The Faking Game (The Billionaire Games #1)

1. Nora

CHAPTER 1

NORA

The best part about going to a nightclub is when you finally get to leave.

I’ve been inside the heart-pounding place for less than an hour, and it’s still been thirty minutes too long. Pulsing neon lights slice through the darkness, painting the writhing bodies in rainbows of color. I can barely hear Poppy talk beside me.

I texted her yesterday after I finished unpacking in my New York rental and asked if she wanted to meet up. We met through modeling, and maybe we could be friends. I’ve wanted some here in my new city.

This is where she wanted to go. The VIP booth in an upscale club with seven other model friends.

“…right? Wouldn’t that be so much fun?” she screams into my ear.

I nod and smile, like I understood what she said. I hoped for dinner tonight, maybe drinks. A place where we could actually talk. Another woman, blonde and the tallest of the group, leans across the table. “Another round?” she shouts, holding up an empty champagne bottle.

The others cheer, and a friendly androgynous model I’ve worked with a few times holds an empty glass up high. Also in the booth are two men who seem to be paying for all of it. They’re probably in their thirties or forties, with flashy credit cards and arrogant smiles.

I don’t really know their names. Chad and… Dean, I think. Or something. The short one with the spiky haircut screamed it into my ear earlier, his hand on my low back.

I smiled and wriggled away.

Poppy grabs my arm, pulling me close. “Isn’t this amazing?” she gushes. “I’m so glad you’re back in the city!”

“Yeah, I’m glad to be back!” I tell her.

She smiles and turns back to listen to something Dean says. Or Chad.

Poppy is nice. Or so I always thought when we were shot together for campaigns or walked the same fashion shows. That’s why I reached out again. It felt like we’d had fun together; real fun. Not the fake kind of fun when people want to get close to me for my last name.

I glance at my watch. It’s only been eight minutes since I last checked. Way too soon to suggest an after-party somewhere quieter. I have hours of this left if I choose to stay. I should stay, really. See if I can make friends here.

Poppy leans in closer and looks down at my wrist. “Is that an Artemis?” she half-screams.

“Yeah,” I say with a nod.

Her fingers brush the platinum watch. It’s the brand my family has produced for almost a century. It even has a tiny Swiss flag inlaid on the back to show that production remains in the valley my grandfather was born in.

“Wow. You must have, like, your pick of all of them.” Her fingers drift off my wrist, and she grins again. “Will you be modeling any of your family’s brands this season?”

I shrug. “Some of them, yeah, but I’m not really here to model.”

“What?”

I lean in closer. “I’m not back in the city for modeling!”

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows shoot up. “Then why are you here?”

“I’m designing my own fashion line,” I say. I’ll take part in the Fashion Showcase a few months from now, competing alongside twelve other anonymous designers.

Her expression shifts, a mix of surprise and something else I can’t quite read. “Oh, wow. That’s… different. Why don’t you wanna model anymore?” She leans in closer. “You could be a top model, you know. With your connections.”

I reach for my near-empty glass. “I like modeling, I do, but I want to try something else.”

Poppy nods, but I can tell she’s not really listening anymore. She turns back to the others and shifts her shoulders in tune with the music. Damn it. Modeling is still her job, even if I hate it. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.

Next time I’ll try harder.

I drain the last of my drink. The table is stuffed far back in the corner of the VIP section, under a dark ceiling and in full view of everyone on the dance floor. I need to move for a bit.

I push off the couch and head over to the bar.

Maybe I’ll use the restroom too.

Maybe I’ll just leave and go back to my new apartment.

I’m a few steps shy of the bar when I feel the hand on my lower back again. Shit. It’s Chad or Dean. He’s leaning close. So close, in fact, that I can smell the mixture of cologne and sweat.

“Hey,” he says in my ear. His breath washes over my skin, and I shudder. Ugh. “Where are you sneaking off to?”

Maybe other women find this charming. Maybe it’s wrong that I can’t. I twist, and his hand falls off my body. “Just getting more to drink.”

His eyes are glazed. Has he taken something? How does Poppy know these guys? “I’ll buy you a drink!” He’s screaming, but the words barely reach me over the pounding music. He leans in closer, his hand now searching again. It lands on my hip. “What was your name again?”

“Eléanore!” I scream.

He grins. “I love that name! It’s actually my favorite name.”

God help me. “Really?” Why is the line for the bar moving so slowly? I try to take a step away, but he follows along, like we’re dancing.

“You’re a model too, right?”

“Yes. But I don’t model a lot anymore.” Or that’s the goal, even if it’s hard to say no when my modeling agent calls. She works for my family’s company, and for my older brother, and it seems like they want me to be the face of something all the time.

He nods, two quick dips that make it seem like he didn’t really hear a word I said. “Yeah, yeah. You know what, it’s loud in here. I live close by! In Tribeca!”

Shit. I hate when guys do this, and I’m already finding the words to say no. Blame it on a headache. I have plans. There’s a water leak in my apartment… I want to stay here. Turning guys down is the one thing I’m really, really good at.

It’s all I’ve ever done.

He leans in even closer, and oh god . There are people behind me, around me, and then him. Blocking me in.

Clubbing used to be fun, once. Now it’s filled with cramped VIP spaces and expectations.

“Back off.” The words are deep, audible over the sound of the speakers. A man has pushed his way between me and Chad, his broad shoulder half hiding the other man from view.

My stomach drops. I recognize that voice.

“I’m sorry!” Chad yells. “Is she with you?”

The man turns and looks down at me. I haven’t seen him in almost six months. I’ve tried not to think of him, the way I always do, this man my brother calls his best friend. He has a legacy that rivals my own. He was once the famed Calloway heir, but after his father died, he took over all of it.

The estates, the company, the power.

West looks at me with narrowed eyes. His dark brows are pulled down low, that scar cutting through the one on the left. I’ve always wondered how he got it.

“Yes. She is,” he says. “And she’s leaving.”

Chad melts away. Disappears back into the crowd in a way that West can’t, not with his height and build.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him, even if I know. If I suspect.

He leans closer. Right. The music. I stand on my tiptoes, getting closer to him than I ever have before. “What are you doing here? Did Rafe send you?”

“He didn’t have to,” West says in a clipped voice. “Come. We’re leaving.”

“I don’t want to leave,” I say. Even if my feet ache, I’m tired, and I can’t wait to get some fresh air. There’s only one reason he’s here. Rafe did send him to babysit me.

West’s hand closes around my elbow. “We’re leaving,” he says, and the crowd I battled with only moments ago parts for him. Lets us through. I follow him, and damn it, each step that leads us to the door allows me to breathe a bit easier.

We emerge out onto the busy New York street. People are lining up to enter the club, and we pass them all, straight to the large black vehicle idling at the curb.

“What were you thinking ?” West’s voice is frustrated as he releases my elbow. “You didn’t bring the security I assigned.”

“I don’t want guards following me around.”

His handsome face hardens, turns into an angry mask. I wrap my arms around myself. It’s late April, but the evening air is not nearly warm enough for the thin dress I’m in. It’s one of my newest designs.

“Why not?” he demands. “They reported to me an hour ago, saying that you left using the back door of your apartment building without informing them of where you were going.”

“It’s none of their business, and it’s definitely none of yours.”

“It is mine. Your brother made it mine.” His eyes narrow. “And you made it mine when you moved to New York.”

“I’m here to work, not to be monitored.” I left that behind in Europe.

West stills. It’s a scary stillness, his whiskey-colored eyes narrowing. Judging from his suit, he was probably out somewhere when he got the call about me. Did I interrupt him? Ruin his evening?

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, “which I won’t be, but you’ve been receiving threats for the last four months. Letters, texts, messages and, most recently, photos that make it very clear that someone is stalking you. Rafe organized a private security detail for you back in Paris. Now that you’re here, the task has fallen to me. And yet you thought it was a good idea”—he leans in closer—“to go to a club in the middle of the night without protection?”

“I was surrounded by people. I was in public the whole time.”

“Yes. Strangers.”

“I can take care of myself,” I say.

He laughs. It’s a short, humorless sound. “Clearly. That’s why I had to rescue you from that drunk idiot pawing at you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I snap. “Those security guards should not report to you directly.”

“Of course they should. I’m the one who’s been asked to take care of you.”

“I may be Rafe’s little sister, but I’m not a child.”

His jaw clenches. “No, you’re not. Not anymore. You need to take this seriously.”

“I just wanted a normal night out,” I say, and how dare he? I am taking this seriously. I’ve been taking it seriously every single day since the weird messages started. But I’m in a new city and hoping so badly that I’ve left all of that behind. I just wanted to make a friend.

The wind picks up, lifting my brown hair.

West’s gaze drops to where goose bumps race across my arms. His face sets in even harder lines, and he shrugs off his suit jacket. “Here,” he says, draping it over my shoulders.

“Thank you.” I hate that it’s warm. I hate that it smells good even more.

He nods toward the car. “Let’s go. I’m taking you home.”

I hesitate, clutching his jacket tighter around me. “I can get a cab. You don’t have to?—”

West sighs. “Get in the car.”

“ Fine .” I step past him, my heart beating fast. I can’t handle conflict. Never have. But he has always seemed to bring it out in me. I get snappier around him than I do with anyone else.

I slide into the back seat of the sleek black SUV. West moves like there’s gravity to him, rearranging the world around him with every stride. Shifting my own course for the night.

He’s always been larger than life.

His last name is a household name in this country, not to mention many others. One of the classics from the Gilded Age. The Astors. The Vanderbilts. And the Calloways. One of the few whose company is still intact and their manor family-owned.

He’s the heir to a legacy too large to contemplate. I bet the arrogance is part of it. Handed down from father to son in the Calloway line. Rulers of their own little kingdoms.

“Don’t do that again,” he says in the darkness of the car. I close my eyes and rest my head against the headrest. His voice is deep and soothing.

But he’s saying things I’ve heard so many times.

Do this. Do that. Stand here. Say this.

Be a good girl. Be a good sister. Take care of your younger siblings. We have eyes on us. Smile more, smile less, arch your back.

“You’re not my brother,” I tell him in the darkness.

“No, I’m sure as fuck not,” West mutters. His profile is a dark outline against the city flashing by outside the car window. The sharp jaw is another thing he’s inherited. It shouldn’t be legal to move the way he does, and also look that damn good doing it.

“I appreciate the security guards,” I say. “Truly. But I don’t think I’ll need a lot of protection, and I’ll be very careful. I promise. So thank you, West, but no thanks.”

He looks at me in the dim lighting of the car. “Very nice,” he says, “but that’s not up to you. Tomorrow, you won’t go anywhere without them.”