by Penny Wylder
A smile spreads across my face for the first time since I drove away from Melanie’s little countryside town days ago. I reach for my phone and grab the receiver again, pressing zero to reach Jake’s desk. “Jake? Do me a favor and cancel my meetings for the next two days,” I tell him. “Oh, and call down to the valet to prep the car. I’ve got another trip coming up.”
If Jake’s confused, he doesn’t let it show. He’s used to my last-minute changes of plans by now. But this one might throw even my steadfast, unflappable secretary for a loop if he knew what I was really about to do. Which is why, when he asks, I force a smile and lie through my teeth.
“Unfinished business,” I say. “Back in the Keller farm area. I’ll be back in two days at most.”
4
Melanie
My feet throb as I slam the door of my junky car and stagger toward my porch. The poor thing is on its last legs, but I can’t afford a new one, so I just have to keep praying it holds out and paying Ricky the mechanic to jump it every so often. The three steps up to my front door feel like mountains after the day I had.
Before I even make it to the door, though, my feet slide, and I have to grab at the porch railing to keep from skidding over. When I look down to see what I tripped over, my heart lurches in my chest.
A stack of bills awaits me, all sealed within their paper envelopes, each one bearing my name and address. Well, some of them, like the joint electricity bills, have Devan’s name too, but still. Not good news for either of us. I groan aloud as I bend down to scoop them up, then struggle back to my feet to finish unlocking the front door.
“Honey, I’m home,” I murmur as I stagger across the threshold inside. “I come bearing bad news, as usual.”
“Mmrrf?” asks a muffled voice. I glance over to find Devan napping face-first on a cushion on the couch, her arms splayed over her head, her waitressing uniform still around her waist. She got off a few hours before I did tonight, but she’s still in recovery mode from her flu of death. It’s already been a week since she came down with it, but then, our jobs and sleepless schedules don’t exactly make for the heartiest of immune systems.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “Didn’t know you were sleeping.” I tiptoe past her to deposit the stack of bills on the dining room table. Right next to the pile, I spot a couple more bills, which Devan must have brought in yesterday afternoon. I sigh and plop down in a chair, my legs pulsing with gratitude at the chance to sit and start to sort through the envelopes. I make two piles: Pay Immediately, and Maybe We Could Get Away With Waiting A Few Weeks.
The first pile is huge. The second pile is getting dangerously close to high as well. I chew on the inside of my lip. We can’t keep living like this forever. Paycheck to paycheck, pulling overtime shifts as often as we can, racking up credit card debt neither of us can pay off thanks to the crazy high interest rates.
Something’s got to give. And based on the sight of Devan right now, that something is probably going to be our immune systems. Or our health. Or my knees. I’m pretty sure nobody our age’s knees are supposed to hurt as badly as mine do pretty much all the time these days.
I blow a strand of hair from my forehead and stand up to pad to the kitchen for tea. On the counter, I spot a piece of chocolate cake Devan clearly left out for me, and I stifle a smile. We’ve been best friends since childhood, and she always knows when I’m going to need a little extra dessert smuggled home from the restaurant.
I take a forkful and sigh with pleasure at the flavor of the dark chocolate and creamy icing. I’ve only just finished putting the kettle on to boil when something bangs out in the hallway.
No, not something. Someone, knocking on the door.
I frown at the clock over the fridge. It’s already 9:30 at night. Who could be coming over at this hour? Devan’s parents don’t tend to visit unannounced, and we don’t have too many other friends who aren’t also working night shifts these days.
Confused and a little annoyed, hoping it’s not somebody either selling things or preaching, I shuffle back to the front door and yank it open.
Then I freeze on the threshold, my mouth dropping open. I should have changed. That’s the first thing that flashes through my mind, standing there still wearing my work uniform, stained at the edges and dotted with grease from a French fry mishap earlier.
Xander stands on the threshold of our apartment, one fist raised in preparation to knock again. The moment he sees me, though, he lets his arm drop, and breaks into a wide smile.
A smile. Even though I must look like an absolute wreck right now. “H-hi,” I manage, blinking. All of a sudden, I’m thrown back to a week ago, to a night that felt like a little oasis, a beautiful dream amidst the dredge of my usual days. Sometimes, since that night he first kissed me out on the cliff overlooking our town, under the moonlight, I’ve wondered if it was a dream. If I hadn’t just returned home from work that night like usual and passed out, only to have a particularly vivid fantasy about a sexy out of town man who rescued me from Bob’s wrath and then made me come more times in one night than I’d known was possible—because oh, we kept going for hours.
I bite the inside of my lip. But I guess he wasn’t a dream. Not if he’s standing here right now.
Does he want more? Is he back for work again?
When he left, we kept our goodbyes simple. We told each other how much we’d each loved the night. How we’d never forget it. Then he kissed me, and he drove away, and I turned around so I wouldn’t have to look at his taillights fading into the distance, taking my one reprieve from my overworked life with them.
Now he’s here, right in front of me again, and my mind is racing so fast that I don’t even register I’ve left him standing on the front porch waiting for an awkwardly long pause until he clears his throat. “Um… mind if I come in?” he asks, with a smile that makes his dark gray eyes light up.
That smile of his does wonderful, terrible things to my body. It makes my belly tighten with want, my thighs clench, as if they’re trying to contain the lust that’s certain to make my panties wet. The way his lips felt on my skin. The way he drove his tongue inside me. The way his thick, fat cock felt buried inside my pussy.
Fuck.
“Of course,” I say, my cheeks turning bright red even as I stand aside to wave him into the house. “Apologies for the mess,” I add with a glance over my shoulder at the dining room counter.
“It’s no problem,” he replies, stepping inside—he’s so tall the top of his head almost brushes our very low ceiling.
“Who was it?” mumbles a sleepy voice from the living room, and belatedly, I remember Devan sprawled across the couch.
I clear my throat hard. “Um, Devan, you remember me telling you about Xander, right?” I can hear a sudden rustle, as Devan shoves herself upright out in the living room, just before we step around the corner and I wave him after me. “Xander, this is my roommate Devan. We grew up together.”
She wipes sleep from her eyes with the back of one hand before standing and tugging her work skirt back into place. She’s a little creased in places, but she forces a smile anyway and sticks out a hand. “So nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” she says as Xander sticks out his hand, a bemused smile on his face.
“Is that so? All good things I hope.” He tilts his head, curiosity in his eyes as they dart toward me.
“Except for the naughty ones,” Devan replies, which makes my already red cheeks flare even hotter.
“Devan!”
Her smirk widens and she skips toward the dining room door. “Shall I grab you two anything to drink?” she asks, neatly skirting around me, since she knows I’d swat her if she came close enough to me. “Coffee? Tea? Ambrosia?”
“I’m all right actually,” Xander replies, his gaze fixed on me, laughter dancing in his eyes. He waits until she’s in the kitchen before he murmurs, “I see you found me worth mentioning to your friend, at least. That’s good to know.”
My face could boil the water
in our kettle at this point. “I’m sorry. She just woke up; embarrassing me is her way of taking revenge for the nap interruption, I think.”
He chuckles. “It’s fine. I’m just glad to know you found me so memorable.”
Our eyes lock and hold, as Devan flounces back into the room. “So, to what do we owe the pleasure?” she asks. I notice she looks less rumpled now, and her cheeks glisten, as if she just splashed water on them. She probably did. Devan hates to look anything less than her best, especially around new people.
“I was hoping to talk to Melanie about something, actually.” Xander turns back to me. “It’s a business proposal, actually.”
“Oh.” I can’t help it. The sound just slips out, somewhere between disappointment and confusion. Business? He works on a charity that donates to farms. I might be a country girl born and raised, but I don’t know anything about farms. My mom worked in town, same as I do. We have a garden out back with tomatoes, like just about everyone around here, but that’s about it.
Still, I try to force the disappointment from my face. Okay, so he’s not back for another hookup. That’s fine. It still means I get to spend more time ogling him, at least. Because damn. He was hot as hell in my memories, but the real life Xander doesn’t do my memory of him justice. He’s even taller than I remembered, his eyes more smoldering, his jawline and cheekbones sharper.
And when he stares at me like he’s doing now, it feels like I have no walls or defenses up. As if he can see straight through my shields to the core of me. It both thrills and scares me at the same time.
“Sure,” I manage, when I realize that he’s waiting for a reply. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Devan smirking in our direction, and I fire a quick glare her way. “Should we, uh… step outside?”
“Sure,” Xander responds, grinning as he mimics me. I glare at him too, especially when he and Devan trade matching smiles, before he leads me out of the apartment.
“Bye, hope to see you again lots!” Devan calls after us. Just before I yank the door shut behind me, she catches my eye and mouths Good job, then winks. I flush bright red and pray Xander didn’t notice that.
This is probably a terrible idea. Listening to whatever business idea he has for us working together. Because I know myself, and there is no way that after the night we had together, I’d be able to keep my hands off Xander for long. He’s an all-consuming river, and if I leap in, I’ll have no safety line. Nothing to hang onto for dear life.
But maybe that’s okay. I think about work, about Bob’s scowl and the stacks of dishes I just washed earlier tonight. I think about the bills lying inside on my counter.
Business proposal, he said. Any business has to be better than the one I’m currently drowning in. Maybe what my life needs right now is something exciting. A shake-up. Maybe this will turn out to be the answer I need.
Outside, Xander takes a seat on the corner of our crumbling porch and pats the cement beside him. I drop down next to him, though not before double-checking the windows to make sure Devan isn’t snooping. She’s good about giving me my privacy, but I have to admit, if the tables were turned and it was her hot one-night stand showing up to talk business? I’d probably be tempted to spy too.
I don’t see any signs of her, though, so I turn back to Xander, who’s taking a deep breath. For the first time since I’ve known him, which admittedly hasn’t been that long, he looks almost… nervous.
“I came back to offer you something,” Xander says.
I frown, wondering what on earth he’s talking about. When he left, he was pretty clear about this being a no strings attached situation. Admittedly, I was a little more broken up about that than I’d expected to be after a one-night stand. But I chalked it up to the fact that it’s just been a long time since I felt a connection with anybody—and frankly, I’ve never had sex so good.
I didn’t expect him to come back. I didn’t expect him to look at me like he’s doing now, as if searching my face for the answer to a question.
And I certainly don’t expect what happens next.
“I want you to become my fiancée,” he says.
My jaw drops. My heart leaps, even as my mind rebels. What? This is so far beyond our last no strings attached conversation that I can barely even wrap my head around it. He wants to marry me? I snap my mouth shut. Open it again, though what the hell I’m going to respond, I don’t even know.
This is crazy. Way too fast.
And yet…
And yet, I can’t deny that a little voice somewhere in the back of my mind wants to know if it would work. If this really could be something more than one night of fun.
“Xander…”
But he stops me before I say another word, holding up a palm. “Like I said, Melanie, this is about business.” He clears his throat. “It would only be temporary.”
I frown. All my previous questions and concerns crash straight down into sheer confusion. “Um… I don’t get it.”
He shifts against the stoop, clearly looking uncomfortable. He runs a hand through his hair, though, and I can’t help it. My gaze tracks the movement his arm makes, the way his muscles shift and bulge beneath his shirt, which rides up just far enough to give me a brief glimpse of those washboard abs I loved so much the last time we were together…
Fuck. It figures the man of my dreams would propose to me, only to mean it as some kind of joke.
I swallow back my disappointment, angry at myself for even feeling it.
“I need someone to pretend to be my fiancée, is what I should have said,” he goes on. “My father…” Xander clears his throat. His expression has suddenly shifted into a much darker, more brooding one. “He has something I want. Dearly. And the only way for me to get it is by proving to him that I’m capable of settling down and getting serious about life. In other words, according to him, finding a wife.”
“I see.” My stomach sinks. I stare out into the dark streets, my mind racing as I try to put the pieces together. I’m not sure what I’m feeling at the moment. Confused, mostly.
But also curious.
I steal a glance back at Xander. He’s watching me steadily, carefully. Like he’s still studying me, trying to see through me to my deeper core. I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and turn that slow, piercing gaze back on him, analyzing him right back in return. “What is that you want from him?” I ask softly. I can imagine: inheritance, money, something like that. It’s got to be. But I want to hear it from him. I want to see on his face what it means.
Except, Xander flinches and turns away, his expression shifting to a darker one. “It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, and for a moment it doesn’t seem like he’s talking to me anymore. It’s almost like he’s talking to himself. Or maybe his father.
Then he shakes himself and turns back to me, his shoulders squaring, just like mine. “What you should really be asking at the moment, Melanie, is what’s in this for you. As I said, this is a business proposal.”
Never has the word proposal sounded so ironic than in this context.
“I’m willing to pay you for your time and effort,” Xander continues, those dark, unreadable eyes of his fixed on mine, pinning me in place. I shiver, even though the night is fairly warm for this time of year. “Two hundred thousand dollars.”
My jaw drops yet again, for the second time that night. I thought that was something that only happened in movies, but apparently I’ve just never been shocked enough to actually do it before. Is this really happening?
Already my mind races, doing calculations. That kind of money would not only cover all of my bills, Devan’s, and then some, it would pay our rent for the whole rest of the year. It might even give me the leg up I need to quit my job at Bob’s and find a real job. Something I actually like doing. Something that pays better than minimum wage and the kinds of tips you get from small town restaurant patrons who also make minimum wage.
I rub my arms, feeling goosebumps rise along them. “Can I think abo
ut it for a bit?” I ask softly. Because part of me can’t help but think that there must be some catch. Some trick to this I’m not seeing yet.
Xander nods. “Of course, Melanie. But I promise you, it wouldn’t involve anything you don’t want to do. It would just be a lump sum payment for having some fun and spending time with me. That’s all.”
I search his gaze, my mind still racing.
His mouth quirks into a smile around the edges. “Remember how you told me you wanted to travel more? See exciting places? We could do that. I’ll take you wherever I go. You can come stay in my penthouse in New York… it’ll be an adventure. You showed me your world. Now I can show you mine.”
My throat tightens, and my mouth goes dry. Especially when he leans in closer, closing the gap between us. I breathe in sharply and catch his familiar scent. My body reacts before my mind does, without my permission, tilting toward him. I can feel my heart speed up, and my belly tenses. Even though it’s been a week, I can still remember his hands on me, every inch of my body that he touched and kissed and caressed. For days after we hooked up, every time I clenched my thighs, I could feel his cock buried inside my pussy. He fucked me so hard I was sore for days—and all I wanted was the chance to do that again.
Now I could.
As if reading my mind, he searches my face, a small smile spreading across his. “Didn’t we have fun together before?”
“Of course. But I—I’m not the kind of girl who…” I trail off. Lick my lips.
He laughs softly when he realizes what I’m asking without being able to say it. He leans back, just a little. Enough that it lets me breathe again. “Melanie. I’m not paying you for sex. I’m paying you to lie to my father and the rest of my family when you meet them. That’s all.” He arches an eyebrow. “If you wind up wanting me to fuck you again, well, that will be entirely unrelated to our transaction.”
My face flares all over again, this time with embarrassment. Embarrassment, and, I can’t deny it, lust. At hearing him talk like that. My gaze drops to his mouth. “I…”
