The Billionaire Game by Lila Monroe

exit to .
    My rage powered me all the way to the
lane before I realized that I didn’t have a car, couldn’t
exactly call a taxi, and didn’t know how to drive Asher’s
helicopter even if I could steal the keys (and oh, how tempting that
sounded right now).
    So I sucked it up and trudged back to
the hotel in my heels, muttering curses under my breath, and made my
way to the front desk. A room here would probably cost me an entire
month’s rent, but maybe they would take pity on me and let me
take a pallet in the kitchen or something.
    “Excuse me,” I said to the
receptionist.
    She looked up and smiled as brightly as
if she had just been told that she had won a trip to Disneyland. “Ah,
there you are, ma’am. Here’s your key. Would you like a
wake-up call, or a complimentary continental breakfast with our
freshly squeezed orange juice, made from local oranges?”
    I stared at the key in my hand like it
was an alien artifact. “Wait. What?”
    “Your cabin,” she chirped
cheerfully. “Mr. Young reserved it for you.”
    “Oh, I bet he did.” I could
just picture Asher smugly setting the seduction scheme, thinking I’d
buy his patter hook, line, and sinker. Too bad he hadn’t done
his research on my company, or I just might have fallen for it too.
“Just the one cabin, huh?”
    “Yup!”
    This girl was so fresh-faced and
innocent, I almost felt bad about what I was about to do.
    Almost.
    “Gosh,” I said, leaning on
the counter and lowering my voice confidentially. “I’m so
sorry about this, miss, but it seems you’ve been caught up in a
little misunderstanding between me and my brother.”
    The girl paled slightly, visions of
Appalachian family dynamics no doubt dancing in her head. “…brother?”
    “Yeah, we get that all the time,”
I said with a sigh, “because he’s adopted, and people
think we’re a couple. We’re actually expecting two more
people—his girlfriend, and my fiancé. I know Asher
hasn’t seen Maybelline in ages, and I’d love to be able
to give him a little privacy—you don’t think you could
just add another cabin to the account…?”
    Her hands scrambled on the keys,
flustered. “I, I, I’m not sure—it’s just, Mr.
Young is the name on the account, and since he didn’t authorize
it—”
    “It’s those memory
problems,” I said gravely, with a concerned shake of my head.
“Ever since the orphanage—oh, they used to beat them so
terribly there, sometimes when we were kids Asher would still wake up
screaming and wetting the bed— thank goodness the U.N. shut it
down and found all those children nice homes. But some damage can
never be undone.”
    The girl’s eyes were so wide I
was worried they might pop out of her head. “That’s so
terrible!”
    “It is, isn’t it.” I
laid my hand over hers. “Thanks for being so sympathetic. Not
everyone understands what a trial it is, you know?” I sighed
deeply, and tried to look melancholy. I thought about Asher’s
betrayal of my hopes, and that seemed to help. “I wish he would
open up more about it to me, but at least he has Maybelline. He can
talk to her about anything. The last few years they’ve been
together…he’s been so much more open, so much more able
to enjoy life. A true American success story.”
    The girl’s eyes were filled with
tears. “That’s so beautiful. I’ll add that extra
cabin right away.”
    “Thank you—” I
checked her name tag—“Ava. This means so much to both of
us.”
    I salved my guilty conscience with a
hefty tip, and then set out for my new cabin, courtesy—though
he didn’t know it yet—of Asher Young’s apparently
tragic childhood.
     
    #
     
    My room was gorgeous, with polished
wooden beams and furniture so plush you could sink into it and never
come back out, but I couldn’t calm down. The high I’d
gotten from outwitting Asher’s trite little seduction scheme
had deflated like a punctured hot air balloon as I faced the fact
that it had all been a