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“You want to pretend we're dating? So you go to my sister's wedding, and I pretend I'm your girlfriend for your dad and you stay CEO?”
“That's right.” There was another piece. It could be my ace in the hole—or bring this whole conversation to a screeching halt because she slapped me across the face. “I'll pay you.”
The words were already out and if her eyebrows jumped any higher they'd fly off her face. Just like that, I’d blown it. She was about to flip me off and get the hell out of dodge.
“How much?”
The anxiety immediately transformed into relief and I almost kissed her until I saw that whatever warmth she'd been feeling was hiding behind something brassy. I could see the barbed wire going up before my eyes.
I didn't let on, casually sipping my drink. “Twenty thousand for one month.”
“Twenty thousand dollars?” she gasped.
“That's right,” I nodded. “We're dating, so I go to your event, you go to some family stuff with me over the next month, and the money's yours.”
Her mouth couldn't decide whether she was in shock or ecstatic, battling between an O of disbelief and an uneasy smile. She abandoned both when I slid closer, leaning in to tell her how much I appreciated this. How I was actually dreading this process, but with her...I was excited.
She pulled away, zipping her jacket to the very top. “Just so we're clear, I'm not an escort.”
“Of course-”
“I'll do this, pretend that we're dating for the money on one condition.” Her eyes froze solid. “We don't sleep together.”
The kiss, all the things I wanted to do to her—it all dangled on some tenuous string. “This isn't about sex, Penny. I mean, obviously I want you-”
“And I want you.” It should have been a tender moment, but she delivered the words with a hint of despair. “Which is why the only way this works and is less complicated is if we keep it strictly professional.”
My head knew she was right. My cock protested vehemently. My heart? It didn't get a vote.
I felt a knot in my throat, but I held fast to all the years I'd put in at Wade Enterprises. I would not shift the company to my sister's inept hands. This was too important. And Penny was perfect: beautiful, real, hell, she was even a teacher, and you couldn't fake the chemistry we had.
Chemistry that will never be more than that. Heated looks, kisses that go nowhere...
I held out my hand, ignoring the part of me that ached for what could of been. It was the selfish part that wished I'd waited to ask her after I'd had her, hoping that would cure me of the sparks that lit up my insides when she smiled.
“You've got a deal.”
Chapter Five: Penny
I couldn't hide in the bathroom forever.
It wasn't for a lack of comfort. The ladies' room at The Farmhouse Restaurant was nicer than my studio apartment back in Hayward. Granite countertops stretched around the smudge free vanity. A TV perched on the wall broadcast some Lifetime movie. I'd been in the bathroom long enough to get the gist, and even a psycho husband plotting his wife's demise in a spectacularly implausible fashion was preferable to grinning and bearing it through the bridal luncheon from hell.
Lara had been stuck to me like glue since I walked through the door, telling everyone about Mr. tall, dark, and handsome, thankfully leaving out the part about the sex club (though I believed she left that out because she’d have to admit she was there too).
I was still catching my breath after last night. Every question jerked me back to those moments.
Who is he? Xander Wade. Six foot, two inches of lean, powerful muscle. Sun kissed skin. A face that was just unfairly gorgeous. Angular features that were balanced out by the softest green eyes I’d ever seen. He had full lips that felt like heaven and hell pressed against mine. Heaven because he kissed me like he could kiss me a million times and still crave my taste...hell because we had only kissed a couple of times and already I was craving his taste. Craving the feel of all those muscles against my body...
Luckily, when the blush set in, they took it as embarrassment instead of arousal and moved on to question 2.
How did you two meet? Gulp. That was easy enough—we met at The Red Door Club, just when I’d gathered the guts to leave. I saw him standing in the door and my vagina thought, maybe I'll stick around for a few minutes. But the words that fell from my mouth had very little to do with the truth.
Xander had a plan. As soon as we shook hands, he whipped out his phone and we mapped out the story of us. Who knew there was an app for creating a fake relationship?
We met two weeks ago in a fender bender. While I was looking for my information, he noticed that I was a fan of Hozier and we realized we’d both happened to catch him at the Masonic back in April. We grabbed a coffee and the rest was history.
Question three had everyone on the edge of their seats. What does he do for a living? My mother was practically clutching her rosary beads, praying something along the lines of, Please say pediatrician. Heck, I'll even take a veterinarian. It was clear that everyone was waiting for some catch and expected me to be as vague as possible. I told them that he was CEO of Wade Enterprises and worked in the financial district. My mother's exaggerated sigh of relief wasn't remotely amusing because I knew what her next comment would be.
