wine, and carbo-load away her happiness.

Hell, she might even live extra vicariously and order a slice of that chocolate cake she’d seen float by on a tray earlier.

“Yes,” she said decisively. “I’ll have the pasta al pomodoro.”

“Me, too.”

Lightning.

Like that image from the Marvel movie, Thor lifting his hammer up to the sky, a deluge of electricity exploding from the clouds to coalesce on his weapon.

His voice did that to her.

Collided with her nape, exploded out through her limbs, firing her nerve endings, bringing them to rigid awareness as that deep rumble filled her ears.

“Sorry,” the waitress said, sounding a little dazed, and Kate couldn't blame her, not when her cells felt like they’d been lit up like glow sticks at a rave. “What was that?” the waitress asked.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” that sexy male voice said, and Kate was still reeling from it when he moved around the table and sat down in the chair opposite her. “Hi,” he murmured, as the waitress nodded and slipped away. Kate barely noticed, not when he was beyond fucking sexy with that rueful smile on his lips. “I’m really sorry I’m late.”

Heat. Desire.

That fucking man bun.

Then her mind cleared. Because late? Late?

Kate glared over at him and grabbed the last roll, tearing a huge bite off with her teeth. “This is mine,” she snapped. Or well, tried to anyway, the words came out muffled. “I can’t believe you almost stood me up.”

Pale brown eyes dimmed. “Damn. You didn’t get my message.” He ignored her warning and reached across the table, snagged a piece of the roll. “I’m sorry, Red,” he murmured, popping it into his mouth.

Anger gave way to confusion. “Um, what?”

He chewed and swallowed then nodded at her purse. “I’m guessing you didn’t check your messages.”

As a matter of fact . . . she hadn’t.

“There was a complication with my last surgery of the day. I had to stay late, make sure he was okay,” he said. “I didn’t have your number, so I couldn’t call, but I sent you a message on Insta. But when I didn’t hear back, saw it seemed like you hadn’t read it in the app, I worried you’d be here, and . . .”

“You came to check,” she whispered. Confusion gave way to melting.

As in, she went melty inside. Shit.

“I didn’t want you to be sitting here alone.” His eyes drifted to the empty breadbasket, the drained wineglass. “I see I was too late anyway.”

Regret in his tone, those brown eyes soft.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s my fault. I should have thought to check.”

The waitress came back then, two glasses of wine in her hand and another basket. See? She was damned good.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling that wide gorgeous smile, and the waitress blinked as she left.

Kate was doing some blinking of her own. He was wearing a nice, but slightly wrinkled, blue button-down and jeans, hair-covered ones if the slight glimpse of