Faking It to Making It

“You have a debt. I have the means to wipe it from existence. I have need of a date to my friends’ wedding, and you seem amenable to the terms and conditions that come with being said date.”

“You pay off my debt—I pretend to be devoted to you?”

He eased into a smile this time, slow and sensual. A frizzle of energy lit her belly and she felt a sudden need to swallow.

“Seems more than fair,” said Nate.

“Seems like a version of the oldest profession,” she muttered.

Clearly not softly enough. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, Saskia,” he said.

“Stop,” she said, her cheeks feeling like little spots of heat. “Now you’re just gushing.”

His laughter was soft, a low chuckle. And then he leant back in his chair, watched and waited.

A pretend boyfriend. A date to a wedding. No more red envelopes. No more reminders of Stu or his letter. The time and the means to get back to renovating the first place she’d ever rightfully called home.

“For the sake of argument,” she said, “would you change your mind if I told you this is what it would take?”

She threw out the hefty figure that covered Stu’s debt only, which she knew to the nearest cent, and he didn’t even blanch. Maybe if he’d flickered an eyelid, lost a little colour in that healthy face, or if his long fingers had gripped a napkin in despair that would have been the end of it. But for his complete lack of reaction she might as well have been asking for a tenner for the cab home.

And from one heartbeat to the next she considered his offer.

Seven months she’d been living under the weight of it. Seven long months of driving a banged-up car, of trawling online sales to replace every piece of electrical equipment she needed to make a living. Of taking menacing late-night phone calls from debt collectors, legal threats, her mortgage squeezing tighter and tighter. Of being romantically stagnate…None of the debt was her fault, but she was too bone-deep humiliated to do anything but absorb it.

Nate watched, bluer than blue eyes taking in her every breath. The guy was smart, gorgeous, clearly better than welloff. He wasn’t going into this thing desperate or despairing. He was doing a deal with all the cool of a business decision. Why couldn’t she do the same?

“Do we have ourselves a deal?”

“I get the feeling I’m going to regret this…” she muttered, then held out a hand. He took it and she felt a frisson of heat and something else—electricity, perhaps—shooting up her arm.

Then Nate said, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be the time of your life?”

And with that came a big wallop of charm so bright she had to blink against such brightness.

It occurred to her belatedly that while she’d thought she’d had him on the ropes, distracting him with talk of infographics and ice-skating, he’d actually been in charge the entire time.

She waited till the buffet of charm subsided, before saying, “Who on earth filled your head with that rubbish?”

“Three sisters. All of whom you’re going to meet Sunday week at my mother’s house.”

On that note their dinner arrived: steaming pasta piled high with glistening red sauce, pungent with Italian herbs. The homemade bread oozing with butter. And for the first time ever at Mamma Rita’s Saskia lost her appetite.

After dinner—as always, Saskia insisted on going Dutch which, considering the amount he was about to lay down for her services, might have been a tad redundant—Nate walked her through the restaurant and outside where the breeze was brisk, the final notes of winter trying one last stir.

“Where are you parked?” asked Nate, pressing a hand to Saskia’s lower back.

She actually felt the warmth of him through her top.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I walked. I don’t live far.” She’d planned on walking back too, only now she could afford transport. “I’ll grab a cab.”

One nod, then Nate looked across the busy street and with a determined wave hailed a cab. He opened the back door for her and she leaned in to give her Brunswick address to the cabbie.

She stood to say goodbye, or thanks, or see you soon, or whatever a girl was meant to say to her new faux-boyfriend.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Saskia Bloom,” Nate said, taking the decision out of her hands.

She placed her hand in his to find it enveloped in his strong, steady grip. “We’ll see, Nate Mackenzie,” she said.

Nate’s laughter was low—a rumble that slid down her arm and faded into the darkness. Leaving them looking into one another’s eyes. Hands still held. Two strangers who had just made a deal to pretend to be more.

Saskia moved in for a goodnight kiss on the cheek…right as Nate let go and pulled away.

Oh, God. He’d meant to give her a handshake while she’d—argh!

Saskia saw the moment Nate knew it, and as blood rushed from every extremity to land hard and fast on her cheeks a smile tugged at the corner of Nate’s mouth.

She opened her mouth to say…Well, she didn’t get a chance to say anything, as Nate’s hand slid to her waist and he pulled her close.

His blue eyes were shadowed, the street light creating a halo around his dark blond hair. He looked cool, steely, all greys and blues. And yet his touch was hot, as if a furnace burned just below the surface.

His nostrils flared as he moved in slowly, giving her time to call a halt.

But in the face of all that heat and strength, the scent of man, and after seven long months with a wiry, snoring, biscuitoholic dog her only male companionship, she wasn’t going anywhere.

A small smile kicked at the corner of his sensual mouth and then, easy as you please, he brushed his lips lightly across hers.

When she didn’t push him away, or knee him, he pulled her closer still, shooting sparks of awareness all over her body. Then, with another soft, tantalising press of his lips, he teased her, drawing out the kiss until her lips parted on a sigh.

He didn’t waste a second, his tongue tracing her teeth before sweeping inside her mouth. She gripped his jacket as, arching against his hands, into his heat and hardness, pleasure tugged at her belly before pooling lower.

The cold night air pressed in on her back as his heat burned her front. Heat won, pouring through her as the kiss slid into something deeper. Nate fisted his hands in the back of her top and Saskia rose to her toes, sinking completely into the kiss, into him.

As she began to feel drugged, hot and flaky, nearing the edge of control, Nate pulled back.

When she finally found her breath, Saskia asked, “What was that for?”

“Credibility.”

She glanced up the street to find a few late night stragglers looking in shop windows and ignoring them completely. “I reckon the cabbie’s convinced.”

Nate laughed, the sound reverberating through her still pulsing body. “So am I, to be honest. A hell of a lot more than I was five minutes ago.”

Saskia blinked up into Nate’s hooded eyes. When she licked her lips his grip tightened, and Saskia could feel her pulse whumping all over her body as her heat levels ramped up in preparation for more…

Then Nate neatly pulled away, making sure she was steady before he let her go completely. She wasn’t. Steady. She was wondering if she’d bitten off more than she could chew.