The Charade: A Billionaire/Fake Relationship Romance (Eden Falls Academy)
The Charade: Chapter 7

‘I GUESS I better get to lunch,’ I said to Carter as I gathered my notebook and textbook into my arms, figuring it would be weird to stay any longer now that it was just us and our teacher left in the classroom.

‘Wait.’ He reached over and touched my arm. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Huh?’ I stared at his hand for a moment, surprised at the warmth that glowed down my arm from his simple touch.

‘Uh, I…’ He cleared his throat and removed his hand after noticing my blush. ‘We told Sofia we were having lunch together to work on our interviews. So, I’d kind of like to follow through with that.’

‘I thought that was just an excuse,’ I said, surprised that he’d actually been planning on it. ‘I didn’t think you actually meant we’d have lunch together.”

‘Well, we do have that interview to start.’ He cocked his head to the side, the gesture making him seem more boyish and less severe somehow. ‘And since I assume you probably eat meals here and there, I was thinking we could go to this restaurant just off campus whose food I’m craving.’

‘We’re allowed to eat off campus?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘As long as we aren’t tardy for next period, the headmistress doesn’t mind.’

I bit my lip, trying to decide what to do.

It was the first day of school. Elyse had seemed to hit it off with Scarlett and her crew yesterday, and then again this morning at breakfast. Would she be okay without me for lunch?

‘We wouldn’t want Sofia to think you lied to her, right?’ Carter asked.

Pretty sure he was the one who had started the lie.

But when I looked at his aqua-blue eyes, I suddenly didn’t want to give him a reason to scowl at me again like he did yesterday.

Especially if he was going to be my tutor this year.

‘Okay.’ I let out a low breath. ‘But since I’m the one doing you a favor, by making Sofia think you’re cool enough to hang out with someone like me, you have to buy my lunch while we’re at it.’

His family lived on an estate. Surely he could afford to buy me lunch.

I raised my eyebrows, waiting to see if he’d go along with my conditions.

He studied me with narrowed eyes, as if trying to piece my personality together with the few short interactions we’d had so far.

Then, seeming to understand that I was the one helping him and not the other way around, he sighed and said, ‘Fine.’

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ I asked Carter when he pulled out a dark blue bullet journal and started writing in it instead of leaving the classroom.

He peeked up from his writing. ‘I’m just updating my planner.’ He drew a line through something on the page after writing Lunch with Ava off campus in blocky handwriting.

I frowned. ‘Don’t people usually put things in their planner so they can remember them?’

Mack had hinted about Carter’s love for keeping to a set schedule, but did he actually document every single thing he did throughout the day?

‘That’s one use.’ He shut the silky, faux leather cover, his long fingers wrapping the black elastic around the edge to hold it closed. ‘But I’d written lunch in the great hall in that spot, and since I’m going with you off campus instead, I needed to correct it. I like to make sure my planner is accurate.’

I nodded slowly, not used to someone being so meticulous about their schedule. I mean, Elyse was really into bullet journaling too, and the way she made her daily to-do lists was borderline obsessive. But even she didn’t take her planning to this extreme.

Carter slipped his bullet journal into his bag, along with his textbook and iPad.

‘Ready to head out?’ He slung his backpack over a shoulder.

‘Sure.’ I hugged my books to my chest, and then we left the math classroom that I’d been inside for way too long.

It was sunny when we walked out the front iron doors of the school, the weather still warm this early in September.

I loved when summer came to the New England area since the afternoon rain showers were my favorite. But I also enjoyed that we had all four seasons and looked forward to autumn and the vibrant leaves that gave new color to the overall green appearance of the lush geography.

‘My truck is this way.’ Carter gestured to the right when we made it to the parking lot at the east side of the school.

‘This is the student parking lot?’ I asked Carter as we walked past a Lamborghini, followed by an Audi, and then a Range Rover.

He gave a sideways glance to the expensive vehicles I was eyeing. ‘The faculty parking lot is on the other side of the school.’

‘So all of these vehicles belong to kids who go here?’ I tried to clarify.

He nodded, unfazed at the fact that the contents of this parking lot alone were worth a couple million dollars. ‘That’s Nash’s car.’ He pointed to a lime-green BMW Convertible. ‘This one is Cambrielle’s.’ He patted the hood of a shiny red car with a Mercedes symbol on it. ‘And this is mine.’ He pulled a key fob from the pocket of his slacks and pressed a button to unlock a black Ford F-150 Raptor.

‘Wow.’ I blinked, not believing that kids my age drove these kinds of cars. In Ridgewater, the Carmichael twins and Chance Clemont had driven super fancy cars like this. But most of the student parking lot had been full of hand-me-down cars that made sense for newly licensed teens to drive.

Carter climbed into the driver’s side, so I got in and settled onto the passenger seat.

I didn’t know what exactly I’d expected once I was in his vehicle. With what I knew about him so far, I didn’t expect it to be littered with takeout wrappers, or stinky gym clothes like the stereotypical teen boy, but I also hadn’t expected to be greeted with the most delicious-smelling cologne I’d ever breathed in my entire life.

I’d been sitting by the guy all throughout the past hour, but how had I not known that he smelled like this?

Dang.

I drew in a deep breath, trying to be discreet about it so Carter’s ego wouldn’t know that I thought he smelled like heaven.

‘Sorry about the smell,’ Carter said, apparently noticing me sniffing the air despite my best effort to hide it. ‘My cologne bottle broke in my gym bag yesterday and soaked the backseat. I hope it’s not too strong.’

‘It’s fine.’ I schooled my face into a neutral expression, hoping that he wouldn’t pick up on just how obsessed I could become with it. ‘I don’t mind.’

I mean, what teenage girl didn’t want to suffocate from a scent that could be put in a bottle with the label advertising it as ‘Hot Guy Ambrosia?’

‘Well, I guess that’s good because I have a feeling the smell may stick around for a few days since the guy who details our vehicles is on vacation until next week.’

‘You have a guy who details your family’s vehicles for a living?’ I asked, my eyes going wide.

Carter lifted a broad shoulder, like it was completely normal. ‘We have a lot of cars. It takes a lot of time.’

When he saw what was probably an astonished look on my face, he just chuckled and said, ‘I’m guessing from what you said to Sofia about your mom’s success being recent, you didn’t grow up with a trust fund like most people at our school?’

Would admitting that I was different from everyone else be a bad thing?

‘I still don’t have a trust fund,’ I said, deciding to just be honest about how new my mom’s money was since it was probably obvious, anyway. ‘And yeah, if our mom wanted her car cleaned, when we were growing up, Elyse and I had to use the hose and a sponge to do it ourselves.’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘Not really, but I guess it taught us about manual labor.’

‘Ah yes, manual labor.’ He strummed his long fingers on the black steering wheel as he pulled onto the cobblestone path that led toward the gates at the front of the school. ‘Now that’s something I’m familiar with.’

‘You’re familiar with manual labor?’ I asked before I could stop myself.

He narrowed his eyes, as if offended by my question. ‘You don’t think people who have a staff that take care of their vehicles have ever had to work with their hands?’

I pressed my lips together, wondering how to backtrack so the next forty-five minutes with him wouldn’t be completely awkward. ‘I didn’t mean to say it like that.’

‘Then, what did you mean?’ He cocked an eyebrow.

‘Um…’ I tried to think, but the way he was looking at me like he was ready to dissect every word I said in order to point out my flawed thinking was making it hard to concentrate.

When I didn’t say anything, he said, ‘I may not have had the same car-washing and Saturday-chores experience as you did growing up, but just because my last name is Hastings doesn’t mean I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.’

‘Your parents liked using gold silverware instead?’ I asked, mostly joking because I didn’t really know what else to say after apparently offending the guy.

I’d hoped he’d laugh at my joke, but instead he just said, ‘I have a lot of nice things in my life right now, sure, but that has definitely not always been the case.’

I waited for him to continue, to explain what he meant since none of it made much sense to me at the moment. But he didn’t.

So I tried to focus on the soft, pop music playing on the radio instead and told myself not to assume I knew anything about this obviously very touchy guy.

It took about five minutes for us to drive from the school’s grounds to the sign that said, Welcome to Eden Falls, Connecticut. Population 29,000.

My mom had driven us straight from home to the school the day before, so I hadn’t seen any part of the town yet.

There were rows and rows of trees along the road as we entered the city limits, and then various buildings started popping up here and there.

‘Do you like Italian or Mexican food?’ Carter broke the silence that had fallen over us after we’d passed by a few streets lined with colorfully painted houses that looked like they’d been built in the early 1900’s.

‘I’m good with either,’ I said.

‘Good.’

And then we were quiet again.

Why had I agreed to come to lunch with Carter? This was sooo awkward.

We drove a little farther down the main road until Carter switched on the blinker and pulled along the curb in front of a weathered brick building with a big sign that read, The Italian Amigos, in red and green lettering.

I did a double take at the sign, wondering if I’d read the restaurant name correctly the first time. ‘Is this place actually called, The Italian Amigos?’

‘It is,’ he said, a slow smile lifting his lips as he put his truck in park, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

‘But amigos is a Spanish word, isn’t it?’

‘Sí, señorita ,’ he said, apparently deciding to answer me in Spanish.

‘So the name of the restaurant translates into The Italian Friends?’ I asked, confused.

Did the owners think amigos was an Italian word and not Spanish?

The building looked old enough to have been around way before the Internet had made translating words in other languages as easy as a simple Google search, but surely someone would have told the owners about the naming mistake before they’d done everything to set it up.

‘Just come inside,’ Carter said, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door. ‘You’ll understand it better once you see the menu.’

I climbed out of Carter’s truck, my math notebook in tow, and followed him into the restaurant.