She trailed her finger down the side of his face. Seb caught it, resisting an overwhelming urge to swat it away. He shot her a look.What the fuck are you doing?
Her nails dug into his palm, eyes flicking toward Brenda.She’s buying it, stupid.
With hands behind her back, Brenda slowly paced to the huge bay window, a thoughtful furrow on her brow.
What the hell?
Brenda reallywasbuying this bullshit.
She turned to Helen. “Do you mind me asking what crime you committed?”
“No, not at all.” Helen lowered her gaze. “My boss owed me a lot of money, so I … um … broke into his flat to get it.”
“I see.” Brenda’s brow furrowed deeper as she paced the room again. “We’ll need to somehow spin that into something positive if word ever got out.” She looked back at Seb. “I wish you’d told me Helen would be working here today.”
“Well, um … I …” Seb’s brain scrambled and the pause grew awkward.
“We didn’t know until this morning,” Helen cut in. “It’s seriously the worst coincidence ever, isn’t it, pumpkin?”
Pumpkin!He was going to kill her. “Brenda, I swear, I’m … that’s to saywe… are just as surprised about this as you.” He pulled his hand away from Helen’s chest and covered their joined fingers with his free hand in what he hoped looked like a show of unity. “I intended to tell Mikey everything this morning”—thatat least was the truth—“but then Evie …”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Brenda pursed her lips. “I understand.”
“We would never jeopardize this campaign.” Seb glared at Helen. “Would we?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
Brenda’s sharp gaze fell to their clasped hands. “If I can be frank, Sebastian, your past history with women has caused me some concern, but I’m … I’m impressed.”
She was?
“There must be something pretty special going on between the two of you if you were prepared to lie.” Brenda, for the first time, gave him a truly warm, genuine smile. “You must really love each other.”
“Well, I … I …” Seb glanced down at Helen as she snuggled against his side, giving him a great view of the dirt on her neck. She squeezed his hand. He blinked.Love.Right. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Youguess? Bloody hell, Sebastian,” his newgirlfriendmuttered as he closed his office door. “Easy on the romance.”
“And come out with more flowery bullshit?” Seb stomped to the window. “Look at us. We’re frickin’ apples and oranges. Who’s gonna buy all that crap you just came out with?”
“The scary lady did, and what’s so hard to believe? You’re not that ugly. I’m sure there’s a woman out there who’ll fall in love with you for real one day, but in the meantime, I can pretend to do it.”
“I don’t wanna fall in love! And if I did, it wouldn’t be with someone like you.”
“Ouch, keep this up and you’ll hurt my feelings.” Helen jabbed a finger at him. “I’ve just saved your arse, you ungrateful brat!”
“Ha! Out of the frying pan, into the fire.” Annoyance rippled through him. “You’re on probation, for Christ’s sake! You’re not exactly the epitome of sophistication I had planned to date and myarsewouldn’t have needed saving in the first place if you hadn’t pretended to be Cassie.”
“That was a simple case of mistaken identity.”
“You stole her frickin’ badge.”
“Iborrowedthe badge. And I was drunk.”
“You were—? Well, gee, isn’t that just freaking awesome to hear on top of everything else. It was the middle of the day!” He strode over to his laptop, printed off the contract and NDA from his personal cloud files and slapped it on the desk with a pen. “Sign it.”
“Is it really necessary? I meant what I said. I’m not going to cause any trouble. Trust me.”
Trust her?No way. He tapped the contract. “You wanna get paid, don’t you?”
