Billionaire Romance18 min read
He Bought My Game and My Heart (But He Had a Fiancée)
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I opened my eyes and the man beside me still smelled like cigarette and hotel soap.
"I need to get out of here," I told myself, then used my hands to push the blanket away.
He stirred, blinked, and the sunlight on his face made him look calmer than he had any right to be. I scrambled for my phone on the floor, heart stuttering.
"Good morning," he said, low and steady.
My throat tightened. "We shouldn't—this was a mistake."
He smiled in a way that made my cheeks hot. "You said the same thing last night."
I stared at the floor. "Right. Then I went and did it anyway. Sorry."
He put his hand on the bedrail like he needed balance. "Your coat is ruined. I had someone bring a clean set. They'll be here soon."
My mouth opened and closed. "You had someone bring clothes. For me?"
"You were a mess," he said. "I didn't want you to leave like that."
I felt a fresh wave of shame. "I drank too much. I shouldn't have done any of this."
"You didn't have to," he said. "But you did."
I grabbed the dress he had left propped on a chair, held it up, and felt stupid and naked all at once.
"Is your name Calder?" I asked, blurting it out like I needed to pin him down.
He laughed, a quiet sound. "You always called me Calder."
"I never called you anything before last night."
"Then that's new." He tucked his phone into his jeans and sat up. "Will you let me call a car for you?"
"No. I can walk."
"You're not walking in that dress," he said.
"Then I'll take a cab," I said, moving to button the dress.
"Leave it," he said. "I'm driving you."
I left before he could argue more. I collected the ruined coat and the echo of the night in my head and fled into the sun.
"You okay?" Benito texted twenty minutes later.
"Fine," I lied.
He kept asking. I kept not answering. I felt the raw edge of my decisions in every step.
*
"Did he take you home?" Benito asked when I finally called him.
"No," I said, and swallowed. "We stayed at a hotel."
"Wait." His voice went small. "You what? Lila, you know what this looks like."
"I know what it looks like," I said. "It looks like a stupid, lonely woman making a stupid, lonely choice."
"You've been quiet since work started falling apart," he said. "Why did you go? Why did you drink?"
"Because my work is falling apart," I said. "Because my studio's owner ran away and left us with bills. Because I am tired of trying to get people to care."
Benito was quiet for a beat. "You want me to help with the studio?"
"No. You already told me what you think." I closed my eyes. "You told me and then walked out."
We were both quiet. I could hear the city below my window, cars like distant machines.
"I'll help you with the space," Benito finally said. "I know someone who can let you use a room cheap. You three can work out of it for a month."
I thought of Finley Cordova and Bowen Franklin and the mess of half-built code and the art I had painted at three in the morning.
"Okay," I said. "Please. Help me."
"Good," Benito said. "Also, you need to sleep off the hangover."
"I know." I lied again.
*
The studio had emptied. Chairs stacked in a corner. A printer unplugged. The place smelled faintly of burnt coffee and too many late nights.
"Everything okay?" Finley asked as I stepped through the door for the team meeting. She hugged me without warning, velvet and warm.
"We lost investors," I said. "Our boss left. We have less than a month of runway."
Finley exhaled. "Then we pull the hours. We push the prototype."
"Do you trust me to lead?" I asked Bowen across the table. He blinked, then nodded.
"Yes," he said. "We've seen your notes."
I felt like a child playing adult, but I had no choice. We drew the tasks and I made the calls and I pretended not to be afraid. I called Todd Beatty, the guy who had borrowed a little money into the studio and who called himself a boss but didn't want responsibility.
"Can we meet tomorrow?" I asked.
"Bring your pitch," Todd said. "Someone's coming by."
Someone came.
I walked into the meeting the next day like the floor could swallow me whole. The man at the head of the table didn't look up immediately. He wore a plain black sweater and the kind of calm that made people smaller.
"Calder Everett?" I heard myself say.
He looked at me, very slowly, and that look landed like a hand in my chest.
"You're Lila," he said. "You were on the student team, right?"
"I was," I said. "We—"
He raised a hand. "You're the lead now. Show me."
Two things happened then. One, my mouth dried and I began to speak. Two, my hands did not. I showed slides I had written at three a.m., art files, the portion of the code that bowed without breaking.
"You're young," Calder said when I finished. "This is raw."
"I know," I said. "We need help with publishing, servers, QA, marketing. We need—"
"Money," Bowen finished, his voice small.
"Yes," I said. "We need a partner."
There was a slow, even quiet around the table. Calder read another two pages, then closed his folder and said nothing.
"What's your position, Mr. Everett?" Todd asked.
"Visitor," Calder said. "But I have opinions."
He didn't open the door so much as make the room tilt. I felt seen and small at once.
"I don't invest in studios with messy histories," Calder said finally. "This one has red flags."
"Yes," I admitted. "We had a bad founder. We have debts."
"We have a product," I said. "We have five months of work in. We need time."
He nodded. "I'll be honest. From a business perspective, it's risky."
"Then we won't ask you to take a risk right away," I said. "We want to partner. Share technology. Let us finish the product, then we talk numbers."
Calder's face softened for a measure. "I can set introductions," he said. "But I need a lead you trust."
Finley squeezed my shoulder. "Then pick me."
He looked at me. "You tell me you drank with me last night?"
My face went hot.
"Do you want me in a position of power, or do you want me as a mistake?" I snapped.
His eyes widened. "I won't let one night ruin this."
"Good." The room exhaled. The meeting adjourned. Todd promised to send contracts. Calder left with a folded card and a quiet "text me."
I did not text.
*
That night my phone lit up. Calder had written two words.
"Are you awake?" he asked.
I stared at the screen. I was awake. My throat felt like sandpaper.
"No," I typed. "I shouldn't be texting you."
"You can tell me when the playtest is ready," he wrote.
I closed the app and meandered around my home like a ghost. I had bills to pay and a contract to chase and a bad habit with cheap beer. I put my head in my hands and tried to imagine a world where we succeeded.
My aunt called while I was washing a dish. "Lila," she said. "The men came by today. They want the money."
"How much?" I asked.
"A lot," she said. "A hundred thousand."
I felt a hot note of panic. "I'll wire what I can."
"I need it tomorrow," she said. "Don't make me ask you twice."
The call ended and the sink filled with suds and I had nothing. My world shrank to the plate on my palm and the numbers that wouldn't add up.
I shut off my phone and curled into bed.
At two in the morning my phone buzzed. It was Calder.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"I told you to sleep," I mumbled.
"I drove by," he said. "Your door was unlocked."
"It's a cheap neighborhood."
"It's not safe." He said it like fact. "Open the door."
I should have kept it locked. I should have let fear stay where it lived. But I opened the door.
He was standing there, hands in his pockets, the city light giving him an outline like stone.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"You left a notebook at the office," he said. "I could have had someone walk it over, but I came myself."
He came. I felt relief and something else that made me small.
"Thank you," I said, and mean it.
"You have bruises," he said. "You are not sleeping."
"It's the studio," I said. "The debts."
"I can give you a bridge loan," he said simply. "Not a charity. A loan. We do paperwork. We do terms."
"I can't take money that way."
"Why not?"
"Because taking your money feels like selling a piece of myself," I said. "Because we're not friends. Because—"
"Because you like to be proud," he said.
"Yes."
He stepped closer. "Let me help."
"Why?" I asked. "Why would you care?"
His mouth curved. "You're stubborn. You're burnable. You deserve less risk."
"That's not a reason."
"Enough," he said, and in the quiet he reached for the notebook.
He touched my hand like a question.
"Don't mess this up," he said. "Finish the prototype. I will arrange meetings."
"Are you sure?" I asked, feeling suddenly very young.
He looked at me the way someone looks at a fragile building and knows they can hold it up. "I'm sure."
*
We started to work together in the days that followed, but not with the straight line I had hoped for. He came by my apartment with groceries and left with bags of my trash. He sat on the floor while I fixed a bug. He brought suits for me to try when my own were stained with coffee.
"That's too expensive," I said once when he offered to have a dress sent over.
"Then tell me your size and color and I will get you something in your price range," he said.
"You did get people to bring clothes that first morning," I told him.
"You were freezing," he said. "Stop pretending to be the kind of woman who doesn't need things."
"I'm not pretending," I snapped. "I just don't need help unsolicited."
He placed his fingers over mine on the keyboard. "You're not finished," he said. "Stop faking."
"And you're not finished either," I said. "Stop pretending you don't have rules."
We argued like two people hitting the same wall in different places. But he stayed. He began to call when I didn't answer, to leave coffee on my desk, to text me at midnight asking if I had eaten. I despised my need for it.
"You are sweet with the wrong people," Finley said once. "You give too much."
"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe I'm learning people are less simple than I thought."
Finley peered at me. "You're sleeping with the investor."
"That's not how it happened," I said too quickly.
"Yes," Bowen said, voice small but firm. "He came in and then..."
"Stop," I said. "This is messy. It's fine."
"Is it?" Bowen asked.
"It is fine," I repeated until my voice felt like glass.
You can see where this was going. I'm not proud of the nights I let him come, or the mornings when lipstick still warmed my collar. All I knew was that before Calder I had been invisible. With him I could be seen and still wrong.
He had a fiancée, the world said. His family had plans. I heard it in fragments: "Susanne Riley," "arranged," "wedding expected." I thought those names meant something simple and distant until I watched him flinch at every mention.
One night, after a fight about money that was only an excuse to flay at each other's edges, he sat down and said, "My mother called."
"And?"
"And she asked if I would be ready when Susanne returns."
"Ready?" I swallowed. "For what?"
"For marriage."
"You have a fiancée?"
He ran his hand through his hair. "My family suggested her. It's... practical."
"This whole time?" I could feel the room tilt.
"I wasn't going to tell you," he said. "But you deserve the truth."
"Thanks," I said. "For telling me."
He looked at me, raw and tired. "I didn't come here for a long-term engagement. I came here to not be alone."
"I don't know how to believe that," I said.
"Then don't," he said. "But don't use my family to punish me."
"I would never use that," I said. "I will walk away."
He laughed. "You will."
"Yes."
We both said things we did not mean. I told myself we were over, that I would pull the studio through alone. I did not get to be that brave yet.
*
The game launched into testing and the little studio woke like a wounded animal. People liked the art, the faint pull, the way choices mattered. Users left notes. We had a spike. We had bugs. We had another investor call and then another.
Calder sent a private message with an attachment: a term sheet.
"That's fast," I said out loud to no one.
"It means trust," he wrote.
I looked at the sheet and felt a hundred small terrors. If I took Calder's money, would I be owned? Would my work become his? Would I become anecdote?
"Is it an investment or a buyout?" I asked when we met to sign the early paperwork.
"It's a bridge," he said. "We keep your team. We put the cash in. We give you three milestones. Pass them and the next round changes terms."
"Why would you make a such a deal?" I asked.
"Because I want to see this finished," he said. "Because I like your team. Because I'm tired of being professional about everything."
"Don't be honest about liking me," I said.
"I like the way you fight when you have to," he replied. "And I like the way you get back up."
I signed. We all signed. For the first time in months we had payroll to cover and servers that wouldn't die on world update day. We had a broken coffee machine and hot pizza and exhausted faces that wanted to keep going.
The studio began to breathe. People stopped looking at me with pity and started asking for tasks. Bowen laughed more. Finley slept at her desk less. We had a small, messy life that felt like possible success.
One afternoon, I was at my desk when my phone vibrated. The message was short: "My mother wants lunch. Friday. She wants to 'meet the team'." It ended with a smiling emoji.
"You're joking," Bowen said when he saw the note.
"No," I said. "She's serious."
"You're going to show your studio to his mother?" Finley asked.
"I didn't plan it," I said. "But I will not be a problem. I will be polite."
When Calder's mother arrived, she was careful in the way only practiced women are. Her hand on Calder's sleeve was a map I had to decode.
"Susanne sent a gift," she said to me while we walked through our tiny office. "A vase. She will be very jealous."
"So it's a real engagement," Marcelo—no, Calder—was he the one?—had told his mother to ride with him that morning, and here she was, smiling as if she belonged.
"You two should be proud," she said. "Calder has choices. He made a good one."
I smiled and showed her the art. She complimented the color palette and the narrative beats like she had read the manual for praise.
When we finished she asked Calder, casually, "Does the girl you were with last night belong to the studio?"
Calder's face changed and the room shrank.
"She is," he said. "She is the lead."
I wanted the floor to open.
His mother turned to me. "So how long have you been with us?" she asked.
"Working with these brave people for months," I said. "I manage the game."
Her eyes softened. "You are brave."
I felt a knot of something painful and tender lift and then drop. She smiled like a woman who had noticed a bloom and wanted to tuck it into her own pocket.
After she left, Calder asked, "What did she say?"
"She liked the game," I said. "She liked the team."
"And you?"
"I ate the sandwich she offered," I said.
He laughed. "You ate the sandwich."
"Yes," I said. "And then I went straight to work."
He watched me for a long beat. "You really are stubborn."
"I know." I smiled. "My aunt says it's pure stubbornness."
"She's lucky to have you," he said.
I almost said the same back.
*
The launch came. We got a good first week. Forums lit up, players mapped the routes, influencers streamed, and the numbers were kind. We were small fry, but the world noticed.
Then our past came back with teeth. Someone dug up the old news—charges of a copy, a previous founder who had left in a toxic swirl—and the notes came quick. People dug a rumor thread.
"It'll die down," Todd said. "Bad actors are loud."
But the press picked it up. A few platforms froze our play button for investigation. One influencer wrote a long essay connecting the old studio to stolen assets. Our small team went from joy to the edge.
I kept thinking about the night Calder had stood in my doorway. I kept thinking about his hands. I kept thinking about his company email that had delivered the term sheet.
"Do you regret it?" I asked him at midnight when we were alone.
"Do you mean taking my investment?"
"Yes."
"No," he said. "But I regret some things."
"What things?"
"That I hurt you without thinking."
"You hurt me worse than being honest," I said. "You hurt me by pretending anything between us was simple."
He didn't speak at first. The moon looked indifferent out my window.
"Do not drag me into your family arrangements as if I'm an extra," I said.
He looked at me and the anger in my chest had nowhere to go, so I sat quiet, raw.
When the online noise turned into calls from lawyers and emails asking about audits, Calder did something I hadn't expected.
"I know someone who runs a legal PR shop," he said. "They'll clear this. We'll release the audits and the IP history. No one's going to bury you."
"And what happens to you?" I asked. "What does this cost you?"
"It costs me time," he said. "And maybe making enemies. I don't like being nice sometimes."
He worked the phones like a conductor, and slowly, the smear cooled. Reports were corrected. The influencer apologized quietly. We were left with scars and an open window.
At some point, I realized Calder had started to show up not in the heat of the night but in small honest ways. He fixed servers, he argued with platform lawyers, he sat in the corner of our cramped office and drank bad coffee and asked me about the real design problems.
"You said you didn't want to be used," he said once.
"I said I didn't want to be used by a marriage arrangement," I said.
"That's the easy kind," he said. "The other kind is worse."
"What kind?"
"The kind where you become a story," he said. "Let me not do that."
I recognized that voice: the one who would fight you on spreadsheets and hold you when you were crying. It was the voice that said he would not let the thing we built die, whether for business or for me, I didn't know.
*
Time passes in lines of code and coffee, and the people you work with become the people you trust. We pushed updates. Our numbers climbed. We got a small award at an indie showcase. The studio had a door again.
One evening, Calder came to the studio wearing a suit and carrying a box.
"For you," he said, and handed it to me.
Inside was a small shelf of copies of our game, each with a signed sticker.
"I want you to keep the first run," he said. "You did this."
"I didn't do this alone," I said. "I couldn't do it without the team."
"True," he said. "But you were the engine."
I wanted to tell him a thousand things, but I let him have the recognition. He kissed my forehead, light and plain, and then he left.
When he left, my phone buzzed. A number I did not have saved called. I let it go to voicemail. The message was brief.
"Lila," Calder said, voice flat. "Meet me tomorrow. Noon. The Hilton. Outside the main glass doors."
The message ended. I stared at my phone for a long time and then drove to the Hilton like a woman headed toward a furnace.
He sat at a table with his jacket on the chair back, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the table. "You came."
"Yes."
"You look good," he said.
"Thanks," I said. "You look like someone who holds board meetings."
"That's because I do."
We ate in silence for a while. The city hummed around us and the lunch crowd did not know how close we were to a rupture.
"Susanne is back," he said after a time.
I felt my mouth go dry. "Is this the conversation you wanted to have?"
"No," he said. "I wanted to say the truth. But you deserve the other explanation."
"Then say it," I said. "Don't be careful."
"I was engaged before I met you," he said. "It was arranged by our families. It felt like a box. I didn't want it. I wanted space."
"You are leaving her for me?" I asked, bracing.
"I am leaving for me," he said. "But if you want to label that as leaving for you, then accept that."
His hands were steady. "My mother expects a wedding," he said. "I told her no."
"You told her no," I said, as if this were simple.
"I told her no and she told me to think again," he said. "And while she thinks, I signed your term sheet."
"That's convenient," I said.
"It was honesty," he said. "I meant it."
"Then why didn't you say it before?"
He stopped, and for one long second he looked younger than I expected. "Because I was afraid you would leave," he admitted. "Because I thought if you knew, you might step away and I couldn't bear the thought."
"I'm not a prize you rescue," I said sharply.
"Then don't let me be a trap you fall into," he said. "Be my partner. Or be my enemy. Tell me which."
"For once," I said, "don't make me choose only between extremes."
He smiled that crooked smile that used to belong to my dreams. "Fine. Be something in between. Be mine."
I thought of the team, the house I had sold to pay off more pressing debts, my aunt's voice. None of that cared for the romance of his confession. The world demanded practical steps.
"Do this in the open," I said. "Tell your mother. Tell Susanne. Tell the press. I won't be someone's private option."
He nodded. "I will."
He rose, held my hand, and then left. I didn't know if I had asked for too much or the right thing at last.
*
Calder's family was set like a palace; his mother arranged luncheons and people with perfect posture. For a while I thought I'd be a guest in his life and never more. But he did something that surprised me.
The next Tuesday Calder called a press meeting. His mother sat in the front row, pleasant as ever. Susanne Riley sat two seats down, looking composed and pale.
"Good afternoon," Calder said into the mic. "I have an announcement."
The room hinged. People leaned forward. Cameras bulged, and I felt my heart lodged in my throat.
"I have decided not to proceed with the engagement to Susanne Riley," he said.
The cameras snapped. Susanne's face paled.
"What?" murmured reporters.
"Susanne and my family were part of a plan meant to secure social connections," he said slowly. "I appreciate the intentions, but I will not marry because of arrangement. I will support Susanne in any decision she makes. Publicly." He looked straight ahead like a man firing a gun and then closing his eyes. "Susanne has been kind. She deserves to be chosen, not exchanged."
I could feel Susanne trembling. Her mask cracked.
"Calder." His mother stood like a stone split. "This is not how family is done."
"I am not a family business asset," Calder said. "I am a man. I choose the rest of my life."
Then he did the thing he had not done before. "I have also invested in a small studio. I will support their game. The lead, Lila Tariq, has run into trouble and shown us grit that deserves our support. I recommend you all give their title a chance."
The cameras were a live wire. Susanne burst then into tears, and the press circled like vultures. People cheered and booed. The mother sat down slowly.
Later that night Susanne's agent released a statement: "Susanne appreciates Calder's candor. We will respect his decision."
There was fallout. Family dinners where food stuck in people's throats. Calder's name on the front page. Susanne called in for a private suit.
But the key thing was simple: Calder had chosen to say it in public. He had made a line.
When the smoke cleared, he texted me: "I said it."
"That seems risky," I replied.
"I was tired of secrets," he wrote. "Come to the studio."
When I arrived, he was there, exhausted and raw. "You did it," I said.
"I did it," he said. "And I forgot something."
"What?"
"I forgot to ask you if this is what you want."
I laughed. "You and I never do this the easy way."
"I know," he said. "But I want it all to be honest. Your team. Your future. Me—present, not a rumor."
"You could have made a safer move," I said.
"I find safer moves dull," he replied. "Now tell me if you will let me help you finish the game and help you in other ways."
"In other ways?" I rolled my eyes. "Define."
"By being present," he said. "By supporting the studio. By making sure people can't smear you into the dirt again."
"That sounds like a full-time job," I said.
"I'll take it," he said.
He stayed. He sat through long code runs, sat on the floor and handed us coffee when servers crashed. He sketched ideas for monetization and marketing but left decisions to us. He let us keep our agency and he used his power to open doors. He did not control.
At night we sat on the tiny office couch, exhausted, and he finally asked for the one thing he had not demanded: "Stay."
"Stay where?" I asked.
"With me," he said. "As something that isn't a secret."
I looked at him. "And you will tell your mother the same?"
"I already did."
"Then what happened to Susanne?"
"She left for a job abroad a few weeks later," he said. "She's doing well."
"Good," I said. "Good for her."
He pressed his forehead to mine. "Are you okay?"
"I'm not sure," I admitted. "But I'm getting used to the idea of having someone who says things out loud."
"Good," he said. "Say you'll let me try."
We leaned into each other like two people agreeing to build a bridge across a river at midnight. Our mouths found one another not in the desperate rush of that first hotel night but in a soft, deliberate place. His hands were careful. Mine less so. We were both learning how to be with someone who knew how to show up.
The launch day came and with it a small, honest triumph. We celebrated with takeout and a bottle of champagne Calder insisted on, and when the streamers finally fell, I stood on the tiny balcony of our office and looked at the city.
"You did it," he said behind me.
"We did it," I corrected.
He wrapped his arms around my waist. "Then let's keep doing it."
"I don't want to be an accessory," I said.
"You're not," he said. "You're the engine."
"I don't want to be your secret," I said.
"You won't be." He kissed my neck. "I'm not very good at secrecy."
"Good," I said. "Then be terrible at it forever."
He laughed. "Deal."
A week after launch, my aunt called. "You did it," she said. "You sold the house last month and paid off a handsome amount. People are calling."
"I sold it," I said. "I had to."
"Still," she said. "You did it, girl. Your father would be proud."
Her voice broke and I felt something in my chest: not guilt this time but a small, stubborn pride.
We grew. The studio grew. Our team doubled. Bowen got engaged to a woman who liked coffee as much as he did. Finley opened a new art room. We were a strange family of exhausted people holding a fragile thing together.
Calder and I had moments of doubt. He had to face family members who still whispered. I had to face journalists who treated me like a human interest afterthought. I would lie awake sometimes, thinking of how different our lives were. But the good nights outnumbered the hard ones now, and he seldom let those hard ones have the last word.
One night on the roof he said, "Why did you choose to stay with the studio when it was easier to leave?"
I thought about that a long time. "Because I couldn't sell the risk of a thing I made," I said. "Because I don't want the story of my life to be about giving up."
He looked at me with a tenderness that made sleep impossible. "Then stay with me as someone who knows how to fight. Stay with me as someone who chooses instead of is chosen."
I thought of all the other people who had to pick themselves up, the team who had trusted me even when I had no right to ask, Benito who had called and offered a cheap room, my aunt who had kept me afloat by force of love and need. I thought of the game, of the players who left messages saying it had changed their night. I thought of being seen.
"I'll stay," I said.
He kissed me like someone promising to plant a tree and then watch it together grow.
Months later, when the studio signed a small publishing deal on fair terms, when our name began to mean something on lists and forums and the money finally made auditable sense, I sat in the same conference room where I had stood the first time and watched him clap for me with everyone else.
"Do you remember the first morning?" he asked when the meeting broke and people wandered out to sigh or smoke or call their parents.
"I remember," I said, voice tight.
"You were small then," he said.
"I still am," I said.
"No," he said. "You were brave. The small part was never you."
He kissed me in front of everyone like a punctuation mark. People cheered. Finley shouted something obscene and joyful. Bowen clapped with both hands.
"That's our leader," Bowen said, loud and proud.
Later, when the cameras left and the room smelled of takeout and victory, Calder took my hand.
"You made it," he said.
"No, we did," I said.
"Either way," he said, "I love you."
I looked at him, steady and real. His hair had a strange silver at the temple, a possible future I had once thought I could never touch. "I love you too," I said.
He smiled like the world was only big because we were in it together.
We were not an easy story. We still had fights and wrong turns and nights where regret felt heavy. We had legal squabbles and mother-in-law dinners and things that writers would call conflict but we called life.
In the end, what mattered was the choice. He chose to say the hard thing in public. I chose to accept help and not to sell out. We chose to keep our hands in each other's lives.
We built the studio back from the mess and we built a life from the crack of a terrible first decision. It was messy, and it was true, and that was enough.
---
END---
The End
— Thank you for reading —