Chapter Two

Gideon stepped out of bed and pulled on a T-shirt. There was no way he could fall back to sleep now. His mind reeled with what had just happened.

In less than thirty minutes, Georgia had seduced him body and soul into believing she wanted him, and in seconds reminded him why he’d hated her in the first place. The shock in her eyes when she’d clicked on the light had slapped him right back down to the loser he’d been in high school. To the day sophomore year, when he’d tried to console her and she’d let him know that someone like him didn’t even deserve to help someone like her.

No, he wasn’t going to go there.

Gideon glanced around at the suite. Though Georgia might not have gotten the memo, he was no loser. Nothing was signed yet, but Richard Grable, the expected angel investor for Say!, would make sure the man he’d turned into since high school would never have a woman look at him that way again.

He should have kicked her out of his bed, used the same girlfriend excuse he’d used with Richard when he tried to set up Gideon with his hard-partying socialite daughter. He could have told Georgia he was taken and avoided all this. Richard had bought it, and if Gideon had just been able to muster up the mental capacity, it would have been enough to stop Georgia. If nothing else, it would have stopped her long enough to make her realize she was in the wrong place, with the wrong man.

The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He was the wrong man for Georgia, even beyond her mistake, but his life was finally on the right path. He glanced at the Rolex he’d just purchased at the flagship store on Rodeo Drive—shiny, platinum, and insane on the nightstand. He shouldn’t have been so impulsive, but he couldn’t help himself. Not when American Express sent him a gold card once news of their probable investor leaked to Forbes, or when he was on his way to his high school reunion.

The bills would start to pile up, but the investment would cover them. There would be enough for offices in Palo Alto and a staff, and hopefully Say! would become a viable company within a year.

If not, he supposed he could return the damn Rolex.

Georgia’s thong lay on the white carpet like a tiny black hole, causing the forgotten feelings he’d had in high school to swirl in his chest. They’d been brought back to life by Georgia’s touch and her rejection.

Why did he care? Maybe because he could still taste her on his lips, could feel her icy stare when she flicked on the light.

No, he didn’t care—at all. Damn her for entering his room by mistake.

He lay back on the bed. It was after midnight. His best friend Alec had to have arrived by now. He’d been searching for him all night at the opening party. As a Grammy-winning rock star, Alec would surely get the kind of welcome and large impressed eyes that had met Gideon when he told his ex-classmates about his life now.

He picked up his cell and clicked on Alec’s number.

“I took your suite, dude,” Gideon said instead of hello. The suite had been another reunion splurge. If he’d just kept his room, Georgia would have snuck in half naked on Alec and Valerie. He pictured her imagined embarrassment and tasted a smile.

“Oh, so Val and I have you to thank for that.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I did wait until ten o’clock, though.”

“Does that mean the deal has gone through?”

Gideon couldn’t help but eye the Rolex. “Soon. Hopefully within a week or two.”

“Well, early congrats,” Alec replied. “Did you just call me to gloat?”

Had he? Not about the room, but about Georgia “Peach” Cahill? Though what was there to brag about? She might have come within minutes from his tongue, but she hadn’t known it was his. Her vanilla smoke smell was still in the air. He turned over the pillow she had been lying on, hoping to stamp it out. It was warm and a little damp from her hair and the skin at the back of her neck. That had been her giveaway, her undoing. When her neck arched, bowed to allow her moans to fly unencumbered, she was coming—from him, for him.

“Guess who was just in my bed?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

“Taylor Swift.”

Gideon laughed. “No, that was you a month ago, remember?”

Alec laughed right back. “You’re mistaken, not my type. A little too sweet for me; I like my women like Medusa, not like unicorns.”

“You like your women ugly and able to turn you to stone?”

“More like dangerous,” Alec replied, “but you’ve got the turned-to-stone part right.”

Georgia was both a unicorn and Medusa—dangerous and able to turn his cock into rock in one touch. Not that he would give her the pleasure of his cock, or anything, ever again.

“So, are you going to tell me?” Alec asked.

Gideon swallowed and took a deep breath, wanting to give the admission the pomp it deserved, or that it would have ten years ago. “Georgia,” he said. Peach, his mind repeated. He felt her skin under his, her clit kneaded between his lips, the essence of her still on his tongue. At least it had replaced the other memories her surprise visit had sparked.

“Who?”

“Seriously? Georgia Cahill.” Gideon balked, though he knew why Alec had asked. Gideon might have asked who, too, if not presented with her body naked and thrumming for him.

“You bagged Peach?” Alec hooted. “How the hell did you swing that? Guess she didn’t care that your deal hadn’t gone through yet, huh? Almost a million is as good as a million to the fucking head cheerleader of Kenmore High.”

His chest became a taut rope, and sweat beaded above his lip. “She thought I was Brandon.” There was no reason to lie to Alec.

“What?” Alec’s voice was sharp on the line.

“I guess she got his room number confused with mine. She was never that great at math,” Gideon added with a chuckle to soften the blow. Though it didn’t—saying it out loud made him feel even worse. He hated that it did. That she still could. He supposed rejection was rejection regardless of how much confidence you possessed. Though Georgia’s body hadn’t rejected him, her exit wouldn’t be something easily brushed aside.

“She fucked you, thinking you were Brandon? How could you have gone through with that?” Alec asked quietly.

Gideon’s heart smacked against his ribcage, and the sheets became a tangle around his legs. “I didn’t know she thought that until after, and she didn’t fuck me, not completely. She couldn’t really make it until then, if you get my meaning.” Gideon caught a glimpse of her thong on the floor. The wish he’d made to finally have her seemed like a silly boy’s daydream now.

Alec whistled. “Holy shit, I bet she’s pissed.”

“So am I.”

“Right, dude, sorry, of course you are. What are you going to do?”

Gideon rose and stared out the sliding glass window at the pool. “Nothing.”

“Seriously?” Alec challenged. “Peach falls into your lap and you’re just going to let it go.”

Gideon dropped the curtain and stepped away from the window. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“Actually fuck her.”

Alec could say things like that. He was a rock star now. Tattooed and leather-jacketed with women coming out his ears, but Gideon was an average guy. Sure, he might be adding several more zeroes to his bank account, but he wasn’t able to just fuck people, and after the way she’d acted, he definitely didn’t want to fuck Georgia Cahill.

“Nah,” Gideon finally replied. “It was hot, don’t get me wrong, but she’s just as bitchy as she was in high school. Not worth it, and might I remind you she wanted Brandon, not me.”

“Well”—Alec’s voice was insistent—“if she got far enough that you almost fucked, that she couldn’t even make it until you fucked, I’d beg to differ.”

It was true. Even if she’d thought she was in bed with Brandon, her body had been responding to him—his words, his touch, his tongue. Her body had cried out for everything Gideon had done to her.

But Gideon didn’t want her. Sure, fucking her would be great, but he would never give her that satisfaction.

Gideon’s phone buzzed in his hand. “Hold on, someone’s calling me.” He pulled it back from his ear. Unknown Number flashed on the screen. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”

“Maybe it’s Georgia.”

“Shut up.”

“I guess it’s good we’re not in high school anymore,” Alec said, “or I’d bet you couldn’t get her into bed again if she knew it was you.”

Alec totally would have. Their competiveness had been one of his favorite parts of their friendship. Being on the lowest echelon of the high school caste system, Alec and Gideon had fought and scrambled for every one-up they could muster. All that rivalry must have been good for something. Look at the kind of men they had become.

“If we were still in high school,” Gideon said, pressing his hand into the mattress, “that never would have happened.”

The only response was Alec’s breath on the line. He didn’t need to say it. Alec knew what Georgia thought of him ten years ago. What she clearly still thought, considering her reaction once she flipped the lights on.

“How’s Valerie?” Gideon asked, suddenly desperate to change the subject. Valerie and Alec were best friends in high school—good enough friends that they could share a room this weekend in complete celibate bliss. Gideon didn’t have to wonder what bad enough enemies like he and Georgia would get into in a similar situation.

“Same, good old Valerie.” Alec’s words said one thing, but there was something else in his voice, a longing. Gideon recognized it because it had forever been a part of his psyche when it came to women he wanted. But Alec had never longed for Valerie. Maybe he just hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her.

He wondered if, regardless of his protests, he had the same tone when he talked about Georgia. The longing was there. And when they were together in the dark, it was beyond reciprocated. When he was just a man and she was just a woman and there was only their physical attraction, she had wanted him, come for him. Alec seemed to be suggesting Gideon use her to expel all the feelings of inadequacy he’d had in high school, but in the last ten years, he had left Gilligan far behind. He didn’t need Georgia’s pussy to make him feel like more of a man than he already was.

A loud, insistent bleating from the nightstand startled him. The hotel phone was lit up and seemed to vibrate like an egg timer that was going off with each ring.

“Shit, dude, now someone’s calling me on my room phone.”

“It’s definitely Georgia,” Alec said. “Tell her I said hi,” he added before he hung up.

Gideon didn’t answer it. If it was Georgia, he didn’t want to talk to her. He let the phone run through a cycle of rings until it went silent. He was just about to try to fall back to sleep when his cell rang again with Unknown Number.

Dammit.

He clicked the green phone icon and his business partner Kurt’s voice shot over the line like a colony of panicked bats. “Dude, we’re fucked.”

“Calm down,” Gideon replied. While Kurt rarely started off a call so crazed, Gideon was used to his anxiety. He and Kurt had been roommates all four years in college and best friends in addition to partners in Say! “Why is your number unknown? Where’s your cell?”

“The battery died and I’m on a pay phone, but none of that matters. We’re fucked, totally fucked.”

Gideon could make out thumping bass and voices in the background. “Are you drunk?

“A little, but that has nothing to do with why we’re fucked.”

Gideon rarely took Kurt’s hyperbolic pronouncements seriously. He was high-strung, while Gideon had worked for years to develop a cool poise. It made them perfect partners. Kurt worried about the smallest details while Gideon was always focused on the big picture. “Just slow down and tell me.”

“Richard was here at The Viper Room. Not to hang out,” Kurt explained. “His daughter wants him to invest in the club.”

“What were you doing at The Viper Room?” he asked. Kurt had a pocket protector for every day of the week. He didn’t belong in one of the most exclusive clubs in L.A., a club some celebrities had trouble getting into.

“What are you doing with that platinum spaceship you bought for your wrist?”

The skin of Gideon’s face heated, but he didn’t respond. They both had let the promise of the investment go to their heads. There was no use fighting about finally being able to be the kind of man you’d always wanted to be.

“Anyway,” Kurt continued, “we spoke and he asked me where you were.”

“I’m at my reunion.” Gideon’s voice echoed through the dark suite. “How does that make us fucked?”

His conversation with Alec hovered like a drone in his gut. Alec had suggested one very specific way Gideon could be fucked—by Georgia. He drove the thought away and focused back on Kurt.

“I told him that, and then he said, Oh, he must be talking up the business and showing off his pretty girlfriend.” Kurt barely took a breath before he continued. “And I just nodded and said, ‘yes, and then visiting his parents for a few days.’ You know how I get around him. You usually do all the talking.”

Kurt was a coder. Anyone else usually did all the talking.

“Plus,” Kurt barreled on nervously, “I know how he is about family and honor and all the moral crap he lectures us on, so I figured I should throw in the parent part.”

“That was a good call, but…” Gideon rubbed the back of his neck impatiently. “I still don’t see why we’re fucked?”

“Because he’s coming to New York City on Monday, and he wants to have dinner with you and meet your ‘pretty girlfriend.’ You know, the one you made up?”

Gideon swallowed acid as the understanding hit.

“Since you’re staying after the reunion and being a good son, he figures you can head up to the city and give him a few hours. Check your email. He said he’d have his assistant send you the dinner reservation. Knowing Richard, it’s there already.”

Gideon put Kurt’s call on hold and clicked into his email. Sure enough, a reservation for three at Nobu at 7:00 p.m. on Monday was the top message on his Gmail account. It was an invitation to dinner for Gideon, Richard, and a ghost.

He clicked back into the call. “I’ll just tell him I had to go back early.”

“And blow off dinner with him? No, Gideon, we are too close. He can still change his mind at any time.”

Gideon ran a hand through his hair, hoping it might jostle his brain to a solution. “I’ll tell him my girlfriend had to go back early, or didn’t come with me, or died of typhoid.”

“No,” Kurt spit, “no more lies. You should have just gone on a stupid date with his daughter, but you have principles—too much pride. Well, look where that’s gotten you—to fucking us.”

Gideon’s jaw tensed. “I’ll handle it.”

“How? The only thing that’s going to satisfy him is you and your girlfriend having dinner with him four days from now.”

“I said”—Gideon’s hand gripped his phone hard enough to crack it in half—“I’ll handle it.”

“Are you going to create a girlfriend out of thin air? We might be good with computers, but this isn’t Weird Science.”

“I’ve handled everything I’ve had to handle so far.” Gideon kept his voice even as his muscles stiffened. “This will be no different.”

“Fine,” Kurt replied. “I can’t wait to see how you pull a girlfriend out of your ass.”

“Just go sober up.”

Kurt exhaled. “I would apologize for getting you into this, but you got you into this, Gideon. Now you need to get us out.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Gideon replied, ending the call before Kurt could continue.

He tried to settle back into bed. This night couldn’t get much worse. First Georgia, and now with one white lie, his whole future was in jeopardy.

But Kurt was right, he couldn’t just say his girlfriend went back early or use any other excuse. Eventually Richard would want to meet the woman who had forced Gideon to say no to him—the man who never heard no.

Gideon could have said yes, but he wanted Richard to invest in Say! on the merits of the company alone, not because he went out with his daughter. He wanted Richard to see that he was worthy of his money without any preferential treatment. For as many years as it had taken Gideon to become someone other people would give millions of dollars to, he wasn’t throwing that man away to become a virtual son-in-law.

And now look where his lie had gotten him, to having to prove it. He couldn’t tell Richard he’d made it up; he’d never do business with a liar. Gideon would just have to find someone at the reunion who would agree to come to New York with him for a few hours. But how could he tell anyone this story?

A successful man did not need a stand-in girlfriend so the deal of his life could go through. Everyone had been so impressed with who he had become. These were not the actions of a person who had his life together. They were not the actions of the kind of man he wanted to present to Richard and the rest of the world. He sighed. He didn’t have a good friend like Valerie to ask for a favor. His only chance was to find someone he wouldn’t be embarrassed to share this crazy plan with.

Embarrassed, like damn Georgia Cahill had been. The thought hit before common sense did—she was the only person he wouldn’t be humiliated to ask. Considering what she’d just done—what they had just done—his request was as innocuous as asking to borrow a cup of sugar.

Hell no. That would mean spending more time with her.

And she would never say yes, anyway. Hell would freeze over and turn to fire again before Peach agreed to go to New York with him, even for a fake arrangement.

He glanced at his Rolex. She might if the price was right. He’d heard she was living with her sister now. Maybe she wanted a place of her own. Six months’ rent might do the trick. The thought of giving Peach money sickened him, but if his throwaway lie was the one thing standing in the way of this deal going through, it was just the price of doing business.

But would Richard ever believe they were really together? While their physical chemistry was off the charts, their coldness once the lights were on would be evident to anyone.

He’d heard Georgia was an actress. Perhaps he was about to offer her the role of a lifetime.