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My mother pressed a hand to her heart. Aunt Beverly made a suspicious little sniffing sound. My throat tightened.

Damon’s mouth curled at the edges in his trademark bad-boy grin. "Even if she did threaten to end my life."

Everyone laughed. Including me. Because what else was I supposed to do?

The man had just taken a story that could've made me look ridiculous and turned it into something affectionate. Something kind. He hadn't made me the punch line. He'd made me the reason the story mattered. And then, he leaned over and kissed my temple.

Softly. Briefly. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. No performance. No exaggerated affection for an audience. Just comfort.

His hand squeezed my thigh again. And I realized something. The flirting had never been the dangerous part. Neither had the kissing. Or the sex.

Because I could explain all of those things away. Chemistry. Attraction. Two consenting adults making a series of decisions that were terrible in theory and spectacular in practice.

But this?

The way Damon defended me without making a scene. The way he noticed when I was uncomfortable. The way he made me laugh when I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. The way he touched me like I was someone he cared about, not someone he was trying to impress. That was different. That was harder to dismiss.

I looked over at him.

He was laughing at something Aunt Beverly said, completely unaware that I was having a full-blown emotional crisis beside him. And for the first time since this whole ridiculous arrangement began, I wasn't afraid that Damon Lockhart might break my heart.

I was afraid I was going to hand it to him on a silver platter. Willingly. I was afraid I already had.

18

FOUR DAYS OR FORTY YEARS

Damon

There were three things I knew for certain.

One, horses could sense fear.

Two, my brother Dean was going to have an aneurysm when he found out I'd let Mikayla's family turn his carefully organized ranch into their own personal playground.

And three, if Mikayla Parsons kept looking at me the way she'd been looking at me for the past twenty-four hours, I was going to do something incredibly stupid.

Like tell her I was in love with her.

Which, considering she'd hired me to pretend to be her boyfriend for four days, seemed like the kind of thing that might earn me a one-star review. Would not recommend. Employee developed inappropriate emotional attachment. Also, excessive kissing.

In my life, I’d kissed quite a few women. I had a reputation to uphold, after all. But I'd never been kissed the way she kissed me. Like she was mad about wanting me. Like she'd been holding her breath for two years and finally decided to exhale.

"Damon!"

I turned in the saddle to find Mikayla glaring at me from atop Lady Di, our gentlest mare.

I was struck, once again, at just how breathtakingly beautiful she was. Mikayla not Lady Di. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail that swung across her back. She wore jeans that should've been illegal in at least twelve states, a fitted white T-shirt, and an expression that suggested she was fresh out of fucks to give.

"Yes, beautiful?”

"Why does my horse keep stopping?"

I glanced down at Lady Di, who was currently chewing on a mouthful of grass. "Because she's hungry."

"She ate before we left."

"Yeah, well, she's a growing girl."