He chuckles roughly. “Fuck no. I’ll never be that hard up.”
The roughness in his voice rumbles through my bones.
I don’t like where this is going.
“Sooo, what are you suggesting?” I ask.
“I need to buy time. Enough to keep my family from climbing up my ass before I’m ready to launch my product line, find my footing, and rebuild my reputation with old-fashioned grit.” Those big blue eyes are midnight now, dark with determination. “I need a ruse. You need money. That makes us perfect partners, if we team up and—”
Panic.
I throw my hands up.
“Whoa,whoa. How about no?” I lean away from him. “No way, Brady. If you think I’m signing on to some wacky fake-engagement thing with you, count me out. Sorry, I’m not your girl.”
A slow, inappropriately sexy smile spreads across his lips. “Not even for a million dollars?”
A million—
Oh. My. God.
My vision starts spinning with zeros.
I’m glad I’m not the fainting type like poor Elle, or I’m pretty sure I’d be sliding off this stool boneless and face-planting on the marble bar.
“Nope, I—” I stop, staring at him. “Did you really say amillion?”
“Seven figures. Count them, Sass. I told you: This can be a mutually beneficial relationship.”
Holy shit, I can’t do this.
That’s crazy money. Certifiable. And it comes with strings attached that originate in hell.
Worse, his offer tells me I should have listened to my instinct.
I knew I should never have gone out with him.
Does he seriously think he canbribeme into some sleezy romance arrangement worthy of a bad reality show?
Woof.
My instincts were right.
Brady Pruitt is a giant selfish dickprint.
“No thanks,” I strangle out. Then I start digging in my purse, thankful I have a few bills to throw down on the bar for my partial tab. He can figure out the rest for this humiliation. “Absolutely no fuckingway. I’m out of here.”
And I’m moving like a bullet, bolting through the crowd as I hear him call, “Lena!”
This is so not my day.
Now, instead of moping around at home, I get to drag myself back with my tail between my legs.
And I’ll spend the night wondering why every man in this city really is a selfish psycho, and when I became a magnet for bad intentions.
VI
A Dog’s Dinner
