Chapter Tempt Me, Taint Me
TEMPT ME, TAINT ME
Erin
I drop my bag in the dingy office behind the bar and hang my coat on a hook on the door. Something heated flares in my belly as I smooth my hands over the dress I chose for this shift.
It’s mine this time—a leatherette pencil dress I bought a decade ago to accompany Gerard to a charity event. He joked at the time that I looked like a noughties high class hooker, but I loved it. Thought I looked cute, so I kept it.
I’m just pleased it still fits.
As the night settles in, memories from the past few days flick through my mind in fragments.
The image of the stranger flipping a whole piano, his hot gaze as I stood by the port office door dressed in nothing but a sparkly leotard, the stab of fear as a drunken patron grabbed my waist, the slam of shock when I realized he was across the other side of the bar in a heap, the slow crawl of lust when I saw my stranger’s curled fist and angry glare.
And his words.
I’ll make you come so hard you forget your own name.
My knees buckle just remembering the growl that accompanied them.
If you’re going to be traipsing about in that outfit, Erin, you can keep me as long as you like.
Shamefully, I would gladly survive that outfit if it meant getting to ‘keep’ someone as bad for me and as intoxicating as that man.
I shake my head to rid the thoughts from it. I can’t allow myself to feel anything for the dark, dangerous stranger.
I don’t know anything about him—he could be a total psychopath for all I know.
And even if he does come back and shower me with that hazel hypnosis he carries around in his eye sockets, I can’t go there.
My life is a total mess.
I’m back living under my mother’s roof, sleeping in my old bedroom with neon stars on the ceiling; my teenage daughter hates me, hates school, hates everything—except my mother, apparently; I have no money, no prospects, no light at the end of a tunnel.
And my perimenopausal body doesn’t seem to know which way is up.
Who in their right mind would want to get involved with that?
If it weren’t for the flutters I feel when the stranger enters my orbit, I would have assumed my libido had handed in its notice.
I’m listening to Ted mansplaining the rules of baseball to me when the door to the bar opens. The low chatter quietens and my skin prickles with awareness. As I look up, the door bangs shut and my stomach quivers.
He’s staring right at me, a determined look in those hazel eyes. The conviction in them unnerves me.
I break his gaze to pour a double measure of Johnnie Walker, then I turn back to place it on the bar just as he slides onto a stool.
I’m getting good at this barmaid gig.
A smile pulls at his mouth but the rest of his expression remains serious. He hasn’t removed his gaze from me the whole time and my body temperature has risen to hot sweat levels. I tentatively lift a finger to my forehead, relieved when it comes away dry.
He drops a small package onto the bar. My blouse. Lovely and clean and pressed and now the subject of my envy since it’s been in his possession for who knows how long.
“Thank you.” I take the blouse and pop it on the back of the bar.
“You’re welcome. Where’s the showgirl outfit?”
Every part of me I didn’t know could flutter, flutters. “Locked away—for everyone’s protection.”
One side of his mouth twitches.
“I have a proposition for you,” he says in a low drawl.
My nerves flare. What on God’s earth could he want from me?
I fold my arms across my chest. “What kind of proposition?”
“A job.”
I lift a shoulder. “I have a job.”
He ignores my comment. “One week. Bobby will release you.”
Having seen the way my manager seems to worship this man, I don’t doubt that he would.
I arch a brow. “Doing what? And don’t say ‘being a showgirl.’ I retired a long time ago.”
“Pretending to be my wife.”
Disbelief slams into me and my mouth drops open. “What? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m being dead serious,” he says. And his expression reaffirms his words, steeling my spine.
“Okay, back up a little. I mean, what?”
Not shifting his eyes from me, he unbuttons his jacket, props his elbows on the bar and rests his chin on tented fingers.
“I have an opportunity to close an important deal, but it’s happening on a couples’ retreat, so I need a wife. I’m not married, so a fake one will have to do.”
Tapping my fingers against my lips, I mutter, “Hmm, a fake one will have to do. You make it sound so… inviting.”
I laugh lightly and turn to serve a customer who’s just walked in.
Then the stranger coughs loudly and Bobby appears in an instant. When he follows the stranger’s line of sight, he hops to attention and serves the new customer—so that, presumably, I can give the stranger my full attention.
“I don’t mean it like that. I need a fake wife, and I’d like it to be you. If you’re interested.”
Unable to believe the audacity, I shake my head, lost for words.
“Come on, Erin, hear me out. Please?”
I stand back from the edge of the bar and rest my hands on my hips.
“What retreat? Where?”
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a brochure, offering it to me. I take it with lightly shaking fingers.
“Upstate. It’s a luxury resort. Golf, yoga, spa treatments, high tech gym, Michelin-star restaurant.”
I stare at the pages, drawn in by glossy photographs of opulent bedrooms, sleek dining areas, high spec gyms and spa treatment rooms. This is the kind of place Gerard could have afforded to take us, but never did.
It does look like a spectacular place to stay, but… something isn’t adding up.
A lot isn’t adding up.
“Why don’t you have a wife?”
Well, that probably shouldn’t have been the first question to come out of my mouth, but there you go.
“Haven’t found one I liked.”
Okay then.
“Why me?”
“You seem like you’d be good at it.”
I stare at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. If I was so good at it, I’d still be living in a huge house in California, driving my large SUV to the local gym class and having tons of sex with a husband who adores me.
I decide to treat this with the amount of realism it deserves.
“Okay, okay, let’s say I do come along to this retreat as your wife, what would I have to do?”
He barely blinks. “Nothing. Just enjoy the retreat, accompany me to dinner, keep to the back story I give you. That’s it.”
“Well,” I snicker, “that’s the easiest wife job I ever heard of. Where do I sign up?”
He narrows his eyes, unimpressed. “No signature needed.”
I can’t believe he might actually be serious.
We stare at each other for a few moments, then I break.
“As lovely as this sounds, in theory, I’d be insane to accept such a ridiculous proposal.”
He sits back on the bar stool with a cocky grin.
“Ah, a negotiation…”
My brows leap up into my hairline. “Huh. I don’t know where you heard the word negotiation in all of that, but go ahead, give me your worst.”
“It could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he starts.
I look up again and sigh. This conversation isn’t rooted in reality and I’m done with it.
“Yeah? Well, apart from the fact you could be an axe murderer for all I know, I can’t afford to not work for a week.”
“I can address both of those concerns.” His reply is so smooth it melts into my ears like butter.
Reaching into his jacket again, he drops an ID on the bar. I reluctantly pick it up and stare a little too long at the photograph. The ID reads ‘August King.’
My God, even his name is sexy.
“My company is called King Associates.”
He whips out a phone, opens the web browser and turns the screen toward me. I’m looking at the exceptionally slick homepage of what appears to be an investment bank.
I take the phone, select the dropdown menu and click on ‘People.’ A column of photographs appears, at the top of which is the man sitting in front of me: August King, President of King Associates.
Of course he is.
I frown, handing back the phone. “Seriously, why do you need a wife? Surely you have plenty of female friends to call upon.”
There’s no way this unutterably handsome man doesn’t have at least a dozen beautiful women on speed dial.
His mouth twitches. “I do have female friends, but none of them would fit the description of my wife quite like you.”
A flood of heat rushes through me, my stupid lady organs shivering at the thought I’m the only one who can fulfill this task, while my brain scrambles around the question of ‘is that because I’m a typical dull-dud wife?’
“Hopefully this gives you some reassurance about who I am.”
His eyes haven’t shifted from my face and I’m beginning to liquify under the intensity.
“And now let me address the second concern. I’ll make sure this is financially worth your while. Two hundred thousand for the week.”
“Is that all— Wait, what?” My mouth falls open and I have to grip the bar to stay upright. “What did you just say?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars. Seven days and nights. It works out at just over twenty-eight thousand, five hundred a day.”
Holy crap! That’s quite a day rate. Beats my fifty-bucks-a-shift rate here at the bar.
I shake my head, wondering if I’ll wake up in a few seconds.
“I don’t understand,” I mutter.
He lays his forearms flat on the bar and breaks my gaze to look down at his hands. There’s no groove on his finger where a wedding band might once have been.
“Look,” he starts, his voice deep and husky. “You need the money, and I really need this favor.”
I bristle. “You don’t know that I need the money.”
He looks up with a thick brow raised. “You just said you couldn’t afford to not work. Plus, you’re mid-divorce, you have a kid to support and you’re working in a shitty bar.”
I flatten my shoulders. “I might like being poor.”
He bites the inside of his cheek. “Then don’t take the money and just be a good Samaritan.” His expression sobers. “I need your help, Erin.”
Well, fuck if hearing my name again on the edge of this man’s tongue doesn’t make me quiver.
I swallow, loudly.
His lashes lift.
I open my mouth to decline his offer, then close it again.
With a shrug, he shows his palms. “If nothing else, maybe you deserve a break.”
He’s just thrown down the tired single mom’s equivalent of a lifetime’s supply of crack.
Damn him.
“Two hundred thousand,” he repeats. “No games. Just play the part. Smile. Hold hands. Be convincing.”
As if he can sense an opening, he reaches forward and catches my wrist. “Please.”
My heart pounds.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
That’s enough to pay off my lawyer, get out of my mother’s house, put Paige through a decent college someday.
Enough to breathe again, retrain perhaps, get a better job.
“You said something about going to dinners. How many dinners, and what kind exactly?”
He frowns. “Dinners are dinners, aren’t they? And there will be one a day, as is customary in the United States.”
I plant my hands on my hips and pout. “Thank you for that. What I mean is, what kind of closet would I need?”
He sits up and gestures to my current outfit. “Well, this kind of thing I suppose. Smart. Appropriate for evening events.”
My shoulders lift as I breathe in tightly. “I’m a housewife from California. Ninety-five percent of my closet is casualwear.”
He arches a brow. “Should’ve kept the shirts then, shouldn’t you?”
I’m about to tell him he can take his little plan to hell and burn it, when he pipes up again.
“I will make you an appointment at Saks. Buy whatever you need, on me.”
My eyes almost pop out of my head. “You are joking, right?”
“No,” he says in a solemn voice. “I am not joking.”
My own voice quietens. “Is there a Target concession in Saks?”
I can’t afford to buy a whole new set of clothes for myself but I really don’t want to spend his money, either.
He scrubs a very large hand over his face. “No, and for that, you get a thousand dollar minimum on every outfit.”
“What?”
His hands curl into light fists on the bar. “You’ll be my wife, Erin. And my wife doesn’t wear Target.”
There’s a note of viciousness in his words that makes my heart pump, hard.
“Wh—” I swallow. “What does she wear?”
I swear a frisson of black fades from his eyes, to be replaced by a green-brown hazel softness. Ugh.
“Valentino. Dolce and Gabbana. Ralph Lauren. Givenchy.” His irises puncture my senses. “The best, Erin. My wife only wears the best.”
I focus on breathing steadily, even though my heart is galloping.
My brain is aghast that I’m actually considering it, but my heart is spinning with excitement. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.
Yes, he’s a total stranger. No, I don’t know anything about this man other than he’s an investment banker with a sexy website and a mean right hook.
It could be the stupidest thing I ever do. It could be the biggest regret of my life, if I do it.
A mental image of my daughter flashes across my lids—emaciated because I can’t afford all the vegan cheese, disappointed because she can’t go to the concert with her friends, heartbroken because there’s not a chance in hell I can afford to fly her home to visit her boyfriend, ever.
Yes, it could be the biggest regret of my life if I do it.
It could be an even bigger regret if I don’t.
Breathing out slowly, I lift my lids to his expectant and surprisingly hopeful face.
My heart pounds.
Thump, thump, thump.
“I’ll do it.”