Fake Fiance, Real Fiasco
MM Contemporary Romance
by Jace Wilder
Available at all major retailers
Pairing: MM
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Inferno
Tropes: Fake Dating, Inheritance Scheme, Class Clash, Forced Proximity, One Bed, He Falls First, Touch Starved, Who Hurt You
The lie was the contract. The truth was the man.
Theo Callahan is one dissertation chapter and two maxed-out credit cards from rock bottom when a stranger in a $6,000 suit offers him a deal: four weeks as a fake fiance, and every dollar of his student debt disappears.
Julian Ashford doesn’t do feelings. He does strategy. And the strategy is simple: bring a convincing partner to the family estate, satisfy his dead grandfather’s inheritance clause, and walk away with controlling interest before his scheming cousin takes it. The broke, mouthy grad student who handled a crisis at the Foundation gala is an unlikely choice, but Julian doesn’t need polished. He needs real.
Theo wasn’t supposed to like the way Julian adjusts his collar before dinner. Julian wasn’t supposed to notice the way Theo laughs at his grandmother’s worst jokes like he actually belongs there. The contract said four weeks, shared bedroom, public affection, private boundaries.
Nobody said anything about falling in love.
When the lie starts cracking and the family closes in, they’ll have to decide what’s worth more: a fortune, or the one real thing either of them has ever had.
You’ll love this book if you enjoy:
✅ Fake fiance MM romance with explosive chemistry
✅ Billionaire heir x broke grad student class clash
✅ Forced proximity + one bed in a family mansion
✅ Slow burn that DETONATES (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — graphic, explicit, emotional)
✅ A grandmother who sees everything and a cousin who ruins everything
✅ “He falls first” energy meets “who hurt you” vulnerability
✅ HEA guaranteed
⚠️ Content Warning: This novel contains explicit sexual content (graphic MM scenes), strong language, family emotional manipulation, financial stress, and homophobic undertones from family members. Intended for readers 18+.
📖 Read Chapter One Free
Not sure yet? Read the full first chapter right here.
Chapter One: The Offer
The trick to bartending for rich people was simple: be fast, be invisible, and never make the mistake of thinking you were in the room.
Theo Callahan had been doing this long enough to know the choreography by heart. Smile without engaging. Pour without splashing. Keep the Macallan 18 flowing for the silver-haired men who talked about philanthropy like it was a contact sport, and make sure the women in Valentino never saw the bottom of a champagne flute. The Waldorf ballroom was a temple of soft lighting and self-congratulation, and Theo was furniture. Expensive, functional, decorative furniture.
He didn’t mind it. That was the thing people never understood about service work — there was a clean simplicity to being needed without being noticed. No one at the Ashford Foundation Anniversary Gala cared that the bartender pouring their Sancerre had spent the morning annotating Vasari and the afternoon arguing with his dissertation advisor about the homoerotic subtext in Donatello’s David.
What he needed was the $400 this shift would put in his checking account, which would bring his balance to a life-affirming $623 and buy him approximately two more weeks before the next round of loan payments carved it back down to double digits.
So he poured. He smiled. He was furniture.
Then Hoffman’s hand landed on the server’s waist.
Theo clocked it in his peripheral vision. Maya — twenty-two, new to the catering company — was carrying a tray of crostini past the auction tables when Hoffman intercepted her. His hand went to the small of her back first, and then it slid down. Maya’s smile froze.
Theo set down his bar towel. He crossed the floor in six seconds, carrying a fresh tray of cocktails. He approached from Hoffman’s left, positioning himself between the man and Maya.
“Mr. Hoffman — I’ve got that Macallan 18 you asked about. We found a bottle in the reserve. Shall I set up a tasting for you and your colleagues by the terrace?”
The redirect worked. Hoffman’s ego did the rest. He took the glass and moved toward the terrace with the self-important gait of a man who believed the evening was revolving around him.
The end of a gala was unglamorous. Theo carried glassware in plastic crates, loading the van. His bow tie was undone, sleeves rolled to the elbows.
He was loading the last crate when the voice came from behind him.
“You handled that well tonight.”
Theo turned. The man standing near the service entrance was tall, with dark hair and the kind of jawline that looked engineered rather than grown. Light eyes, gray-green. A suit that cost more than Theo’s annual rent.
“I have a proposal,” Julian Ashford said. He produced a business card. “It’s going to sound insane.”
“Most things that start with ‘it’s going to sound insane’ are, in my experience, actually insane.”
“Hear me out anyway.”
Theo looked at the card. Julian Ashford. Ashford Foundation. Managing Director. He should throw the card away. Whatever Julian Ashford was selling, Theo couldn’t afford to buy.
He slid the card into his back pocket.
He didn’t throw it away.
Want to keep reading? The full novel is available now.
🔥 Want an EXCLUSIVE Bonus Chapter?
The Penthouse — One Year Later — A scene TOO HOT to miss
Julian plans the perfect anniversary. Theo has other plans. Champagne, a blindfold, and the most explicit, tender, filthy celebration of everything they’ve built. The binder is long gone. The heat is not.
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