was out of line,” I force out, sincerely and painfully.
She smiles, her eyes flitting up to mine. “It’s fine. I’m the one who keeps bringing it up, you know, and I shouldn’t. It worked out how it was meant to...and I’m happy to keep it that way, boss, without any fakery.” She cocks her head. “But if you really want to know...you were in front of us in line that night. There’s a guy I’d like to meet, I thought, even before you came charging to my rescue. It certainly wasn’t my best moment, and you thought I was worth ghosting—”
“Paige—” I growl.
It isn’t fucking like that, I want to scream, but she isn’t finished.
“Then there was the hospital. I get it, you were keyed up. Scared for your grandmother. You didn’t mean to kiss me that day, and I just sorta fell into it. You didn’t intend to make such a cute scene with the shoes when you—”
“Paige,” I snarl sharply.
I expected a hard sell.
I didn’t think she’d eviscerate me with the saddest rejection ever.
She shakes her head before opening her eyes, dark-green seas churning. “Nope. I’m not worth it, and you’re not worth faking it for. So, if you and Nick really think a scheme like this will help close the deal, I’ll hunt down a talent agency and set up some interviews. I’m your assistant, Mr. Brandt. Not your toy.”
Gutted.
I sigh, hellfire burning out of my nostrils.
“You don’t understand. I need someone I can trust with this. If it’s moving forward, you’re the only realistic—”
“Use an airtight NDA,” she says sharply. “Did you need anything else?”
Only a heart transplant after she speared her damnable heel right through it.
“You’re dismissed,” I huff out.
She gives me that shitty grin she only uses when she’s being sarcastic—or putting up a wall I want to beat down with my bare hands.
“How kind of you,” she quips, before sashaying away with an anticlimactic switch of her hips.
Poison.
This woman is a lioness, and I still want to stick my idiot head in her mouth.
No, and I don’t mean the phony marriage proposal, either.
Fuck. Being shot down for a fake engagement is almost worse than being shot down for a real one. I hit her line on my office phone ten minutes later.
“You rang?”
“I need a black drip. Now.”
The least she can do is deliver a caffeinated potion to take the edge off my misery.
Something dark and bitter, just like my life.
11
For Realsies (Paige)
Ward Brandt may be many things—bosshole, control freak, espresso-blooded, lightning-eyed beast-man—but the one thing he isn’t is a man who accepts defeat.
The texts and emails arrive almost nonstop.
He keeps refining his offer. It’s up to five hundred thousand now.
Part of me thinks I should take it.
I mean, I could do a lot with half a million dollars at the end of ninety days—including finding a job that isn’t a fancy nuthouse.
But I want nothing to do with another fake relationship. Especially not one with a man I originally dubbed the Dark Knight right before he proceeded to power slam my heart to smithereens like a shaken snow globe.
I’m also getting sick and tired of the messages.
Digging my nails into my thigh, I pick up the phone and call him.
“You’ve come to your senses. I knew you would,” Ward says with an easy tone that almost sounds like he’s joking.
Dear Lord.
“Not even a hello? I actually called to tell you to grow some balls.” I channel my inner Brina.
“What?”
“Stop harassing me over text. My thumbs are sore. If you won’t give up, at least pick up the damn phone.”
“Noted. So five hundred thousand for ninety days. Deal?”
“No deal. I told you. I’m not faking a relationship.”
Silence.
He mutters something under his breath. But it doesn’t sound like a slur, or even necessarily angry, more like something weirdly...sad?
“Am I so horrible you can’t even fake a relationship with me for three months to save my family’s company and a lot of people’s job security?” he asks, his voice like cement.
Oof.
“No, it’s not that. Obviously, you’re—never mind.” Crap. We’re not going to go down that road. Because it ends with me admitting he’s just about everything, a fallen angel with the devil’s good looks and a cocky attitude to match. “Tell me, though, do you always lay the guilt trip on so thick?”
“It’s not what? Not the fact that you curse the ground I walk on? So, what is it, Paige?”
It’s that I’ve always secretly wanted my very own dark knight, and I’m kind of