Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,359

held me in the night—if perhaps his strong arms around me felt as real as anything else we’d done together—the memory of it was almost gone by morning.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Madden sitting in the chair next to the bed dressed in yet another suit. The lines on his face were gone. He looked relaxed. When he met my stare, he even smiled.

“Morning,” I managed to get out. “You seem like you’re in a good mood.”

“I’ve figured out what story we’ll feed to the press to distract them from my old roommate’s claims. It’s a sure thing.” He stood up then and came over to the bed where he sat on the edge.

“That’s good right?” I asked.

He cupped my face and ran his thumb along my jaw. Another one hundred and eighty degree turnaround from last night. “It’s very good,” he agreed.

I leaned into his touch. Soon we would get back on the plane and that would be the end of all this.

As much as I knew it was all according to plan, a piece of me longed to have more time with this strange, magnetic man.

“So how are you going to throw them off that story?” I asked, looking up at his him.

His dark eyes glittered and he leaned down, his lips inches from mine. “Easy,” he whispered. “We’re getting engaged.”

END OF BOOK 1

Part II

Wicked Lie (The Billionaire’s Fake Fiance, Book 2)

Chapter 1

My mouth opened wide and I stared at Madden Cross, unable to even speak.

I heard him wrong, I had to have.

The handsome billionaire had gone from paying me for one weekend of pleasure to asking for my hand in marriage.

“Engaged?” My voice squeaked out like I’d been inhaling helium. “That’s ridiculous. We barely know each other.”

Madden lifted one eyebrow and his gaze fell to where the sheet hung off my shoulder. “I know that your eyes crinkle up when you get confused, and I also know you spasm around my fingers when I touch you just…”

“I’m not talking about sex.” I swung my legs out of bed and stood. He was insane. And he was the last person I’d ever want to marry. “Why me? What about one of your other women?”

“This is the most expedient solution. You’re here with me now.” He held up his hand when I started to argue. “It’s only for one day, two at the most. Long enough for the news to latch on and run with it and forget about the other stuff.”

I sat across from him and he poured me a cup of coffee and added cream and one teaspoon of sugar. He handed it to me with another lift of his eyebrows.

“Just because you know what I put in my coffee doesn’t mean we should get engaged.”

Although, having said it, I had to admit that I liked this a bit too much. That he’d paid enough attention to know such a little detail about me caused a warm thrill to tickle my stomach.

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. Today he had on a dark blue suit that brought out specks of grey in his eyes. Guys in suits never really did much for me, but seeing Madden in one had changed my mind pretty fast.

“It’s not real, Skylar.” His lip twitched into a tiny grin. “But this has to happen right now. Jenna has created a press release to be fed to the media in an hour. Then we head back to Boston so we can be seen together at a few strategic places, and once the story takes off, I’ll have what I need.”

“All this to bury speculation that you plagiarized a paper years ago?”

It seemed too extreme. Who would go through this big of a lie just to hide something that happened back in college? Something that couldn’t even be proven. It seemed to me that there had to be more.

“What’s really going on?” I asked, suspicion tingeing my voice.

If he had a good enough reason, then maybe I would help him. That was a big maybe.

“How much?” he asked, uncrossing his arms, picking up his mug and lifting the cup to his lips. He watched me over the rim with indifference. Like we were discussing the weather or something mundane like that.

Coffee sloshed over my hand and onto the white tablecloth as he asked the question. “What?” I said, my heart beating faster now.

“I’m already giving you ten thousand for this weekend. How much more to agree to be