I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Fake Engagement

‘Fake, of course.’ I caught the faintest trace of a smile as he answered. ‘And arranged partnerships for mutual benefit happen more often than you think. We’re just skipping the dinner dates and going straight to the paperwork.’

And then he gestured for me to sit down, pulled out a sleek black notebook, and began listing terms. Like this was a bloody client meeting.

I sat through the whole thing in a fog, nodding along as we discussed timelines, appearances, and what counted as acceptable hand-holding.

At one point, he used the phrase ‘public intimacy quotient’, and I had to fight the urge to check if this was all some elaborate prank being livestreamed on TikTok.

Even after we’d shaken on it, I still felt like I’d slipped into an alternate reality where men said yes to fake marriages without blinking and I somehow wasn’t being scammed.

“There’s a party in three days,’ he said casually, like it was no big deal. ‘I’ll need you there. It’s time to announce our engagement.’

He paused, looking at me with that predator calm again.

‘And I’ll do the same for you, with your family. Let’s give them a show they won’t forget.’

***

I left his apartment in a daze, drifted back to mine like I’d just been abducted by aliens and deposited back on Earth without the

instruction manual.

Even when I slid into a booth across from Yvaine at our usual dinner spot, I still felt like I’d accidentally wandered out of my own body and into someone else’s wildly overdramatic N*****x show.

‘Hello? Earth to Mira.’ Yvaine waved her hand in front of my face. ‘You look like someone just told you your flat’s been

repossessed by a cult.’

I blinked myself back to the land of the conscious and gave her the rundown. Getting fired from the coffeehouse, my mother’s role in it, the continued repercussions of my cutting ties with Rhys, everything.

Yvaine’s face scrunched up like she’d just tasted battery acid. She let out a string of expletives so colourful it could’ve qualified as abstract art, most of them directed at my mother. I politely ignored the bit where she called Caroline a ‘fire-breathing dementor in a Chanel suit’.

‘That’s not why I called you,’ I said, waving away the job thing. ‘You know I couldn’t care less about the barista job. I mean, yes, RIP to my 40% staff discount, but that’s where the mourning ends.’

‘Still,’ Yvaine huffed, ‘that’s no excuse for what Caroline pulled. I mean, does she wake up and choose villainy every morning or is it a spontaneous thing?’

Before she could continue her spirited campaign to have my mother tried for emotional war crimes, I hit her with the real headline.

‘I’ve, uh… sort of gotten engaged.’

Yvaine froze mid-sip. Her eyes went so wide I was half-worried they’d roll right out of her head and into her cappuccino.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve gone back to Rhys.’

‘God, no.’ I made a face like she’d just suggested I marry my cousin. ‘This is worse. Or better? I don’t even know anymore.’

I launched into the full saga: my mother trying to auction me off to the Skyline City edition of Daddy Warbucks, my desperate

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bluff about already having a more powerful fiancé, and how I somehow ended up convincing my absurdly hot neighbour – who also happened to be my rebound one-night stand to go along with the madness.

–

Yvaine didn’t interrupt once. Her eyes just kept getting bigger until I was convinced she was morphing into a human bush baby.

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