Chapter Two
Scarlett
“ I ’m here.”
Okay, I don’t mean to do it. Honestly.
We-ell, sorta honestly.
But I’m at the door, face to face with the man who runs high-end real estate. An honest to goodness Sinclair billionaire of the Sinclair real estate empire fame—not that I care, but my brother does—and he’s utterly damp in the panties and fluttery tummy gorgeous. This man can make pulses leap at more than ten paces.
I’ve overheard the conversation with his brothers. Just the tail end, but enough to know he’s not just looking for someone to hire, but for a pretend fiancée. And I’ve just led him to believe it’s me.
“Right on time,” he says, in a voice like dark velvet that curls toes and makes heating obsolete. “Come in.”
I clutch the padded envelope to me and follow him into the castle version of an office. It’s gorgeous, but not like him.
He’s tall, lean and can wear a suit like he’s stepped off Tom Ford’s runway. I’m not sure if Tom Ford has a bespoke runway, but if he did, this man would be the number one star. It’s probably not even a Tom Ford suit. It’ll be custom made because that’s what it looks like, something crafted by hand and costing more money than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.
I’m meant to just be couriering him the package, which is from XO Temps, courtesy of Sarah.
“So you know the deal?” he asks.
“Yes.” I got the Cliff Notes version, but I’m good at outside the box thinking. I’d have to be, since artificial intelligence is my passion and training AIs is something I want to earn my living at.
Just as soon as I sort everything else out.
Which brings me back to this. The whole not meaning to do it.
He’s looking at me. Dark gray eyes like a sky before a storm are on me and they’re full of fire and intelligence and his mouth would be sensual if he didn’t look so no-nonsense and grim. He raises a brow. Hudson, that’s what Sarah called him. Her cousin’s old college friend.
I’d planned just to hand the file to his receptionist, a harried woman in her fifties who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here…but somehow the words I’m here to see Hudson Sinclair came from my mouth.
See? Not my fault.
“I’m Scarlett,” I say, aiming for an approximation of charm and wishing I wasn’t wearing spandex and an oversize shirt.
He frowns. “I thought Bixby said your name was Sarah…”
“Scarlett’s what I go by.”
“I may have misheard.” It’s the kind of tone that says he knows he didn’t, but he’s letting it slide. For now. “Bix and I aren’t close, I’m afraid.”
“Us either.” Which is true as I’ve never met him. “It’s a four-week gig, working for you and…I’m sorry, I just overheard it might be more than that.”
He’s nodding, and he crosses the room to lean on his desk as he takes me in. “You don’t look like I expected.”
I pop a hand on my hip and strike a Vogue pose. When he doesn’t laugh, I bite down on a sigh and drop my hand. “I took up riding my bike. I was heading home when I got the call.”
This is partly true. I ride because one of my gigs is couriering. And I happened to be there at XO after my final job finished because Sarah Merriweather is actually a friend. She comes from old money but never has it and burns through it like it’s kindling.
Sarah’s flighty. She’s blond and pretty and fits the image he’s got in his head of an heiress without the cash and a whole lot of need.
We had drinks planned, which always meant waiting forever for Sarah to get her shit together. And in the minutes between agreeing to meet Hudson Sinclair and solve all her immediate money needs with a stupidly well-paying job, she’d gotten a call from her man of the hour.
A rich oligarch who wooed her with the South of France.
No work in sight except to keep the guy happy.
So, in a panic, she’d thrown together a small list of potential replacements—who keeps dossiers on other people when you’re not a spy?—and begged me to deliver them.
So here I am, not meaning to, but pretending to be my friend.
It won’t hurt. It’s all hush-hush and secretive. He wants something. I want something. Needs will be met and it’s all just a contractual obligation. Still. I hold out the package.
He looks at it like I’m offering him dime store candy. With suspicion. “What is that?”
“I came prepared. Just in case you want someone else. Here’s a selection.” I pause, looking at the padded envelope. Down on his fancy floor are my sneakered feet. They’re not even the good ones. The sneakers, I mean. I have the same feet I’ve always had. It’s a thing. I’ve learned to live with it.
“You came here with other women in mind, in case I found you lacking?” he says in the exact voice people use for the potentially violent and unhinged. “For what you thought was a job?”
I nod. “And for a finder’s fee.”
“Of course.” He frowned. “This isn’t a joke, Scarlett.”
“I know that.”
“You were eavesdropping.”
I shrug. “I overheard, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” he asks. “All? It’s my life .”
I swallow, fingers biting into the soft cardboard and padding. “I know.” No one knows Sarah’s taken off. She’s not close to her family, and I’m imagining her cousin who lives on the other side of the country figured this was an easy way to help her. “I don’t usually look like this. Then again, I also work at a temp agency.”
“Doing what?”
“PA.” I say this as nonchalantly as I can. I’ve never done anything like that before. But does it matter? This is to convince a stuffy lawyer I’m in love and going to marry this man, which doesn’t involve office work. I’m in lust with him on a superficial level already, so that will help.
I don’t want to sleep with him. But admire him? Yep, I can do that. A lot. Maybe even for hours.
“What did you overhear?”
“You need a fiancée in four weeks. I don’t know anything else except it’s important and you’re paying well.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“You’re paying well. Why wouldn’t I be? As long as it’s above board.”
He frowns. “Obviously.”
“You…” I take a breath. “You don’t want to see the other women?”
“Fuck no. The fewer people who know about this the better. There’ll be an NDA and contract, of course. With some added…” His gaze slides over me, “rules.”
“I’m fine with that. I don’t usually dress like this. As I said, I’m riding and I can’t do that in a dress and heels.”
I realize right then that I want this. Not just the job I thought was on offer for four weeks, but all of it. I wouldn’t have jumped in by accident if I didn’t, but I’m surprised with the slam of need and determination that hits me in this very second.
A four-week contract with Hudson Sinclair will get my brother out of the fix he’s in, and I’ll be able to more than make rent. Sarah didn’t tell me the exact amount, but her vague hundreds of thousands she said he’ll pay because he’s in a bind is a godsend. Now I know what the bind is, at least surface-wise, I can do it. After all, it’s just pretend. How hard can this be?
Not very is the only answer I can come up with.
“Is that a yes?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” he murmurs, crushing all my dreams of the moment. “Honestly, I wouldn’t date you.”
I narrow my eyes, toss the envelope down, and stalk up to him, poking him in the chest. Warmth zings through me at the contact. “That is rude.”
“Scarlett.” Up close I can smell him. Leather with a hint of lavender and dark honey that shouldn’t work but does, and he closes a hand around mine, pulling it from his chest. I shiver, a thrum running through me of something that’s suspiciously like wanting. “I just meant people who know me know the kind of woman I—date.”
“You mean sleep with.”
He ignores me. “I need someone who can keep up socially, and by that I mean look the part. I don’t waste my time, so—”
“Have you heard of opposites attract?”
“I’ve heard of fairies in the bottom of the garden, but I don’t believe in that either. I don’t waste my time.”
“You must be fun at parties.”
He smiles and my knees turn wobbly and liquid. “I don’t go to those kinds of parties.”
“There are the other women here—”
“I said no to that.” He tilts his head, looking at me, then shakes it. “If not you, I’ll go back to the drawing board.”
“I need this.” The words are out before I can stop them. But something changes in his dark gray eyes, like a flash of heat lightning.
“The job part? That’s real. You’d have to work for me, too.”
“I assumed that.” Inside, my mind won’t stop yelling the word shit at me. “And with the rest? I’m very adaptable. But I can do the job in my sleep.”
That’s a total lie. But again, how hard can it be?
“That’s another issue. I wouldn’t hire you. You’re in…shiny pants.”
“Leggings.” He’s still holding my hand and his thumb is absently sliding over my knuckles, making me shiver with a thousand softly electrified nerve endings. And then I remember my bag. “Do you have an en suite?”
“Over there.” He lets go of me and points to his left.
“One minute.”
I turn, glad for the messenger bag strapped over my back, like a backward baby sling, and hurry into the restroom and close the door.
For a moment, I stop and turn in a circle.
Soft, recessed lighting, smooth cream stones and brass fixtures, complete with a flower arrangement that no doubt costs my monthly rent for my share of the ratty apartment that might once have been a shoebox, and dark olive green velvet seat.
It’s got the usual. I say usual, because I’m sure most billionaires have a steam shower and bidet and two sinks. And what looks like a walk-in closet—okay, it is a walk-in closet because I cross and open the opaque door that leads through to a changing room and a view to drool over.
I don’t for this. I stop and stare at myself in the floor-length mirror. Definitely don’t have time. My hair’s shoved in a mousey mess on my head and made worse by my helmet and the outfit…well, the less thought about that the better.
But, lucky for me, I have a change in my bag and I get down to business; peeling off leggings and socks and sneakers in one swoop, and then I follow with the T-shirt and hoodie.
I pull out the no-crease upscale looking trousers and fitted top, all in black, and shove my feet into low-heeled shoes. Then I pull down my hair and finger fluff.
There’s no makeup in my bag except a tube of lipstick, so I apply that, and thank the powers that be I came prepared for drinks and upscale, even waitress outfits are so versatile.
I’m done and it took no more than five minutes.
Shoving everything in my bag, I hold it in one hand and return to the vast swanky office.
Hudson Sinclair looks up from where he’s in the middle of texting on his phone and goes still. His gaze moves from the top of my head down to my shoes.
“Listen,” I say, “I usually dress better than this, too. But I’m smart, I’m a hard worker, and you need help and I need money. This works. It makes sense. And, I’m here.”
It occurs to me that’s what he wants—excellence, no time wasted and ease. He’s that kind of guy.
“And how hard can this be? Office romance?”
“Yes,” he says. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“Pretend office romance,” I add.
His expression says he wouldn’t have it any other way, and I’m both insulted and relieved.
“Do I pass?”
“You know what?”
I close my eyes, knowing I’ve blown it. “What?”
“Let’s go for it.”
Inside, I do a fist pump. Outside, I open my eyes and smile the way I’ve seen Sarah smile at men. Not the I’m going to fuck you smile, but the demure, slightly pleased one. And that’s about all I have when it comes to pretending to be her. She’s little, I’m a lot taller. She’s blonde, I’m saddled with light brown hair.
But he said yes, so I’m in.
“Where do we go from here, Mr. Sinclair?”
“Hudson,” he says, holding out his hand. I put mine in his. “It’s a deal, Scarlett Merriweather.”
“Colton.”
He frowns at me and I smile, gliding over the truth. “Cousins on mother’s side to old Bix.”
Hudson nods and I ignore the heat streaking through me at our clasped fingers.
“And as for where do we go from here? Success.” He doesn’t smile as he says this. “We make it work.”
“I can do that.”
“And, Scarlett? Don’t betray or lie to me, or I’ll destroy you.”