The Billionaire's Pretend Girlf - Leslie North Page 0,4

say once she finally went out there. The truth wouldn’t hack it—Hey, all my housing plans were sort of depending on this monthlong house-sit you booked with me—and she wasn’t sure how much room for casual conversation a situation like this required.

But one thing was certain. She needed an emergency backup plan, immediately. Once she was back in her black skinny jeans and a silky black tank top—standard fare for attending classes, which was all she did anymore—she hurried to call one of her best friends, Geri.

Geri picked up on the third ring, but Jackie’s hurried and hushed plea—"Please let me crash at your house tonight and possibly for the next three weeks, pretty please?”—was met with a negative: Geri’s boyfriend’s brother was already sleeping on their couch after some sort of eviction crisis, and they didn’t have the space for another couch surfer.

Jackie was determined not to freak out. Yet. She called another friend, Marie.

No answer.

She called another friend, Leslie.

Another negative. Leslie’s new roommate refused to have random people spend the night.

By the time the last name on her ‘closest friends in the world’ list was called—Tiffany, a classmate she’d connected with during freshman year of undergrad—she still had nowhere to go for the foreseeable future.

And hell if her bank account had any wiggle room. A hotel was definitely out of the question.

Jackie scooped up the rest of her things and started packing as quietly as she could. She’d gotten so used to house sitting that it no longer felt awkward to be in spaces that weren’t hers—but it was a whole different story when the actual owner was within a twenty-foot radius. She felt uncomfortable and out of place, like she’d intruded where she wasn’t meant to be.

Poor homeless girl, pretending to belong everywhere you go.

Daniel was lounging on his huge black sectional—a couch she had independently verified as the most comfortable thing in the entire world—when she came out of the master bedroom, backpack slung over her shoulder.

“Sorry,” she called out, feeling slightly more put together now that her pussy wasn’t on full display. Still, though, the darkly curious part of her wondered if he liked what he saw. “I got all my stuff packed up now. If it’s okay, I want to do a final sweep around the house. Just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

Daniel’s face fell slightly, though she wasn’t sure why. He nodded. “Yeah. No problem.”

Jackie swallowed a knot in her throat and headed for the kitchen. For sure she had some soy milk in there, as well as a random handful of almost-too-ripe avocadoes she’d picked up on sale the other day. Just as she was checking the pantry, her phone rang.

Marie was calling.

“Hey, girl!” Jackie tried to sound chipper. “Thank you so much for calling me back.”

“No problem, I heard your voicemail, and man, that sucks!”

“I know.” Jackie heaved a sigh. “It was a surprise, trust me. And hey, it’s okay if you can’t take me in for the whole next month, even just a week or two would be fine—”

“Girl, I’m looking for a place myself right now,” Marie said with a groan. “My apartment has an infestation.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Some sort of wild insect problem. They’re going to begin fumigating for this Friday. Less than a week’s notice for us to pack up our shit and find a temporary solution. I don’t even know what I’m going to do myself!”

Jackie gnawed on her bottom lip as she tried to cheer Marie up. Now they were both up shit’s creek, and Jackie felt like she should dedicate her time to finding Marie a place to stay too. As soon as she hung up, she snatched the soy milk from the fridge and turned to leave.

And ran right into the hard wall of Daniel’s chest.

She gasped so hard she choked. Her hand shot to her mouth as a cough rocketed out of her. She doubled over, Daniel rushing to her side.

“Jesus, that’s twice now that I’ve spooked you,” Daniel said, gripping her by the sides of her arms as she coughed a few more times. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she finally croaked out. “You just surprised me, and I swallowed all that surprise down the wrong pipe.”

Daniel grinned, searching her face. From up close, he was even more handsome. He looked like the grown-up version of those Abercrombie models she always used to secretly fawn over in high school, even though the punk pixie she was back then technically