by Ally Blake
She wasn’t a natural blusher. Not by a long shot. But something about this guy had her blood in a spin.
“Ready to order, cara?” asked the owner, affectionately known as Mr Rita—a tall, skinny man in his sixties who sported a nifty little moustache.
Saskia shook herself upright. “Um, sorry! Haven’t even looked at the menu. Can you give us another five?”
She shoved a big plastic menu at Nate to distract him from Mr Rita’s not so subtle winking and thumbs up, then she set to studying the menu as if she didn’t know the thing off by heart.
As they put their orders in with Mr Rita a few minutes later Saskia’s phone rang. She didn’t need to glance at it to know it was Lissy, calling in case she needed a fake emergency. She quickly switched it to “Do not answer.”
“Your back-up plan?” Nate asked, motioning to a passing waiter for the wine list. “That was early.”
“My what?” she said, sliding her phone into the big bag at her feet.
His eyes slid back to her. Knowing. And blue. So very, very blue.
With a laugh, she admitted, “Spot-on, smart boy. Like you didn’t have me pick the restaurant so nobody you know would see us together.”
For the first time his eyes lost that permanent glint and he looked honestly surprised. And for the first time she felt as if she wasn’t on the back foot but leading from the front, where she much preferred to be.
“Am I wrong?” She leaned a little his way, her palms flat on the table.
“No,” he said, blinking. “And now I hear out loud how that sounds I feel like I ought to apologise.”
She shrugged, pointed out a bottle of red from the list in his hand. “If you’d taken one look at me and walked back out the door then you would have owed me an apology. It was only sensible of us both to take measures. I mean, you should see the lies the other guys on the site tell about themselves.”
“Lies?” he repeated, as if it had never occurred to him.
Saskia counted off her fingers. “Your photo might have been a fake. You might have been lying about your age, your weight, your occupation, your name, your reason for joining the site. You might have been a psycho killer.”
With each less-than-flattering “might have been” Nate’s surprise, if anything, seemed to wane. The glint was back, and he too leaned forward. She caught a hint of purely masculine spice curling above the saucy scents of herbs and garlic.
“So, if you met a man in a bar, on a train, or jogging in the park, you’d have more faith that he wasn’t a psycho killer?”
“I don’t jog.”
His mouth kicked, as if his smile surprised even him.
Her cheek twitched in response. He noticed, and the glint in his eyes changed. Deepened. Found some kind of heat. At which point his gaze dropped to her mouth, the dip at the bottom of her neck, then moved back to her eyes.
While Saskia struggled to remember how to breathe.
But while Nate Jackson Mackenzie, with his good looks, air of money and charm that could lure a siren to dry land, was probably used to having women fall all over themselves whenever he walked into a room, Saskia wasn’t most women.
Which was why, when he stretched out a leg beneath their small table, his calf connecting with hers and shooting sparks up her leg, she said, “I didn’t sign up to Dating By Numbers in an effort to find my one true love.”
The slight rise of an eyebrow gave her the impression he didn’t believe her.
Wow. Okay. So that irked. Maybe that was his great flaw: he could be irksome.
She whipped her bag onto her lap, found a business card and thrust it in his direction. “I’m a freelance statistical researcher working on an infographic about online dating for the website.”
She could have pumped a fist in the air at the surprise that coloured his eyes at that one! And then from one heartbeat to the next his brow furrowed and she saw the brain behind those dauntingly beautiful eyes whir into life. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might leave, but the longer he sat there, staring at her card, the more she wondered. And hoped that he’d stay.
He finally, finally, pocketed her card and said, “And to think you all but accused me of being a possible psycho killer.”
“I’m a mathematician,” she said. “Not exactly the same.”
“I thought the point was that people lie.”
“I— What?” Irked didn’t even touch on how that made her feel. Punctuating her words with a waggly finger, Saskia said, “I said I was looking for somebody to talk to, which is completely true.”
One eyebrow cocked. “Safer to say it was bending the truth?”
“Not even slightly. It’s not my fault if you misunderstood my meaning.”
She crossed her arms, knowing she sounded defensive. But it was hard to be all sweetness and light when he was watching her the way he was. All charm and half smiles were gone as he looked her over, as if he was sizing her up for something. Hopefully not a hole in the ground.
Then he did some surprising of his own when next he said, “My motives for dating online aren’t altogether pure either.”
Ignoring the “altogether pure” jab, Saskia attempted to raise an eyebrow right back at him. But she’d never mastered the skill, so probably ended up looking astounded. She schooled her features back to normal. “You said you were after a date for a wedding?”
“I am. But recent events have meant my needs have altered a little.”
“Do I need to call my back-up plan?”
He laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that made her knees clench together.
“The greater problem, for me, is that I have three sisters who seem to think it’s their mission in life to find me a wife. Thus, I let slip that I already have a date for the wedding, and that this date and I are...seeing one another.”
“Let me get this straight. There are no women in your life who would happily go with you to a wedding, so you made one up?”
“Not one who would understand that it wasn’t the beginning of something more.”
Okay. Now she’d met the guy, she could see that. Saskia felt herself nodding.
He went on, “What I need, Saskia, as well as a wedding date, is someone who would be willing to pretend to be my girlfriend.”
Still nodding, she realised he’d stopped talking and was looking at her intently. As if waiting for an answer.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“Are you dating anyone at the moment, Saskia?”
“Am I—?” Saskia thought of Lissy, Dropkick Dave and snapped carrots. “I wouldn’t have signed up to a dating site if I was.”
“But you’ve signed up even though you’re not looking for ‘The One’?”
Her mouth twisted. He had her there.
“So, how do you feel about bending the truth just a little while longer?”
Saskia blinked, the meaning of his words coming through slow and sluggish. “You want to do all that...with me?”
His nostrils flared slightly, as if he was weighing his options one last time. Well, to hell with that. She was nobody’s—
“Yes,” he said with a determined nod.
“Right.”
Saskia so wished she had pen and paper at hand as what-ifs, problems and possibilities, questions and escape routes burst inside her head, spearing away into a million tangents.
“But...can’t you just tell your sisters no? Tell them...whatever your problem really is?”
Secret wife? Secret difficulty in the bedroom? Secret identity? She itched to ask.
But when a muscle flickered in Nate’s cheek and a moment later he lifted a thumb to his right temple, she thought best not. Best not tell him his idea was crazy either. Pretend girlfriend. Sheesh! Only he didn’t look crazy. He looked as if
he was at the end of his rope.
And just like that the curly tingles in her belly pinged into perfect straight lines.
Could it be possible that Nate Mackenzie needed her after all?
It had been months since she’d felt that flicker of purpose. Just because one man had thrown her benefaction back in her face so cruelly, it didn’t mean she wasn’t damn good at it.
“You’re serious?” she asked.
Nate’s thumb stopped rubbing his temple and he looked her dead in the eye. Saskia tried her very best to not wriggle as all that gorgeous intensity trickled through her like over-carbonated bubbly.
“As serious as a man can be,” he said.
Mr Rita and his boys arrived at that moment, with plates of colourful bruschetta and fat, shiny strips of barbecued calamari and green salad. But, while Saskia usually had to stop herself from leaning over and kissing the plate, her eyes never once left Nate’s.
“Buon appetito!” said Mr Rita.
As one Nate and Saskia said, “Grazie.”
And then they both smiled.
Saskia took a breath. “I’m...” Flabbergasted, bemused, actually considering this? “I don’t know how to put this, but I’m not sure if I can pull it off. You’re—not the kind of man I usually date.”
“You might be surprised to know you’re not the kind of woman I usually date either,” said Nate, laughing as if the world had finally found its natural order.
She kind of wanted to kick him in the shin. In fact...
“Oof!” he said, sitting up and rubbing at the spot.
“Sorry.” She shuffled on her seat, as if that had been her intention the whole time. “So how would this work, exactly?”
“It’s the first Saturday in spring. You free?”
She did the math in her head. “I believe so.”
“That’s how it’s done.” And then he smiled, as if the deal was done. Poor love. He had no idea what he was in for.
Saskia bit into her calamari, enjoyed every succulent drop, before asking, “So, what do I get out of it?”
“Hmm?”
“The deal. You’re getting a girlfriend...” She paused when the guy actually winced at the word.
“What do you want, Saskia?” he asked, charm forming between the words like mercury.
“I want what I wanted from the beginning. To get the low-down on online dating.” But if she could save time, money, by having a guinea pig do it for her...
“Here’s the low down,” said Nate. “It’s as much of a crap shoot as closing your eyes and picking someone out of the phone book. I should know. You’re my seventh.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’ve asked six other women to pretend to date you?”
His mouth kicked into a smile while his eyes came over all dark and intense, lit with that flicker of heat. “I’ve been on six dates,” he corrected. “I asked only you.”
“Oh.” Well, that was kind of nice. “But I still need first-hand experience for my study—”
He shook his head, his eyes not leaving her. “No dating between now and then. I won’t either. Goes without saying.”
“Good to know. But I was actually going to suggest that maybe you could be the subject of my piece.”
A muscle flickered in his cheek and she wondered how long it would be before he was rubbing at that temple of his again. “Saskia, I’m not talking to you about my dating habits. My private life is just that. Private.”
He looked as if he meant it. But Saskia had always found that men liked talking about themselves. So she wasn’t really worried on that score. She’d find a way to get to the heart of the man—especially if she had a few weeks to do it. At the thought of a few weeks in the company of this man the curls of sensation were back in her belly.
“So when’s our next date?” she asked.
A frown creased his brow. “The wedding.”
“But what if someone asks how we met? If they ask you about my home, my family, my friends, my work? What’s an infographic?”
“I’m sorry—a what?”
“An infographic. It’s what I am working on for the dating site.”
He looked pained.
“It’s a diagram that shows information—stats, links, comparisons—in a bright, attractive, easy-to-digest contained image. We need a little background to do this properly, Nate. I can put it together, if you’d like. Research is my thing.”
A list of dry questions, she thought, warming to the idea, with some curve balls thrown in. Classic stat-collection technique. He could tell her a lot that way without even meaning to.
“Or how long will it take for your family to think you’ve just made me up?” When his cheek twitched again she knew she had him. “We’ll need to set up a couple of meetings between now and then. Casual get-togethers. Coffee, perhaps. We both like coffee. The Art Gallery has an Impressionists exhibition. Or we could go ice-skating. I don’t mind.”
Keeping him thinking about places he clearly did not want to go with her gave her the chance for the other half of her brain to create the research project in earnest. Questions piled up inside her head with such speed it made her breathless.
And as she was getting excited by the research, the layers upon layers of information this man could provide for her love formula, she remembered the pile of red envelopes wavering on her desk.
Her excitement deflated like a pricked balloon. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Why not?”
The why was like a pain in her belly—one that was lessening by the day, but would remain till the day the last red envelope landed in her mailbox. “Time, I guess. More than anything.”
“An hour together here and there should suffice,” he said.
“Well, now, that’s about the most romantic thing a nearly pretend boyfriend has ever said to me.”
His mouth did the surprise smile thing—the one that gave a hint of straight white teeth and lit his intense eyes with genuine laughter. “What’s the problem? I’m a problem-solver. It’s what I do. Money, time, space, audience, you need it I provide it.”
“You’d be cutting into my worktime. I need to work.”
“Why?”
He was so sincere, so keen, she made a quick decision to tell him the truth. Part of it anyway. Not bend the truth, just not tell all.
“I have...debts.” Yet her chin lifted as she said it.
His long, slow breath in made her stomach hurt. Then, with a nod, he said, “I’ll take care of them.”
She shot out a laugh so loud the table shook. “Just like that? A blank cheque?” When he didn’t laugh back she realised. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
“But I haven’t even said what I owe!”
He gave a slight lift of the shoulder, as if she could name her price. “Consider this negotiation, Miss Bloom.”
Miss Bloom now, was it?
“You have a debt. I have the means to wipe it from existence. I have need of a date to my friends’ wedding, and you seem amenable to the terms and conditions that come with being said date.”
“You pay off my debt—I pretend to be devoted to you?”
He eased into a smile this time, slow and sensual. A frizzle of energy lit her belly and she felt a sudden need to swallow.
“Seems more than fair,” said Nate.
“Seems like a version of the oldest profession,” she muttered.
Clearly not softly enough. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, Saskia,” he said.
“Stop,” she said, her cheeks feeling like little spots of heat. “Now you’re just gushing.”
His laughter was soft, a low chuckle. And then he leant back in his chair, watched and waited.
A pretend boyfri
end. A date to a wedding. No more red envelopes. No more reminders of Stu or his letter. The time and the means to get back to renovating the first place she’d ever rightfully called home.
“For the sake of argument,” she said, “would you change your mind if I told you this is what it would take?”
She threw out the hefty figure that covered Stu’s debt only, which she knew to the nearest cent, and he didn’t even blanch. Maybe if he’d flickered an eyelid, lost a little colour in that healthy face, or if his long fingers had gripped a napkin in despair that would have been the end of it. But for his complete lack of reaction she might as well have been asking for a tenner for the cab home.
And from one heartbeat to the next she considered his offer.
Seven months she’d been living under the weight of it. Seven long months of driving a banged-up car, of trawling online sales to replace every piece of electrical equipment she needed to make a living. Of taking menacing late-night phone calls from debt collectors, legal threats, her mortgage squeezing tighter and tighter. Of being romantically stagnate... None of the debt was her fault, but she was too bone-deep humiliated to do anything but absorb it.
Nate watched, bluer than blue eyes taking in her every breath. The guy was smart, gorgeous, clearly better than well-off. He wasn’t going into this thing desperate or despairing. He was doing a deal with all the cool of a business decision. Why couldn’t she do the same?
“Do we have ourselves a deal?”
“I get the feeling I’m going to regret this...” she muttered, then held out a hand. He took it and she felt a frisson of heat and something else—electricity, perhaps—shooting up her arm.
Then Nate said, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be the time of your life?”
And with that came a big wallop of charm so bright she had to blink against such brightness.
It occurred to her belatedly that while she’d thought she’d had him on the ropes, distracting him with talk of infographics and ice-skating, he’d actually been in charge the entire time.
She waited till the buffet of charm subsided, before saying, “Who on earth filled your head with that rubbish?”
