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Get the APPThe Hired Fiancée: Bound by Contract, Trapped by Desire
Chapter 4 The preparation
guage swimming before her eyes. Fifty thousand dollars. The number blazed in her mind like
ce carefully measured as he watched h
n read." The words came out sharper than she intend
sanitizer in his jacket pocket, a tell she was already le
wn the familiar sting of shame. She'd heard worse assumptions a
her finger along the timeline. "Ch
ht the slight tremor in his voice. "You'll have your own room, of course. We'll need to est
g should
so long that my mother would expect more... ad
a living, he sure got flustered easily. "What about my background? You said
ed it open, revealing pages of handwritten note
keley with a degree in art history. Your father is a retired professor
h. "You know that's like, the complete opp
e rhythm-one, two, three, tap, pause, repeat. "We need to create some
She'd barely passed regular history in the tenth gr
before Christmas Eve. I'll tea
ty? Julian, look at me." She gestured to her thrift store jacket and scuffed boots. "I work
trolled facade slipped, and she saw something r
handled those men at the bar, how you're analyzing this contra
me? I mean, really. You could hire an actual actr
izer, pumping once, twice. "They'd ask questions about my personal
think I
ke the money and disappear." He met he
ena thought. H
name at the bottom of the contract with a b
ame precision he probably used for surgical instruments. "We'll need to work on spe
riate are w
ulled out his phone and showed her a photo of an elegant woman in pearls and a tailore
in a place like Murphy's Bar, never worked a double shift, never coun
d a makeover t
ance. And we'll need to do
dark waves, currently pulled back in a m
ntled slightly. "But it needs to look... int
ulders like a heavy coat. She was going to have to become
e start?"
at probably cost more than Elena made in six mon
cracked. "I've never even
lian stood, leaving a twenty-dollar tip
strange, rigid man who was
ing across his features. "My mother... she's very good a
tion in her voice. "I've been pretending to be fine my whol
and decisive. "Then we hav
around her-the gleaming espresso machine, the customers in the
ow, Elena Martinez would start learning how
was a better actres
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