“Especially men with money and power and...all that entails.”
“I don’t know what that entails, Mandy. I’m just a guy who’s done really well in business, and that’s turned into a lot of money.”
“A lot,” she repeated.
“A whole hell of a lot,” he agreed. “I’m not going to apologize for that or for every asshole who doesn’t know how to treat a woman.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper—his check, no doubt. She didn’t have the nerve to look at it or the wherewithal to take her eyes off his. “I have absolutely zero expectations from this and, if it will make you happy, we can consider it a loan with no interest and no due date.”
“Which makes it a gift, not a loan.”
His lips curved. “Semantics. Is that a yes?”
“No.” She inched back, hitting the sink, her gaze slipping to his hand before returning to his face.
Five thousand dollars... from a drop-dead god of a man who could wield that power...
“You’re thinking about it,” he said, fluttering the check.
On a sigh, she looked again. “I could get bonded and buy equipment and rent the office and hire...oh.” Disappointment thudded again. “Never mind. This is a waste of time.”
“Why?” He stepped closer. “I can help you do all that stuff. I’ve started dozens of businesses.”
The offer slayed her, it was so genuine. “I mean it’s a waste of time because I need customers. Lacey will never give me the outsourcing business now, even if I could put the whole package together. She was so mad this afternoon, she was spitting nails. I’m done at Casa Blanca.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Her husband seemed reasonable, and she believed me when I told her what happened.”
She searched his face, daring to hope, daring to dream. “Really? What did they say?”
“I wasn’t quite sure, but I get the impression she’s been in your shoes before, having to take a risk.” He paused and gave her a meaningful look. “I get the impression her husband helped her.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard stories about how they met on the beach and fell in...” Her voice grew tight. They fell in love, got married, had a baby, and lived happily ever after.
Fairy tales that sure didn’t happen to every woman.
“Anyway.” Amanda waved off the thought. “I have to think about this.”
“Bad idea.” She could have sworn he took a step closer but didn’t actually seem to move. Somehow, he was...trapping her. And, damn it, she liked it.
“Why?” she asked. “I have to think about it. I have to sleep on you, I mean, on it.”
He grinned and pointed to her with the check. “You’ve got sex on the brain.”
She had to laugh. “No, it was a slip of the tongue.”
“Don’t think about it, Mandy. You’ll think yourself right out of the offer. Take the money.” He took her hand and tried to pry her palm open. “Make a business plan and—”
She kept her fingers squeezed. “I have a business plan.”
“Good girl. Then put together a list of every step you have to—”
“I have that list.” She was ready. The only thing stopping her was...pride and self-respect and... Her fingers slackened a bit. “It could take me years to pay you back.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.” She let out another sigh, almost opening her hand, but this was...so wrong. “I’m going to feel like I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing. I’m here for a week or so. I have some meetings and my dad’s party and, other than that, I’ll help—”
She snapped her fingers and pointed at him so hard and fast, he drew back an inch. “That’s it!”
“What?”
She snapped again, over and over, unable to contain her happiness. “I know what I can do for your five thousand dollars.”
“I don’t need anything, Mandy.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” She tapped his chest playfully, already loving this idea. “You need a bodyguard.”
“What?” He shook his head. “I’m not in any danger here. I’ve used bodyguards in certain countries, of course, but I don’t need protection on Mimosa Key.”
“Wanna bet?” She clapped her hands together, so completely happy with the idea. “You need someone to hold back the legions of single women your mother is prancing past you at that party.”
His eyes lit and his jaw unhinged—the look of surprise and delight making him even more handsome, if that was possible. “You’re right. I need a girlfriend for that event.”
“Or at least a date.”
“No, no, it would have to be official to get my mother off my case. But...”
“But she knows me and knows I’m a maid here, and she’d figure out in a New York minute that you’re lying,” she supplied, reading his expression.
“Except that I don’t lie. Ever.” He shook his head, his smile tight. “And she knows it. Because she has liedar.”
Amanda choked. “Liedar?”
“The ability to smell a lie a mile away.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Of course, I am the world’s crappiest liar.”
“Oh, well. That’s a shame because I really... liked the idea.”
He was searching her face, thinking. “I love the idea.”
The way he said it made her toes ball up on the tile floor. “Then you have to lie.”
“Not if...it’s true.”
More toe-curling. “I’m not your girlfriend, Zeke.”
“But what if we make it official? You are my girlfriend, and I am not lying.”
Oh, that would be...not good. “Semantics,” she echoed. “We obviously just met...” At his look, she conceded with a nod. “Okay, we knew each other in high school, but it’s a stretch to say I’m your girlfriend and it not be at least a white lie. Can you tell one? Or can’t I just be a really clingy date?”
His eyes narrowed, and he took one step closer. “No. There’s a much simpler answer.” Tipping her chin with one gentle finger, he lifted her face to his.
“Which is?”
He annihilated her with the intensity of his gaze, crazy-sky blue looking right through to her soul. “Mandy Mitchell, will you be my girlfriend?”
“Zeke...I...”
“Don’t say no.”
No, no, no. But not a word came out as he lowered his face and covered her mouth with the sweetest, softest, sexiest kiss she could ever remember.
Chapter Six
Zeke angled his head but purposely kept the kiss air-light, no more than a brush of a promise, because Mandy was about as secure in his touch as a wisp of smoke. Everything in him wanted to push her against that counter, crush her open-mouthed, and move his hands up and down the delicious body that was all too visible under the flimsy top.
But then she’d disappear. He knew that. But he lingered one second longer, taking one tingly taste of her lower lip. Only then did he back away. Her eyes were still closed, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling with one strangled breath. She’d flattened her hands on his chest, either ready to push or pull. He didn’t know which.
“Now I won’t be lying,” he said softly. “You’re my girlfriend.”
She opened her eyes, the green rimmed with a darker emerald, her golden lashes fluttering up to her brows. “You’ll...still be lying.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “It’s official. Sealed with a kiss.”
“That’s not enough.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Oh, well, there’s more where that came from.”
“No, no...I...” She lifted her hands as if she suddenly realized she’d splayed them across his pecs. “I can’t. It would be...wrong.”
“Wrong? Why?”
“Because...I’m not...” She closed her eyes for a second, gathering her wits, slowly taking her hands to her sides, being careful not to touch him, as though he might burn her. “This has to be strictly business,” she finally said. “Absolutely,
unequivocally, no doubt about it...a business deal.”
Which was about as sexy as a rock, but okay. Maybe he could get her to change her mind. Or maybe not.
“Strictly,” she repeated, pointing a finger at him.
He tried to ignore the punch in his gut, but it was hard. Of course...that’s what Mandy Mitchell wanted. She wasn’t like most women who saw dollar signs and private jets and a life of luxury with him. She saw...Ezekiel, the kid she’d never noticed in high school.
What was it going to take to erase that lifelong first impression? Trust, first. “Absolutely a straightforward business arrangement,” he assured her. “In fact, why don’t we draw up a contract?”
Her eyes widened at that, and he could have sworn he saw a glimmer of horror. “A contract?”
“So you know I’m serious.” He glanced around, reluctant to walk away and not get this close to her again for a while. His eyes landed on the roll of paper towels. “Here.” Reaching over, he snagged one and tore it off.
“That’s going to be your contract?”
“Legal and binding.” He looked around again, and she jutted her chin to the tiny desk built into the corner.
“There’s a pen.”
He turned, grabbed a felt-tipped pen from the cup, and laid the paper towel on the counter, smoothing it out as he bit off the pen cap and kept it between his teeth.
“I, Ezekiel Nicholas...” He scribbled the words, the ink bleeding on the soft paper towel. “Do agree to pay five thousand dollars to...” The pen cap garbled his words.
She slid it out from between his teeth. “Amanda Lockhart.”
He grimaced. “You’ll never be that to me.” As he started to write the A, she put her hand over his.
“Okay, Mandy Mitchell. Only for you.”
He hated that those words kicked his heart and her hand made him tense, so he nodded and looked down at the paper towel, turning the A into an M. “...Mandy Mitchell in exchange for...”
He hesitated again, and she got a little closer, so he could smell something citrus in her hair and feel the warmth of her. He continued writing. “In exchange for her appearance at social functions as my...” Then he looked at her, waiting for her to provide the descriptor.
“Pseudo? Imitation? Pretend? Fake?” She shrugged. “I don’t know how else to say it.”
“In math, any number that’s the product of a real number and the square root of a negative one is referred to as imaginary. Would that work?”
She smiled. “Imaginary girlfriend it is.”
On the contract, he finished the sentence. “...my imaginary girlfriend. Okay?” He searched her face, looking for humor in their little arrangement, but he didn’t see anything but seriousness and, hell, a little fear. He hated the bastard who’d put that fear in her.
“No,” she said softly. “You have to add that there can’t be any...”
Sex. She might as well have spelled it out with her own marker. He turned back to the paper, his brain already seeking...loopholes. “We hereby swear that those services will not include...” His pen stilled as he waited for her to spell it out.
“You know,” she said.
“I need a legal term.”
“How about ‘any activities that require the removal of clothes’?”
He lifted both brows, already seeing the loopholes and how to...get around, through, and under them. “Are you sure?”
“Well, I expect we’ll have to, you know, hold hands and act like we’re together in public. I mean, at least for the benefit of your mother and the Cinderellas at her ball.”
He laughed softly. “You heard every word of what I said to her, didn’t you?”
“Not on purpose,” she said. “But, yeah, I picked up quite a bit.”
He looked at her for a moment, enjoying the close contact, the chance to gaze into her eyes, and the softness he saw when she let her guard down. “Okay, then. Your words, your rules.” On the paper, he wrote exactly what she’d said.
Any activities that require the removal of clothes.
“Is that ironclad enough for you?”
She leaned closer to read, her hair brushing his cheek as she did. Above her, he closed his eyes and took a silent breath of lemon and flowers, the desire for her as strong as the first day he’d seen her.
“That’s good,” she said.
He made two straight lines on the bottom, and then scratched his signature with little more than three strokes of the pen. He handed it to her, and she wrote very slowly, very clearly.
Mandy Mitchell. She smoothed the paper towel again. “I better be careful with this.”
“I can put it in the safe in my villa,” he said, reaching for it.
“Good idea.” She turned, still trapped between him and the sink, and they looked at each other, a heartbeat of awkward followed by both of them laughing softly. “Should we shake?” she asked, holding out her hand.
“As long as our clothes stay on...” He took her hand and gave it a firm shake, then pulled her fingers to his mouth, dying for one more touch of his lips against her skin. “We’re legal.”
Her eyes shuttered as he pressed his mouth to her knuckles.
“So, when is the party?” she asked.
“The party isn’t until Saturday. I’ll arrange for a personal shopper from Naples to come here with samples of clothes for you to wear.” At her look of surprise, he added, “I mean, if you’re forced to keep them on, you might as well like what you’re wearing, right?”
“Right. Is that how you shop? They come to you?”
“Now,” he admitted with a laugh. But she still looked stunned and about to turn down the offer. “Mandy...” He took her chin and angled her face toward his. “There are some perks to being my girlfriend, even an imaginary one. Oh, I almost forgot.” He picked up the check he’d set on the counter. “This is yours.”
She eyed the check, then him, then the check again. “Thank you.”
He slid it into her fingers, relaxed now. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mandy.”
“Yeah, Zeke.” She slipped away. “I’m sorry if I seem, well, odd to you. I hope you understand.”
“You don’t seem odd.”
He followed her into the living room, getting the clear message she was walking him to the door. There, he added, “You seem like you’ve been hurt and you’re protecting yourself.”
She gave him a grateful smile, one that warmed her eyes and made him ache to take her in his arms. “I really appreciate you being so understanding.” She stopped at the door and turned the handle to usher him out. “Then, I guess I’ll see you Saturday.”
Loophole number one. “No, not Saturday. Tomorrow. At six.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’m having dinner with a client.” Again, her mouth opened with an “o” of disbelief. He fluttered the paper towel he was holding. “This doesn’t specify that we’re only going to be together for that party. I’m here for a week, so I’ve got an imaginary girlfriend for that week.”
“But...”
“I’ll follow the rules, Mandy,” he promised. “And you’ll enjoy a trip to Miami.”
“Miami? That’s a long drive.”
“Oh, we’re not driving. I have a helicopter chartered for six-thirty. We’ll go a little early and swing over the Everglades.”
“The Ever...” She let out a breathy laugh, all color draining from her face. “Oh...okay. I guess. I don’t really love to fly.”
“This is nothing like flying.” He brushed her cheek as he walked out. “It’ll be amazing. You’ll see.” It took everything in him not to kiss her, but he managed to get out the door without giving in.
He’d won round one. Mandy Mitchell was his girlfriend. He’d take care of the “imaginary” part in no time.
* * *
The day had started dreamy, moved into unbelievable, and right now? A nightmare.
Every bump, jolt, drop, and roll had Amanda holding tighter to Zeke, h
er gaze out the helicopter window. All the beauty below was lost, though, as Amanda imagined what it would feel like to die.
The burnished gold sunset behind them and the cobalt waters of the Atlantic ahead of them, even the bright strip of land she recognized as Miami Beach, were just a blur right now.
“Don’t be scared.” Zeke rubbed his thumb along the inside of Amanda’s wrist, his finger warm and the pressure welcome, but neither enough to slow a heart that thumped with the same beat as the blades overhead.
She shook her head, and leaned closer to him, giving a quick look to the pilot, who could hear every word they said through the microphones attached to their headsets. Captain Davis already knew she was terrified, and that was embarrassing enough.
“It’s not what I expected,” she said, her voice muffled in the headsets that pressed around her ears and drowned out the more deafening sounds of the chopper. “Really, nothing today has been that way,” she added.
The whole day had been amazing, though. Not at all what one would expect from the day after being fired. She’d met with the bank, an attorney, and even had had lunch with her friend Jenna, who used to work at Casa Blanca but now was second-in-command at a small housekeeping service in Naples. She’d learned so much and gotten so much closer to her dream that it was dizzying.
Not like this ride, however.
Then, when she’d gotten home, a stylist and personal shopper had showed up along with a wardrobe that a movie star would envy, and they’d dressed and made her up for tonight like she...well, like she was a star. Was that how rich people lived, she wondered as she smoothed the tangerine-colored silk of the high-low strapless dress they’d chosen. She crossed her legs to admire the strappy sandals...and caught Zeke admiring, too.
He made no effort to pretend otherwise, leaning closer and threading his fingers through her hair and brushing her bare shoulder. As he did, the helicopter took a fast fall, making Amanda let out a tiny shriek as she clutched his other hand, a damp palm pressed against his dry, cool one.
“Sorry about that, folks,” the pilot said. “Getting a little gusty tonight. But on your left, you’ll see our destination. So, not much longer now.”
Except...they still had to get down. Amanda tamped her growing fear; she’d always hated to fly, hated that she had no control, hated the fact that she simply didn’t understand the physics of it...and this was like flying on steroids.
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