Page 54 of PR Stunt

The room goes quiet. I blink, my brain short-circuiting for a solid five seconds.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” I say quietly.

I send daggers to Anna with my eyes. “There is no universe where you do this to me.”

Anna has the nerve to respond calmly, like she’s trying to tame a wild animal. “Charlie, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do it with anyone else. And the pictures. Think of the pr.”

“The pr? Fuck the pr! I’m not doing a mud race with that”—I point to the pain in my existence—“that insufferable idiot!”

“Charlie!” Anna scolds me.

Wincing, I look at Miranda, who, surprisingly, is looking at me with peaked interest.

“Sorry, Miranda, but respectfully, if we need a female to do it, why don’t you?”

She smiles. “Oh, honey, as much as I care about Grayson, no amount of money could convince me to do that. Besides, it’s been decided. It’s you two.”

And that’s when it hits me. The irony. I’m in the exact same spot as when Anna first pitched the pr relationship in the first place. I inhale sharply. The universe has a sick sense of humor. I whip around to Grayson, who is thoroughly enjoying my misery. My blood simmers. I stalk over to him, standing over where he lounges in his chair. He tilts his face up, eyes glittering with amusement, clearly loving every second of this.

“I don’t know how you swindled this, but so help me, I swear on my last breath, I will get you back for this.” My voice is low, lethal. “Are you really that bored that you need to drag me down with you?”

He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me with that unreadable, predator-still gaze. A slow, knowing smile curves across his mouth.

Then he rises.

I instinctively step back.

He doesn’t follow. He doesn’t have to. When he stands, the space between us suddenly feels nonexistent. I have to crane my neck to look up at him, my pulse thudding harder than I’d like to admit.

He dips his head, voice dropping into something low and intimate. Danger wrapped in silk. “I have to thank you for this after all.”

His gaze drops to my mouth and then back up to my eyes. “I’m going to enjoy this.” A pause. “Every. Single. Second.”

His words send a shiver of irritation down my spine.

My pulse betrays me with its sudden, uneven rhythm. I refuse to let him see it. I keep my gaze locked on his. “You’re truly deranged.”

Anna clears her throat. “Now that that’s settled, the press release goes out this afternoon.”

I don’t look away from Grayson. “When is the race?”

“Tomorrow,” they all say in unison.

“I hate all of you.”

Miranda snorts. “That’s the spirit.”

Grayson takes a loose strand of my hair between his fingers, twirling it once before leaning in, his voice low enough for only me. “Something tells me you’ll enjoy getting dirty with me, Miss Grace.”

I smack his hand away. “If you even try to touch me in that mud pit, I will drown you.”

“Can’t drown me if I’m already pulling you under.”

I glare at him. He winks. He actually winks.

Anna sighs. “Great. This is going well.”

I don’t know who I want to murder or, better yet, in what order. Crossing my arms, I exhale sharply. “Okay, you guys all need to leave.”