Pretend Fiancee to the Marine
(2026)(The seventh book in the Spence's Family Billionaires series)
A novel by Kathy Asher
I cook for billionaires. I was never supposed to fall for one.
It should be easy. A fake engagement. His hand at my back. My smile for the photographs.
But nobody warned me about the quiet ones.
The way Rafael Duarte listens like my words matter. The low drop of his voice on my name. That dark, hungry look across a crowded room—like nothing else in it is worth having.
I've spent my whole life being invisible.
He sees everything.
One touch was for show. One kiss in an empty kitchen at two in the morning was for no one but us.
The lines I drew are cracking. I tell myself it's just a job, then lie awake aching for someone I can't keep.
My last rule was simple: when it ends, we don't pretend we were friends.
Now the only thing I'm pretending is that I don't want forever.
Staying could burn down every dream I've fought for.
Leaving means losing the first man who's ever truly noticed me.
This book is the prequel to the Spence Family Billionaires series — the story of how it all began, two years before RUINED BY THE BILLIONAIRE. It can be read first or at any point in the series, and it stands completely on its own.
Tropes: fake engagement · billionaire romance · forced proximity · he falls first · grumpy/sunshine · class difference · only one bed · touch-her-and-die · slow burn to very high heat
Guaranteed HEA. No cheating, no love triangle, no cliffhanger.
Genre: Romance
It should be easy. A fake engagement. His hand at my back. My smile for the photographs.
But nobody warned me about the quiet ones.
The way Rafael Duarte listens like my words matter. The low drop of his voice on my name. That dark, hungry look across a crowded room—like nothing else in it is worth having.
I've spent my whole life being invisible.
He sees everything.
One touch was for show. One kiss in an empty kitchen at two in the morning was for no one but us.
The lines I drew are cracking. I tell myself it's just a job, then lie awake aching for someone I can't keep.
My last rule was simple: when it ends, we don't pretend we were friends.
Now the only thing I'm pretending is that I don't want forever.
Staying could burn down every dream I've fought for.
Leaving means losing the first man who's ever truly noticed me.
This book is the prequel to the Spence Family Billionaires series — the story of how it all began, two years before RUINED BY THE BILLIONAIRE. It can be read first or at any point in the series, and it stands completely on its own.
Tropes: fake engagement · billionaire romance · forced proximity · he falls first · grumpy/sunshine · class difference · only one bed · touch-her-and-die · slow burn to very high heat
Guaranteed HEA. No cheating, no love triangle, no cliffhanger.
Genre: Romance