The Billionaire’s Fake Poor Boyfriend Chapter 2

I looked around the room.

It was a decaying apartment on the edge of the city limits. The paint was peeling, and one corner of the ceiling had a suspicious water stain that looked vaguely like black mold.

The internet likes to romanticize this. They call it the "starving lovers" aesthetic—two people with no money and too much chemistry, making it work in a shoebox.

I hated it.

I checked both boxes.

I only went after Holden in the first place because he was breathtakingly beautiful.

I still remember the first time we met.

We were juniors in college. He was the new hire at the convenience store where I worked the graveyard shift.

I already knew who he was. He was the guy—the one every girl on campus openly fantasized about.

He walked in wearing a plain white tee, faded Levi's, black-rimmed glasses, and a pair of scuffed-up sneakers. Even swallowed up by our ugly, neon-blue polyester uniform, he looked like a runway model on his day off.

We didn't talk much that first shift.

He messed up the inventory count multiple times.

The store manager, a permanently enraged man, dragged him outside.

Through the glass storefront, I watched them. Holden was tall; the manager was short. Holden naturally had to look down at him, which probably only made things worse.

A customer came to the register. As I scanned their items, my eyes flicked back to the window.

Holden was getting ripped apart. He kept rubbing his face, sniffing occasionally. The manager was jabbing a finger at Holden's uniform, then pointing aggressively at his face. It was humiliating to watch.

When I first started, that same manager had chewed me out until I cried in the stockroom. Looking at Holden, my chest tightened with an unexpected pang of empathy.

Once the manager finally stormed off, Holden walked back inside.

His eyes were rimmed with red. He was swiping a hand roughly over his neck and face.

I gave him a look of pure, unadulterated pity.

He caught it.

His voice was deadpan, completely devoid of emotion. "I'm fine. This polyester is just making me break out in hives."

"It's okay to cry," I said, sliding a packet of tissues across the counter.

His face flushed crimson. A single, traitorous tear spilled over his lashes.

Holden arched a brow and snatched the tissues.

"Thanks." He paused. "But I wasn't crying."

Stubborn idiot.

"Right, sure. You weren't crying. Better?"

"You don't believe me? I was literally just—"

His defense was cut off by the bell above the door. Another customer.