by Sierra Rose
“No ma’am.”
The old woman behind the counter swooned at the very sight, and I shook my head with a rueful grin. “When the time comes, we’ll just say that things fizzled out. Part as friends.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I will, of course, remain your publicist when this is all finished.”
“Of course.”
“My team will handle things for me back uptown.”
“Whatever you like.”
“And I want a new espresso maker for the office.”
There was a sudden pause in the quick back and forth. Then Nick threw back his head and started laughing. It echoed brightly through the little shop, bouncing off corners, and making everyone who heard it smile as well.
“So that’s what you think you’re worth, huh?” His eyes sparkled with unrestrained merriment as they stared back into mine. “One espresso maker?”
I cocked my head sweetly to the side.
“No, darling—that’s what I think you’re worth. That’s my price for dating you.”
He laughed again, tossing back his messy hair as he twirled his empty cup.
“Well sweetheart, I’ve never had to pay for someone’s company. But in your case, I think I can make an exception. The espresso maker’s yours.”
Score! I could picture my entire staff cheering at once.
My face glowed in triumph, but I hid it quickly behind my hair. In spite of all my reservations, a strange feeling of excitement had started stirring in my stomach. An anticipation I didn’t fully understand, and trusted even less.
“Well, then I think that’s it,” I concluded in my best professional voice. “We can fly back to New York in the morning, and work out the strategy on the plane. My best guess would be to say that we’d always harbored some kind of feelings, and they blossomed on this trip to—”
“Hang on,” he lifted a finger in the air between us, “I have a few conditions myself.”
I paused in surprise, wondering what in the world could be going through that head of his. This was his idea. He was the one asking me. Now he had conditions?
“You do?” I asked in open astonishment. “What are you—”
“Don’t worry,” he interrupted, “it’s actually just one.” With that, he leaned suddenly forward, gazing intently into my eyes. “If this is going to work, if this is going to be believable...then you have to let me treat you like I’d treat any of my other girlfriends.”
A sudden shiver swept through me, as a whole host of other implications to this little scheme fell suddenly into place. We were trying to stage an entire relationship, after all. That meant a little more than just posing in front of the cameras...
“Okay,” I began uncertainly, “I can...I can do that.”
Nick cocked his head to the side, eyes twinkling at me appraisingly.
“That means letting someone else take care of you, for once. That means letting yourself get pampered and fussed over. Accepting gifts bigger than a bag.”
“A purse,” I corrected automatically, but his look made me fall silent.
“I have a reputation of spoiling my women, Abby.” A smile was lurking just below the surface, but he kept up an admirable poker face. “A reputation that must be maintained.”
My eyes danced with a sudden Dior flashback, but I kept a careful poker face myself.
“Fair enough. But don’t ever refer to me again as one of your women,” I quoted dryly. “I didn’t sign up for a haram—got it?”
A sudden grin flashed across his face, but he pursed his lips and nodded.
“Got it.”
“On that note,” I continued suddenly, “that also means that you and Anya have to pause your...Pilates for a while.”
He mock saluted.
“No more Pilates.”
I eyed his mischievous face warily, and decided to clarify for my own peace of mind.
“Nick, you know that by Pilates, I mean—”
“—you mean fucking,” he laughed, “yeah, I got it. No more Anya.”
I nodded, satisfied. But just as he went to stand up, another thought flashed through my head. One that was so obvious and serious, I felt as though both of us had been dancing around it on purpose. Compartmentalizing it away, because we didn’t know how to deal with it ourselves.
“Nick,” I said softly, reaching for his sleeve to stop him, “about...all the other stuff.”
He froze in his tracks, and looked down at me without a trace of humor. His face was nothing but sincere. “I’ll never cross any line you don’t want me to. You have my word.”
I nodded quickly and released his arm, but found myself in no way reassured.
Who were we kidding? This entire thing was crossing a line. A line that we’d worked hard to create, even under the most extreme circumstances, for the last two years. How could we possibly go back to the way things were after this? After what we’d have to do?
It wasn’t just pictures and shopping sprees. A relationship implied a physical component as well. Those were the pictures that sold. How was that possibly going to work? How could we possibly go back to working with each other after that? How could we even be friends?
“Hey.” He knelt down suddenly in front of me, as if I’d been saying all of my worries out loud. For a moment, he just stared at me. Then he swept back a lock of my hair with a gentle smile. “You know that whatever happens...it’s just you and me. Nothing can change that.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to so badly.
It’s just...hadn’t things changed already?
The necklace, the bar in New York, the moment in my apartment. We’d seen each other almost every single day for the last two years, and not once had anything like that ever happened before. And now tonight? The moment at the nightclub?
If I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could still feel his lips on my skin. The heated flush they left as they kissed my forehead, then my cheek. Then the other. I could still see the look on his face as he looked down at my mouth. All that unbridled passion and adventure wrapped up in a single glance.
A single moment before he closed his eyes and leaned down to kiss me.
No. It was not just ‘you and me’ anymore. Things had already changed. Spun off the rails so fast, I wasn’t sure if we could ever catch them.
But I couldn’t say any of that. Couldn’t seem to find the words. I left it up to him instead.
“About tonight...?”
A sudden flash of uncertainty froze his features, betraying his true colors. He was just as mixed up about all this as I was. Just as confused. Neither one of us knew what came next.
His brow tightened for a moment, before he deliberately smoothed it clear.
“I’ll never cross any line you don’t want me to,” he repeated softly.
I considered this. Considered it for a long time, as he knelt before me on the broken tiles of the run down coffee shop. The night around us was still in full-swing. The streets of Barcelona had come alive, and the two of us were caught in the middle of it. Smudged nightclub stamps on our wrists. Thin, dampened shirts. The smell of sweet liquor and coffee on our breath.
It was only then that I realized our fingers were laced together. At some point, during my silent contemplation, he’d reached over to take my hand. For a second, I simply stared, baffled by how strange a sight it was.
Then...baffled by how natural.
“Okay,” I said suddenly, surprising both of us at the same time, “let’s do it.”
His entire face lit up, but he fought to keep it under control.
“Abby—you won’t be sorry. I swear it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I pushed to my feet, “I’m sorry already. You and I are both nuts if we think this whole thing isn’t go down as some colossal mistake.”
The two of us shared a grin. Then, after a hesitant pause, he leaned down and kissed my cheek. My eyes widened in surprise, but he simply shrugged—flashing a mischievous grin.
“What? You are my girlfriend now. I might need some practice.” He winked. “We want it to look real for the cameras, after all.”
Like I said...a colossal mistake.
Chapter 3
IN MY TWO YEARS OF working for the Hunter family, I’d been inadvertently exposed to many of the perks of ‘high living.’ The wardrobe, the parties, the exclusivity. I’d once stood by and watched as a museum docent—eager to please—had actually removed a dinner jacket of John F. Kennedy’s that Nick had been admiring, and slipped it over his shoulders. (A jacket that, moments later, Nick had accidentally doused in champagne. But who was counting?)
Point was, although I wasn’t typically accustomed to being ‘spoiled,’ there were certain customs of the rich and the famous that I had come to very much enjoy.
None so much as the private plane.
“Well, that’s it for me.” I collapsed on a leather recliner the second we stepped on board, throwing my purse down beside me. “Wake me when we get back to Manhattan.”
Nick chuckled and took a seat next to me, nodding to the pilot that he was ready to take off. “See, you look like one of my girlfriends already.”
My lips twitched up in a grin, as I peeked out from beneath my complimentary sleep mask. “Tell me...does gifting me this plane technically count as ‘spoiling?’ Or is that a little above and beyond.”
He laughed again. Something he had been doing ten times more of since I officially said yes to his crazy little scheme. “You want the plane? It’s yours.”
“Perfect.” I tilted my head back like a lazy queen, calling out to the pilot. “In that case, Jimmy, I’m ready to go.”
Nick grinned indulgently. “It’s Ethan, actually.”
“Oh, Nicholas,” I took off the sleep mask and flashed him a smile, “how can I keep up with so many names that make your day-to-day life that much simpler?”
As he laughed yet again, a bemused voice crackled from over the speakers.
“Please take a seat as we prepare for take-off. In honor of Ms. Wilder, we’ll officially be experiencing a bit more turbulence than usual...”
I flipped him off with a grin as my phone buzzed in my bag. While Nick wrangled us two glasses of complimentary champagne (as if we needed any more to drink tonight), I dug around just in time to see my mother’s name light up on the screen. My face wilted for a moment as my finger hovered uncertainly over the two options to reply.
“Who’s that?” Nick asked, passing me a drink.
I ignored it quickly and stashed it back in my bag, surfacing with a grateful smile as I took my first bubbling sip. “It’s my mom. I’ll call her back later. Ironing out all the fine details of our arrangement is very important.”
His eyes twinkled as he held up his glass.
“In that case...to us. To wherever this crazy road may lead.”
Wherever indeed...
We clinked glasses and downed the champagne with the speed of two people who had long since numbed themselves to the taste of alcohol for the night. The glasses were refilled, and we leaned back comfortably as the plane took off and lifted through the midnight clouds.
“You should know,” Nick began with just the faintest hint of a slur, “this is already the most committed relationship I’ve ever been in.” He caught my sarcastic look, and shrugged innocently. “I’m serious. Nothing else comes close. Look at the contenders.”
“What about Janelle?” I reasoned.
Janelle Mirach was one of Nick’s only consorts that I had actually ever liked. Unlike the rest of the endless parade, she actually had a good head on her shoulders, and could match him at basically every level of conversation. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d been engaged to a European prince for most of their time together, things might have taken off. I was actually a bit sad to see her go. Sent a personal congratulations card to the wedding.
Nick shook his head slowly. “Janelle was just a friend. She was only ever just a friend.”
My eyebrows shot skeptically into my hair.
“The two of you had an awful lot of sex considering she was just a friend.”
He chuckled and took another swig of champagne.
“I fuck a lot of my friends. How do you think people get to be friends in the first place?”
...Nick always had a rather unique way of seeing the world.
I shook my head and decided to let it go. I’d learned long ago that if I was going to be working with Nick, I was going to have to pick my battles carefully.
You see, when people reach a certain level in the social sphere, certain misconceptions tend to take hold. The persona of a ‘mindless playboy’ seemed to fit, and those who didn’t know him tended to run with that assessment.
But Nick defied the stereotype.
It had only taken a minute of talking to him to realize that the guy had a rather brilliant head on his shoulders. Freakishly brilliant, in fact. Most of the time, it was those same people who underestimated him that were struggling to keep up.
He was beautifully educated, top of his class. Princeton and Harvard undergrad, followed by a stint at Oxford graduate school where he earned not one, but five different degrees.
Granted, he had once told me that all that paled in comparison to an orgasm. He was dripping in champagne at the time, and conspicuously missing his pants.
But like I said...pick my battles.
“Anyway,” I deliberately changed the subject, “we have an awful lot of planning to do if the merger is just three months away. You made some good progress with Ella, but if we’re going to be changing women, then we’re going to have to start from scratch.”
My hands drifted down with something akin to muscle memory and pulled my laptop, phones, and day-planner from my bag. Even a half gallon of tequila couldn’t stop them.
“That means the works. Dinners, galas, award ceremonies, sporting events. In fact,” I raised my laptop frantically in the air above me, trying to get a signal, “when is that one horse race where everyone wears the stupid hats? That could do really nicely—”
“Aaaaaand that’s enough for you.”
With a wide sweep of his arm, Nick confiscated my computer, phones, and champagne all in one fell swoop. Before I could stop him, the top came down, the mobiles vanished, and he had drained the cup—tossing them all on the seat behind him in a careless pile
“Nick!” I screeched, staring after the phones like they were my long-lost children. “What are you doing?! You know better than to touch the—”
“—the what?” he challenged. As usual—he sensed a great deal more than I gave him credit for. A great deal more than I would have wanted. “The kids? They’re phones, Abby.”
I lowered my voice to a furious whisper.
“They can hear you.”
His face softened into an affectionate smile.
“I understand that there’s a lot to be planning, I really do. But before you start buying us horses to race in the Kentucky Derby—”
“—the Kentucky Derby, that’s what it’s called—”
“—let me suggest that you get a little sleep.”
I looked at him doubtfully, but he gestured to the chair with one of those self-righteous looks I’d come to know and love and despise so well.
“I’ll guard them with my life, you have my word. But you,” he pressed me carefully down into a chair of my own, coaxing that sleep mask back up to my eyes, “have drunk enough to make the boys of Ireland proud. Let’s say we sleep it off a little, yeah?”
The chair did look tempting. And what he was saying did make a hell of a lot of sense, but the workaholic in me didn’t really know what ‘sleep’ was.
“I’ll just write emails,” I promised, in what I took to be a very rational voice. “Save them as drafts for later.”
The mask snapped down over my face.
“Rest,” his voice drifted out of the darkness, “we’ll work it out in the morning. It’ll keep until then.”
I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t. But the plush leather was so inviting, and the second my eyes were closed, I realized how very heavy they’d become. The last thing I remembered before drifting off was a soft rustling sound just over my shoulder. A pair of lips brushed against my forehead—so soft that it was possible I could have imagined it.
A second later, I was awake no more. Drifting in and out of a dozen different time zones as I surrendered myself to the tranquil clarity of sleep.
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, what felt like years later, it was still dark outside. Still dark, and yet, I sensed that I had been sleeping for a good long while. It wasn’t until the wheels of the plane jerked hard against the runway, that I realized we had been flying with the clock. Meaning that we might have spent the last six hours in the air, but only thirty minutes had passed in actual time, making it just a little past one in the morning in New York.
“Nick?” I murmured automatically, trying to get my bearings as I glanced around the darkened cockpit. As if to reply, all the lights turned on suddenly to greet me.
“Good morning, sunshine!”
A hot cup of coffee was thrust under my nose. Followed by an insufferably bright smile.
How was it that no matter how many times he crisscrossed the globe, Nick always managed to look as if he’d slept a full eight hours? Even now, after a night of heavy drinking followed by a midnight sprint through downtown Spain, he was all lit up inside. Not a single shadow beneath his sparkling eyes as they beamed down at me, dimples and all.
“It’s dark outside,” I croaked in response, taking the coffee with a petulant swipe.
He grinned. “Yes, but technically morning.”
Remind me to set the Oxford Debate Club on fire.
“At any rate,” he reached down and pulled me gracefully to my feet, “there’s a car ready to take you back to your apartment, your briefcase is already packed, and I’ve had the stewardess lay out some clothes for you to change into.”
My face blanched, and he was quick to explain.
“Not that this late-night clubbing look doesn’t suit you, but I figured you might want something a little more put together now that we’re back on American soil.”
