“This is r-ridiculous,” she whispered.
“Not at all.” He spoke as softly as she had. “It’s the perfect solution to both our problems. We’ll go off the radar. No one will know about your mistake, and we’ll be so boring as a cute couple they’ll soon move onto something more salacious.”
This wasn’t a perfect solution. This was an insane solution. He had his glam lifestyle to lead and she had her business to run.
And… she’d felt his hand on her.
Yeah, there was the real problem. She couldn’t possibly pretend to be engaged to him when he had her turning to molten goo with just a look. He was the last person in the world she’d want to mess with. She knew his type intimately. Her ex, Bryce, had been a Logan wannabe. From an elite family, money going back generations, spoilt with a ‘just dispose of it’ attitude to problems.
And the irony? Bryce had been the ultimate ‘catch’ her mother dreamed of. Successful, rich. Things like faithfulness or reliability didn’t rate high on the list of requirements. He was the kind of man her mom wanted to snare for herself—and had. Three times already.
Min knew the reality of toying with a man like Logan wasn’t fun and certainly wasn’t forever. She already had one broken engagement behind her to prove it.
“I’m not m-m-marrying anyone ever. C-c-certainly not s-s-someone like y-y-y-y-you.” Oh God, she choked over the sentence as distress got to her.
And it there it was. The stutter almost as bad as it got. Almost a total block.
She closed her mouth and inhaled sharply through her nose. He didn’t take his eyes off her—watching close for weakness?
No politeness, he was all predator.
And she’d just handed it to him on a platter. Her greatest vulnerability.
Min stared him out. Silent, controlled. She wasn’t going to collapse in a heap and cry. If she cried she’d never be able to speak, she’d be blocked.
She had to stay in control of her feelings. But oddly, despite that ferocious expression in his eyes, she began to feel bad. What she’d just said had been freaking rude.
“A fate worse than death, Ms Jones?” he asked quietly.
She couldn’t answer the look in his eyes. In her head she saw it, him moving over her. Him taking everything he wanted. Touching, tasting, distracting, devouring.
Appallingly, her fury died as desire blanketed over her, sweeping away the embarrassment.
Okay she had to leave. Now. She couldn’t be near him. Surely she couldn’t be feeling it for him. Not when she knew exactly what guys like him did—and didn’t. And this was a guy who in part paid her bills.
Don’t cross that line.
He didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. Worse than death?
No.
But she knew he wasn’t joking. He wanted to expand this fiction. To cast her as his leading lady for as long as he needed to avoid anything slightly scandalous.
Why?
Confused, she thought through her options. She refused to go home to Minnesota and her mom and face the ‘I told you so’ and the ‘I’m so disappointed’ and the ‘how could you be so stupid’ recriminations. She’d had enough of those in her lifetime already. But with a few words Logan could kill her fledgling career. She’d lose her clients…
And then there was the building curiosity. Why did he want this, really? Why did he want to avoid yet more scandal when she didn’t think he’d care all that much?
There was no denying it, she was intrigued.
And this was a fiction. They’d fake it. Maybe he meant they’d just go on a few dates? That shouldn’t be tempting…
But she knew how to be discreet. She could be the quiet, shy fiancée who avoided the limelight. As long as she didn’t have to spend too much time actually in Logan’s company, then maybe she could manage it. He was thinking only for a couple of weeks, right? To get him through this ‘bad timing’—whatever that meant.
If she’d survived one engagement, she could get through this one. This one wasn’t even real.
Finally she broke that paralyzing eye contact, dropping her gaze back to the computer screen. Another sixty tweets had just appeared using the #welovelogan hashtag.
“You have many online followers?” he asked.
She took a moment to take the leap in topic. “I don’t have my own Twitter account.” She reverted to breathy Marilyn voice to be able to answer. “It’s enough to tweet for all my clients.”
“So you don’t have a personal social media presence?”
She shook her head. “Only a static website.”
“How do you get new clients?” he asked.
“Mostly word of mouth. I’m d-discreet.”
“Really?” His eyes twinkled.
That humor was too attractive. She refused to soften towards him.
Stay dignified, stay safe.
“I’ve built up my contacts list,” she explained. “You might find it hard to believe but this is the first mistake I’ve made.”
“Only the first?” His eyebrows shot up. “What a boring life you must have led ‘til now.”
She glared at him, refusing to bite on the inappropriate turn back to the personal. She wasn’t doing anything personal with this man. Even if her core was bubbling more than the molten rock at the center of the planet. Beneath her precariously thin crust, lust was cooking up a storm.
“We’ll say we met through work, which we did.” He turned back to face her.
“But you don’t want people to know I had control of your Twitter account?” Most of her other clients preferred to keep that under wraps as well. That was partly why her personal social media presence was non existent.
He nodded. “We met when you did some online management for us. It’s best to explain anything with a limited version of the truth. No one needs all the details.”
A limited version of the truth. That’s how he dealt with life’s little problems?
Min wasn’t buying it. “They’ll still smell a r-rat.” The guy had been caught out in a sex tape three months ago. What kind of a fool was she going to be for falling for him so quickly? “No one will believe this.”
That he would fall for her? That he was ever ready to commit? There were too many impossible elements.
“Sure they will.”
She shook her head. “They’ll think it’s staged.”
“Not after a few months. By the time we break up, I’ll be out of the spotlight and the world will have forgotten about it.”
A few months?
Min laughed, nigh on hysterical.
“What’s so funny?”
“A man like you will n-never be out of the spotlight. The campaign you were modeling for today won’t be launched for months, right? Your face is going to be everywhere for a long while yet.”
People wanted to know him. To see him. To have him. Be him. Logan Hughes was his own freaking spotlight.
“Careful Ms Jones, I’ll be extending our engagement for a year.”
Her mouth fell open. “A year? If I agree to this madness, it’ll only be for a couple weeks.” That’s all she could handle.
He shook his head. “Six months, minimum.”
“What?” She was reduced to one word speech.
“You heard. You’re the one who announced it. We’re engaged. And we’re staying that way.”
“Why?”
He glanced at the silent phone on the sofa. “Because it’s the most convenient solution.”
Convenient for whom? Solution for what? “No, it’s crazy.”
“It’s what’s happening.”
She’d really rather be in the cage with Blake, about to be pummelled.
“You’ll need to stay here,” he added idly.
“What?”
“You’ll live here for the duration of our engagement.”
“Why?” Her jaw all but smashed on the floor.
“Because we’re in love.” He looked amused and his voice dropped. “And because no one w
ill believe that I’m not sleeping with the woman I’m supposedly going to marry. All night. Every night.”
Oh. Heat sizzled, curling her toes, making her desperate to move, to shift the sudden surge of sensual energy within her.
“You’re crazy. I can’t move in.” She looked at him sideways, furiously trying to think up many, many reasons why it wouldn’t be any good. “I sleep walk.”
“That’ll make life interesting.” He chuckled.
“I snore.”
“Even better.”
“My live-in-lover might have something to say about it.” Bingo. Why hadn’t she thought up a fantasy lover before? But Logan’s edict had electrocuted her brain.
“You don’t have a live-in-lover. You live by yourself in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. You moved from Minnesota at the start of the year.”