Page 10

Of course I did. What was I thinking? It sounded like a sensible plan, to sleep with the man I’ve wanted since I was a teenager. But Jax dates runway models. He has a whole highlight reel of women and I’m sure they know exactly what to do in the bedroom. And here's his best friend's little sister, asking him to sign up for charity work.

"You know what, forget it." I grab the binder off the table with my ears on fire and my plan currently burning to the studs. "That was wildly inappropriate, I'm your handler, this is a lawsuit in the making. Let's never speak of it, ever."

His hand closes around my wrist.

Gentle. My entire traitor body, lighting up like a scoreboard after a game-winner.

"I didn't say no." He's on his feet now, and I never saw him rise, and he's close enough that I can feel the warmth of him. "I was processing. Those are different things."

This close, he's overwhelming. I have to tip my head back just to hold his eyes, those gray eyes gone dark and fixed on me.

My entire body leans towards him before I can stop. "Processing?"

"You dropped a lot on a guy who walked in here bracing to get yelled at about becoming a meme and going viral." A corner of his mouth tips up. "Give me a second to catch up, Callahan."

He doesn't let go of my wrist. And I can’t make myself step back from him.

"And since we're in this negotiation." His thumb strokes across the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse that is currently sprinting, and there’s no way on earth he doesn't feel it.

"You're not the only one in this room who needs a favor. I need something too. It's true we can work together to get Meridian. My agent told me I need to portray an image of a man who looks like he’s settling down." He says it slowly, building it as he goes, watching my face for every tell.

"I need a girlfriend. A wholesome story. You need lessons and I need a girlfriend. Nobody will question you being around me. This can work for both of us." His grin arrives, dangerous and obviously thrilled with himself.

He leans in closer, I can feel his breath on my lips.

"Margot. You and me. The reformed bad boy and the woman who reformed him. It saves my deal, it explains every hour we spend together, and it gives me a very good excuse to teach my brand-new girlfriend anything she wants to learn."

My brain goes to static for a moment. Fake dating. Him. On purpose.

"Cade would put you in the ground." It's the only whole sentence I can form.

"I'll tell Cade it's business...”

Something moves across his face when he says his best friend's name, gone before I can catch it.

“A show for the cameras, part of the job. That you’re in charge of reforming my image. We take it slow. Just you and I in public. We don’t have to tell him the rest."

‘The rest’. The part where I finally find out what Jax’s hands feel like. Everything in me pulls tight at the thought and I pray it doesn't reach my face, because I’m supposed to be doing it for someone else. For the plan, for the sensible future love life waiting somewhere down the road, and not because I have wanted Jax since before I had a word for the wanting.

"So you want a trade." The words come out, and I don't believe a single one of them.

"Yes. I think it’s fair. A fake girlfriend in exchange for multiple orgasms." He's smiling now, the real one, the one that got me into this the first time, when I was young and stupid.

He lets go of my wrist, plucks a dry-erase marker off the table, and clicks it like a man calling a meeting to order. "Let me start planning."

"Planning what?"

His cocky grin takes over his face. "You'll see. Lesson 1."

I throw the binder at his chest. He catches it, and the laugh he lets out is going to be a problem for the rest of my natural life. How could I walk away from him after we have sex?

I’ll lose him, but he was never really mine. Maybe this is my chance to get reality to slap me awake and to move on to a man who wants me for real.

My phone goes off in my blazer pocket, shrill in the quiet. I pull it out and we both drop our eyes to the screen

CADE.

My brother's name glowing up at us from the little screen, standing between the man I just agreed to fake-date and lose my v-card at the same time.