Faking It to Making It

“An hour together here and there should suffice,” he said.

“Well, now, that’s about the most romantic thing a nearly pretend boyfriend has ever said to me.”

His mouth did the surprise smile thing—the one that gave a hint of straight white teeth and lit his intense eyes with genuine laughter. “What’s the problem? I’m a problem-solver. It’s what I do. Money, time, space, audience, you need it I provide it.”

“You’d be cutting into my worktime. I need to work.”

“Why?”

He was so sincere, so keen, she made a quick decision to tell him the truth. Part of it anyway. Not bend the truth, just not tell all.

“I have…debts.” Yet her chin lifted as she said it.

His long, slow breath in made her stomach hurt. Then, with a nod, he said, “I’ll take care of them.”

She shot out a laugh so loud the table shook. “Just like that? A blank cheque?” When he didn’t laugh back she realised. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly.”

“But I haven’t even said what I owe!”

He gave a slight lift of the shoulder, as if she could name her price. “Consider this negotiation, Miss Bloom.”

Miss Bloom now, was 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.

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.

When she rounded his desk and headed to the wall of windows in only a lumpy lace tank, the beige pants and bondage sandals, Nate found himself watching her walk. Relaxed, easy, a neat little sway to her hips.

Not a mote of self-awareness about the woman—as if it didn’t occur to her he might be paying such close attention. That from his angle the afternoon sun sluiced through the window making the buildings glow gold and rendering her lightweight pants all but see-through.

Her silhouette showed off lean legs, gently curving hips and a round, high backside. He curled his hands into his palms till the nails bit deep. Despite the test kiss, she wasn’t his to touch. It hadn’t been part of the deal.

Her hands went to that waist and she stretched out her shoulders, as if opening to the sun. His blood rushed every which way but loose.

“Shall we do this?” Nate said, his voice gruff.

Saskia turned and he waved a hand to the couch.

Saskia picked out a strawberry before unwinding and kicking off her shoes, taking off her hat, ruffling her hands through her kinky dark hair. Then she sat in one corner, leaving the length to him, one foot under her backside, the other curling its toes into the thick white rug.

She made it look so…comfortable. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had anyone barefoot in his office before. He was pretty sure he liked it.

“So?” she said.

“You called this meeting, Miss Bloom,” said Nate as he took the other corner. “You have the floor.”

“Miss Bloom, is it? Well, then, we are all business.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, her lips closing around the red fruit. Then, with a soft sigh, she picked up the two neat leatherbound folders with leather ties from the coffee table and handed one to him.

“Flash,” said Nate, amazed that his tongue worked when it felt as if it was tied in knots.

“Stationery addiction.” She waved a hurry up hand, practically bouncing in her seat as she waited for him to pull out whatever was inside. “I know it’s a little more than we agreed to but I’m a sucker for a new project. There’s nothing like it—blank paper, freshly sharpened pencils. Anything’s possible.”

“Before real life gets in the way?”

She shrugged, as if she was still convinced one day things really could work out as she hoped they might. An optimist was Saskia. With Pollyanna tendencies. Nate made a note to remember that.

He opened his folder to find his emailed questions, only she’d expanded them to include a slew of small details, rich details—the kind of details and funny stories people tended to discover about one another on the first few dates. And his were all filled in.

“You researched me,” he said, eyes widening as he read on. School subjects, overseas trips, friends past and present, sports played, prizes won, legs broken and a full list of companies he’d invested in, complete with links to interviews he’d given to financial magazines and websites.

“Don’t get too excited. I do this for a living, remember. I just found what was out there.”

“I’m not sure excited is quite the right word.” He looked up to find her nibbling at her lower lip.

“I’ve overstepped the mark, haven’t I? Argh! Lissy calls it my Puppy Syndrome.”

She held up her paws and panted and Nate’s blood rushed south with such speed he had to grip the couch.

“But I just like being helpful. Here, give it back. We can start over. Pretend it never existed.”

Was she kidding? She’d just saved him hours. In Nate’s world that made her akin to the perfect woman.

He pulled his dossier out of reach and looked down at hers, gripped in her hot little hand. He found himself…not excited, exactly, but intrigued as to what was contained therein. “Swap.”

She blinked, her lashes jerking against her cheeks, then did as she was told.

Nate opened the first page, speed-reading past schooling—state run. Tertiary education—scholarships. Work—applied mathematics with government agencies, before she’d moved on to build her own business—research with a bent towards the statistical.

He slowed when he hit her favourite books, movies, TV shows, as a tumble of odd and wonderful nuances meshed together to form a picture of not just a set of sultry eyes and kissable lips but a woman. The Princess Bride nestled alongside Aliens and The Breakfast Club, Ray Bradbury butted up against Sophie Kinsella and John le Carré. And a litany of real-life adventures flew before his eyes.

Compared with him, she’d lived three lifetimes.

“You’ve really eaten live witchetty grubs? And—” he glanced down “—you were an extra on The Hobbit?”

A smile hooked the corner of her lips, soft pink and warm. “All of the above. They taste better warm. Like nuts. Witchetty grubs, I mean. Not Hobbits,” she corrected.

Laughing, Nate said, “Who knew statistics could be so much fun?”

That just lit her up—eyes bright, smile wide, cheeks pink, she glowed like a touch-lamp on level one. He wondered what it would take to light her up all the way.

Clearing his throat, he closed the folder.

Just in time for her to add, “My dad was a maths professor, so we lived in university housing, holidayed on campus. He never left his rooms if he could help it, while I’d sneak out and find people to talk to about things other than chaos theory. To ask about dinosaurs and rainbows and France. Being a university, there were always people happy to oblige. I found there’s always potential to learn something new. You only have to ask. So I never say no to possibility.”

“Never?”

That earned him a sassy grin. One he felt right deep down inside.

“What was your father like?” she asked. “Was he a lot like you?”

“A good deal.” Worked a lot, took responsibility seriously, blue eyes that laughed easily.

“How did he and your mother meet?” Her chin rested on her knee, her eyes the picture of innocence. But she’d forgotten, he had three sisters. Her nugget about her own father suddenly made perfect sense. She wanted to get inside his head. He almost felt sorry for her that she was going to waste her time trying.

Nate said, “If it’s not in the dossier let’s consider it extraneous to the project.”

Thwarted, she twisted her mouth.

“So,” he said. “Tell me something about me.”

“You’re testing me?” she said, sitting straighter.

“If you can’t pull it off what good are you to me?”

“Fine,” she said, crossing her legs on the couch, eyes burning into him, bright with challenge. “Bring it on.”

“Favourite colour?”

“Blue.” She looked around his white, silver and pale blue office and said, “But you’d have to be colour blind to miss that. Pick up your game, Mackenzie. You’re dealing with a pro.” She crossed her arms beneath her small breasts, pressing them up, creating swells above the neckline of her top.

“Pets?” he said, his eyes lifting to stick to hers.

She snorted out a laugh. “I’d bet my life savings that you’re not home enough to keep a cactus alive, much less a goldfish.”

Considering he’d wire-transferred those life savings into her bank account only a couple of days before, he knew that wasn’t much. But she was right. “You?”

“A dog.”

“Really?”

“You don’t like dogs?”

“I like them just fine. So long as someone else is in charge of feeding, washing, walking, cleaning up after them. What kind of dog? Please tell me it’s not the kind that fits in a handbag.”

“Ha! He’s an Airedale named Ernest. He belonged to an ex who thought he was going to be the next Hemingway. Turned out he was more opportunist than writer—he left Ernest behind as payment for the TV and stereo he took in his place.”