Faking It to Making It

Hands now in pockets, all that latent heat trapped behind a wall of cool, Nate said, “Six weeks and a bit. And a wedding.” As if she might need some kind of warning.

You kissed me! she ached to throw it back at him, but she’d been all too willing to let him.

“And debts paid off,” she said instead, getting the feeling it would become some kind of mantra in the weeks to come. “And if you decide to be helpful and tell me about your dating life, I’ll be all ears.”

“Sweetheart, I’d pay double what you asked not to have to talk.” He held the back door of the cab as she slid inside. “I’ll call you soon.”

Saskia nodded, and as the cab drove away she couldn’t help but look back, to find him standing on the footpath, watching her too. Tall, broad, hair gleaming under the lamplight.

She lifted a finger to her mouth, which still tingled from the attention of his wonderful mouth.

There goes a man I could forgive for snapping my carrots, she thought. And probably a lot worse.

CHAPTER THREE

NATE RAN TWO hands over his face, trying to get some blood flowing to his brain. He was working more than ever; the number of emails bouncing into his inbox every minute proved it.

Ignoring them as best he could, he concentrated on the contract on his desk. Bamford Smythe, the “gaming guy” whose start-up company BamBam Games Gabe had discovered, had signed an exclusivity agreement with BonAventure, and now they were in the process of nutting out the finer details of the capital investment.

Smythe was pessimistic, pedantic and paranoid that everyone was trying to steal his ideas. Thankfully he was also brilliant. Nate just had to keep him on a short leash—which was turning out to be akin to lassoing a Tasmanian devil.

A knock at the door and a glance at the watch strapped to his wrist told Nate that it was three already. Dammit.

Rubbing a hand up the back of his neck, he called, “Come in.”

The door was opened tentatively, followed by a head poking around the door. “Hiya.”

“Saskia.”

After their date he’d emailed her with a half-dozen questions—basic stats about age, family, schooling. Then she’d called, suggesting they get together for a “get to know one another” in a “pretend we’ve had a half-dozen dates” kind of way. He’d told her to make an appointment, hoping she might waver. Alas, she wasn’t easily swayed.

Nate waved her in with one hand and finished annotating with the other. “Won’t be a sec,” he said, glancing up as she sauntered in. But his hands stopped midscrawl when he saw what she was wearing.

Her hair was tucked beneath the same fedora from her online profile picture, her legs were swimming in wide calf-skimming pants that looked like they’d been cut from a Hessian sack, sandals were tied up over her ankles, and she wore a brown cardigan she near got lost in, and a scarf long enough that a lesser woman would have stooped under its weight.

A thread of tension shot through him, landing with a twitch at the corner of his right eye as he considered what his family would be expecting. Certainly not this gamine creature who looked as if she might start sprouting poetry or drawing in chalk on his office floor.

What had he been thinking?

She shot him a quick smile as she took a curious tour about the room, her wide eyes shadowed beneath her hat, her lips soft and pink. The memory of how they’d felt beneath his own hit him and hit him hard—her gentle heat, her soft sighs, her sweet response that had licked at something deep inside him. Okay, so he’d been thinking of kissing her from nearly the moment he’d sat down.

She unhooked a satchel from her shoulder and dumped it unceremoniously on the sleek cream leather couch on one side of the room, bending over to rummage through it, giving him a nice view of a pretty fine backside. She might be slight, but he’d felt enough curves as she’d pressed into him to give any red-blooded man pause.

“Gotcha!” she said, standing upright, her profile lit with a happy little smile.

Contentment, he thought again, feeling something akin to envy at her easy pleasure. At how he’d barely swiped his mouth across hers before she’d started trembling.

He ran a hand up the back of his head several times to get his brain into gear. It was fine. Under other circumstances their unexpected chemistry might be a hindrance, but in this case it would help make them convincing.

And the deal was a good one. Saskia seemed cluey—the kind of person who just got on with things. She didn’t seem demanding, or clingy, or prone to tears and pouts. The antithesis of his sisters, in fact.

His tension eased. A little.

She caught his eye, then waved a couple of folders at him before throwing them onto the coffee table, where his assistant had earlier left an assortment of nibbles for their meeting, and moving his way.

“Your desk is so neat!” she said as she moved to perch on the edge of the black chair on the other side of his desk. The chair that had made Gabe look so big only a few days before made Saskia look like some kind of waif. “How do you know where anything is?”

“It’s where it’s meant to be.”

Her mouth twisted sideways. Then she shrugged. “What are you working on?” she asked, pitching forward. The whirls of lace beneath her cardigan scooped low, giving him a glimpse of the sweet rise of the flesh within.

“Contracts,” he said, endeavouring to keep his eyes on hers even as his body reacted viscerally, remembering how she’d felt in his arms—warm, soft, all woman. “New gaming company.”

“Which one?”

He hesitated, old habits dying hard.

“I’ll know them,” she promised, misunderstanding his silence. Then, pointing at her chest, said, “Maths degree, remember? Nerd girl.”

She looked so expectant, which only made him clam up more. It was a spontaneous reaction, brought on by years spent with women and their need to ask questions, to talk, to pry, to get to the heart of every damn matter. The more they wanted, the less he had to give.

He saw the moment she realised it. Her eyes widened and her lips pursed into a small O. “You’re not going to tell me, are you? Is it confidential? No? Okay. But what will I say if anyone asks me about your work? That you keep a tidy desk?”

He laughed before he’d even felt it coming.

If nothing else, he liked her. Honesty and decency shone through the quirkiness. And even beyond the signs of attraction that had led him to email her in the first place aside, their kiss had been natural, raw, effortless. And wanted. By both sides. This could work.

“BamBam Games,” he said.

Her eyes widened, her mouth twisting as she gave a long, low drawn-out, “Reeeeally?”

All that lovely cocky certainly was swept away. “Problem?”

“Not necessarily. Bamford Smythe is a genius. He’s going to change the world.” Under her breath she added, “Or destroy it from the inside of a cave somewhere.”

Nate cricked his neck. “You know the guy?”

“Of him. Lissy, my business partner, did some work for him once. The logos and icons on his website are her work.”

Nate clicked over to BamBam’s website for a quick reminder. It was slick, cool, with an aura of hipster that BamBam…Bamford had never given off in person. Now he knew why.

Then he realised Saskia was still talking.

“…and M&M’S. The guy is spookily addicted to M&M’S. So good luck!”

“Right. Thanks.”

“Finish your thought and then we can get started,” said Saskia, pressing herself to her feet, ridding herself of her long cardigan and tossing it towards the couch.