SEDUCING THE BILLIONAIRE

Chapter Five; Shotgun Wedding

Audrey tried not to panic, she glanced at Duke hoping he would be of help, but he was not even looking at her.

"well," she cleared her throat and took a sip of water "I fell in love with him because of his caring nature, he used to be a socialite, every Friday he's out with the boys and every weekend he's at one event or the other but when his parents sadly and unexpectedly passed away, he took a step back from all of that and took up the role of a parent so that he can take care of his sister who needs him the most, that's just something which warms my heart."

Duke had not been expecting to hear that, the words struck right through his heart, and he almost turned to look at her, to make sure it was real...ALMOST... but he stopped himself

'don't be daft DK, she's only putting on a show because of the money riding on this' her inner voice reminded him.

"DK has never been attracted to women like you," Aunt Brenda said with a scowl "what changed?" she questioned.

She just could not believe that this relationship was real and if she could prove that it was fake, she could use it against Duke in court, someone lying about being in a relationship would not be a good role model for a little girl, if she could prove that Audrey was a god digger it would be even better to convince the judge that Duke was not suitable to raise Lindsey and would finish her inheritance on this gold digger.

"I grew up," he responded in a rough low tone "I don't focus on the body now, I go for character."

"Yeah right," she scoffed "we both know this isn't going to last, you are with her because she's the only one who can possibly want you now and she's with you because you're rich, this isn't going anywhere and am still pushing for custody," she told him off.

Audrey was a little confused, why wouldn't any woman want Duke now? What did she mean by that? To her surprise he did not even speak up to defend himself.

.

After lunch, Audrey got up to help the servants clear the table.

"See? She fits in better with those people," said Brenda but Audrey didn't respond or give her any attention. She walked to the massive island kitchen and cleaned the leftovers off the plates then handed them over to the maid who was putting them in the dish washer.

"You don't have to do this," she said to her

"I don't mind," Audrey smiled back.

Even though they had been raised in a home where there was a maid, the girls were raised to be self-sufficient, to be cleaning after themselves and she just didn't feel comfortable sitting there while the house keepers did everything. Plus, it was a great opportunity to get away from Brenda and maybe get some inside information from the house keepers.

"Is she always like that?" she asked as she was helping in the kitchen.

"I mean... she always treated us like this, but she only started being cold towards Duke after the accident," the maid told her "I think it was because he refused to let her take Lindsey away."

.

After Brenda left, Duke told Lindsey that she could go and watch TV then brought Audrey to his home office which had soundproof walls.

"So, how did I do?" Audrey asked as she looked around, the home office was fancier than the office the managing director of her company had.

"You were okay," he collapsed in his leather chair, his mask was back on "I should have known she would be suspicious because normally you're not the type I would go for."

"I get it, Mr. hot billionaire goes for super models," she retorted with annoyance, she didn't need him constantly reminding her that she wasn't his type "but guess what, you're stuck with me, contract has been signed and everything."

Plus, he knew breaking it off would only make things worse.

"look, I didn't mean for that to be offensive, I was just stating facts." He clarified, the mask was so damn hot, and he wanted to take it off but couldn't.

"Why are you still wearing a mask?" Audrey finally asked when she noticed him fidgeting with it. "It must be so hot.... And the sunglasses.?"

"it's none of your business," he snapped, "anyway," he stood up and went to stand looking through the window "anyway, you've met my aunt, I can bring someone on Wednesday, we can payments and everything done, Saturday we can get married."

"What? Saturday? That's like six days away!"

"Exactly, we have to move this along quickly so that I can finally file for adoption, if I legally adopt Lindsey, Aunt Brenda won't be able to touch us," he explained.

"But...That's not enough time to plan a wedding, even a simple one."

"what's there to plan? We pay your bride price on Wednesday, then pay for the express marriage certificate and get married Saturday morning. You want a reception? It'll only be close family; I know a chef who can cater to about twenty guests on Saturday evening."

Audrey could barely keep up, one minute they were in the early stages and the next minute he was talking about a wedding. She figured she would have a nice proper wedding where he hires a wedding planner and their wedding makes the news or something, but Duke wasn't into any of that, he wanted them to get married as soon as possible.

Everything seemed to be a blur that week, when she told her parents they were on board saying if the man wanted to marry her quickly that was even better, her sisters were pushing for it and even started sending her pictures of wedding dresses.

.

Audrey stood in front of the gigantic mirror in the walk-in closet. The dress was beautiful and the few people who had made it to the wedding on such short notice where complimenting her on it, but this was not how she pictured her wedding day to be, no excitement, no proper romance, just rushing to sign the certificate and get everything over and done with.

"This is a business transaction Audrey, what did you expect?" she asked herself "don't focus on the romance and all that crap, focus on the money, you've officially started making $10,000 a week, you don't have to keep waking up at 5 to go to work and sit in an uncomfortable chair," she tried to hype herself up.

The exhaustion started weighing her down and she had to get some sleep but she could not manage to get out of her wedding dress so she walked back to Duke's room so that he could help her. Without knocking on the door in-between, she let herself into his room.

"Hey, can you...?" she stopped in her tracks as she found Duke standing at the edge of the bed taking off his suit. She stood there with her mouth hang open.