“WHERE THE HECK is he?”
I mumble curses under my breath as I pace around my condo, weaving around packed boxes that are ready to be shipped to Malta first thing tomorrow morning, right before I jump on board my brother’s Learjet and get flown to the island myself.
“You talking to me?” my best friend Carly asks.
I spin as she comes into the room with a glass of white wine and unceremoniously flops onto the buttery-yellow sofa. I’m going to miss Carly. I’m going to miss that sofa. Heck, I’m going to miss New York, too, but my dream job of teaching English to young students in Europe calls—and I’m eager to answer.
A bubble of excitement wells up inside me as I envision myself in the modern school located in the quiet community of St. Julian’s, standing before a bevy of eager minds ready to learn a new language. Thank God, I studied Italian in college, as well as Spanish, otherwise this opportunity never would have presented itself.
While I’m thrilled that I’m one of two candidates being considered for the full-time position, leaving my friends, my brother Cason and Londyn, his new wife, and everything else I love won’t be easy. Leaving is never easy—that’s something I know firsthand. But I’m only a flight away, and I’ll have a place to come back to since Carly will be taking over the lease on my downtown condo while I’m in the Mediterranean for the next month, and hopefully longer. But that’s going to depend on numerous things...
“No. I’m talking to myself. My ‘husband’—” I pause to do air quotes around the word “—is not here yet. He’s close to an hour late for our introductory date.”
She crinkles her nose. “That’s not a great way to start a marriage.”
I snort at that. “You’re right, it’s not.” Then again, having my brother choose a pretend husband for me, using the Penn Pals dating app he created when he was an undergraduate at Penn State, is no way to start a marriage, either. Not that we’ll end up together in matrimonial bliss. Nope. Not happening. This girl is not setting herself up for that kind of disaster. If there’s one thing I learned while being tossed around in the system, it’s that I’m not a keeper. If I were, I probably wouldn’t have lived in ten different foster homes in the span of five years. I just hope I’m compatible with whoever Cason chooses. We’ll be living together in close quarters, and it’d be horrible if we didn’t at least like each other.
“Is that what you’re wearing to dinner?” Carly asks, her blue eyes tracking down my body as she cradles her wineglass like it’s a treasured heirloom.
My pulse jumps as I glance at the snug black cocktail dress that’s been sitting in the back of my closet for a year. I don’t even remember the last time I had a need to wear it, but thought it would be perfect for tonight. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”
She grins and twirls a strand of her hair around her finger. “Just that you look hot in that little number, and you don’t want this guy to fall in love with you, do you?”
“Please,” I say. “Tonight’s dinner is so we can get to know each other and talk logistics. This arrangement isn’t about love. It’s about securing a full-time teaching job for me, and for him, it’s about getting a big chunk of money for helping me get it.”
I pull the tube of bright red lipstick that Londyn gave me from my purse and swipe the creamy, hydrating wax over my lips.
I turn to face Carly, anxiety welling up inside me when I check the clock for the millionth time. “What if he doesn’t show? What if he changed his mind?”
“With the amount of money you’re paying him, he’d be crazy not to show, and spending time with you...” She pauses to look me over again. “That’s no hardship for any man, my friend.” She snaps her fingers. “I also think you should exercise your matrimonial rights and get it, gurl.”
I chuckle. “It won’t be like that, Carly. We won’t be having sex.” Like I even know what sex is anymore...or ever. My days have been busy teaching at the local elementary school and I’ve been falling asleep at night while filling out forms for this new job. Truthfully, the last time I had sex was in college, and that fumbling experience left me cold and underwhelmed. I’ve pretty much blocked it from my mind and have been flying solo since.
There is, however, one thing—one man—I wish I could exorcise from my brain. But no, the kiss I shared with Roman Bianchi, my brother’s best friend, still pings around inside my head like a runaway pinball, and that, my friends, is something I wish I could change. I try. Believe me, I try. But when I’m alone in my bed, my body stubbornly aware of how excruciatingly delicious it was to have his lips pressed against mine, a possessive claiming of my mouth that left me shaken and overly stimulated, I can’t help but think back... Then he broke it off abruptly and laughed as he walked away. If his goal was to get me to hate him, he succeeded. He also succeeded in ripping my pride to shreds and reminding me I’m not lovable.
Stupid jerk.
“I need to call Cason,” I say. “I pray my brother has a backup plan just in case the guy gets cold feet.”
“I love that color lipstick on you, by the way,” Carly says. “It goes nice with your auburn hair.”
I grin. “Londyn gave it to me the night Cason proposed to her. She said it has aphrodisiac powers.” A snicker full of disbelief rises up in my throat. “I seriously doubt that.”
She glances at me over the top of her wineglass. “Hmm...”
“What?”
“You say you don’t believe it, yet here you are applying a generous amount to your lips, anyway.” Her grin is slow. “I wonder what Freud would say.”
Seriously?
Could I subconsciously be hoping it works? Subconsciously hoping to entice my pretend husband, because I’d like to have one good sexual experience in my life?
Nah.
“You’re a psychologist.” I recap the lipstick, toss it into my purse and fish out my phone. “You think everything is a Freudian slip.”
She reaches for the remote. “Probably because it is.”
I laugh at that, and just as I’m about to call my brother, someone raps on the door. My heart jumps into my throat and I spin.
“He’s here.”
Why the heck am I suddenly so nervous? I give myself a once-over in the mirror and smooth my hand over my long auburn curls. Should I have put my hair up? Maybe spent a little more time styling it? God, what am I doing? This isn’t a real date. This is just two people who are going to be spending time together, pretending to be married, getting the first meeting out of the way. During our flight tomorrow, we’ll have lots of time to work out the kinks... I mean details. Yeah, details. That’s what I mean, and kink was not a ridiculous Freudian slip. Not at all.
I don’t think.
“Are you going to answer the door?” Carly asks, and I take in her grin. I have no idea why she thinks this is anything more than an arrangement. It’s not.
I drop my phone back into my purse, and with a big smile on my face, I swing the door open. But as soon as I see the tall figure invading my front stoop, my jaw falls open, all pretense of happiness dissolving as I set eyes on none other than the big stupid jerk himself.
“What...what are you doing here, Roman?” I ask and try to glance around him, to see if my pretend husband is on his way, but his big, dumb body and impressive height fill my doorway and block everything else out—even the gigantic full moon.
“Well, hello to you, too, Peyton.”
I take a fast breath, but my lungs are tight, constricted. “Why are you here?” I ask, and hate that I sound like a damn chipmunk jacked up on Red Bull.
His dark gaze moves over my face and slips lower to take in my dress, and goddammit, my traitorous body warms in all the wrong places. This is the man who kissed me and then laughed in my face. Sure, we were at Sebastian and Rylee’s wedding, and the champagne had been flowing, but who does something like that? Who stares at me all night, turning my blood to molten lava, then plants the hottest, sexiest kiss on my lips, and walks away laughing?
A stupid jerk, that’s who.
I give him a once-over. It’s been a year since I set eyes on him, and I’m not sure how it’s possible but this updated version of the man I hate is filling me with unwanted images—of him slipping between my thighs and bringing me to orgasm. My sex clenches, an impatient reminder that I crave being touched—properly, just once—and standing before me is a delicious specimen who undoubtedly knows his way around a woman’s body.
You hate him, remember?
I shut down my overstimulated imagination and take in the tightness of his jaw, the rigid set of his muscles when he says, “I’m here to take you on a date and get to know you.”
I stand there immobilized, my lungs void of air as his words sink into my rattled brain. “Surely to God you’re not—”
“Your pretend husband?” He arches a brow. “Yeah, that’s me, and I apologize for being late,” he says, not looking one bit sorry at all. In fact, he looks completely pissed off, like he doesn’t like this situation any more than I do. “There was an issue.”
“An issue!” I say, my voice bordering on hysteria. “I’ll say there’s an issue.”
“Well, this just became interesting,” Carly mumbles under her breath as she turns the TV off and slips into the other room.
Interesting?
It’s anything but interesting. It’s a damn disaster. No way am I flying to Malta with Roman Bianchi and pretending to be married to him. I can’t stand the man. In fact, I hate everything about him. Except his face. Yeah, I don’t really hate that. And his body. That’s pretty banging, too. But his tailor-made suit, yeah, I hate that. I just don’t hate the way it highlights his broad shoulders and tight muscles, and reminds me my battery-operated boyfriend hasn’t been cutting it for some time now.
Good lord, Peyton. Get it together.
I close my eyes tight, hoping when I open them again he’ll be gone, his presence nothing but a figment of my imagination, but nooooo, when my lids snap open he’s still standing there, his gaze latched on mine. I swear to God, in the nanosecond I had my eyes closed, the man grew taller, broader...hotter.
“I take it your brother never told you he asked me.”
My gaze narrows on him. “This can’t be happening.”
I go for my phone again. “I need to call Cason. There must be a mix-up.” I shake my head. “Why would he ask you?”
“Because I’m one of his best friends and he’s completely overprotective of you,” he says, something warm and personal in his voice as he speaks about my brother. “Trust doesn’t come easily to Cason and he knows I’d never mess with his kid sister.”
His words are combustible, like a spark to tinder, and it fuels the anger in my blood. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t need my brother coddling me, and for God’s sake I can mess with whoever I want.”
“Are you saying you want to sleep with me, Peyton?”
“No,” I say quickly, maybe too quickly, judging by the smirk on his face. “I don’t even like you.”
“Good, because I don’t want to sleep with you, either.” He scrubs his face, and I catch the flash of anguish in his eyes before he blinks it away. “In fact, I’m done with women,” he mumbles under his breath. “Another reason Cason trusts me with you.”
My body stiffens, and for one split second, my heart goes out to him, the hate inside me momentarily evaporating, making room for sorrow to fill the void. I might not like him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have compassion or care about his well-being. Two years ago, his fiancée up and left weeks before the wedding. My heart squeezes. I can’t imagine how awful, how excruciatingly painful, that was for him.
He kissed you, laughed and walked away, Peyton.
Anger flares bright at that brutal reminder, and I turn my focus to my phone. I’m about to punch in Cason’s number when Roman’s big hand closes over mine to stop me, his touch sending sparks of sensation through my body.
“He asked me to do this, so I’m doing it.” He pauses, and I almost flinch at the seriousness in his face when he adds, “I’m not about to let him down.”
No, I’m the only Harrison you don’t mind letting down.
“We’re doing this, Peyton,” he says, his voice firm, businesslike.
I hate the tension in my body, the way it comes alive the second he’s in the vicinity. My nipples tighten in betrayal, revealing my arousal, and I pray to God he can’t see what he’s doing to me.
“No, you obviously don’t want to do this,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’ll get someone else.” His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist, a gentle sweep that I’m not sure he’s aware he’s doing. Heated memories of the hungry kiss we shared come back in a sensual rush. As illicit images dance in my mind’s eye, the visual caress teases and torments the needy spot between my legs.
“Whether I want to or not is not the point,” he responds bluntly.
“I’ll call Cason,” I say, and squeeze my thighs together in an effort to subdue the heat in my body, but I’d have more luck stopping a runaway train with my pinkie finger. “We’ll find someone else through the app. I’m sure there are plenty of other guys willing to help in exchange for cash.”
“Maybe so, but Cason won’t allow them.” His head dips, and while his breath is soft against my face, it’s like a tangible caress to my needy cleft. “You know I’m right. I’m all you got, Peyton, and we’re doing this.”
Anger and desire war with each other as I stare up at the man I hate. My traitorous body remains hot and achy from the way his hand is still holding mine, but I know there’s one thing I’ll never have to worry about with Roman Bianchi.
Him falling for me.
“Fine then.” I snatch my purse from the hallway table. “Let’s go to dinner and work out the kinks.”
“Kinks?”
His brow arches and I give a fast shake of my head. “Details. I meant to say details.”
Fuck my life.