Page 16 of Nothing to Win

Which was pretty much what she just said.

“The world at large will believe we’re in a serious relationship,” she said, putting her cutlery together on her plate.“That we’ve had sex.”

Typical that moment should be the one he chose to pin his eyes on hers.They’d almost met in the back of the limo earlier.Almost.Spurn spent the majority of the journey on calls or talking to the driver.Elton was his name, she’d learned that.There had been no need to look Spurn in the eye or imagine intimacy with him.

Sitting there, looking into him, even in spite of the table between them, she got a chill at the idea of him moving inside her.

The trill of her cellphone startled the moment.

Still, it took a second to tear her eyes away and open her clutch to read the screen.Ah, Daddy, perfectly on cue.

“It’s rude to answer your phone at the table,” Spurn said.

Was that his way of issuing a command?

She turned it toward him.“It’s my father.”

“Answer it.”

Doing as told, she swiped the screen and raised the phone to her ear.“Daddy?”

“Tell me this is a joke,” he bellowed down the line.“That this is some kind of sick joke you’re playing because I didn’t buy you a pony when you were a kid.”

“I never wanted a pony, Dad, and no,” she said, touching the edge of her plate.“This is not a joke.”

“You’re at dinner with him?Right now?”

Glancing up, Spurn watched her, prompting her to drop her gaze again.“Yes.”

“And now we know how he won the Lang deal.”

Something she had no clue about?Yeah, she was a mole.Didn’t take long for accusations to fly.Credit for sneaky was more credit than he’d ever given her in the past.

“Daddy, I—”

“Put him on the phone,” her father demanded.

Should she be terrified or relieved?Definitely the former.

“No.”A word her father rarely heard from anyone, and probably never from her.“I can’t.”

Her father scoffed.“Gianna Sear you will put that man on the phone now.You do not say no to me.”

No, she didn’t, and yet…

“You can’t talk to him,” she said.“You can’t.”

Movement opposite attracted her focus to her dinner-mate.

Spurn’s hand was open, hovering halfway across the table.“Give it to me,” he said.

His calm was impressive, though why wouldn’t he be chill?It wasn’t his family poised to implode.Her father was going off in her ear, ranting, shouting, raving.She drew on some of Spurn’s composure and lowered the phone.

“I don’t know what he’ll say.”

“It’s not your job to protect me, Gianna.”

And what choice did she have?Putting the phone in Spurn’s hand, she followed orders.