FAKE DATING WITH BENEFITS MY BILLIONAIRE BOSS (Ophelia Corrigan) novel Chapter 132

CHAPTER 132

AMIE

The Whitmore House was even prettier in person.

Mvourte

The car pulled up to the gates a little after three thirty, and I sat there for a few seconds looking out the window before getting out.

The property sat far enough from Manhattan that the noise of the city felt like it belonged to another world. A tree-lined drive led up to the pale stone house. It wasn’t huge in a vulgar way. It was old and elegant. The kind of place that seemed to have stories hidden in every window.

Ethan was already waiting near the entrance.

“Based on your face, I’m guessing messaging you was the right call.”

“Don’t get excited. I haven’t even gone in yet.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m being polite.”

“Sure.”

A woman with perfectly pinned gray hair appeared at the door before we reached the steps.

“Ethan.”

Her face broke into a smile.

“Mrs. Whitmore.”

She hugged him.

“If you call me that again, I’m sending you home.”

“Margaret.”

“Better.”

Ethan turned to me.

“Margaret Whitmore, Jamie Collins.”

“Finally,” she said, shaking my hand. “Vivian told me about you.”

I looked at Ethan.

“What exactly did your friend tell her?”

“Nothing incriminating,” he said.

Margaret smiled.

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FAKE DATING WITH BENEFITS MY BILLIONAIRE BOSS

“Only that you’re the woman who made Simon Hart want to get married.”

hut my eyes for a second.

“New York is way too small a city.”

“When it comes to billionaires, definitely.”

I liked her immediately.

The tour started in the main hall, but it was the garden that wrecked me.

French doors opened onto a lawn framed by tall trees and white flower beds. At the far end, a stone structure covered in vines formed a kind of natural altar.

I stopped.

I could see it.

Not vaguely imagine it.

See it.

Rows of chairs. Discreet flowers. Lily carrying something she’d probably drop on the way. Jack and Sam complaining about their suits. Simon waiting under the vines.

My chest tightened.

“This is it,” I murmured.

Margaret heard me.

“Most brides say that.”

“I’m not even a ‘perfect place’ kind of person.”

“Maybe you are. You just hadn’t found the place yet.”

I looked at her.

“Don’t tell my fiancé that. I have a reputation to maintain. He can’t find out that deep down I’m a hopeless

romantic.”

“Bride secrets are protected in this house.”

Ethan cleared his throat.

“I can confirm that. I hid a criminal amount of things from Vivian when she got married.”

“You lost the rings for twenty minutes,” Margaret said.

“Technically, they were in my pocket.”

“In the pocket of the jacket you left at the hotel.”

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I laughed.

went inside

The library was worse.

Dark wood shelves rose to the ceiling. There was a stone fireplace, leather armchairs, and tall windows facing the garden.

I ran my hand along the edge of an old table.

“Simon’s going to love this.”

Ethan was behind me.

“He will.”

I turned.

“How do you know?”

“Because he looks like the kind of man who’d buy an entire library just to have somewhere to drink whiskey and pretend to read philosophy.”

I let out a laugh.

“I’d be very surprised if he read philosophy.”

Margaret showed us the room where the dinner could happen, a wing reserved for family, the spaces for the kids, and a suite I could use before the ceremony.

The available date was exactly ten weeks out.

A Saturday.

“I don’t need an answer today,” Margaret explained. “I can hold the date for forty-eight hours. After that, I have to release it.”

“Forty-eight hours is perfect.”

I wanted Simon there before I decided.

I wanted to see his reaction to the garden.

I wanted it to be ours, not mine.

Ethan checked his watch.

“I have a call at five.”

“I need to get back too.”

Margaret walked us to the entrance.

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“Bring Simon.”

Dwill.”

“And the kids.”

I smiled.

“That might lower your chances of wanting to host us.”

“This house survived three generations of Whitmores. It’ll survive the Hart kids.”

On the way out, a staff member told us the car taking us back to the meeting point was waiting on the side, The property’s driver handled the internal transfer to the main entrance because part of the drive was closed for maintenance.

Ethan opened the back door.

“After you, boss.”

“You need to stop calling me that outside the office.”

“Impossible.”

I got in.

He got in on the other side.

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