“Company records.” He’s not even the least bit ashamed of snooping into confidential files. Although, maybe they’re not confidential since he owns the place. I’m not actually sure how that works.
If his granny hadn’t primed me this morning, I feel like I’d be melting into a puddle of confusion right there on the doorstep. It’s might also possibly be a puddle of erotic juices. Just one glimpse of Asher Paris is enough to give my ovaries the jump start they need and get them purring for life.
Whatever. It was a very dry past three years. I thought I was physically compatible with Byron, but I had no idea. Because one kiss—one stolen kiss—with Asher, in which he was surprised and hardly trying, was the best kiss I’ve ever had in my entire life.
I can’t imagine what the rest of him would be like.
I literally can’t because that’s too far. He’s my boss. I know he’s come to ask me to fake date him, but fake dating someone doesn’t allow for thoughts about them in the sack. Jesus. I’ve never even thought of that term in my life. Under the sheets? In the hay? None of them are allowed. At least, I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never fake dated someone before, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it goes.
I don’t need a lecture on how most classical romances went from enemies to lovers or how marriages of convenience turned into blazing steamy pots of lusty satisfaction. I’m well aware, but this isn’t the same thing as I’m not living in the eighteen hundreds here.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Asher is so smooth that his voice is like a purr. Not an angry tomcat yowl or a scuzzy whirring, but the kind of purr that makes my nipples so hard, I could have chopped the table in half with them.
“Umm.” I think about his granny, those threats about getting fired, and how bullshit it is to get blackmailed by a sweet little senior citizen. Not to mention that it’s galling to get dazzled by one’s blackmailer because she’s pretty fucking amazing all the way around. “Fine,” I grunt.
I step into the house.
And walk into the living room.
I imagine we can talk. Have a nice little chat about getting all up and intimate. But not really, though. Because it’s fake. So maybe set boundaries, guidelines, and rules?
Jesus, this is complicated.
If his granny didn’t want him to know she was here, how is he on board with the fake dating idea anyway? She was so sure he would come here. Ask me. What did she say to him? Is she blackmailing him too, but he doesn’t know it? Is he worried about getting written off? Maybe that’s what rich people do, after all.
The living room is open to the kitchen on one side, which has a big patio door past the massive empty space my chopped-up table just left behind. Now there’s a clear view of the backyard.
I was going to sit, but I stop dead right by the love seat. My mouth drops open, and I let out a little cry that sounds something like, “Fuck me sideways with a twenty-foot cactus.”
Asher must find that some shade of amusing because he walks over and stands beside me. “Holy shit,” he gasps. “Holy fucking shit.”
“Yeah,” I respond through a fog of numbness. “Yeah. It’s bad.”
“Bad? You call that bad? It’s a grade-A disaster is what it is.”
“I should phone.”
“I would, but mine drowned yesterday morning.”
“Okay.” I finally snap out of my shocked stupor and pull my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. I dial 9-1-1 as fast as my fingers will let me, which isn’t fast at all. Shock is a curious sensation, and it makes me want to laugh in disbelief. It has to be disbelief because it’s definitely not funny. It makes my fingers feel like they weigh a ton and are big bricks sewn onto my hand. And it also makes my brain move through a fog.
“Hello, operator.” A female voice comes over the line, but I’m frozen and can’t get a single word out.
Thank goodness for my future fake boyfriend. I guess my brain is still able to process that much. He plucks the phone from my hand and puts it to his ear, all smooth as a baby’s bottom. Or is it supposed to be oil? Butter? Cold cream?
“Hello,” Asher Paris says calmly.
He has a very nice speaking voice. And it’s like butter. Real butter, on popcorn, and home popped. And not the stuff you put in the microwave. Now I’m really losing it.
“The emergency?” Asher continues.
He glances at me. Sky blues lock on my face, and now I’m butter. Christ, the fact that I’d fake date this guy even without the incentive of money or threats clearly says a lot about the new level of low I’ve just sunk to.