09/22/2026
The most beautiful woman I had ever seen walked straight up to my table, placed ten crisp hundred-dollar bills beside my untouched coffee, and said, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you pretend to be my boyfriend until tonight.” She had no idea she was offering pocket change to one of the most feared mafia bosses in Charleston.
I looked at the money, then at her, then back at the money.
“Is this the part where I wake up missing a kidney?”
Her lips parted in surprise.
For half a second, I thought she would run.
Instead, she glanced around the crowded hotel café, leaned closer, and whispered, “I’m serious.”
“So am I. Kidneys are expensive.”
That cracked her composure.
She laughed once, quick and startled, like the sound had escaped without permission.
I leaned back in my chair.
“Fine. Deal. But I have one question.”
Her dark eyes narrowed.
“Do I get to kiss my girlfriend?”
She froze.
I raised both hands. “Joke.”
Her gaze stayed on mine for another beat.
Then the corner of her mouth lifted.
“Only if your girlfriend says yes.”
That answer made me forget the joke.
Her name was Nora Bennett.
She was twenty-five, wearing a cream dress that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent, yet she had the nervous energy of someone walking toward an ex*****on.
My name was Evan Cole.
To the public, I owned Cole Development, a network of luxury hotels, construction firms, freight companies, and private security businesses spread across the East Coast.
To the men who worked the Charleston docks after midnight, I was something else entirely.
I was the mafia boss who controlled Charleston’s underworld.
They called me Mr. Cole when they wanted to keep breathing.
That morning, however, I was alone, unarmed in plain sight, and attempting to enjoy ten minutes without someone asking permission to move cargo, collect a debt, or make another man disappear.
Apparently, that made me available for temporary romance.
Nora sat across from me and opened the notes app on her phone.
At the top were two words.
FAKE BOYFRIEND.
I stared at her.
“You made a checklist?”
“I make checklists for everything.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s efficient.”
She started scrolling.
“We met three months ago.”
“We did?”
“At a coffee shop.”
“This one?”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
“You travel constantly for work. That explains why my family hasn’t met you.”
“That part is believable.”
“You own several businesses.”
I paused.
“How do you know that?”
She pointed toward the newspaper folded beside my coffee.
My face was on the business page.
“Oh.”
“I’m desperate, not blind.”
I almost smiled.
Then her expression changed.
“My grandmother turns seventy-five today. My entire family is having lunch at Magnolia House.”
“That sounds harmless.”
“You haven’t met my family.”
“Fair.”
“My parents will be there. My sister. My aunts, uncles, family friends.”
She hesitated.
“And Miles.”
I nodded slowly.
“There he is.”
“What?”
“The problem.”
“He’s not a problem.”
“Then why did your voice change?”
Nora rubbed her forehead.
“Miles Harper is thirty-two, successful, polite, attractive, financially responsible, remembers birthdays, sends handwritten thank-you notes, and my mother thinks he’s perfect.”
“You’re making him sound dangerous.”
“I don’t want him.”
That changed the entire conversation.
Her mother, Diane Bennett, ran one of Charleston’s most successful event-planning companies. Nora and her older sister had joined the family business after college, and everyone assumed they would eventually take it over.
Nora hated it.
She wanted to bake.
For eighteen months, she had secretly attended pastry school three nights a week, built a portfolio, saved money, met lenders, and planned her own bakery.
“And you’re telling them today?” I asked.
She nodded.
“At your grandmother’s birthday?”
“My grandmother already knows.”
“I like her already.”
“She told me if I didn’t tell my mother today, she’d do it herself.”
I tapped one of the hundred-dollar bills.
“So where exactly do I come in?”
Nora looked straight at me.
“My mother thinks the only reason I’m rejecting Miles is because I’m scared of commitment.”
“That’s convenient.”
“She said if I had a serious boyfriend, she’d stop pushing him.”
I leaned back.
“And you picked a stranger.”
“I picked someone who looks like no one in my family would dare question.”
For the first time that morning, I went completely still.
Then Nora smiled nervously.
“You do have that effect.”
She had no idea how right she was.
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