“You don’t need me for that. You could do it with anyone.” Impatience crept into her tone. “There are tons of women who’d be happy to marry you, for any length of time. You probably have a hundred thousand followers on your Twitter account.”
“A million. But those women all want something from me. They like me because I have money. They don’t want a guy who has flaws and hang-ups. They’re only willing to put up with this thing,” he said, waving his green hand in the air, “because I’m a billionaire. That’s true of most people… not just women.”
She gentled her voice. “I believe the opposite about people. I think most of them are genuinely nice and selfless. A lot of folks would like you for who you are, instead of your money and fame, if you ever gave them a chance to know you.”
“But you’re the only woman I know, with absolute certainty, who would marry me for a few months and be glad when it’s over. You would never try to trap me into staying married.”
For some reason, his words stung. Why did it bother her? He’d only stated a plain fact, right? Rather than argue the point, she spoke her just-now-solidified-conclusion.
“Being married is tough. It takes a lot of effort. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to work that hard just so you can have a practice marriage with a practice pregnant wife to see if you like it.”
“Even for $250,000?”
She refused to think about all the problems that money would solve. “I can’t be bought.”
“Plus, I’ll do all the shopping and cooking and cleaning.”
“I eat frozen dinners, so that doesn’t really save me any time.”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.” He made a face like he’d swallowed cough medicine. “I could also throw in a shoulder rub or a foot massage every night. How’s that for a deal?”
She glanced down at her aching feet, still ensconced in cheap flats with no padding or support.
Be strong. Say no.
His smirk was at the edge of his lips. He could sense her weakening.
“If I said yes, could we not tell anyone we’re married?” she asked.
It was unfair that even the scowl he made was mouthwateringly attractive.
“Why the secrecy?”
“I don’t know how I would explain you to my family. Especially my sister. And if the truth got out, you’d be in trouble for breaking your contract.”
His right hand came up to rub the scruff on his chin. “We can try to keep it on the down-low, but I don’t know how long that will last. I won’t lie to you. My private life isn’t very private.”
“How do the other guys stay out of the public eye? I’ve seen a few things about Finn Anderson, but I’ve never even heard of the other two men.”
“Bran and Jarrett have always stayed in the background. Finn and I were more outgoing, so it made sense for us to be the faces of Phantom Enterprises. But I took it a step further and courted the attention.” His ribs expanded with a huge sigh, stretching the confines of his black t-shirt in a way that made her want to sigh in response. “It’s too late to go back now.”
“I don’t see how we could ever pull it off. What am I supposed to tell my family? What are you going to tell your guy friends at Phantom? Are you going to tell them what’s going on?”
“We’ll convince our families it was love at first sight—that we’re crazy about each other. My buddies would never be fooled—they know I don’t do love.”
“I’m not a great actress,” she said. “It’ll never work.”
“It will. We just need a little practice pretending we’re in love.”
As he padded over to stand in front of her, his half-lidded hazel eyes smoldering, her pulse pounded inside her ears. His presence seemed to fill the entire kitchen. She had the crazy thought that he might try to kiss her. She wouldn’t let him, of course. Her divorce had only been final a few days. And besides, she needed to guard her heart against this man with the one-and-done dating policy. In that moment, she realized it would never work. One kiss from this guy and she would be as gone for him as Harper had ever been.
“To even consider it, we’d have to have strict ground rules,” she said, hating that her voice sounded breathy. “Number one, no kissing on the lips. That way, we can keep this platonic and it won’t get complicated.”
“I agree, one hundred percent,” he said, with a rasp of his own. “What about this?”
In the quiet, she heard a soft motor sound as his prosthesis moved. Both hands lifted, moving in slow motion, until they came to rest on the top of her shoulders. Dagnabbit—she got chills on both sides, even the one with the robot hand. As he bent toward her, she knew she ought to protest, but her brain couldn’t form complete sentences.
His lips descended toward hers, but diverted at the last second, landing at the corner of her mouth. Moving at sloth-speed, they traveled down along the edge of her jaw, leaving a trail of fire behind. Then he came close to her ear and his mouth slid down, settling in the soft spot on her neck where her blood was pulsing like a wide-open firehose.
Her vision went black, her knees buckling.
“Brooke?”
Before she hit the ground, strong arms scooped her up, nestling her against the hard-planed chest. It would’ve been dreamy, if the room hadn’t been spinning in circles. Jostled by his hurried strides, she was deposited on the couch, shoes off and feet up, a throw pillow under her head.
As her eyes fluttered open, his concerned face was inches away. “Do we need to go to the emergency room?”
“I think I’m okay.”
“Was it something you ate?” His fingers gently brushed the hair from her forehead, then wandered down to tuck a strand behind her ear, in shiver-evoking fashion. “I thought maybe you weren’t supposed to have tomato sauce. Aren’t there certain things you can’t eat when you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t think it was dinner. But Cole…” She grabbed his hand, putting a stop to its tantalizing movements. “I think we’d better stick to holding hands.”
CHAPTER 7
3:15 p.m.Where is she?
