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“I wasn’t joking, you know,” he said. “About offering to pose as your husband.”
“You don’t think you’re being a little…”
“Helpful? Generous?”
“Insane.”
“I think you wouldn’t have come here today and told us you were looking for a husband if there wasn’t a part of you that wanted it.”
He leaned over me, bracing his hand against the roof of my car and forcing me to lean back on the door. Invading my space.
I could have stepped to the side to get away from him, but I didn’t want to. I was mesmerized by his piercing blue eyes on mine. My breathing picked up. All I needed to do was lean forward a few inches, and the two of us would be touching. It would be so simple to accomplish.
“You know you’ve always had a thing for me,” Jake said.
His audacity was enough to break the spell. I pushed him away. “I havenothad a thing for you,“ I told him. “No one in their right mind would have a thing for you.”
“You did say you were being crazy.”
“No, I saidyour ideawas crazy, and I don’t think you can put words in my mouth.“ He’d always been like this. It was aggravating when your brother’s best friend believed he was always right when he was present for every moment of your childhood, and you couldn’t ever get away. But we’re grownups now, and I’m sick of putting up with this.
And yeah, maybe I did have an attraction to him. He was not, technically speaking, wrong about that.
But I wasn’t the kind of woman to let attraction make me forget when a guy was a jerk.
However, my problem was that whenever he was close to me, I tended to forget what kind of woman I was.
“You should let me do it,” he said. “You should let me pose as your husband.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“But why do you care if I am? I’m not saying we should get together for real. Let me help you keep this job. It’s a big deal for you.”
“Why would you want to help me? I don’t understand what’s in it for you?”
“Can’t I want to do my best friend’s little sister a favor?”
“You have never wanted to do me a favor in the entire time I’ve known you, Jake. You’ve never even been nice to me before.”
“All right,” Jake said. “Maybe it appeals to me to be a consultant on a war film. I haven’t been in LA for very long and haven’t done much since I’ve gotten here.”
“I thought you and Danny spent all your time working on that new app you’re developing.”
“But we’re in Hollywood. I don’t want to spendallmy time doing tech work. As I’m here, I think it would be cool to get involved in the film industry. And maybe you can be my way into the business.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of what he was saying. It was hard to believe that Jake genuinely cared about the film business. He’d never given me any indication it might matter to him before.
But he did have a point. I intensely wanted to keep this job. It could kickstart my entire career to a whole new level, and I would be an idiot to let it slip away. I knew that.
Whatever his reasons were, it didn’t really matter, did it?
“All right,” I said. “Here are my terms.”
He smirked. “You’re setting terms on a favor I’m doing for you?”
“Do you want to hear them or not?”
“Might as well.”
