Fake Fiancée, Bride Forever (Billionaires of Europe Book 8) Read online

  Every couple of minutes, someone breaks off from one of the clusters and walks over to one of the others, joining right in the new group’s conversation. I see this take place a few times before my mind puts together what it must mean—everyone is talking about the same thing.

  And as I come to that realization, I feel an unpleasant jolt in the pit of my stomach. I have no idea what these people are talking about, but it can’t just be the pitches today, can it? It doesn’t make sense that everyone would be engaging in such open conversation about that. Surely someone would want to keep to themselves. Which means that they’re talking about something else, and whatever it is, I missed it. I missed something important. The day has just started, and I’m already behind. This doesn’t bode well for my pitch to the Vipers.

  Just as I’m mustering up the courage to walk up to one of the groups of people and interrupt the conversation, Megan comes running over to me, streaks of mascara down her cheeks. She looks distraught.

  “Megan, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay,” she says with tears welling in her eyes. “None of us are okay. Leah, haven’t you heard the news?”

  A cold shiver runs down my spine. I don’t like the feeling of bad news waiting to be sprung. It reminds me all too forcefully of certain events in my past I’d rather not think about.

  I wrench my mind away from those ugly memories before it can settle there. Whatever’s going on today, it isn’t going to destroy my life the way my life was destroyed when I was young. Whatever’s going on here can be recovered from.

  “What news?” I ask.

  “The show’s been canceled! We’re all being sent back home today.”

  What?

  My mind goes blank for a second as I try to get Megan’s words to make sense. Vipers’ Nest has been in the planning stages for months now. As recently as last night, we were still moving forward, still taking publicity photos. And now, suddenly, the whole thing is canceled? It doesn’t add up.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, thinking that there must have been some mistake. Everyone must be overreacting. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Mason Van Oren was just in here,” she says, hiccuping a little, still tearful. “He told us himself. He said that we could finish our breakfast, but when we were done, we should go back to our rooms, pack up, and check out. He said that a hotel shuttle would take us back to the airport, and an assistant was already there arranging for our tickets to be exchanged for flights out this afternoon and evening.”

  I’m speechless. Mason Van Oren is one of the Vipers, famous for his innovations in video-chat software. To the public, his name is largely associated with images of deployed soldiers talking about how grateful they are to be able to communicate so easily with their families. I’ve always considered Van Oren a personal inspiration. He didn’t just come up with tech that was new and flashy, he developed something that helps people. I want to be like him.

  And now he’s sending me away.

  “I don’t understand,” I say, willing my mind to catch up with everything I’m being told. “The contest was supposed to help the Vipers select someone to back financially. They were going to help one of our products through the development stages. They had a whole budget set aside for that. Did they change their minds about sponsoring somebody?”

  “Oh, they’re sponsoring somebody,” a new, male voice responds.

  I turn and see a man who looks to be in his thirties. He’s clearly jerked his tie loose from around his neck—the knot is tight and hanging low—and is clutching a half-eaten bagel in his hand.

  “They found their man last night,” he goes on. “You two haven’t heard?”

  Now Megan seems as stunned as I feel. “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “After the party, some guy went to the smoking lounge where the Vipers were hanging out. He went ahead and gave his pitch, and I guess they were so impressed by his speech or his ambition or something that they gave it to him right there on the spot.”

  “What the—” Megan utters. “Who would do something like that?”

  “His name is Magnus something-or-other. He came through here about an hour ago and talked to Jackson Willis over there.” The man points at someone across the room. “Jackson let us all know what he said. He left really quickly, though—didn’t even stop to eat anything. Can’t say I blame him. Everyone here wants to take a swing at the guy.”

  Magnus.

  I can’t breathe. I knew the guy was a jerk, that he was here to play games and work the system, but I had no idea he would do something like this. He must have decided to go back out after I left his hotel room. Did he happen across the Vipers or did he set out deliberately to find them? Was his early pitch an accident, an act of someone carried away by the moment and the rush of being around his idols? Or was it calculated? And if it was calculated, was he thinking about defeating the field, or was he trying to beat me?

  In a daze, I pull away from Megan and the rest of the devastated contestants and go back up to my room.

  I’ve hardly unpacked anything, so packing is easy. I grab my carefully hung suits out of the closet and throw them into my suitcase, no longer caring if they wrinkle. What difference does it make now? All of the hard work, all my careful planning for this show, and Magnus has taken everything away from me in one night. It seems impossible that the universe could allow something so unfair to happen, and yet don’t I know from agonizing personal experience that the universe is all about letting unfair things happen?

  I make my way back down to the lobby. The rest of the ex-contestants are standing around with their suitcases, quiet now. Moments later, the first of the airport shuttles pulls up in front of the hotel door. Nobody fights or clamors for a seat. Those of us closest to the door file out calmly and board the shuttle, and before I can even process the fact that the dream is fading, the door closes and the driver pulls away, heading back to the airport.

  I look down at the ticket in my hand. It’s still my original ticket, the date on it reflecting the day after filming was scheduled to end. I feel as if I’ve been jolted forward in time somehow, as if I’ve been through the competition and failed, and now it’s time to go home.

  The truth is even worse. If I’d failed, at least I would know that I tried, that I made my case for the app I’ve been working so hard on. At least I would have heard the constructive feedback of Mason Van Oren and the other Vipers. As it is, they’ll remain mythical figures to me, and I’ll stay a nobody to them.

  As the shuttle merges onto the highway, the tension in the van seems to reach a breaking point. We’ve all been sitting in silence for so long that something’s got to give.

  “Jerks,” somebody behind me mumbles.

  Someone else chuckles. “That’s putting it mildly. They brought us all the way out here for this, and then they couldn’t even do us the courtesy of listening to our pitches. I hope this guy Magnus invented something that’s never been seen before. If he just sold them on a game app or something, I’m going to be pissed.”

  “Tell me about it,” a man who looks older than the rest of us, maybe in his late forties, agrees. “I bet he just came up with some game featuring in-app purchases and themed to something that’s already really popular. Something a lot of people will pay a lot of money for, but that isn’t creative or inventive at all. Lowbrow tech.”

  “You think the Vipers would pick something like that to back?” a younger man asks. “Wouldn’t they want to go for the most inventive project? Something that would really change the world?”

  The older man shakes his head. “The Vipers are businessmen first and developers second. That’s why they were so successful in the first place. All of us in this van know how to create an app that can do what we want it to, but being a success means creating something the public is going to want—not only want but also shell out a lot of money for. It doesn’t matter how original you are—or aren’t. What matters is how much money you can
get people to spend.”

  “That’s a pretty bleak way of looking at it,” I say.

  “Do you think I’m wrong?” the older man challenges. “What do you think this contest was really about? We all came here hoping for our one shot at success, but for the Vipers it was never about helping small-time developers achieve. It was about finding an idea they could invest in, something they could make big and make a lot of money off of. That’s why they didn’t need to hear any other ideas once they heard Magnus’ plan. They knew it would make them money, and that’s all they care about. Canceling the show just saved them time—and time equals money, right?”

  He looks around the van, making eye contact with everybody. “The Vipers never cared about you. They never cared about giving you your shot at the big time. If you thought that was what was going on here, you fooled yourself.”

  No one speaks again. The older man’s rhetoric seems to have drained us of even the will to complain. Could he be right? Could it be true that the Vipers only brought us here to make money, that they never cared about what it might mean to us to be involved in something like this?

  From the moment I got my letter, I’ve been dreaming about sharing my app with the biggest names in my industry. I’ve fallen asleep to blissful thoughts of what they might say when they see what I’ve been working on. My app might not be a big moneymaker—I only ever planned to charge a nominal amount for it—but it’s good. It was going to help people. Doesn’t that count for anything?

  Yes, I decide. It does count for something. And my app is going to help people. I’m not going to let the Vipers, or Magnus, take that away from me. There’s more than one road to success. So the Vipers aren’t going to sponsor me—that’s okay. I’ll find my own path. And if it’s not this app that makes it, I’m sure another one of mine will. My ideas are good, my technique is good, and I am going to be a success in this field. And I’m not going to do it the quick and easy way, by taking advantage of people financially. A truly great developer doesn’t need to resort to methods like that.

  The van pulls up in front of the airport. We all get out and file over to the ticket exchange counter. I trade my ticket for the new one that’s been reserved for me and see that I have a few hours until my flight leaves for Seattle. I look around, about to ask whether any of my fellow ex-contestants would like to get a drink before catching their own flights, but they’ve already dispersed.

  Guess we’re not going to be staying friends.

  On the way to the gate, I stop and buy myself a stack of magazines, a bag of chocolate candy, and a squashy neck pillow. I usually don’t indulge this much when I fly, but today has been such a disaster that I feel I deserve a few comforts. I sit at the gate flipping idly through my magazines until it’s time to board, and then I gather everything up and head for the Jetway.

  It occurs to me, as I take my seat on the plane, that I haven’t called Gran since I got here and she has no idea what happened. She’s going to be stunned to see me return so soon, and I’m going to have to explain how everything went wrong. I’m not looking forward to it.

  For now, though, I can close my eyes and rest.

  As the plane lifts off, I lean back and force myself to remain positive. I’ll continue to work hard and seek out other opportunities. I’ll make a success of myself one day, Magnus Johansen be damned.

  Chapter 4

  Leah

  Five Years Later

  I feel the need to start work on a new app at least once a month. If I don’t, I feel as though I’m being lazy. Robert, who has the cubicle directly behind mine, seems to think this is impressive. He’s a fun person to work with—the only fun thing, really, about this job—and the two of us like to take turns bringing in breakfast and taking half-hour breaks over bagels and coffee to discuss what we’re working on. Robert, who’s been plugging away at the same puzzle-game app for the past six months, and who would never dare to open a personal project during work hours, is constantly amazed when I tell him about my latest ideas.

  But he shouldn’t be. If my ideas were worth anything, if they ever went anywhere, I wouldn’t need to come up with something new every month. Robert’s puzzle game might not be groundbreaking, but it is on the market, and it’s selling fairly well. The work he’s doing on it these days is mostly updates and additional content that players can download. I’ve put a couple of apps on the market, but they never seem to take off. I’m not sure what the problem is, but I’m determined to keep working on it. One day I’ll hit on a successful idea. It’s bound to happen, right?

  I can’t rely on my day job to keep me entertained, that’s for sure. Robert and I are both in data processing, a job that mostly consists of entering numbers into spreadsheets for eight hours a day. It’s agonizing and a waste of my skills as a developer, and I know Robert dislikes it just as much as I do, but the fact of the matter is that it pays the bills. It also affords me ample time to work on my own side projects—I’m faster at entering data than my supervisor realizes, and as long as no one is paying attention, I can keep a coding screen open and work on my own projects while still hitting the quotas my boss is so fond of.

  I’m trying to perfect a line of code when a familiar voice breaks the silence.

  “Good morning, Leah, Robert. How’s the work coming today?”

  Our boss, Ian, has arrived for his morning check-in.

  I look up guiltily, grateful that I had the foresight to tilt my computer screen away from the entrance to our cubicle. It’s not enough to render my screen invisible to someone who enters the cubicle all the way, as Ian now does, but it’s enough to buy me a few extra seconds.

  Quickly, I click the minimize button on my coding screen, causing it to disappear into the toolbar. By the time Ian is positioned to see my screen properly, the only thing displayed is a spreadsheet full of the data I’ve already entered this morning. Nothing here for him to complain about.

  Robert rolls away from his desk to face our boss, an obsequious smile spreading across his face.

  “Morning, Ian,” he says, reaching for the bag that contains the remnants from our breakfast. “Do you want a bagel? We have cinnamon raisin this morning. And I think there’s some strawberry cream cheese left.” He fishes around in the bag for a moment and then produces the cream cheese, beaming as proudly as if he’d made it himself.

  “No, thank you,” Ian says. “We have that onboarding meeting in fifteen minutes. The client is already waiting in the conference room.” His gaze sweeps over Robert’s suit. “Why don’t you go clean up a little and meet us in there?”

  Robert looks down. For the first time, he seems to take in the crumbs that have spilled down the front of his clothes. Looking embarrassed, he gets to his feet and scurries off toward the restroom. I feel a twinge of pity for him. Ian didn’t have to point that out. The crumbs would have fallen to the floor when Robert stood up anyway.

  Ian turns to me. “Have you finished with the Callister Report?”

  “I’ll have it by end of day.”

  He knows this already. We discussed it yesterday and the day before, and both times I told him end of day today.

  I don’t point that out to him, though. I just grit my teeth and nod.

  I can’t believe I’m about to be thirty years old and I’m still working here. I took this job when I was twenty-four thinking it would be a temporary thing, something to tide me over until my real life began. I was so sure it was only a matter of time until I would invent the app that would make my name famous and allow me to quit my job and develop full time. But that hasn’t happened, and every day that goes by makes the dream seem a little farther away. I’ve been here six years now. I’m going to be thirty. Will I still be here when I’m forty, or even when I retire? The idea makes me shudder.

  Ian leaves the cubicle and I slump down in my chair and sigh. Everything in my life seems to be trending downward lately. Actually, I have to concede to myself, lately isn’t really the appropriate term anymore. The
wheels have been coming off my life plan for years now. Each year seems to be slightly worse than the last. And I know exactly when it all started to fall apart.

  It was that stupid Vipers’ Nest contest.

  Before I was chosen for Vipers’ Nest, things weren’t perfect by any means, but my life was on a positive trajectory. I got my degree in computer science, moved out of Gran’s house and into my own charming little apartment, got a dog, got a job. These were the things I was supposed to do to cement my status as an adult. True, the job was boring and mind-numbing, but it was my first job, and I was proud to have landed it. The apartment was small, but it was cute, and as soon as I got a better job, I would buy a house. That was the way things were supposed to go.

  I can’t blame the Vipers’ Nest disaster for everything, of course, but it should have served as an omen of things to come. It was awful to come back to work here after getting my hopes up that the Vipers would see my app and recognize my potential. I hadn’t admitted it to myself, but once I returned home, I realized how much I’d put my faith in the possibility that I’d win.

  Now I was back to entering data in spreadsheets and wearing khakis and polo shirts to work. Sitting in a cubicle all day. Listening to Robert crunch on his potato chips and pretending the sound didn’t drive me crazy.

  I released my data mining app, but before it could get off the ground, someone else released an almost identical app with a much slicker logo. The realization hit me that I had to step up my game a notch. Competition in this industry is fierce. Just having a good, practical product isn’t enough. As Magnus had said, the app needs to be flashy too. So I tried to do just that. I stayed at home with my dog, Dragon, most nights and worked on a new app.

  Then Gran got sick.

  After that, I didn’t have time to focus on anything but her.

  I moved out of my apartment and into her house so I could take care of her full time. She continued to urge me to keep working on my side hustle developing apps. Gran had always been my biggest cheerleader, and she was adamant that I should continue the job hunt, fill out applications, and more than that, that I shouldn’t let what happened with the Vipers keep me from my dream. “There are millions of rich investors out there,” she was fond of saying. “You don’t need those old men. Go out and find someone who sees the value in what you’ve made.”