Page 25 of All Mixed Up

I wrapped my grip tighter around my knees. Felt the bones standing out, white against my skin, in my struggle to resist moving in on him too. “Says the hot, naked, genuflecting god who knows what he’s doing to my body right now?”

He flashed the half-smirk again. “I negotiate business honorably, Miss Darienne…though ruthlessly.”

As he rose, I gulped hard. Not quick enough. The bastard focused his dark stare on my action, telling me he knew exactly what it stood for. That he knew exactly how his offer intrigued me. That by monetizing everything between us, he’d made our “thing” so much safer to accept. So much easier to want. To crave.

Just business.

That was all it was now.

Hadn’t I come to this city for that sole reason? And wasn’t he simply providing a new revenue stream for that? Feelings weren’t part of the package. Sex? Also not included, but my “extra” to claim if I wanted. And hell, how I wanted. But even thinking about that was easier, without worrying about what we both expected afterward.

The answer? Nothing. We’d enjoy things with no fine print, no contract addendums. Symbiotic supply and demand. We’d both walk away from this as winners. Lucien got me, and I got to fully pay for my freedom from Pax’s betrayal. At last.

I uncoiled my body but remained seated. Lifted my hands to the chair’s arms. Leveled my stare as solidly as possible at the sculpted bronze businessman before me.

Just business.

With the words steeling my resolve, I channeled as much of my inner Don Corleone as possible. Lucien met my regard with silence—and what looked like burgeoning respect. But I’d already been mistaken about assumptions this morning, so I refused to relax. Not by one inch.

I hiked my chin by another inch. Locked my gaze with the onyx regard of my personal rival mobster-lover-lothario-hunk, and then lifted a hint of my own calculating smirk. “All right, Monsieur Paget. Let’s negotiate.”

24 Days and Counting

I gazed, a little stunned, at the contents of the two packages that had just been delivered to the apartment.

Okay. Maybe more than a little.

The first, a manila envelope actually sealed with an old-fashioned wax stamp bearing the initials LP, contained four sheets of paper and a gold fountain pen. Formatted on the pages was a contract, written in French and English. The pen, obviously, was the instrument with which I was to sign both copies.

A contract.

The man had written up a contract.

It was all here, too: everything we’d agreed to in our bedroom boardroom yesterday morning, now in black and cream. Yes, the paper was cream. An expensive vellum, bearing an embossed gold version of the LP at the top, and Lucien’s signature at the bottom. I gazed at that more than anything, entranced by the bold loop of his L, the decisive slash on his ending t. Seeing that made me realize how serious he was about the rest…about how real my deal with the devil had just gotten.

Was I really going to do this? Accept money from a man…to date him?

Only dates.

Only if that was all I really wanted.

But I was adding another lie on top of this pie if I said I didn’t. And that led back to my wrestling match with the first deception.

At any other time in my life, under circumstances that were vastly different than this, I’d be all but throwing myself at this man. This man, sexy and gorgeous and smart and passionate—who, unbelievably, felt the same pull toward me—and was willing to pay me ten thousand big ones every time we so much as went for a burger together. That was euros—which meant I’d reap even a little more in my own currency, depending on the exchange rate on the days of said burger binges. On top of that, there were the fringe bennies. His attention. His smile. His humor. His kisses.

And yes…possibly his Adonis body.

Okay, probably his body.

So who did that turn me into now?

What did that make me?

“Practical.” Despite the affirmation I shoved into the mutter, it all sounded better in my head. I took a deep breath and tried harder. “It makes you practical, damn it. It means you’re dealing with your life, instead of hiding from it.”

Like I’d hidden from all the signs that Pax had been lying to my face about that loan.

Now, because I was grown-up and practical, I’d be ahead on the paying back that massive mistake. One step closer to nipping into Mom’s medical bills too.