The Billionaire's Unauthentic Daughter

C H A P T E R 6 7

"Are you seriously taking me on a date dressed like this?" Ethan asked again.

"Yes, Ethan. I know you're not happy with this right now but trust me, this is going to be a good date. We're going to do a lot of things."

"Like what?"

I rolled my eyes. "Should I spoil it for you? No I'm not going to do that."

Ethan looked down at his old clothes that I had told him to put on. He had on a faded worn out blue T-shirt and sweatpants that he no longer used.

I led him into the garden.

"Are we having a picnic in the garden?"

"No. Today were going to find you a new hobby."

"For me? But I do have a hobby. I like to write."

"But do you ever do that? No. You want to do that when you'll be old and when you'll have a lot of time on your hands. But that's not okay. You need to have a hobby now as well. Don't worry. We'll find something you'll enjoy that also won't be time consuming."

"But why are we in the garden?"

"Were going to start with gardening! We're going to plant a lot of flowers." I said, pointing to the dozens of different and colorful flowers placed near a tree.

"I've marked a patch of land here where we're going to plant those flowers. We're going to take care of them everyday and water them and talk to them and watch them grow."

"Sounds like we're making children."

"These are our children. Because we're going to plant them together. Won't that make us their parents...sort of?"

Ethan let out a hearty laugh. "Let's do this. Let's make children."

We burst out laughing as we each took a shovel and began making the hard soil loose by digging into the earth.

We argued over how we wanted to plant the flowers.

I was adamant on making flowers of each type to be planted in rows so that it would look uniform but Ethan wanted to do it randomly.

In the end, it was Ethan who won because he said that they were searching for his hobby so he should have a say in how he wanted to do things.

It was good that I had dragged him there in the morning because the sun was burning hot on our skin when we finished with it after two hours.

We were both soaking wet in our sweat but proud of our work as we stood admiring it.

The flowers looked healthy. I had bought them just last night and none of then had wilted.

I was glad we decided to plant them randomly because they looked really pretty.

Doing it in a uniform way would've made it look controlled and we preferred it to look natural as if we didn't plant them and that they had grown there on their own.

"This is so beautiful!" Ethan exclaimed. "I'm going to take a picture."

He pulled out his phone from his pocket and clicked a dozen pictures of the same patch of land from various angles. Then he took pictures of us with the flowers in the background.

Ethan liked gardening. He showed a lot of interest and worked hard to plant them with me.

This could be a good hobby for him. He enjoyed the process even though there were a few unpleasant moments for him like when we found earthworms and he didn't want to touch the soil for some time after that.

We had to call the gardener to pick up the worms and deposit them in the soil somewhere far away from us.

"So what about gardening? Can this be your new hobby?"

"It's fun...unless there aren't earthworms. I like gardening. But I think doing it alone would be a little boring."

"I'm sure you'll find something to do. Meet me in my room in fifteen minutes."

We decided we needed a shower after which we were going to do next thing in my bedroom.

"I'll water them again in the evening."

"You don't have to. I'm sure the gardener will water our plants too."

"But I want to water our plants."

I chuckled at his enthusiasm. "Okay, you do that. I'll water them with you."

We went to our respective rooms. I took a quick shower because I had to set up things for Ethan's next potential hobby.

As soon as I was done, I set up a wide table on my bed and searched for the videos that were the easiest and connected it to the TV in my room.

Ethan knocked on my door two minutes early.

"Come in!" I called out.

He had changed and his hair was a little damp. I think he even put on cologne which was not necessary because we were just at home.

"So what's this?"

"Origami!" I said as I pulled out some papers used for the same. "We're going to make butterflies, flowers and fishes."

I passed him some papers and started the video.

To say that we were frustrated during the whole thing would be an understatement.

I groaned as I crushed another paper into a ball and tossed it behind me. I took another one and hastily tried to remember the steps and fold it accordingly to catch up to Ethan whose butterfly had taken a weird shape.

"I do not like this." Ethan said, staring at his butterfly which wasn't bilaterally symmetrical like a butterfly should be.

"Me too. Let's just make flowers."

We took new papers, our butterflies lying near our feet.

"This is definitely not it. Origami is not something I can ever enjoy." Ethan said. We were successful at not getting anything to look anywhere near to what we were aiming it to be. Tons of used papers surrounded us.

"Let's clean up. This is more stressful than my job." He sighed as he crushed the fish he was making.

I chuckled. "Sorry. I thought it would be fun."

"It was...kind of. It was something I could do without fearing failure. It felt nice."

"Then let's not throw these papers away."

"Why? You want to remind me of my failure?"

I shook my head. "No. It's for whenever you want to feel this way again so that you can look at these papers and remember how it felt like. I'll keep them in my drawer." I said and placed the papers in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.

Ethan looked at the drawer for a few seconds with a small smile on his face, then he looked at me. "So what's next?"

"How good are you at drawing?"

"I don't know. I never drew except for when I was a kid."

"Same. But it doesn't matter. Let's draw and paint whatever we want to. We can both be terrible at this."

"As far as remember, you weren't bad at art. You were actually pretty good."

Shit.

"I mean it has been so long since I last drew. It has been nearly two years. I might've lost that flair."

"I don't think so. You'd go months without drawing anything and everytime you did draw after that, it was amazing. I know I always said that it wasn't that good but I was just lying."

"But it has been years." I insisted. "I'm going to be really bad at this."

"Okay, well, let's see."

I had made a mistake. I never thought of Juliet's talent in art. I thought she would be average because I couldn't picture her being good at art.

We sat at my table at the opposite ends with a drawing sheet, paint and crayons around us.

"What're we going to draw?" Ethan asked as he ran his fingers over the paper and looked at the paint.

I shrugged, having never thought of it. "Just anything you want."

"What're you going to draw?"

"You." I replied.

"Me?"

"Yeah." I said then realized it probably sounded creepy and so added, "Because you know, you're right in front of me and if not for you I might draw mountains, a river and a house with birds who look like the word 'r'.

He chuckled. "Alright. Then I'm going to draw you too."

"Okay." I blushed.

This was a win-win situation. Not only did I have an excuse to look or stare at Ethan all I wanted, I also had the pleasure to see him look at me with just as much concentration as me.

We began working on our sheets. I wasn't particularly gifted in the art department.

But I had give my best effort to do this better than what I was capable of.

Because unfortunately Juliet was really good at this and if I show him my sheet with stick figures on it, it wouldn't take a lot for him to connect the dots.

So I worked hard on meeting the Juliet standard. I didn't know how good she was. I was obviously going to fall short of meeting her talent and I was starting to think this was a bad idea.

By the time I was finished, the sheet was near ripping apart by the number of time I had drawn and erased on it.

"Are you done?" Ethan asked just as I was finishing up with the last strokes of Ethan's portrait with my brush.

"Yeah."

"I'm definitely not good at this. This can't be my hobby." Ethan said, turning his page around to show me the comical painting of mine with an embarrassed smile on his face.

I laughed. "Well mine isn't any better." I said, nervously turning my sheet around to show him.

He squinted and examined my painting a few seconds longer than necessary. "Twenty four months really did some damage."

I smiled uneasily. "Yeah. I told you."

"You should start practicing. I'd love to see you paint like before. Still, it's not that bad."

"Yeah, I'll do that. So this is not it? You don't enjoy drawing and panting? Nothing in the art department?"

He shook his head. "I suck at this."

"It doesn't matter. You just have to enjoy it. Besides we always keep improving."

"No, I don't really enjoy this. It feels like a task."

I nodded and took out the page from my back pocket in which I had listed down all the things we were going to do today. I crossed off origami and painting and rounded gardening because it was a strong contender for his hobby.

The next thing on the list was cooking which we had already done but will do it again because it was almost time for lunch and I wanted us to make lunch for everyone today.

We got started in the kitchen and after two hours, we were finished. Only my dad and mom would be the judges for our cooking. I wished Keith was here to taste the dishes because his expert feedback would've been very valuable.

I knew before we even started that Ethan liked cooking and so I rounded it on the list as well.

We all sat together for lunch and my parents complimented our cooking. It wasn't the best like Keith's or even the new cook's, they admitted but they were still pretty impressed.

"So what about cooking?" I whispered to Ethan who was sitting right next to me.

"Yeah, I like it. This can be my hobby."

I nodded. "I knew it."

After lunch, we did the dishes with him scrubbing it clean and me washing them.

I led him to my room after that and we settled in my bed comfortably.

"So the next thing we're going to do is reading. Because if you want to be a writer, you first have to be a reader."

"Oh yes, I used to read so many books when I was young." Ethan said, a smile on his lips and eyes staring off into the distance as if reminiscing his memories.

"You can still enjoy reading but you should make time for it. You always busy yourself with work that it makes me think that you don't work to live but live to work. It's not healthy. You should have other things in your life you like doing."

"I know. So what are we reading today?"

I bit my lip, a little hesitant before reaching out to my bookshelf and pulling out a brand new copy of Thursday's Child by Sandra Brown.

He looked at the book in my hands. "I'm not sure. I've never read books in this genre. It's all just mush and stuff, like watching chick flicks."

"No. You don't have a choice here. We're going to read this book."

The reason I was insisting on this book was because it was similar to what was happening in my life right now.

The female protagonist in that book pretends to be her identical twin sister and I was going to make Ethan read it and tell me what he thought about it.

I would subtly ask him what he'd do if he liked a girl who was just pretending to be someone else.

I knew this was a little risky but I had to know and had to have a little idea of how he'd react when I told him the truth.

"Why can't we read some other book?" He whined.

"I want to read this one."

"Okay then you read this, I'll read some other book." He said, already browsing through the other books.

"No, we're both going to read the same book and it's going to be this one."

He groaned. "You said you never read books in this genre. Start with this one. You might actually like it."

"Okay, whatever."

He snatched the book from me and patted the space next to him where I sat down. He opened the book and flipped through the first chapter and then we started reading.

Throughout the whole time, he didn't react to what was going on in the book, not even when the main character started pretending to be her twin.

I was dying to ask a question about it but held my tongue for a good two hours.

We had read nearly a hundred pages by then after which I pushed the book back and turned to face him.

"So what did you think about it so far?"

"It's not bad. It's good. I mean I love the romance part. It's sweet."

"And...what do you think about the girl who's pretending to be someone else?"

"It's a story. There's got to be some kind of drama."

"Yeah, but like if you were in Spencer's place and you found out the truth, how would you react?"

"I think I'll be very shocked. I...I'll be a little mad but I know that Allison's feelings are genuine so I think that's all that matters."

"That's right! As long as feelings are genuine, it should be alright."

I must've seemed a little too excited because he raised an eyebrow at my apparent happiness at his words.

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. Just wanted to see if you were liking the book."

"Oh."

Then we resumed reading.

I was sure that the day I told him the truth, he'd understand as well. He might get a little mad at me but I was sure he would eventually forgive me and see that although I was living under someone else's name, my personality and my feelings for him were very much real.

After another hour, we finally closed the book after sticking a bookmark into the page we were at.

"We'll finish reading this together sometime." I said as I went to put it away.

"I like reading." He said after I returned.

I knew it hence the reason why I had already rounded it off in my list. For being a writer, you first had to be an avid reader.

I got out of the bed, my butt feeling numb from hours of sitting. I stretched and heard my neck and back crack.

"Ready for a game?" I asked.

He stopped and looked at me confusedly.

I dragged him to the badminton court with him whining about how he didn't want to play.

"Seriously Juliet, I'm not good at this.

Plus, I don't do any physical activity so I'll get tired out pretty quickly.

The only form of exercise I do is at the gym I visit a couple of times every month and even then I procrastinate and shorten the time.

I already know this is not something I'll enjoy.

" He tried to reason with me as I handed him a racquet which he grudgingly held.

"Hey, you at least have to try it out. Even I suck at playing this. It'll be fine."

With a lot of effort I made him stand at the other end of the court without him trying to run away.

"Okay I'm going to start!" I yelled as I got ready to hit the shuttlecock.

"Okay!" He said as he gripped his racquet.

Half an hour later we were both soaked wet in sweat. True to my words, we both sucked at the game, him more than I did. After he was unsuccessful in hurtling the shuttlecock right back at me for what might be the thousandth time, he let the racquet out of his grasp and collapsed on the ground.

"I don't want to do this!" He shouted across the court.

I laughed. "Come on, it's not that bad."

"No no no. I don't like any type of sports so cross that off the list."

I jogged over to his side and laid down next to him, looking up at the sky while we tried to catch our breath.

"Okay, it's not my favorite either. We don't have to torture ourselves any further."

"Thank you!"

I turned my head to look at him but he had his eyes closed. I smiled faintly and followed his lead. We were lying there under the open sky for quite some time. It felt so nice, I didn't want to get up again.

But we had to because it was almost time for dinner and our date was coming to an end.

We got up eventually and realized we both badly needed a shower again and that was exactly what we did.

Once we were clean and fresh, we didn't have any energy to cook or do anything and so we had a quiet and lovely dinner with dad and mom.

After dinner and about an hour of aimlessly watching news and movies with the rest of the family, my dad and mom eventually retired to their room and finally we were the only ones remaining.

"So that was our third date." I concluded, feeling bittersweet about it.

"And now I have to grade you."

I nodded. "I hope I get an A."

He chuckled as he fished at the coffee table for a blank piece of paper which he found along with a pen which was going to stop working anytime because its ink was almost entirely used.

Ethan drew three columns and named them first date, second date and third date. I rolled my eyes and chuckled at this.

"Let's just go to our rooms, I'll give the marks on the way."

"Okay."

We stood up and began ascending the stairs together all the while he fiddled with the paper.

Once we reached in front of our rooms, I turned to him and peered down at the paper to find that it was still blank.

"Do you need more time?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away although just as I was about to say that he could just tell me the next day, he abruptly looked up to meet my eyes.

"You know," he started, crumbling the paper in his hand and tossing it away. "I find this pointless."

"What do you mean?"

"I experienced all those dates and I could see how much thought you put into it and how you really wanted me to have a good time and wanted to protect me. And after all that, writing on a piece of paper to determine our fate seems ridiculous. We're special than that."

"So what now?" I asked, still not fully sure what he was getting at.

He stepped towards me and I stood rooted in my spot.

His large warm hands cupped my cheeks and we held each other's gazes until we could see the want swimming in each other's eyes. He closed his eyes and leaned in before initiating the kiss.

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