Beautiful Billionaire's Fake Marriage: The Carter Brothers, #6

By Rachel Foster

James has always wanted to have a winery and when the McGarret Winery owner decides he wants to retire he wants to buy it. But him and his wife want to keep it in the family. They plan to give it to their daughter Samantha. It's the biggest winery in California and his favorite wine so he's determined to get it and plans to pay Samantha to take the winery and sell it to him without her parents finding out. She agrees if he will pay double what it is worth. And the best way to go about the sale? Get married…

• Language: English
• Publisher: 3rd Publishing
• Release date: Mar 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215554012

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Beautiful Billionaire's Fake Marriage

Rachel Foster

Copyright © 2018 by Rachel Foster

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Beautiful Billionaire's Fake Marriage

Beautiful Billionaire's Fake Marriage

1

Samantha

I

tiptoed through the front door, towards the stairs, and I honestly thought that I had managed to get away with it.

Until I heard a familiar voice from the front room, and my stomach dropped.

"Samantha! Could you come in here a moment, please?"

I groaned. Shit. The very last thing that I wanted to hear. I was tired after spending all night partying, and I didn’t want to have to handle my parents lecturing me again.

But they had clearly been sitting up all night waiting for me to come home, and I knew that there was no point at all in trying to argue. I turned, sighed, and headed towards the living room, where, sure enough, like a pair of prison guards, they were both waiting for me with expectant expressions on their faces.

Well, hello, there, my mother greeted me, a little sarcastically. She had always been the sharper-tongued out of the two of them, and I was sure that she prided herself on that fact. My father, even though he ran the whole business by himself, sometimes acted as though he didn’t know how to handle himself around her. Maybe that was why he had married her, because he knew that she would keep him in check even if nobody else would.

Hello, I replied, and I leaned up in the doorway and raised my eyebrows at her. Can I help you? I was hoping to get an early night-

An early night? My father snorted with amusement. It’s nearly three in the morning, Sam! And you’ve been out all night doing God knows what with God knows who...

I was just out with some friends, that’s all, I muttered. I lost track of time.

Sure you did, Mom replied indulgently, and she cocked an eyebrow at me. Just like you did the last three nights, right?

It’s not like that, I tried to protest, but I knew that neither of them would believe me. They had already made their minds up about the kind of person that I was, and nothing was going to shift them out of that attitude. It didn’t help that I kept re-proving their points, of course, but they were my parents – weren’t they meant to accept me no matter what I did, instead of sitting around waiting to catch me out when I had been just hanging out with friends all evening? They acted as though I was some sort of degenerate, but I was twenty-four years old, and I could live my life as I saw fit.

Samantha, please, Mom replied gently. I’m sure you know what this is about. We just want to talk to you, that’s all...

About the winery? I asked with a heavy heart. Mom nodded.

About the winery.

I couldn’t count the number of times that the three of us had had this conversation. I felt as though I was going crazy, running through it all again like this when I had already made it clear to them a million times over that I was never going to do what they wanted me to.

The winery had been in the family for years, and my father was insistent that I was going to be the one to take it over, no matter how many times I tried to tell the two of them that I didn’t want to make that my life. I had seen how stressful it had been for the both of them, and I didn’t want to dedicate my life to something so intense. I already had plans for what I was going to do next, anyway – I was going to write for a living. That was what my plan had always been. And, when I had established myself enough, I was going to open a publishing company and bring young, fresh talent to the world. I could already imagine the parties I would throw, all the books I would get to read for a living – it was going to be awesome.

But my parents didn’t seem willing to let me live out my dream the way that I wanted to, not really. I had told them time and time again that I had plans for my life that didn’t involve the family business, but they had never believed me. Sometimes, I wished that they’d had another kid, so that the weight of all of this wouldn’t fall so completely on my shoulders. It just wasn’t fair. I wanted to live a life on my own terms, not one that was dictated by who my family happened to be, but that was never going to happen.

I should have been glad for a family like that, I knew it, okay? I should have been glad that I had my life laid out for me if I just wanted to step up and take it. But sometimes, it felt as though the walls were closing in on me, like there was no way out.

You have to try, my father implored me, and I shook my head.

I don’t want to, I told him. I had tried being polite about this when they had first started dropping hints when I was a teenager, but these days, I saw no reason to be anything other than blunt with the two of them. They wanted the truth, well, I would give it to them in no half-measures.

Think about the legacy you’re going to hand down to your kids, my mom argued with me gently.

I’m going to build a legacy all of my own, I replied, shaking my head. I don’t need to cater to a bunch of alcoholics who pretend that they can actually tell the difference in the way that wines taste.

My dad stiffened. I knew it drove him crazy when I talked like that, but it drove me even crazier when they acted as though I was nothing more than a stupid kid who didn’t understand what was good for me. Okay, so I might have been slow on the uptake when it came to settling down, but why would I have been in any rush to do that when there was just so much out there of the world for me to explore? I would have been crazy to give that all up so soon.

That was why I spent most of my time with my friends, partying, drinking, having a good time. I knew that all of them were on the same page as me – they just wanted to blow off some steam and show the world what a good time looked like, too, and the group of us together always knew how to make it work. We were just good together, always had been, and I wasn’t going to give that up so that I could go work for my family instead. There was a whole city out there for me to explore, a whole country beyond that, and I would have been crazy to give it up now.

Darling, I know that it’s hard for you to understand-

No, it’s not, I replied, cutting my mom off as she spoke. I didn’t want to hear this from her, not again, not for the millionth time in my life. I couldn’t count how many times the three of us had sat around and had this conversation, more times than I could possibly count. I just wanted to forget it. I wanted them to forget it. There had to be other people who were interested in picking up the winery, people who had more passion for it and were more qualified than I was. I had hardly paid attention for any of the business lessons my father had tried to dump on me when I had been growing up, and I wasn’t about to start now.

I know exactly what you want from me, and I don’t know how many times I have to tell you – it's not going to happen, I told her. I hated that I had to keep laying it out for them like this. I felt as though I had been as clear as I could be, and yet, they never seemed to believe me, listen to me, or trust in me. I hated this. I hated having this conversation over and over again, to the point where it just made no sense to me any longer. If I could have reached inside their heads and just gotten them to believe what I was telling them, that I didn’t want this and I never would, maybe they would actually start on finding someone who did want it. Who could actually give them what they seemed to need so badly.

I’m going to bed, I told them both, and I turned on my heel and was about to start stalking back up the stairs to my room when I heard footsteps following me.

I turned to see Mom emerging from the living room, closing the door hurriedly behind her – I was about to tell her, again, where to get off, but instead, I noticed the sadness in her eyes, and that gave me pause.

What’s wrong? I asked her, and she gazed at me for a moment, and then sighed.

Sam, there’s something I need to tell you, she admitted, and she glanced over her shoulder, as though making sure that the door was shut and my father couldn’t hear what we were saying.

What is it? I asked, furrowing my brow at her. What’s wrong?

It’s...it’s your dad, she confessed, and she had to catch her breath before she went on. My stomach dropped.

What’s wrong? I demanded. Is he sick?

She fell silent again, and I felt a twist of nausea in my guts. And it wasn’t just the cheap tequila shots that I had been doing before I’d come home.

I don’t know, she confessed. He’s been having some problems with his memory. The doctor says that it could be some early signs of – well, you know how it was with his father...

She trailed of. Of course I knew. I had been there when Grandpa had got sick with dementia, when he had died. I had seen how much it had torn my father apart. And I had prayed since then, prayed that he would never get sick the same way, because the thought of losing him like that was too awful for me to think of.

That’s why we’re asking about the business, she explained. I want it to stay in the family. I want it to go to someone I can trust, totally, in case he gets too ill to run it himself.

I stood there, too shocked to reply for a moment. It wasn’t as though I could say no to what she had just told me. I didn’t want to leave her in the lurch right now, not when she was so obviously deadly serious.

You’ll take it, won’t you? She asked me, and there was an edge of desperation to her voice. I don’t want someone to come swooping in and take it from under our noses. It’s just not right. And I don’t know how much longer your father will be able to-

I’ll do it, I told her. I didn’t know what else I could say. Relief flooded through her face, and she dived towards me and wrapped her arms around me tight.

Thank you, darling, she murmured to me. Thank you. Thank you so much. I promise, you won’t regret this...

And, as I stood there in the hallway, and the reality of what I had just agreed to began to sink in. I felt my stomach sink with dread. What the hell had I just agreed to? There was no way I could run a business. I could hardly run a karaoke night. But I couldn’t say no to her, not when she came to me for help. No matter how big a mess I was sure I had just landed both of us in the middle of.

2

James

"N

o joy, boss," Ben told me as he slipped back into the car. I let out a groan of irritation.

What’s it going to take for them to give that damn place up? I grumbled, and I leaned back in my seat and allowed myself to sit in the irritation of knowing that, once more, and for reasons that were totally beyond my understanding, they had decided that they weren’t going to give up their winery to me.

It was the first thing that I had thought of when I had seen my parents’ money sitting in my account for the first time. This place. The McGaret winery. I had been coming here for nearly ten years now, the same place, the same attitude, the same outlook, the same wine. And I had always thought that they were a solid representation of what I could expect from the alcohol industry – family-run, long-standing, well-respected. I couldn’t have asked for much more than that, not really.

And I had been hearing rumors that they wanted to sell this place on – let it come under new management so that the boss could retire and spend more time with his family. It was perfect timing, really, just when I turned up, they were looking to hand this place over to someone fresh. And I knew that I was just the person to take care of that for them.

But every time I had tried to make my offer on this place, it had been turned down. Eventually, I had even conceded to send Ben in instead of just going myself, hoping that his bright, bouncy attitude might be enough to get them to agree to at least a meeting with me. But I had no such luck. They had already made their mind up about what they were going to do with me, and that didn’t involve a sit-down meeting to discuss what I knew could have saved the ass of their entire business, if they had just let me try.

Did they say why? I asked him, and he shook his head.

I tried to press it, but they were pretty quick to get me out of there, he replied.

You think they might have something to hide? I wondered aloud, and he shrugged.

I mean, they might, but I doubt it, he replied. They’ve got one of the cleanest reputations in this city. I doubt that there’s anything that they wouldn’t want anyone else to know about.

Good point, I muttered. Part of the reason I had been so attracted to this place was because it had a great reputation, and I knew that it