The Boss's Fake Fiancee by Inara Scott

before—she was too worried about what the weekend would be like—and her nerves combined with her overtired state to create a generally foul mood.
    “Is this what billionaires do?” Melissa asked, wrinkling her nose. “Switch expensive cars once a week?”
    She’d discovered, earlier in the week, that needling Garth could provide hours of amusement. Particularly when he did that little frowny thing that meant she’d gotten under his skin.
    “It’s about one hundred twenty miles to Essex. The Tesla has a three-hundred-mile range, but I don’t like to risk it.” He patted the steering wheel. “Besides, she gets antsy if I leave her in the garage too long.”
    Melissa’s phone rang. She dug it out of her purse and checked the screen.
    Perfect. Her mother. At seven a.m. on a Friday.
    She bared her teeth at Garth in a feline smile. “I’ve been dodging my mother all week. She keeps asking me questions about you that I can’t answer. Now you can suffer along with me.” She pushed the button to answer. “Hi, Mom,” she said brightly. “We were just talking about you. And brunch. Garth’s really looking forward to it.”
    Beside her, the frowny face appeared.
    Melissa enjoyed only a small moment of triumph before drowning in a barrage of questions. She paused every few minutes to mute her phone and turn to Garth for answers every woman should have about her husband-to-be.
    Like, “Is he allergic to anything?” (Yes, tomatoes.)
    “How does he feel about cats?” (Not a fan, but willing to fake it.)
    “Vegetarian?” (Eye roll.)
    And then came more of the other questions, the ones she’d been putting off all week, which were coming with increasing frequency and urgency. Things like: “Why can’t you set a date? (This is a busy time, Mom. We can’t think about that right now.) “What kind of cake do you want?” (For the love of God, Mom, can’t that wait?) “Can we invite Uncle Ralph? I think he’ll be out of rehab next month.” (Groan. Uncle Ralph? Really?)
    Then again, her mother’s questions were nothing compared to the ones that had been coming her way from her brothers. Melissa didn’t like the idea of fooling her parents, but she hated the idea of hiding the truth from Joe and Ross. The three of them had always been close, sometimes in solidarity against Brit, sometimes against her parents. She’d never lied to them before, and doing so now nauseated her.
    After twenty minutes on the phone with her mother, she pretended to lose the signal. Twice. Finally, Phoebe seemed to get the hint.
    “We’ll see you next Sunday! Bye!”
    Melissa collapsed back into the seat and blew out a long breath.
    “You look like you’ve just run a marathon,” Garth observed. Despite all her questions, he’d managed to maintain his equanimity during the phone call. Something about her increasing irritation seemed to rub him the right way.
    “My mother has a special knack for being controlling when it comes to matters that she cares about,” Melissa said, “and absent when it comes to things she doesn’t.” She realized her words sounded harsh and sighed. “To be fair, it isn’t every day you learn about your daughter’s engagement in a tabloid.”
    “But at some point,” Garth said. “She’s just got to trust your judgment, right?”
    Melissa laughed, though the sound held no humor. “My parents stopped trusting my judgment after I moved in with Mark. Dealing the aftermath of his cheating didn’t help.” She stared out at the road before them, already feeling the sting of her family’s disapproval when she told them she was breaking up with Garth—three weeks after she’d announced her engagement.
    Garth glanced at her and then back to the road. “What exactly happened with him?”
    “He was my thesis advisor. He told me he loved me and I believed him. He asked me to come to California with him when he set up his lab, and I did. I was starry-eyed. I thought he was The