“But you didn’t let me go. Because here you are.”
“Here I am.” He finally sits—not on the couch next to me, but in one of the mismatched chairs across the coffee table. Maintaining distance. “Turns out you were forty minutes away this whole time.”
“Not in Maple Lake after all.”
“Not in Maple Lake.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Chloe.” He says my name like it hurts. And for a moment, he’s just Brody again, the charming man I met in Barcelona. Sweet. Safe.
The moment stretches between us. Heavy. Real. The space filling with that kind of meaningful silence that makes your heart race and your skin tingle.
Then Jessa’s voice carries from her bedroom. “What about the deal? Didn’t you come here to propose something?”
Brody’s expression shifts. Like a door closing. The vulnerability disappears, replaced by something more guarded.
“Right.” He clears his throat, sits back. “The deal.”
And just like that, we’re not talking about Barcelona anymore.
“My agent thinks this could work. The photo. You and me. The response has been good. Really good. It helps my image, which I need right now.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why do you need help with your image?”
He hesitates. “Team stuff. Contract renewal coming up. It’s complicated. But having a girlfriend, having stability—it looks good.”
“More marketable.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t sound happy about it. “And you need a date to your sister’s wedding events. Five of them? Starting this weekend.”
“Saturday,” I confirm.
“So we help each other.” He’s looking at me, but also not. “I get good PR. You get a boyfriend for the wedding season. Clean. Professional. Mutually beneficial.”
“No strings,” I hear myself say.
“No strings,” he agrees quickly. Too quickly. “No romance. Just an arrangement. Five events. We show up together, act like a couple, and when it’s over, we’re done.”
My heart is doing something painful. Because a minute ago, he was apologizing, being real, admitting he looked me up online. And now we’re talking business transactions.
“And to make it worth your time—” He pauses. Glances at the counter. At the bills he saw but didn’t mention. Back to me. “I’ll pay you.”
The words fall on me like icy water.
Pay me? The student loan bill burns on the counter. The rent due in three days. The business barely surviving. The life I can’t quite hold together.
He’s offering me a solution.
Wrapped in the most humiliating, complicated package imaginable.
From the hallway, Jessa’s door creaks open another inch.
I look at Brody Kane. At the candy cane mocha he brought me from my secret coffee shop. I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t understand what he really wants or if any of this is a good idea.
But I’m out of coffee, out of money, and possibly out of options.
And he’s sitting in my living room offering me all three.
BRODY
The silence after “I’ll pay you” stretches like the last seconds of a tied game in overtime. Uncomfortable. Tense. Everything riding on what happens next.
