Fake Dating His Brother

After the holidays, the rich playboy dropped fifteen grand to rent me as his fake girlfriend for the night.

The second I stepped through the door, his twin brother started picking me apart. "She fails the standard. A total gold digger.

She stays way out of your league, Tristan." I kept my eyes on the floor, swallowing the insults in silence.

Then, his brother demanded Tristan dump me.Tristan snapped. "Back off, Alistair. You just met her. You act like you date her yourself." Alistair slowly lifted his dark gaze.

He locked eyes with me. Tristan had zero clue how accurate his words sounded. Years ago, I spent three solid years hiding in the shadows as Alistair's secret girlfriend.

Chapter 1 Tristan’s words hung in the dead air. He glanced up.

Alistair stopped dead in the center of the room. "Alistair?" Tristan leaned forward. "Wait, do you two actually know each other?" Alistair had just flown back to the States that day.

Half the family had gathered to welcome him. Every head in the room swiveled toward us. Alistair twisted the silver band on his index finger. He kept his mouth shut.

His mother broke the silence with a dry, breathy laugh. She adjusted her cashmere shawl. "Don't be ridiculous, Tristan. Your brother has standards.

He doesn't waste his time on… ordinary people." The implication slashed through the room. My bank account didn't even qualify me to stand on their imported rugs. Everyone knew it.

Everyone except Tristan. "What do you mean, ordinary?" Tristan scowled. He snatched my hand and laced his fingers through mine. "Sutton is perfect.

Mom, I'm going to marry her." Tristan’s declaration echoed off the high ceilings. Alistair snapped out of his trance. He looked over at us.

His stare dropped straight to our intertwined fingers. A sharp, ugly laugh ripped from his throat. "Perfect?" Alistair's voice dripped with mockery. "A perfect little liar?

A perfect thief?" Whispers erupted. Eyes burned into the side of my face. Tristan had been biting back his temper since we arrived. This shattered his last nerve.

He shot up from his chair and lunged toward his brother. The room broke out into an argument. I lifted my glass and swallowed a mouthful of ice water.

The freezing liquid dragged down my throat, grounding my racing pulse. I anticipated a trainwreck the second I saw Alistair standing in the foyer.

But this whole night functioned as a transaction. Alistair dredging up the past and slinging mud didn't hurt me.

I slipped away during the shouting match and locked myself in the guest bathroom. I stared into the mirror and reviewed the mission. Tristan loves a sweet, middleclass girl.

His mother threatened to ruin her. So, Tristan hired me—a girl with even less money—to march into this house and set the room on fire.

I just needed to survive fortyeight hours, disgust the family, and collect my check. Alistair's words fasttracked my payday.

I cranked the faucet, letting the freezing water rush over my palms as I stared at the dripping sink.

Tristan and Alistair looked different, but the sharp angle of their jaws matched perfectly. The family legacy. The empire.

Alistair hid his billionaire bloodline from me for three years. I shut the water off and dried my hands.

I gave the shouting match outside enough time to die down before pulling the door open. I stepped into the hallway. Alistair stood dead center in the corridor. He blocked the path.

His head tilted down, eyes tracking my every move. A heavy darkness swam in his irises. I knew that exact look.

Whenever another guy bought me a drink or asked for my number, Alistair wore that identical expression. He meant every word when he ordered Tristan to dump me.

I dragged my eyes away. I kept my expression carefully neutral and stepped around him. The heat radiating off his chest brushed my shoulder. One step. Two steps.

I heard Alistair let out a cold scoff. "Three months, Sutton. I waited for you to come crawling back. Turns out you just found a new bed to warm." I didn't break my stride.

But my mind was pulled back to the past. Alistair never breathed a single word about his family. Thirty days into our relationship, I found out exactly who he really was.

Chapter 2 Back then, a coworker stole the credit for a project I bled over for a month. I vented about the injustice offhand.

The very next morning, the commission and my stolen bonus landed squarely back in my bank account. The coworker begged for my forgiveness. I stood frozen in the bullpen.

My manager smiled and reminded me. "No need to alert the top floor," he whispered. The top floor.

I didn't know exactly who sat up in the executive suites, but I knew it had Alistair's fingerprints all over it. Alistair just chuckled when I told him the story.

I stared into his dark eyes. That was the first time I realized his bank account held more zeroes than I could fathom. Slowly, the reality set in.

Alistair treated me like a ghost in public. He never introduced me to a single friend. We only grabbed dinner in secluded booths.

Once, right in the middle of our entrees, his phone buzzed. He immediately signaled his driver to haul me back to the apartment. He packed my untouched food in a togo box.

I ate cold steak alone on the couch. Later, the truth slipped out. A friend called him that night.

His elite circle happened to be grabbing drinks a block away and wanted to crash our table. "Am I that embarrassing to be seen with?" I asked.

Alistair’s thumb brushed the corner of my eye. His skin felt like ice. "No." That same week, he finally dragged me into his circle. That was the night I found out about Penelope.

His childhood best friend. The billionaire heiress. Dinner dragged on in silence. Right before the check arrived, Penelope's phone lit up on the table.

My eyes caught the text on her screen. "Must be exhausting, buying out an entire underground restaurant just to hide her.

Let's not do this again." Scalding tea spilled over my knuckles. I yanked my hand back. Alistair locked me away again after that night. We stopped going out entirely.

A few days before my birthday, he knotted a brandnew tie in the mirror. Crimson and gold. It screamed for attention. On my actual birthday, the front door never opened.

I curled into the sofa cushions, staring at a muted TV screen. My texts to Alistair sat on "Delivered". Then, my screen lit up. An invite from Penelope.

I pushed through the cafe doors. The silk scarf around Penelope's neck caught my eye immediately. Crimson and gold. A perfect match to Alistair's new tie. I froze for a second.

Penelope and I barely spoke two words to each other, yet she somehow tracked down my birth date.

She slid a heavy velvet box across the marble table. "I didn't have time to prepare anything the last time we met," she purred. "Happy birthday." A diamond bracelet gleamed inside.

Too expensive. I shoved it back. Penelope didn't push. She simply took a sip of her latte. "Alistair isn't keeping you company tonight?" "He's tied up with work," I lied.

Penelope offered a slow, knowing smile but didn't say another word. As I stepped out onto the pavement, flakes of snow drifted down from the New York skyline. I pulled out my phone.

Two push notifications. An Uber promo and a news alert. Nothing from Alistair. The wind howled, biting through my thin coat. I locked the screen and lifted my chin.

Across the empty street, Penelope slipped into the back of a black Bentley. The engine roared. The heavy tires sliced through the slush, speeding right past my face.

Ice froze my eyelashes together. I blinked against the harsh chill. I knew that Bentley. It sat securely in Alistair's private garage. He swore he never let anyone ride in it.

I never even touched the door handle. Alistair finally unlocked the apartment door at dawn.

He dropped his keys on the counter, blaming a sudden crisis at the firm. "I saw Penelope get into your Bentley last night," I said. Alistair let out a low chuckle.

He loosened his collar. "You met up with her?" My jaw clenched. I refused to speak. He laughed again, stepping closer. "I really worked all night.

I just caught the redeye back to the city." He pulled out his phone and swiped through his camera roll. Photos of a boardroom. Timestamps. Geotags.

Everything matched his exact alibi. I lifted my head and stared straight into his eyes. I couldn't read him at all. The line between his truth and his lies blurred.

Chapter 3 Alistair fed me scraps. Every single thing I knew about him, he meticulously curated. If he wanted a door locked, I couldn't even find the keyhole.

My birthday gift from him sat heavy on my wrist. A diamond bracelet. He fastened the clasp, pressed a hard kiss to my mouth, and murmured an order. Stay away from Penelope.

He wasn't wrong. Weeks later, Penelope cornered me at a corporate gala. She publicly accused me of theft. That night, her true status slammed into me.

The untouchable heiress of Manhattan's elite. Everyone in the ballroom took her side. "You both went to the powder room.

She loses her jewelry, and magically, the exact same piece appears in your purse? Yours? Where's the receipt, Sutton?

With your paycheck, you couldn't afford a single link of that bracelet if you sold your soul for a decade." Stares from all directions fell on me.

Trapped in the center of the crowd, I stared at Penelope. It felt like I was looking at a complete stranger. I finally found my voice. "I didn't buy it.

My boyfriend gave it to me." I met her gaze. "You know him, Penelope." Penelope tilted her head. "Do I? What's his name?" "Alistair," I answered.

Penelope rolled the name around her mouth. Then, she laughed. A bright, mocking sound echoing over the string quartet. "Funny.

I don't know a single person in this city by that name." The air vanished from the room. My fingers went ice cold. My knees threatened to buckle. A work friend grabbed my elbow.

She urged me to call him. Prove them wrong. I fumbled with the screen with trembling hands. I hit his contact. Voicemail. I dialed again. The dial tone echoed in my ear.

A hollow, endless dead end. My coworker gripped my shoulder. She frantically asked for his address, offering to drive me there and drag him back herself.

The dial tone and my coworker's anxious voice pierced my ears. The bitter cold seeped straight into my bones. The realization hit me like a freight train.

I knew nothing about the man I slept next to. Without his phone number or the passcode to that specific apartment, he ceased to exist. I had zero ways to reach him.

I stood there in a daze. Penelope’s security ripped the clutch from my hands.

They yanked the bracelet out. "Consider yourself lucky Penelope is generous," a woman sneered. "Next time you lie, pick a better fake name.

The elite old money families don't have an 'Alistair'." A hand shoved my shoulder. I stumbled backward. My hip slammed into the sharp edge of a cocktail table.

Through the pain, a memory came back to me. His inner circle. The elite friends at that dinner. Not a single one of them ever called him Alistair.

Hours later, I stood on a deserted street corner. I pressed the phone to my ear. "I need to see you," I whispered. Static filled the line.

Alistair stayed silent for three agonizing seconds. Then, a black SUV pulled up to the curb. It drove me to a penthouse I had never seen before.

My sacred little home was just another property on his endless real estate portfolio. Men in tailored suits filed out of his front door. A latenight board meeting just wrapping up.

I stepped into the sprawling, multimilliondollar living room. Alistair met my gaze. He possessed terrifying patience. He didn't say a word. He just watched me unravel.

Finally, my raw throat forced the words out. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" I asked. "Your real name?" A harsh crease formed between Alistair's brows. My heart sank.

Chapter 4 On the ride over, a million questions burned the back of my throat. Why lie? Why play me for three years? When exactly was this phantom "right time" to go public?

Did he ever feel a single ounce of guilt when he looked me in the eye and lied? But when my lips parted, I could barely breathe.

Only one sentence scraped its way out. "Was it a lie from day one? The marriage. All of it." The question caught him off guard.

A suffocating silence settled over the marble floor. "I thought you understood," he finally murmured.

I dug my nails into my palms. "Understood what?" "Do I really need to spell it out?" Alistair watched me.

The silence in his dark eyes melted into unspoken pity. "That's how this world works, Sutton. Your background… your bank account.

You were never going to be my actual wife." A heavy quiet descended upon the penthouse. A laugh clawed its way up my throat. It shattered before it even hit the air.

I squeezed my eyes shut. A single tear hit the back of my hand. Down on the street level, the biting wind whipped across the pavement. Penelope stood under the awning.

Her gaze raked over my trembling shoulders. She smiled like a queen tossing bread to a peasant. Her perfectly glossed lips spilled the rest of the ugly truth.

That interrupted dinner weeks ago? Penelope made the call. Alistair didn't drag me to meet his elite friends out of guilt.

He did it because Penelope discovered his little secret and demanded a frontrow seat. My birthday. He really sat in the back of that Bentley with her. And tonight?

He watched my name flash across his screen and let it ring. A billionaire doesn't play white knight for a girl he keeps in the shadows. The fragmented memories clicked together.

It made my whole body ache. "True love?" Penelope scoffed. "He didn't even give you his real name. Shadows don't get to complain, Sutton.

Swallow the humiliation and learn your place." I tore through the apartment. Sixty minutes to shove three years of my life into a single suitcase. I yanked the front door open.

Alistair blocked the frame. "Where are you going?" he demanded.

I shoved past his shoulder, dragging my luggage toward the elevator, but his hand slammed against the wall, cutting off my exit. "Sutton. This is your home.

Your name is on the lease." He stepped closer. "Where are you going?" A wave of intense disgust washed over me. I twisted out of his trap and swung my hand toward his face.

Alistair’s fingers caught my wrist. "Your entire career?

It only exists because I made a few calls." His voice dropped. "I can strip it all away just as fast, Sutton." He yanked me flush against his chest.

His fingers forcefully interlaced with mine. "You won't find anyone better. You can't leave me." The memories faded like a dream.

The chaotic noise of the present crashed back into my ears. Alistair's final, venomous promise echoed in my skull. "You’ll come crawling back, Sutton.

Begging." I walked back into the dining room. The family had scattered. Tristan rubbed the back of his neck. "Ignore my brother. He's been acting like a rabid dog for months.

I'll double your hazard pay for dealing with his bullshit." My rigid shoulders dropped. Rain began to fall as darkness set in, and the sprawling estate finally emptied out.

Alistair snagged his tailored coat off the hook, heading for the double doors. "Oh, hey Mom.

Forgot to mention." Tristan’s voice cut through the foyer. "Sutton is crashing at my place tonight." Alistair's hand hit the brass doorknob. His entire body locked up.

The silence in the foyer thickened into something suffocating before he finally moved. Chapter 5 Alistair turned.

His dark gaze swept over us. "Tristan." A dry, humorless laugh slipped past Alistair's lips. "I already told you she's out of your league. Drop the act." Tristan stiffened.

His jaw clenched tight as he weighed his words. "Stay out of my damn business." The faint amusement vanished from Alistair's face.

He slowly lowered himself back onto the leather sofa. Tristan's brow furrowed. "Didn't you have a board meeting tonight?" "Canceled," Alistair stated.

Silence stretched between the brothers. Tristan narrowed his eyes, tracking Alistair's every microscopic movement. The storm intensified past midnight.

Rain lashed steadily against my bedroom window. I closed my eyes. Heavy footsteps echoed over the downpour. Thump. Thump. The measured strides drew closer.

They stopped directly outside my bedroom. My eyes snapped open. I held my breath. The heavy brass doorknob slowly began to turn. A voice sliced through the hallway. "Alistair?

What the hell are you doing outside my girlfriend's door?" I yanked the door open. Alistair stood inches from the threshold.

Tristan lingered at the top of the sweeping staircase, his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Alistair." Tristan crossed his arms. "This is a massive red flag." Alistair barely spared him a sideways glance.

His dark eyes locked back onto mine, his expression utterly flawless. "Don't leave your trash lying around." He shoved something soft directly into my palm.

A matching set of plushies I made from a viral TikTok tutorial years ago. It was actually adorable. It violently clashed with his ruthless billionaire aesthetic.

The day I gave it to him, I knew it would never see the light of day. He smiled, accepted it, and instantly buried it in a drawer.

I quietly packed mine away too, only finding it jammed at the bottom of my purse this afternoon.

I certainly didn't leave it lying around, having thrown it straight into the foyer garbage bin before coming upstairs. I lifted my chin. Alistair was already walking away.

Tristan strode down the hall. "Did he really just come to drop that off? Middle of the night delivery service?

I almost thought you two had history." My thumb brushed the cheap yarn. I kept my face blank. "We don't." A threeyear secret in the dark doesn't count as history.

It doesn't deserve oxygen. I turned and chucked the knitted rabbit straight into my bedroom wastebasket. Thud.

Alistair's broad shoulders visibly stiffened at the end of the hallway. The next morning, Tristan clamped his hand around mine.

He paraded me around the estate, introducing me to every visiting relative.

His mother's face flushed with obvious displeasure. "Are you actively trying to get disinherited?" I muttered. Tristan bit down on an unlit cigarette.

He flashed a reckless grin. "Mom kicking me out is a tossup. Alistair executing me is a guarantee.

He's been glaring holes into the back of my skull since yesterday." I followed his gaze. Alistair stood by the floortoceiling windows, his face an unreadable mask of cold marble.

Alistair wasn't staring at Tristan. He was staring at my hand locked in his brother's grip. The second Tristan stepped away to deal with his mother, the atmosphere changed.

I rounded the corner of the hallway. A heavy hand suddenly clamped over my wrist. A hand yanked me into an empty study. The heavy oak door slammed shut. My spine hit the solid wood.

A tall, hard body caged me in. Alistair pinned my wrists flush against the door. His chest practically crushed against my collarbone. Scorching heat radiated off his skin.

The heavy, expensive scent of cedar and dark amber swallowed my senses. "Sutton." His voice dropped to a rough, jagged rasp against my ear. "Don't tell me you're actually sleeping with him." I couldn't break his grip.

I looked up and met his gaze. I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat. His gaze dropped to my lips. The muscles in his sharp jaw ticked.

A low, audible swallow clicked in his throat. "Did you honestly think using my brother would fix this?" He smiled. "Break up with him, Sutton." His tone sounded deceptively soft.

His grip wasn't a request. It was a command. Chapter 6 Alistair didn't do negotiations. He preferred pulling strings in the shadows until his prey suffocated.

Over the last ninety days, my life systematically imploded. My landlord shredded my lease. HR abruptly terminated my contract.

A sudden "clerical error" buried me in a mountain of fabricated debt. Staring at my peeling bedroom ceiling at 3 AM, his venomous threat finally clicked. Billionaires don't ask.

They obliterate everything until you have nowhere else to run. But being backed into a corner triggered a deep, primal panic. My chest caved in. The oxygen thinned out.

I flashed back to childhood. Shoved between two bitter parents like a piece of defective luggage. I shrank myself down to nothing.

I memorized every floorboard so I wouldn't make a sound. They still screamed in my face. They called me a parasite. Nobody ever asked if I wanted to be the collateral damage.

Nobody gave me a choice. The fight drained out of me. I stopped resisting his grip, tilting my chin up to force a smile. "Three years.

You really deserve an Oscar for that performance.

Alistair, if I saw the monster under the mask, I never would have let you breathe my air." I held his gaze. "Now that I see exactly what you are… why would I ever crawl back to something so totally repulsive?" The word repulsive hit him like a physical blow.

The blood drained from his face. The veins in his neck pulled taut. He opened his mouth, but Tristan's voice echoed down the corridor, shouting my name. Alistair's jaw locked.

He couldn't risk his pristine reputation. He couldn't let his family smell the rot of our past.

His scorching fingers slowly peeled off my wrists. "I'm not giving you a choice," he rasped, his breath hot against my cheek. "Dump him.

I'll get you out of this estate." I didn't even blink. I yanked the oak door open and walked away.

Tristan paraded me down the hall, regurgitating his fakegirlfriend pitch for the fiftieth time today. Usually, we got forced, polite smiles.

This time, there was only a stunned hush. I lifted my gaze. Alistair's inner circle stood rooted to the spot by the staircase. Their jaws practically hit the marble floor.

And right in the center stood Penelope. "She's… stunning," one of the guys choked out, his eyes darting around frantically. "Has your brother… met her?" "Yeah.

Why?" Tristan frowned. Nobody answered. They let out a chorus of nervous, strangled laughs and bolted toward Alistair's study. Penelope lingered.

Her icy glare slashed across my face before she turned on her designer heels. "Are they acting weird, or is it just me?" Tristan muttered. I didn't answer.

I stared up through the massive skylight. Thick, black clouds swallowed the sun. No wonder the driveway looked like a luxury car dealership. Today wasn't a simple family reunion.

It was a corporate merger. They were locking in the wedding date. I sat at the massive mahogany dining table. My eyes swept over the elite crowd. Everyone knew.

Every single person in Alistair's orbit knew about this arranged marriage for years. They all kept the secret. I was the only idiot kept entirely in the dark.

My stomach churned, and a wave of nausea washed over me. The room started spinning. I gripped the edge of the table and shoved my chair back to escape.

Penelope's voice sliced through the clinking silver. "Tristan, I heard your new girlfriend is a walking red flag." Fifty pairs of eyes snapped toward me.

That familiar feeling from the gala rushed over me all over again. I froze in my tracks. "You know her, Penelope?" Alistair's mother asked, her tone softening instantly.

Penelope offered a sweet smile. "We've crossed paths.

But her… extracurricular activities are pretty famous in our circle—" "Penelope." Tristan interrupted her, a smirk playing on his lips. "Alistair might tolerate you, but I don't.

I can be a real bastard." Tristan's eyes darkened. "You sling mud at my girlfriend, and I will burn your reputation to the ground." Chapter 7 Tristan's ruthless defense hit Penelope like a truck.

Her perfectly practiced smile faltered. "It's not throwing mud if it's the truth," she hissed, scrambling to recover her poise. "Half of Manhattan saw you at the gala.

Sutton stole my diamond bracelet—" "Where's the proof?" I locked eyes with her. "Anyone can spit out a baseless rumor." Penelope choked on her next breath.

Years ago, security called the police. They found zero hard evidence. An investigation was scheduled for the next morning. But Alistair stepped out of the shadows that exact night.

He dropped the bracelet back into my lap, and the entire scandal was buried.

Nobody dared to breathe a word of it again. "Wow." Tristan nodded slowly, mockamazement dripping from his voice. "So you're just making baseless accusations in front of the entire family.

Unbelievable, Penelope." The color rapidly drained from Penelope’s cheeks. She shot Tristan a venomous glare. Then, a new, twisted smirk slithered onto her lips.

She found a new angle. "Maybe I misremembered the bracelet." She tilted her head, her gaze pinning me to the floor. "But I'm definitely not wrong about this.

Tristan, you probably don't know. Your sweet girlfriend spent three whole years as another man's dirty little secret." The dining room flatlined.

A pindrop silence gripped the long mahogany table. The heavy double doors swung open. Alistair halted in the doorway. His dead, emotionless stare locked directly onto Penelope.

I stood by my chair. But the panic didn't come. The dread from the gala months ago simply evaporated. I just felt… exhausted. Utterly bored by their sick little games.

Before the first whisper could even break the silence, my hand moved.

I grabbed my crystal goblet and hurled a full glass of Cabernet directly into Penelope's face. "I don't tolerate baseless slander. You claim I was a mistress for three years?

Name him, Penelope. Give me the name. Show us the receipts." Red wine dripped from her hair, completely ruining her poised appearance. Penelope gasped, glaring at me.

She opened her mouth. Her jaw trembled. Not a single sound came out