I Knew He Was A Billionaire, I Let Him Pretend To Be Poor Chapter 04

I Knew He Was A Billionaire, I Let Him Pretend To Be Poor Chapter 04

I had the next day off for once, so I slept in.

When I came out, Nolan was poking at the takeout on the table.

He looked like it had personally offended him.

I glanced over. Standard cheap breakfast. Perfectly fine.

To a rich kid, it probably looked like dog food.

But he was supposed to be a broke delivery guy.

This was exactly what a broke delivery guy would order.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Not a fan?”

“Everything here tastes like cardboard. Forget it. I’ll just make some pasta.”

He walked into the kitchen and found out the power was out in that room. The stove wouldn’t turn on.

His face went dark. He had to haul himself down to the basement to flip the breaker on an empty stomach.

Then he realized there weren’t enough eggs or pasta for two.

He dragged himself downstairs again and came back from the store with two armfuls of groceries.

He slumped against the doorframe, hungry and annoyed.

I bit back a laugh and kept my face straight.

But when he opened the fridge and saw the leftover cake, something in his face shifted. He didn’t say anything. He just went and started cooking.

I didn’t touch his pasta. I ate the breakfast he’d been so disgusted by.

He picked at his pasta with one hand, scrolling through his phone with the other.

My phone buzzed. Then again. And again.

A string of Zelle notifications from Nolan. One after another.

“So, Mara, I actually make decent money doing deliveries, but I just blow through it all if it’s sitting in my account.”

“Just hold onto it for me. Buy whatever you want. Don’t be cheap about it.”

I started to push back, and he cut me off.

“Just take it, okay? You’re way too good for me. If I screw this up and you leave me, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.”

He pushed his half-finished pasta aside and watched me pack up my cleaning supplies.

“Where are you going?”

I clipped back the hair falling across my forehead. “I’ve got a cleaning gig.”

Nolan set down his fork and looked at me.

“You’re off today. Why are you still working? Didn’t I just give you money?”

“You’re too pretty to be going into strangers’ houses. What if some creep tries something?”

“I already took the job,” I said. “I can’t back out.”

He had nothing left to argue with. He walked me to the door.

The world has a sick sense of humor.

The gig app sent me to Nolan’s friend’s apartment.

He recognized me immediately.

He froze when he saw me, then smiled. The kind of smile that doesn’t mean anything good.

He didn’t say anything about it. Just told me to get started, then dropped onto the couch with his phone.

A while later, the front door flew open. A woman stormed in.

She clocked my apron and mask, dismissed me, and went straight for him.

“Grant, what the hell is this?”

She shoved her phone in his face. “You said you were gaming at the bar. So who’s THIS?”

They were clearly together. Or had been.

But Grant Langley didn’t care about her. That much was obvious.

He didn’t even try to calm her down. Just snapped at her until she’d had enough.

She dumped him right there, got in his face, and tore him apart.

Then she grabbed her purse and walked out.

Grant looked like he wanted to put his fist through a wall.

Getting dumped in front of the cleaning lady probably wasn’t helping his mood.

He smoked two cigarettes. Then he stood up and came over.

“What’s your name?”

I kept my eyes on the floor. “Mara.”

“Mara. Right. You remember me? You ruined my shirt at that restaurant.”

I looked up. “I remember.”

“But you didn’t see me coming. You were too busy looking the other way and bumped into me. That’s how it happened.”

He smiled. Not a warm one. “Don’t look at me like that. Relax. I’m not trying to shake you down.”

“You look like you could use the money, though. Want to earn a little extra?”

Then he kicked over the trash can next to him.

Fruit peels, paper scraps, plastic wrappers, cigarette butts, and broken glass scattered across the floor.

“Pick it all up. Seven grand. No gloves.”

“Okay,” I said.

I pulled off my gloves and started picking the glass out of the mess.

He stood over me and took a picture.

Probably sending it to Nolan so they could have a good laugh.

I almost felt sorry for him.

He thought this was supposed to break me. Strip something away.

He was wrong. My dignity had nothing to do with his trash.

Running from what I owed people would be shameful.

Drifting through life without a plan would be shameful.

Taking the easy way out when honest work was right there would be shameful.

Picking up his garbage for seven thousand dollars? That was just business.

So I kept cleaning.

Then my heart started hammering. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

Between that and the lack of sleep from last night, I couldn’t focus.

I was almost done when a piece of glass caught my finger.

Before I could get up for a bandage, someone started hammering on the front door.

Grant went to answer it.

Nolan.

Grant opened his mouth, but Nolan shut him up with a look.

Grant caught on fast. “Who the hell are you?”

Nolan shoved past him. “None of your damn business. I…”

He stopped.

I braced a hand against the wall and pulled myself up. The room went black. Their voices turned to static.

Then nothing.